Comments on the Belmont Club "Crossroads"

Biden's policy of getting the US out of the Afghanistan fight and relying on locally trained proxies has a name, "Decent Interval." We all know where that leads to and we also know what level of threat will come from Afghanistan once the Taliban regain power and Pakistan with its nukes falls decisively away from us. I do not think that the American people will support that if the conservative opposition continues to counter attack and regain control of the narrative.

India cannot allow a Taliban - Pakistan - China alliance to take root following an American withdrawal under the Biden plan. That creates an existential threat for India. This is analogous to the existential threat to Israel that Obama's coddling of Iran - Syria - Hezbollah has precipitated. The US, India and Israel are facing a coordinated offensive by the Shanghai Cooperative Council. If we had strong leadership then we could have Europe and possibly Japan on our side and face this threat down with a smaller, I will not say with no, war. The recent European elections show that the voters there are grasping the nature of the situation. The problem is that with allies, I am not saying agents, of the forces threatening us in power in DC we cannot provide that leadership. Japan is therefor going to try to pursue a more independent course and hope for survival. India must must be weighing its options carefully. There is only so much slack that Australia can pick up.

For a critical contingent of voters, including relatives of mine, Obama's support rested on the argument that Bush was hated by the world, not just by the Islamists, and it was extremely important that we regain the respect and affection of old friends. The argument was largely a lie. It was a creation of media meme setting and depended on a consensus between elites in the United States and Europe.

Most Americans do not understand is how undemocratic the EU is and how the European elites are even more alienated from their constituencies than are their equivalents in America. What Europe has lacked that the Left has built in America is a radicalized voting block based on actual (latino in the US) or cultural (urban blacks) aliens. Rathke going to build a European Acorn in Sicily is extremely important. If Berlusconi has a grasp on this then he should use every tool at his disposal (which exceed those available to a President operating under the US Constitution) to get him out of there. The Mafia should also feel threatened but they may see this as an alliance floating back from Chicago.

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Alan Simon,
My suggestion—let them have at it.

Nice job on your web site. You are wrong about the Taliban. We can't give Afghanistan back to them because they already proved they can't be trusted. Trying to be to clever by half just gets us into more trouble. Maybe if the US was not a democracy we could execute a clever cynical policy where professionals line up and cut deals with groups like the Taliban. As Miles Copeland once asked, do we really care if the social nationalists or the national socialists are in charge? But we are a democracy and while the real world is messy and we do have to work with unsavory locals we also have to have a few clear simple lines to follow. The Taliban sponsored al-Qaeda and started this war. We cannot manage a relation with them after 9-11. We need to convince everyone that Uncle Sam is best left alone or at least not pushed to far. Otherwise we will have a dozen other thugs and proxies sponsoring al-Qaeda clones in the plausible deniability racket. Do you want Chavez sponsoring a Hezbollah cell thinking he would be safe from blow back? The only thing we can do with the Taliban is kill them and hope that the locals can come up with something else, not necessarily Jeffersonian, but more palatable. If Karzai is not the answer then how can the Afghans, not us, come up with something better? Maybe they need the king back. Maybe they need another Grand Council.