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Menu There is no diplomatic solutionIsrael should declare three nos;
no to nuclear Iran, no to two-state solution, no to bi-national state
no to nuclear Iran, no to two-state solution, no to bi-national state
@ Edgar G.: Trump faces massive difficulties and complications in managing our foreign affairs and defense policies, and so we need to defer to his judgment in most instances.The American people’s lack of desire for war ties the President’s hands and narrows his options to a considerable extent.
But I think that negotiations with Iran and the Taliban are “a bridge too far.” The dismissal of Bolton seems to have raised led the Mullahcracy in Iran that they can persuade the U.S. to abandon its sanctions without their having to stop their nuclear weapons development program. That makes this policy shift extremely problematical. We need to remember that things really went down hill fast when Obama decided to open negotiations with Iran.
I don’t know that there is any miitary solution to the Taliban-al-Qaeda problem. But it is real problem. The Taliban is still allied with al-Qaida and has admitted that it will readmit them to the country once it consoidates power there. They will not negotiate in good faith with the United States and cannot be trusted.
A military solution to the Taliban threat seems nearly impossible, since it would probably require a major renewed troop committment and a war lasting several years. My suggestion would be to make a credible threat to both end all military aid to Pakistan and impose economic sanctions on it unless it ends all aid to the Taliban from from political and military groups in Pakistan, denies them the continued use of sanctuaries on the Pakistani side of the border, hands or Ayman al-Zawahiri and the other al-Qaida agents it is sheltering, stops shielding the terrorists who are attacking India, etc. Similar threats should be made to the Afghan government, and deadlines for compliance with these demands should be communicated to them. If these two governments don’t respond positively to these demands, then the sanctions on these two countries should be imposed. That will defeat the Taliban, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups in these two countries in the long run.
@ Edgar G.:
What I am is a very principled person, and will call out wrong wherever I see it. Trump isn’t perfect and not always right. I won’t twist myself into knots justifying from him what I would otherwise condemn from a democrat as too many Trump supporters have been doing. 3D chess? please.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
Ronald Reagan was a man of peace but who believed that peace comes through strength. He singlehandedly brought down the Soviet empire without firing a shot.
I think President Trump, as a real estate developer believes anything can be achieved through negotiations and deal making. He needs to understand that some things are non-negotiable and some of our adversaries are just plain evil and mean for our destruction and that there’s nothing to negotiate.
@ Edgar G.:
LOL So be it. It’s not my fault if people have a problem with strong opinions.
@ Edgar G.:
Edgar, this is a very tricky and complicated issue. I respect the fact that Trump is the first genuine man of peace to be President since Herbert Hoover. He believes that the best way to deal with enemies or prospective enemies is to impose economic sanctions on them, while also attempting to negotiate with them and being open to a deal to resolve the conflict. He has adopted this approach to dealing with Russia, China, and North Korea, and now he has decided to adopt the same strategy vis-a-vis Iran and even the Taliban.
Once having made this decision, he had no choice but to let John Bolton go when Bolton made it clear he could not support this policy or defend it publicly. I wish he had worked out an arrangement with Bolton that would have allowed him to depart quietly by a resignation, and that he had avoided criticizing him when he left. Bolton is an honorable and devoted public servant, and he deserved to be treated more politely. I believe that he served the Trump administration to the best of his ability. But this is Trump’s style when an aide ordoen’t agree with him, or he lost confidence in that aide, and it is not realistic to expect him to change his style. He likes to say, “you’re fired.” Of course his feisty, no-holds-barred style of public speaking, where he comes out with what is on his mind rather than resorting to polite evasions or doubletalk the way nearly all other politicians do, is a major part of his appeal to his supporters.
Be that as it may, I initially supported Trump’s peace-at-almost- any- price policy because I believed tour country required a pause in its endless wars. But now I have developed doubts as to whether Trump’s approach is working. So far, North Korea, China and Russia have not changed their aggressive policies, and I think it is unrealistic to think that Iran or the Taliban will change, even if Trump offers them a fair deal. It is possible that the time has come for Trump to unleash U.S. firepower against Iran,and to wage a no-hols-barred renewed air campaign campaign against the Taliban as well.
