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THE WISDOM OF A STRANGE LOOP

From Caerdroia and it is good !

I think that most non-Americans – and more than a few Americans – miss the essential nature of America, particularly in their behavior towards other nations. Here is the quick and dirty guide to understanding American foreign policy:

We are not always wise, but we are always intelligent. We are always kind and generous and loyal to our friends, ruthless and implacable to our enemies, and we generally ignore those who don’t fall into either of the above categories as best we can. We make mistakes, but we correct them. We are repentant, but we are not guilt-ridden. We are religious, but we are not fanatics.

Amen brother.

THE OTHER PRINCE OF DARKNESS

Robert Novak celebrates 40 years as an investigative reporter, TV pundit and highly paid consultant. People who hate Novak’s views or laugh at his analysis never miss his column because he digs deep, criticizes anybody and has the biggest rolodex of contacts in Washington. Congratz Bob !

DO THE SAUDIS SEE THE RITING ON THE WALL ?

JB at Riting on the Wall ( after graciously wishing me well on my current one-armed status -TY) noted what I wrote the other day on the Saudi regime:

The network of Islamists in Saudi Arabia have grown in power to the point where the house of Saud is effectively sharing power or at least ruling while sitting on a powder keg with Islamist imams always ready to strike a match and engage in political blackmail.

JB responded:

very true. i happen to disagree with his historical analysis, referring instead to the rise of the house of saud during the time of ibn ‘abd al-wahhab and the coevolution of the saudi regime and religious conservatism-turned-radical revisionism. but the end result is the same: today, the saudis need a little leaning on and friendly advice about liberal democracy before something horrible happens

JB’s point about the interrelationship between Wahabism and the House of Saud being a coevolution stretching back to the 18th century was apt and I am pretty much in agreement. Daniel Pipes, noted scholar and presidential appointee is too brings up Abdul Aziz’s crushing of the old Ikhwan brotherhood ( beating me to the punch) but illustrating that there is just a secondary aspect to Saudi politics involving patron-client ties of kinship, marriage and tribe that are also at work. This worldly aspect complicates and strengthens the religious zealots position in the Saudi world even if it is meaningless to them compared to adherence to Islamist purity – they benefit from the protection of less fanatical relatives and patrons higher up on the scale. Where Abdul Aziz acted, Fahd and Abdullah fear to tread, reluctant to disturb the delicate network of elite alliances and relationships that form the Saudi equivalent of the social contract. Moving against a 22 year old al Qaida supporting prince is not to arrest a misguided young man but to offend his grand uncle in the ministry of Defence whose cousin wedded your brother’s second daughter. That is how in part the senior princes in the Saudi oligarchy view their terrorist crisis. The key terrorist supporters in Riyadh are a discontented minority in their own regime, not dissenters standing outside the palace or leaning against a wall in the casbah as in Algeria.

THE PARANOID STYLE

Dan Drezner takes on what frankly has to be called an updated ” Jewish Conspiracy ” theory centering on the so-called, dreaded, and allegedly sinister ” neoconservative cabal ” in The New Republic Online. Drezner names names but he doesn’t go back far enough in time to trace the pedigree of this drivel. Neocons as a Jewish clique argument was percolating on H-Diplo last fall where I and historian Eric Bergerud aptly pointed out to Juan Cole, David Kaiser and Eric Alterman that neoconservatism was rooted in anticommunism, not zionism and still less in the Likud Party. Prior to that, as I have blogged before, this was being peddled by Jude Wanniski of Polyconomics back in 1998 as part of his longstanding feud with Richard Perle and the supply-side guru’s more recent role as an apologist for Islamist radicals, Saddam Hussein and Louis Farrakhan. Since then the neocon-Jewish cabal has become standard propaganda of the antiwar Left and Right at magazines like the Nation and the American Conservative. Drezner however, has taken some solid shots and brought in the late historian Richard Hofstadter into the debate.

LE BLOC CHIRAC

Central Tech Station has a nice analysis of French perfidy. Or stupidity in this case.