What diplomacy?

The BJP’s foreign policy would provide fodder for about a gazillion posts.

As for India’s foreign policy, it’s “We’ve got bombs…watch out, Pakistan!” And India always seeks regional leverage- as does Pakistan- through allies, with each of them vying for the US’ attention.

Then India quietly helps sustain the Maldivian and Burmese government by supplying arms to the regimes there…

Could Desi Italiana, Sid or Sunny help to shift gear to this topic?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn_8Jjo_Zc0&feature=related

Seriously, though the Reps (esp Karl Rove) are trying to make inroads into the desi community over here ever since they realized that american desis are loaded. It is working to some degree, the Indian community used to be solidly democratic but I do se a growing number of reps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEsdj203RcM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVf75c5tEgs&NR=1

LMAO Bobby Jindal sounds like a ole boy from the heart of Dixie.

You’re partly right though fpfhj. Don’t forget the Russians — or a Russian — killed a man on our soil and endangered other British citizens.

However, it’s easier being a hawk when you’re big and powerful.

We weren’t exactly hawkish with Iran when they had our sailors. How embarrassing was that!
There also seems to be a notable difference in the way the US and UK have acted in Iraq/Afghanistan. Our military strategy seems a little less hawkish too.

So maybe there’s a deeper cultural explanation behind the lack of British hawks.

http://blog.newhumanist.org.uk/2008/01/dinesh-dsouza-winner-of-bad-faith-award.html

Definately Anne’s type of man.

**

Seriously, though, Anne is a wanker. She really, really is.

It’s quite simple really.

September 11th, July bombings, Madrid, and the countless of other attempts by ISLAMIC radicals pose an ACTUAL threat.

Nothing to do with them being brown, I’m afraid Sunny.

Just the fact they keep trying to indiscriminately murder us in our own towns. Geddit yet?

Russia is extremely unlikely to fund or attack Europe. When was the last time Russia attacked Britain? How many Brits have they killed? None!

And last, but not least. Russia is a superpower. As is China. And America.

One cannot consider going to war with a superpower. You will loose.

Superpowers will not go to war with each other. They will all loose.

Well I would think Anne and the Catholic brown man (aka Dinesh D’Souza) would be a perfect fit. I mean most of Dinesh’s viewpoints could easily work with Anne’s:

A few of my favorite Dinesh D’Souza Quotes:

“The American slave was treated like property, which is to say, pretty well.” (from D’Souza’s book, The End of Racism)

“If America as a nation owes blacks as a group reparations for slavery, what do blacks as a group owe America for the abolition of slavery?” (from The End of Racism)

“Am I calling for the repeal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Actually, yes.” (from The End of Racism)

“…within the United States, black males have (you may be surprised to discover) the highest self-esteem of any group. Yet on academic measures black males score the lowest. The reason is that self-esteem in these cases is generated by factors unrelated to studies, such as the ability to beat up other students or a high estimation of one’s sexual prowess.” (from D’Souza’s book Letters to a Young Conservative)

“[f]or many whites the criminal and irresponsible black underclass represents a revival of barbarism in the midst of Western civilization.” (from D’Souza’s book The End of Racism)

“What impact did the abortionists, the feminists, the homosexual activists, and the secularists have on the Islamic radicals who conspired to blow up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? Unfortunately, this crucial question got buried, and virtually no one has raised it publicly.” (from The Enemy at Home)

“Ann Coulter against the Russkies??

Nah, she is in love with muslims.”

Anne is in love with Catholic brown men who write shitty books with crappy logic.

Is this anti-Russian sentiment motivated by PP’s recent hack?

I used to love Russia. This was based solely on the Soviet national anthem, which makes me feel so patriotic even though I have only been there once. And I’m not Russian.

But we’ve got a new Russian girl on our team at work who is USELESS so now I hate them all.

I don’t think impotence is purely a British hawk/right wing problem, there’s a limp-wristedness that pervades both sides of the spectrum.

Nah, she is in love with muslims.
Some of her more famous quotes….

“Bumper sticker idea for liberals: News magazines don’t kill people, Muslims do.”

“They’re never very high in anyone’s caste system, are they? Poor little Pakis. ”

“We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war.”

“I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.”

“These people can’t even wrap up genocide. We’ve been hearing about this slaughter in Darfur forever — and they still haven’t finished. The aggressors are moving like termites across that country. It’s like genocide by committee. Who’s running this holocaust in Darfur, FEMA? This is truly a war in which we have absolutely no interest.”

What a gal eh???

The _british_ foreign policy establishment very much sees Iran as virtually indistinguishable from Russia:
1. non-friends
2. we’d lose a war with them
3. some of their nutters do mad secret stuff.
4. they have money and gear

It’s only the US where candidates run for election on a policy of ‘setting Iran back 5 to 10 years’.

Which, in turn, is probably because point #2 is not so much true for them (plus, the whole ‘death to Satan USA’ thing, which they don’t have much of a sense of humour about).

soru

So what is this concern about Iran? Or if I could put it another way, what is it about policy towards Iran we should be worried about?

You can tell it is a trivial spat because Miliband tried to act like Rambo when he delivered his statement. If it was a major issue he would have been tip-toeing as gently as a Bolshoi ballerina.

You will be able to tell how really insignificant it is the next time you see British Ministers gladhanding a delegation of Dmitris and Ivans as if nothing has happened. The real concern is Iran, despite dove-like attempts to tell us that nothing is happening and to move along.

By which I mean the superiority of US-led “soft” power is globally beginning to flag and many of the assumptions that many of us still labour under are becoming obsolete – what I mean is we are seeing the rise of the totalitarian capitalist states in Russia and China (and Dubai for that matter) and there ain’t a damn thing we can do about it (indeed we have helped facilitate it). And it’s happening rapidly, not helped, it must be admitted, by the paper human rights tiger that America, not least, has turned out to be.

On every front the values many Picklers here take for granted are under attack. The totalitarians, whatever their hue, are on the rise. This is the lens through which we should interpret global politics.

Russian harrassment of British Council staffers is pretty small beer, surely? It’s a familiar gambit and both sides know the rules. Despite the Guardian’s description of it as ‘a dangerous new phase’ nobody is expecting a serious escalation. It’s a game both sides have been playing for sixty years or more, jockeying for advantage while urbane men in overcoats arrange matters as they stroll through Hyde/Gorky Park. Or maybe I’ve read too much Le Carre.

Iran, on the other hand is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as being unpredictable, having an unstable chain of command and a leader who doesn’t play by the rules and is looking for a PR spectacular. I doubt if there is the same level of pragmatic personal contact between UK and Iranian spooks as there is traditionally perceived as existing between UK and Russia.

The Litvenko murder did, of course get massive coverage and quite rightly. But no-one expects this current squabble to result in anything worse than a few diplomatic expulsions, cancelled cultural exchanges and maybe a temporary cooling of commercial activity. Certainly not stumbling into a military situation which no-one can control.