@ Laura:
My very last word on this. I’ve no time to waste on bloviators who, although they can see the signposts (and presumably have learned to read-although not to listen)
see “right as left” and vice versa….. and ALWAYS take the wrong turn. Their wide open mouths, blocking their vision, are too busy spewing in ALL directions-except in the correct one.
You sound a very unhappy person……and “BOY do you SOUND….” I am aware-if you are not, that of the 10 posts on this page, 6 are concocted by YOU. You even take over my comment to Adam, which was to him and for him, answering HIS post. Phew. .
When you say “good riddance”….(as the old song went) you should complete it by adding “to bad rubbish…” But obviously you kept all that part for your own ingestion.
I suppose that you haven’t noticed that you’ve driven all other posters away from this page……..??? …….!!.
As you sail (away from rationality) towards the setting sun, let me leave you with the immortal words of that great statesman whose parting salutation was always ….
“Good-night Mrs. Calabash….wherever (whatever) you are !!”
@ Edgar G.:
If easing sanctions and talking with Iran is not appeasement, then what is? You would be condemning a democrat for doing that. Good riddance.
@ Edgar G.:
I know enough by your comments that you are an idiot and a fool. I know I’m right in my views.
Why would any conservative have a problem with these positions of Bolton?
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/09/11/five-key-policies-of-john-boltons-tenure-as-trumps-national-security-advisor/
@ Laura:
“Nitwit”…”Sycophant”….my my MY……. what lovely words…because I oppose your “kill and destroy” friends and enemies alike diatribes…..Whew……
You know NOTHING about me at all, and are not smart enough to hide your ignorance. So I can’t bother to carry on a dispute with you. As the saying goes,
“Never argue with fools, they smother you and drag you down with experience”…
Too true.
I posted at 1.28, you responded at 1.44…You must be hunched over your computer waiting to pounce on everything that moves….Like a spider, although I have no idea what your look like, so please forgive that comparison, likely enough as it is.
I’m web proof.
Ask Adam, he knows me fairly well, and he and I have much in common, including a mutual friendship born out of respect and goodwill. ..
By the way, although it will not sink in through your solid skull, Trump is neither an appeaser, nor an isolationist. His slogan is “Make America Great Again”…and in a miraculously short time, he has done just that, and is doing a lot more. An isolationist could not even begin to attempt to start, to inch, towards such. It has all been done by rallying the dormant American People by calling “spades” by their proper appellations, and dealing forcefully with INTERNATIONAL entities, who were busy leeching on the US to bring it down from the eminent global position it had held.
I should stop here, because I see that you really don’t know what you’re talking about, like a Yid from the Old country spluttering away at what he thinks is the English language…Good-bye…..
@ Edgar G.:
Baloney! He knows nothing. He’s an unwavering isolationist, no matter what the situation.
Most here are supporters of the president. What Carlson has done that offends me is his vicious attacks on Bolton, calling him a warmonger. I’m surprised anyone here would support Carlson.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
ADAM- Something I rarely do, but I looked up Bolton on WiKi. He was an official in every Republican Presidency since and including Reagan’s. Both Bushes also. Maybe WiKi is wrong, or my understanding of “public office” is wrong. I also like Bolton., for his strong, unswerving support of Israel. As you know, re Israel I’m all for aggressively pushing the mamzerim out to Jordan or elsewhere, and am a strong and uncritical supporter of “The Jordan Option” as detailed by Ted. Also, unlike many others, I’ve never wavered in that outspoken support.
I’m surprised at the attacks on Carlson, who most likely knows 100 times more about foreign affairs than our whole membership combined. He’s in a seat where he can have a “bird’s eye” view of all the vital news emerging, hes not just a talker, relaying what others gather, he is involved in that himself too, or at least, in past times he was. I recall him giving “on the spot” accounts of events. So he knows what it takes.
What he’s doing that offends other on this site is merely being a strong supporter of Trump and his policies. I am too. (but not prominent enough to attract any attention……….??!!)
@ Edgar G.:
I do go by FACTS, you nitwit. It is a FACT that appeasement and isolationism repeatedly have FAILED.
Edgar, you are clearly a Trump sycophant who will spin whatever he does positively. If Obama had thought about meeting with the taliban at Camp David, you would have condemned him. You opposed negotiations with Tehran under Obama, but suddenly its ok now that Trump is considering it. My views are the same, regardless of who’s president. I will not defend Trump for doing what I criticized Obama for. I support Trump so long as he is doing the right thing. Up to this point he has been doing the right things. But I’m not a blind supporter of his and so I will criticize when I think he’s going in the wrong direction. I don’t like where I think he’s headed with Iran. I hope I’m wrong.
