Hard power vs. soft power

Charles Krauthammer hits it on the head. The last sentence is the most important one:

Solemn condemnations have been issued from every forum of soft-power fecklessness -- the EU, the U.N., the G-8 foreign ministers -- demanding that Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe stop butchering his opponents and step down. Before that, the cause du jour was Burma, where a vicious dictatorship allowed thousands of cyclone victims to die by denying them independently delivered foreign aid lest it weaken the junta's grip on power.

And then there is Darfur, a perennial for which myriad diplomats and foreign policy experts have devoted uncountable hours at the finest five-star hotels to deplore the genocide and urgently urge relief.

What is done to free these people? Nothing. Everyone knows it will take the hardest of hard power to remove the oppressors in Zimbabwe, Burma, Sudan and other godforsaken places where the bad guys have the guns and use them. Indeed, as the Zimbabwean opposition leader suggested (before quickly retracting) from his hideout in the Dutch embassy -- Europe specializes in providing haven for those fleeing the evil that Europe does nothing about -- the only solution is foreign intervention.

And who's going to intervene? The only country that could is the country that in the last two decades led coalitions that liberated Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Having sacrificed much blood and treasure in its latest endeavor -- the liberation of 25 million Iraqis from the most barbarous tyranny of all, and its replacement with what is beginning to emerge as the Arab world's first democracy -- and having earned near-universal condemnation for its pains, America has absolutely no appetite for such missions.

This is one area where, to his credit, John McCain far surpasses Barack Obama, who I fear would bring back a Carter-esque foreign policy of appeasement and dithering.

Just don't question their patriotism Part 3

This sums it up:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

The three anti-war Democrats made the trip in October 2002, while the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq.

Of course, if it were Republicans who did this, it would be front page news, blared in the headline, and mentioned in the first paragraph, not second.

Gaza, Egypt, and Israel

I don't normally post anything involving foreign affairs. The reason is that in my formative years of following current events, I found them to be dreadfully boring. My interests have since expanded, but I assume that people who don't get a kick out of our domestic political news would really hate anything about the rest of the world. So if you don't care, don't waste your time reading any more.

Since no one is left, here we go. There were some fascinating events in the Middle East last week. In the last few years, Israel has gotten tired of continual attacks on them by Palestinians living within their borders. In response, Israel basically gave them their own land to live in and rule as they choose (Gaza, from what I understand, though it's still technically part of Israel). Gaza is between Egypt and the rest of Israel, and it's sealed in between walls on both sides. The Egypt-Gaza wall was originally created by Israel for their own defense before they gave up the land. The Gaza-Greater Israel wall exists for obvious reasons.

Anyway, last week, after months of working on it, the Palestinians knocked down the wall to Egypt. The Egyptian government was completely surprised by this, and they have been unable to handle the effects of it. (Like most other Muslim Middle Eastern governments, they are completely incompetent in anything other than throwing oil money at fomenting terrorism around the world, except Egypt has no oil. Thus, they suck at pretty much everything.)

At first, I thought this was bad news for Israel, since the Palestinians could freely go back and forth into Egypt to get food, supplies, and weapons to strengthen their attacks on Israel. However, this column by Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal goes into much more depth than I've explained here. What I took from it is that Egypt and the rest of the Middle Eastern countries have much more to fear from it. If you have any interest in this stuff, I would recommend reading it.