Friday, April 2, 2010

Think Tanks as a Continuation of Politics

Barry Rubin has a story about how the Obama administration is preparing to change American policy on Hizballah and engage them in talks; he himself has been invited to participate in preparing the ground, but prefers to spill the beans.

I'm not enough of an insider to know. The interesting part of the story is actually the glimpse it gives us regular folks about how such policy changes are engineered, and the role played by think tanks, which are given a goal which needs to be academically justified, and duly produce a report coincidentally recommending just what someone was hoping for.

Do you think that's possible?

4 comments:

Barry Meislin said...

Just another rough beast slouching towards Munich.

To be borne....

(But by whom, ultimately?..... Then again, almost anything can be borne, as long as the mantra is: 1. Syria, Hezbullah, Hamas, and the PA want peace----after all, they all so so, after a fashion. 2. Israel is the impediment, the international outlaw, the party that is preventing peace. Repeat this mantra often enough---the Obama administration is getting rather good at it, and is bound to get even better---and it becomes the truth. )

Barry Meislin said...

Correction: "so so" should be "do"

joseph said...

Dr Lozowick,

I read the article and I have a lot of respect for Barry Rubin BUT, the notion that Iran and Al-Qaida are cooperating in anything is simply nuts Al-Qaida is an extremist Wahabist, Sunni sect. Iran is Shiite, most of the Iranians seem to be moderate though its rulers seem to be extremist. Sometimes we tend not to see that some of our enemies don't like each other. We made that mistake in Viet Nam and we seem to be making that mistake now.

Joe5348

4infidels said...

the notion that Iran and Al-Qaida are cooperating in anything is simply nuts

Joeseph,

It never occurred to you that groups with a common enemy might work together in their short term interests?

Sometimes we tend not to see that some of our enemies don't like each other

That may be true, but you fail to see that however much Sunni and Shia groups may hate one another--and may sometimes work with non-Muslim powers to advance their interests vs. one another--they are both Islamic groups fighting that want the US, and what they consider US backed Muslim regimes, out of their part of the world, and nothing brings passionate believers together more so then a common infidel enemy.