@ Laura:
You seem very hot tempered about everything. I don’t care anything about Carlson, I recall when he was just beginning, and was usually on with his wife. He has grown from that. You go by hunches and not facts. You make emotional ad hominem attacks on those who disagree with you. You are ignoring that Trump has had major disagreements with Bolton almost from the time he took up his position, and with a man like trump, this can’t go on forever. Bolton, admirable in many ways, as I myself feel and support, the huge discord between him and Pompeo, who is the major official in the Govt. actually the “face of the Govt.” had to have been the finishing touch.
This coming election in the US is VITAL. Trump must have time to complete his mission, and get his policies, which are good for the US, and by virtue of that , VERY good for Israel into solid and durable practice. He’s turning the US policies in a different direction, which he’s trying to make permanent for future generations..
Bolton himself admits that he is “Old School”, as I herd him say just yesterday. Trump didn’t go to that school . He thinks “outside the box”, and is not to be hampered by Old School policies. I’m sorry that Bolton has gone, but have heard for long time, that he was far too belligerent when “softly, softly” was needed….Trump had no choice to to fire him.
Tucker Carlson’s diatribe against John Bolton is grossly unfair and misleading. Bolton did nothold public office under either the GW Bush administration. He was in no way responsible for the gross mismanagement of the Iraq war by Defense Secretary Cheney and the men whom Cheney appoined to administer Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. Neither was he in any way to blame for the grossly incompetent and even inhumane way in which Hillary Clinton mismanaged the Libyan operation.
Both the Iraqi and the Libyan operations had the potential to bring democracy and humane government to these two countries.
Although Qaddafi’s behavior had improved in many ways before he was overthrown by a joint Allied intervention force, in which France and Britain, not the United States, played the lead role, there were still many problematic aspects to his regime that may have necessitated his removal. Not long before the he was overthrown, he had masterminded a plot to murder the King of Saudi Arabia. Understandably, the Saudi government demanded that the Western allies overthrow Qaddafi. While Qaddafi had agreed to compensate the victims of the Lockerbie terrorist bombing of British airliner, which he had masterminded, he demanded that the major Western oil companies who owned stakes in Libyan oil pay for the cost of this compensation. Understandibly from their point of view, they lobbied the Western governments hard to overthrow Qaddafi. Finally, the British and autonomous Scots governments had never forgiven Qaddafi for his involvement in the murder of so many of their citizens. When a rebellion against Qaddafi broke out in a province of Libya, they were quick to take advantage of the situation to depose Qaddafi. For the Brits, even Qaddafi’s payment of compensation to the victims and their families was not enough to get him off the hook.
I am convinced that if John Bolton had been put in charge of these operations, he would have managed them in a far more competent and humane way than the incompetents who were put in charge of them. He would have seen to it that sufficient American forces were committed to these operations, that the U.S. forces would train competent and humane “native”armies to replace the dictators’ armies, and tht genuinely humane and democratic-minded, pro-Western governments replaced the overthrown dictators. Yes, Bolton is a warrior, but a warrior at a time when America was (and is) beseiged by enemies who need to be dealt with.
I actually despise that smug little puke, Carlson.
Tucker Carlson is a slimy code pink Republican isolationist. Although he’s never expressed so publicly, my hunch is that he opposes our support for Israel. Isolationists usually do. I don’t know why you would post anything he says about Bolton since he’s so obviously biased against him and has attacked him in the most vicious and ugly manner. I don’t think Bolton has been mistaken, he’s been mostly right and has a realistic view of our enemies. Bolton is not a war monger as the left and isolationist right caricature him to be. He simply understands that it is essential to project strength as a deterrent to our enemies and even sometimes preempt before our enemies acquire the strength to act. On this day of all days haven’t we learned that letting problems fester leads to a greater war down the road? How many attacks leading up to 9/11 which we failed to respond; the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, African embassies, USS Cole. Haven’t we learned from WW 2 that isolationism and appeasement lead to war, not strength. Tucker Carlson is an ignorant fool on foreign policy.