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In the great game of guessing which nation will next feel the wrath of the American military, I tend to believe, though the all of the indicators are pointing against it, that Syria will be our next target and deservedly so. Barbara Lerner (who by the way Alex is from Chicago) writing for National Review Online, agrees. Some notable quotes:

Rumsfeld and others wanted to bring down Saddam Hussein’s regime without first spending months telegraphing our punches in the U.N. That would have given us the advantage of surprise, making it much harder for Iraq’s Baathists and jihadis to set up bases in neighboring countries and transfer billions of dollars and large loads of unknown weapons and supplies there before the war. Key players in the State Department and the CIA opposed the invasion of Iraq altogether, and passionately opposed doing it without U.N. approval. Tony Blair was also passionate about the U.N., and President Bush split the difference. He gave the go-ahead for General Tommy Franks’s daring shock-and-awe offensive for the liberation of Iraq, but not before he gave the U.N. every chance to take effective action first. When it came to running Iraq in the interim between the liberation and a new, elected, and empowered Iraqi government, control of American policy once again reverted, for the most part, to State and CIA. Key players there favored a long, slow transition, a major effort to woo hostile elements in both the Shiite and Sunni communities, and a conciliatory stance toward Iraq’s predatory neighbors. Threats to arrest Muqtada al-Sadr with no follow-through; the aborted attack on the Iraqi terror-center of Fallujah in April 2004; and the long resistance to imposing sanctions on Syria: All these are examples of State-CIA policy in action. At Fallujah especially, our troops chafed under it. It was the site of the first gross, triumphant, in-your-face public lynching of American civilians, and our fighting men did not want to negotiate with the lynchers’ frontmen. They wanted to crush them, to send the life-saving message: If you butcher Americans, you die. Their orders, instead, were to withdraw. In all these instances and more, Rumsfeld differed with his colleagues at State and CIA, and with a clique of military officers who agreed with them.

An excellent rundown of the recent events in Iraq. Here is more, specific to Syria:

But perhaps the most important, least-recognized difference between Rumsfeld and his opponents has to do with our stance toward the countries that surround Iraq. Rumsfeld recognized, early on, that the terror war in Iraq is sustained by the critical support it gets from terror-sponsoring neighboring states, and he wanted to take offensive action against them, too. He focused especially on Iraq’s western neighbor, asking for approval to pursue terrorists across the border, into the heart of today’s terror network in Syria. Once again, major players at State and CIA were opposed, and they prevailed; we continued to fight what is, in fact, a regional war in one country only.

This is a fundamental question of what type of war President is Dubya going to be? If he lets the political fatigue in the air sap his will to press home his advantage then he will have missed an opportunity to crush our enemies when they are vulnerable, as the Syrians surely are.

The Washington Times editor-at-large, the old foreign policy hand Arnaud de Borchgrave has more comforting news about our position relative to the world. His optimism is refreshing (sarcasm off).

I am waiting for the day when paleo-conservatives stop giving us peeks into the bottomless black holes that are their souls. They should pretend, even if they think otherwise, that some small sliver of light is shining through the tunnel. Mr. de Borchgrave makes some legitimate points regarding our geopolitical alignment, but I can hardly get through this article without hanging myself.

Well it appears that the administration may not have learned its lesson about angering the base, as it appears he is prepared to push ahead on the Law of the Sea Treaty (CATO article) . The treaty would be a disaster for the sovereignty of the US, and would strengthen immensely the power of the United Nations, including the holy grail of UN self-funding, which would essentially remove the US’s veto over UN insanity.

Ronal Reagan risked significant political capitol to unilaterally kill LOST during his administration, and now a Republican administration has dredged it up again, because of its benefit to a select few US corporations. Again the conflict between the corporate owned GOP establishment and the grassroots rears its ugly head.

I think one of the best defenses of the “Bush Doctrine” is offered by Podhoretz here in Commentary Magazine, entitled The War Against World War IV, it offers a fairly detailed synopsis of all arguments on both the Left and Right that swirl around D.C. today. He weakest defense of course is against the very conservative argument that says: what business is it of ours to spread democracy? Let’s get in, get out and be done with it. He illuminates this point quite well here:

With no mass audience to lose, no such worry bothers the exponents of another line of attack on the Bush Doctrine that has emanated from a neighborhood on the Right where utter ruthlessness is considered the only way to wage war, and where the idea of exporting democracy is thought to conflict with conservative political wisdom. On the Right though it obviously is, this neighborhood of superhawks is as distant from the precincts of paleoconservatism as it is from the redoubts of the anti-American Left.

He further explains the strength of this argument by his (somewhat) endorsement of it:

Of all the attacks on the Bush Doctrine, this set of arguments is the only one that resonates with me, at least on the issue of how to wage war. I have no objection in principle to the ruthlessness the superhawks advocate, and I agree that it would likely be very effective. The trouble is that the more closely I look at their position, the more clearly does it emerge as fatally infected by the disease of utopianism—the very disease that usually fills critics of this stripe with revulsion and fear.

His line at the end referring to utopianism is never fully explained in my opinion, but judge for yourselves, it is an excellent work. For the record I am not a neoconservative, mostly because I see a very slippery slope when it comes to justifying the democratization of dangerous portions of the world. First the Middle East, then Africa? When did freedom become something that must be given? We were not given freedom rather we fought for it. So too must other nations earn their freedom in a similar manner or they will not value it anymore than a man values the difference in a fish caught and fish given. When the opportunity is available, Iraq and Afghanistan being the prime examples, or when it is in the avowed national interest of the United States to do so, Japan and Germany after WWII, then reshaping a county’s political landscape is acceptable. But neoconservatives would have us galloping off to tilt at the windmills of tyranny, of which there are far too many and our lone lance wouldn’t make a dent in anyhow.

Michael William Shutze Jr.

Michael was born in Highland Park, IL not far from where his close friend Alex grew up. Michael and Alex didn’t meet however until many years later when they both attended Georgia Tech as freshmen in 2001. Originally a business major, he realized that he liked business but not learning about it after actually attending numerous business classes.

After switching to the Sam Nunn College of International Affairs, Michael attempted to learn Chinese. He failed miserably and decided that China would be better place to learn the language, free from the distractions of a college campus.

Michael left Georgia Tech in 2004 to pursue business opportunities in China where he has lived now for one year. He works for an agricultural consulting firm in Beijing. Without a college degree he makes far too little money, but the disparity of the purchasing power of the Yuan enables Michael to live very comfortably.

Michael has made previous stops in Stone Lake, WI where he lived for 5 years, Burlington, NC where he lived a further two years, Sydney, Australia for another two years and finally Buckhead, GA where he was honored to graduate from Morgan County High School after fours years.

Michael’s previous political accomplishments pale in comparison to the other contributors to this site, but his understanding of foreign policy and geo-politics will hopefully bring a unique perspective to this needed blog.

Michael splits his time now between deciphering the complex agricultural economy of a rapidly changing China, chasing gorgeous women, being rejected by gorgeous women, and drinking beer to salve the emotional wounds. He considers himself first a patriot and secondly a member of the GOP. His model American would be General George S. Patton Jr. a man who loved his country above all else.

He urges everyone to remember the words of Andrew Jackson:

“One man with courage constitutes a majority.”