Wes Clark in Washington Monthly - I love this man

[crissy71]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0405.clark.html

....This dream of engineering events in the Middle East to follow those of the Soviet Union has led to an almost unprecedented geostrategic blunder. One crucial reason things went wrong, I believe, is that the neoconservatives misunderstood how and why the Soviet Union fell and what the West did to contribute to that fall. They radically overestimated the role of military assertiveness while underestimating the value of other, subtler measures. They then applied those theories to the Middle East, a region with very different political and cultural conditions. The truth is this: It took four decades of patient engagement to bring down the Iron Curtain, and 10 years of deft diplomacy to turn chaotic, post-Soviet states into stable, pro-Western democracies. To achieve the same in the Middle East will require similar engagement, patience, and luck.....

[StephNW4Clark]

1. No kidding.

That was a great article which pretty much summed up Dems vs. Repub differences in foreign policy.

We believe in several angles of engagement, and prize economic and cultural "operations" just as much as military ones, where as Repubs can't see past the barrel of a gun.

[freetobegay]

2. Go Wes!

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