re: "State Dept. in ‘Open War’ With White House"

Pamela Geller at The Geller Report ("a foremost defender of the freedom of speech against attempts to force the West to accept Sharia blasphemy laws, and against Sharia self-censorship by Western media outlets") is highly critical of the new SecState.  For that matter, she clearly has no great love for the State Department or Foreign Service themselves.

"Foreign Service is a different kind of animal. Most get subsumed by the culture at State and the snakes in Foreign Service. Condi was consumed by them, and Kerry was completely and utterly out of his depth."

Her recommendation:

"Amateur hour is over. Send in the cavalry. It’s time for a pro. It’s time for John Bolton."

re: "Bolton: Biden's Statement that Taliban Not Our Enemy Was No Gaffe"

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs (" Evil is made possible by the sanction you give it. Withdraw your sanction. ") agreed with Amb. Bolton's characterization.

Money quote(s):

"The Taliban does not share Western values, goals, objectives. The Taliban's playbook is the qur'an and its stated aims.

The whole idea of a moderate Taliban or a moderate Islam is false"

Reasonable people can disagree whether or not there can be a moderate Islam.

(CAA believes in it on alternating days, himself.)

"Never mind their role in 9/11. Never mind their hosting al-Qaeda camps and working with al-Qaeda.

It amounts to surrender, to prostration before the jihadist enemy.

Now, we know old Joe is none too bright, but here Bolton explains: this was no gaffe."

And here's why:

"Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said Tuesday that Joe Biden’s statement that the Taliban is not America's enemy in Afghanistan was not a gaffe, but instead the vice president was “articulating what the White House strategy is.” Biden made his remarks in a recent Newsweek interview, but the Obama administration is saying they were taken out of context

“I don’t think this is a gaffe by Joe Biden — I think he is articulating what the White House strategy is — I think they know exactly what they are trying to do,” Bolton told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “They are trying to redefine the terrorist threat to be a limited group of al-Qaida people along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

“They are going to redefine Taliban away from that — they are going to ignore Taliban in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-Qaida in Iraq, and al-Qaida in North Africa,” Bolton said. “And they’re going to say it’s just that one little thing: We’ve killed Osama bin Laden — the war on terror is over.”"

Based upon my own sporadic observations regarding Vice Pres. Biden's tendency to "gaffe," I wouldn't urgently disagree with Amb. Bolton's assessment.

VP Biden sometimes says things that suggest he's regurgitating, in his own words, the substance of things about which he's been briefed. Specifically, I'm thinking about his remarks a few years ago about the H1N1 flu virus and air travel.

He seems to speak uncomfortable truths, as he understands them and based upon some frank and factual briefings (i.e., not for public distribution), and wholly without regard for the political, economic, or diplomatic fallout. Indeed, he says them without any apparent consciousness that there could be, even should be, such repercussions.

"Bolton said the Taliban treats anyone who does not agree with them horribly."

Word.

""It reminds me of Vietnam. Remember Sen. George Aiken, the Republican of Vermont? It was clear to him that we didn’t have the stamina to go on and actually win,” Bolton said. “So the George Aiken strategy: We’ll declare victory and get out — that is what the administration is going to do in the war on terror. Having redefined who the terrorists are and having said the Taliban is not our enemy, they’re going to say we have won and the war is over.""

And, if we'd put some of our HVT Taliban officials on the other side of a conference table, gotten them to publicly disavow Al Qaeda and UBL, and made it clear that if we ever had to come back to Afghanistan it would not be with gentle words and reconstruction budgets....

....all of that before we'd spent a decade nation-building and taking casualties, then this would have been a reasonable, if limited, outcome for our intervention there.

"The jihad against the U.S. will continue all over the world, not just in Afghanistan."

12/21

re: "What Lies Beneath"

Richard Fernandez a Belmont Club critiqued the Administration's habit of pre-emption.

