Earth to al-Maliki critics!


There has been a great deal written about Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al- Maliki's one-sided criticism of Israel's current war of self defense.

This article may help the unthoughtful reflect upon the fact that the gentleman has an agenda other than international even-handedness right now: trying to keep the top from blowing off his own country.

Hello! Expecting an embattled Iraqi leader trying to keep a fragile democratic coalition operative and Sunni and Shi'ite from each other's throats to be a warm and enthusiastic supporter of Israel even now is rather naive when one reflects that taking any other course than Mr. Maliki has would likely spell the end of his government and push Iraq's fledgling democracy over the edge into utter ruin.

There may be some excuse for Howard Dean- who, after all, habitually speaks first and thinks later, if at all. But there are quite a few people criticizing Iraq's prime minister right now who really should have figured out something that simple by this point.

HT: Real Clear Politics

Comments

Anonymous said…
I guess this is the big concern!

When ever a liberal talks about complexities when it comes to foreign policies, the neo-cons get all huffy and say things like ,"well it's either this or that, black or white, for or against." They never seem to realize that foreign affairs is a murky area full of gray areas!

But now when this Iraqi leader, comes to our country! Speaks to our congress. And refuses to speak out against terrorists, all the sudden, neocons can now see just how complex foreign affairs is!
Well, if the common partisan cliche' upon which you premise your observation had any validity, you might have a point. The trouble is that neo-cons don't see everything in terms of black and white. Rather, unlike liberals, they simply acknowledge that black and white exist- and that some shades of gray are darker than others.

Color blindness isn't a virtue, Chris- and there is more than one shade of gray. The differences between many of them are quite striking, in fact. The problem is not that the Left sees the complexities of the world, whereas neo-cons don't; the problem is that the Left has confused complexity with an inability to distinguish among shades of gray. It's the Left's view of the world that is finally simplistic, and that of the neo-con which is ultimately complex- and (here's the point) realistic, rather than naive.