Thursday, May 15, 2008

What Diplomatic Engagement...   [Rich Lowry]

...is to Obama, the "League of Democracies" apparently is to McCain — the magic solvent of international problems. Or so it would seem. Yuval noted this speech earlier. It is cast in terms of what's happened after a McCain term as president. Cumulatively, the effect is to make you think McCain is very unrealistic (although it's obviously just a device to talk about McCain's priorities). These items jumped out at me in particular:

Concerted action by the great democracies of the world has persuaded a reluctant Russia and China to cooperate in pressuring Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, and North Korea to discontinue its own...  

After efforts to pressure the Government in Sudan over Darfur failed again in the U.N. Security Council, the United States, acting in concert with a newly formed League of Democracies, applied stiff diplomatic and economic pressure that caused the government of Sudan to agree to a multinational peacekeeping force, with NATO countries providing logistical and air support, to stop the genocide that had made a mockery of the world's repeated declaration that we would "never again" tolerant such inhumanity.

The "League of Democracies" apparently isn't going to accomplish this one, but I still wonder how it's going to be made to happen:

The Government of Pakistan has cooperated with the U.S. in successfully adapting the counterinsurgency tactics that worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan to its lawless tribal areas where al Qaeda fighters are based.

05/15 03:32 PMShare