{"id":210,"date":"2014-10-19T12:57:47","date_gmt":"2014-10-19T12:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=210"},"modified":"2014-10-19T12:57:47","modified_gmt":"2014-10-19T12:57:47","slug":"tomgram-peter-van-buren-seven-bad-endings-to-the-new-war-in-the-middle-east-tomdispatch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=210","title":{"rendered":"Tomgram: Peter Van Buren, Seven Bad Endings to the New War in the Middle East | TomDispatch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tomdispatch.com\/post\/175908\/tomgram:_peter_van_buren,_seven_bad_endings_to_the_new_war_in_the_middle_east\/\">Tomgram: Peter Van Buren, Seven Bad Endings to the New War in the Middle East | TomDispatch<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It was May 23, 2012, and President Obama was giving a graduation speech at the Air Force Academy when he\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2012\/05\/23\/remarks-president-air-force-academy-commencement\" target=\"_blank\">told<\/a>\u00a0the assembled cadets that they should &#8220;never bet against the United States of America&#8230; [because] the United States has been, and will always be, the one indispensable nation in world affairs.&#8221;\u00a0 On that basis, he suggested, the twenty-first century, like the twentieth, would be an American one.\u00a0 Then, on October 23, 2012, in the final presidential debate with Mitt Romney, he\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2012\/10\/23\/remarks-president-and-governor-romney-third-presidential-debate\" target=\"_blank\">reiterated<\/a>\u00a0the point, saying: &#8220;America remains the one indispensable nation, and the world needs a strong America, and it is stronger now than when I came into office.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That phrase, \u201cthe indispensable nation,\u201d is of relatively\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_Chace\" target=\"_blank\">recent coinage<\/a>, but it is now seemingly an indispensable word for any American politician and so it\u2019s not surprising that the president continues to cling tightly to it.\u00a0 On May 28, 2014, for instance, giving\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2014\/05\/28\/remarks-president-united-states-military-academy-commencement-ceremony\" target=\"_blank\">another commencement speech<\/a>, this time at West Point, he once again went for that indispensable rhetorical jugular. \u201cAnd when a typhoon hits the Philippines,\u201d he assured the cadets, \u201cor schoolgirls are kidnapped in Nigeria, or masked men occupy a building in Ukraine, it is America that the world looks to for help.\u00a0 So the United States is and remains the one indispensable nation.\u00a0 That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come.\u201d\u00a0 (Of course, to this day those schoolgirls remain kidnapped and there are still masked men in buildings in Eastern Ukraine, but those are small points indeed.)\u00a0 On August 26th, Obama returned to the theme,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2014\/08\/26\/remarks-president-american-legion-national-convention\" target=\"_blank\">speaking<\/a>\u00a0to the national convention of the American Legion. \u201cNo nation,\u201d he told the assembled veterans ringingly, \u201cdoes more to help people in the far corners of the Earth escape poverty and hunger and disease, and realize their dignity.\u00a0 Even countries that criticize us, when the chips are down and they need help, they know who to call &#8212; they call us.\u00a0 That&#8217;s what American leadership looks like.\u00a0 That&#8217;s why the United States is and will remain the one indispensable nation in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the link above to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tomgram: Peter Van Buren, Seven Bad Endings to the New War in the Middle East | TomDispatch. It was May 23, 2012, and President Obama was giving a graduation speech at the Air Force Academy when he\u00a0told\u00a0the assembled cadets that they should &#8220;never bet against the United States of America&#8230; [because] the United States has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[522,584,821,834,862,864],"class_list":["post-210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-middle-east","tag-obama","tag-ukraine","tag-us","tag-war","tag-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}