{"id":49140,"date":"2019-10-25T08:50:52","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T13:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=49140"},"modified":"2019-10-25T08:50:59","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T13:50:59","slug":"imperial-capital-but-america-first-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=49140","title":{"rendered":"Imperial Capital but America-First Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Imperial<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Imperial Capital but America-First Nation<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Is America still the world\u2019s last superpower with global policing obligations? Or should we shuck off this imperial role and make America, again, in Jeane Kirkpatrick\u2019s phrase, \u201ca normal country in a normal time\u201d?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet someone else fight over this long blood-stained sand,\u201d said President Donald Trump in an impassioned defense of his decision to cut ties to the Syrian Kurds, withdraw and end these \u201cendless wars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are our troops in Syria, then, on their way home? Well, not exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those leaving northern Syria went into Iraq. Other U.S. soldiers will stay in Syria to guard oil wells that we and the Kurds captured in the war with ISIS. Another 150 U.S. troops will remain in al-Tanf to guard Syria\u2019s border with Iraq, at the request of Jordan and Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And 2,000 more U.S. troops are being sent to Saudi Arabia to help defend the kingdom from Iran, which raises a question: Are we coming or going?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his conflicting statements and actions, Trump seemingly seeks to mollify both sides of our national quarrel:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is America still the world\u2019s last superpower with global policing obligations? Or should we shuck off this imperial role and make America, again, in Jeane Kirkpatrick\u2019s phrase, \u201ca normal country in a normal time\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Middle America, anti-interventionism has carried the day. As Trump says, no declaration at his rallies is more wildly welcomed than his pledge to end our Middle East wars and bring the troops home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in this imperial capital, the voice of the interventionist yet prevails. The media, the foreign policy elite, the think tanks, the ethnic lobbies, the Pentagon, the State Department, Capitol Hill, are almost all interventionist, opposed to Trump\u2019s abandonment of the Kurds. Rand Paul may echo Middle America, but Lindsey Graham speaks for the Republican establishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imperial Capital but America-First Nation Is America still the world\u2019s last superpower with global policing obligations? Or should we shuck off this imperial role and make America, again, in Jeane Kirkpatrick\u2019s phrase, \u201ca normal country in a normal time\u201d? \u201cLet someone else fight over this long blood-stained sand,\u201d said President Donald Trump in an impassioned […]<\/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":[7844,3520,442,446,14065,776,3142],"class_list":["post-49140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-donald-trump","tag-imperialism","tag-iraq","tag-isis","tag-patrick-j-buchanan","tag-syria","tag-us-empire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49140","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=49140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49141,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49140\/revisions\/49141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}