Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Zero Plus Zero Equals Zero

By Philip Giraldi

"Whoever wins the presidency in two weeks will have to put his own stamp on the United States' foreign and security policies. Though constrained by an economy that can no longer afford guns and butter, the U.S. president can pretty much call the shots on foreign policy, subject only to limited congressional oversight and the occasional bleating of a generally complaisant media.

If the next president is John McCain, one might well expect a continuation of the Bush Doctrine, with its disregard of world opinion and its emphasis on preemption and the use of the military to solve complex international problems. If it is Barack Obama, he will hopefully have a predilection to negotiate before bombing and a greater willingness to listen to the views of America's foreign allies. But on key issues such as the Middle East, where Obama is advised by neocon-lite Dennis Ross and other Clinton administration holdovers like Madeleine Albright and Richard Holbrooke, one can expect little change. There might even be a regrettable tendency to demonstrate an Obama administration's seriousness by picking a "small crappy little country and throwing it against the wall" just to make a point, something that leading neocon Michael Ledeen has recommended......"

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