Opinion:

International Relations,

Where Have You Gone?

Anyone Here Speak Farsi?

Not In Our State Department

by Johnny Gunn

The great debate is a slacker’s dream this presidential cycle.  Health care is given lip service but no serious plan, the war in Iraq is answered by way of three second sound bites, education is answered with dollar signs, and one area of concern is not discussed in any way: International relations.

For whatever reason, a great glop of human kind wants to be president and doesn’t discuss international relations, something a country as large, economically stable, militarily strong, and totally dependent on international commerce must understand.  For at least two generations, maybe more, this country’s leaders have ignored great areas of the world that are now in a position to have a serious impact on our lives.  Most of the Middle East has grown economically and can no longer be considered third world countries.

Pakistan has nuclear weapons, India has nuclear weapons, Israel has nuclear weapons, and the only country out of the three that is given any kind of shrift is Israel.  The United States’ State Department has people in embassies in Pakistan, India, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel that don’t speak the language of the country they are assigned to. 

In the Far East, that is Asia proper, we don’t have an organized official form of relationship with individual countries such as China, Japan, Korea(s), The Philippines, and on an on.  There was a book describing, this was in the early years following WW II, our diplomatic corps called “The Ugly American.”  Our State Department doesn’t seem to have evolved an inch.

Sound bites an international policy does not make.  Commerce depends on international relations being positive, and so does peace in the world.  Whoever ends up in the White House following November 2008 had better have a much more rounded understanding of the world than we have seen in any of them so far.  Saber rattling is not the best way to be a neighbor; intimidation of another’s way of life because it isn’t the American way does not lead to friendly relations; and not even trying to understand another’s religious background will never build a porous wall of open commerce.

We are unquestionably the biggest, strongest nation on earth.  We are also perceived as the biggest, meanest bully on the playground.  We get our way or you get sanctioned, maybe bombed.  This is not the best form of international relations for a nation that depends on free trade, open lines of commerce, and believes in individual freedoms. 

Before you attend your caucus meeting next month, if you plan to, see if you can figure out which candidate might have an understanding of world politics as they exist today.

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Cartoon by Thomas Nast, April 12, 1874