Money quote(s):

"Pre-emption was also in evidence in foreign affairs, but this Pearl Harbor was not directed against America’s supposed enemies, but at its allies. Mark Perry at Foreign Policy writes an article strongly implies that the Obama administration is pre-emptively leaking Israeli military cooperation arrangements with Azerbaijan to protect Iran from a potential strike. Perry says officials told him that Israel was acquiring airfields on Iran’s northern border, something that may not have been common knowledge."

&

"Well if the Iranians didn’t know about Azerbaijan, they know now. Lee Smith says that this may be a blatant tip-off. “A number of Israeli journalists, led by Ron Ben-Yishai, one of the country’s esteemed security correspondents, claimed that Mark Perry’s article was clear evidence the White House was leaking critical information about Israel’s strategy in order to pressure Jerusalem to abandon its war plans and wait for the administration’s sanctions to bring the Iranian regime to its knees.” Maybe they’ll have to wait a long time. But for what it is worth, John Bolton believes the administration is alerting Iran, the administration acting as their Chain Home system, so to speak."

Omitted from my selective excerption were the passages that suggest the information about Azerbaijan may not have been correct, and the whys of that.

About half of Wretchard's post had to do with the Supreme Court's then-pending health care reform decision.

4/4

re: "For neocons: Bolton’s democracy primer on Egypt"

Neo-Neocon ("surely leaving the fold and becoming that dread thing") excerpts from Amb. Bolton's advice and comments.

Money quote(s):

"Egypt is probably a walk in the park compared to Libya if the rebels manage to depose Qaddafi. Paradoxically, if the Iranian opposition were somehow successful in getting rid of the mullahs, Iran might even have the best chance of becoming the closest thing to a liberal democracy in a Muslim country in the region (including the nascent and tenuous democracy in Iraq), simply because its people have had such a long and gut-wrenching experience of enduring the opposite after a revolution that briefly promised otherwise."

http://neoneocon.com/2011/02/25/for-neocons-boltons-democracy-primer-on-egypt/

re: "Chas Freeman and John Bolton"

Charles at Undiplomatic ("dedicated to covering the intersection of diplomacy, global issues, U.S. politics, and pop-culture") contrasts the nominations of two former ambassadors.

Money quote(s):

"(T)here has been quite a storm brewing over President Obama’s appointment of Charles W. “Chas” Freeman, Jr. to head the National Intelligence Council, which is responsible for producing the often important but sometimes off-the-mark National Intelligence Estimates."

"Freeman has come under fire for his often critical views on Israel, his sympathetic attitude towards the Saudis, and his opinion that the Chinese should have cracked down earlier on the Tiananmen protests. Freeman is a hyper-realist, believing that the use and conservation of hard power should trump any and all other considerations. He clearly is an unconventional thinker, and his views have often placed himself outside the mainstream of conventional foreign policy views.

Freeman brings to mind another famous free-thinker on foreign policy, John Bolton. "

"Although both believe in American power, Bolton sees it as something to project while Freeman regards it as something that should be conserved. Bolton views certain American allies, particularly Israel, as so indispensible that they should be forgiven for any and all transgressions, while Freeman, as the current controversy demonstrates, believes that Israel has made significant mistakes and should be held to account. Interestingly, the two switch sides when it comes to China, with Bolton far more critical of the current regime and Freeman more likely to tolerate its excesses."

&

"I think there are serious and important differences between the Bolton nomination and the Freeman appointment, enough so that I have less of a quarrel with those who support Freeman than I do with those who oppose him. But I think it is at best inconsistent and at worst intellectually disingenuous to suggest that Freeman’s past statements are irrelevant if you also were one of those who argued that Bolton’s past statements were damning."

re: "Bolton Ruins My Morning"

Midwest McGarry (not Charlie) at Undiplomatic ("dedicated to covering the intersection of diplomacy, global issues, U.S. politics, and pop-culture") had his morning ruined.