Trump has said Boris would make a good leader - and they say the law suit against Boris would blight his chances! If a Trump endorsement is not the nail in his coffin for all right-minded people, then I don't know what is.
An extract from Henry Kissinger's book, World Order:
Revolutionary Islamism has not, up to now, manifested itself as a quest for international cooperation as the West understands the term; nor is the Iranian regime best interpreted as an aggrieved postcolonial independence movement. Under the ayatollahs’ concept of policy, the dispute with the West is not a matter of specific concessions or negotiating formulas, but a contest over the nature of world order.
Among the states in the Middle East, Iran has perhaps the most coherent experience of national greatness and the longest and subtlest strategic tradition. It has preserved its essential culture for three thousand years, sometimes as an expanding empire, for many centuries by the skilled manipulation of surrounding elements.
Before the ayatollahs’ revolution, the West’s interaction with Iran had been cordial and cooperative on both sides, based on a perceived parallelism of national interests. (Ironically, the ayatollahs’ ascent to power was aided in its last stages by America’s dissociation from the existing regime, on the mistaken belief that the looming change would accelerate the advent of democracy and strengthen U.S.-Iranian ties.) The United States and the Western democracies should be open to fostering cooperative relations with Iran. What they must not do is base such a policy on projecting their own domestic experience as inevitably or automatically relevant to other societies’, especially Iran’s.
With Iran’s revolution, an Islamist movement, dedicated to overthrowing the Westphalian system gained control over a modern state and asserted its “Westphalian” rights and privileges - taking up its seat at the United Nations, conducting its trade, and operating its diplomatic apparatus. Iran’s clerical regime thus placed itself at the intersection of two world orders, arrogating the formal protections of the Westphalian system even while repeatedly proclaiming that it did not believe in it, would not be bound by it, and intended ultimately to replace it.
An incisive analysis.
Iran uses the Western system against itself, performing diplomatic jujitsu in order to gain valuable time to further its aim of possessing a nuclear arsenal. Negotiations will be and are conducted to the point of a relaxation of sanctions, any agreement being tactically repudiated later and the whole cycle repeated, so that its nuclear programme advances in fits and starts towards an ultimate strategic aim.
Iran is prepared to bury ideological, religious differences sufficiently to fund sunni terrorist organisations, such as Hamas, as well as the shia Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. If Iran does gain nuclear capability, the USA would have little choice but to provide Saudi Arabia with the same capability.
In the words of Bismarck: "We live in a wondrous time, in which the strong is weak because of his scruples and the weak grows strong because of his audacity."
Among the states in the Middle East, Iran has perhaps the most coherent experience of national greatness and the longest and subtlest strategic tradition. It has preserved its essential culture for three thousand years, sometimes as an expanding empire, for many centuries by the skilled manipulation of surrounding elements.
Before the ayatollahs’ revolution, the West’s interaction with Iran had been cordial and cooperative on both sides, based on a perceived parallelism of national interests. (Ironically, the ayatollahs’ ascent to power was aided in its last stages by America’s dissociation from the existing regime, on the mistaken belief that the looming change would accelerate the advent of democracy and strengthen U.S.-Iranian ties.) The United States and the Western democracies should be open to fostering cooperative relations with Iran. What they must not do is base such a policy on projecting their own domestic experience as inevitably or automatically relevant to other societies’, especially Iran’s.
With Iran’s revolution, an Islamist movement, dedicated to overthrowing the Westphalian system gained control over a modern state and asserted its “Westphalian” rights and privileges - taking up its seat at the United Nations, conducting its trade, and operating its diplomatic apparatus. Iran’s clerical regime thus placed itself at the intersection of two world orders, arrogating the formal protections of the Westphalian system even while repeatedly proclaiming that it did not believe in it, would not be bound by it, and intended ultimately to replace it.
An incisive analysis.
Iran uses the Western system against itself, performing diplomatic jujitsu in order to gain valuable time to further its aim of possessing a nuclear arsenal. Negotiations will be and are conducted to the point of a relaxation of sanctions, any agreement being tactically repudiated later and the whole cycle repeated, so that its nuclear programme advances in fits and starts towards an ultimate strategic aim.
Iran is prepared to bury ideological, religious differences sufficiently to fund sunni terrorist organisations, such as Hamas, as well as the shia Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. If Iran does gain nuclear capability, the USA would have little choice but to provide Saudi Arabia with the same capability.
In the words of Bismarck: "We live in a wondrous time, in which the strong is weak because of his scruples and the weak grows strong because of his audacity."
That maxim was used by Bismarck to justify the audacious union of the various German states under Prussia in the face of opposition from the likes of Klemens von Metternich, the Austrian Foreign Minister, who was famous for being desirous of legitimacy through consensus and diplomacy - rather like the UN - whereas Bismarck preferred power politics based on subterfuge and strength..
It seems many have taken Bismarck's Realpolitik maxim on-board recently - the end justifies the means.
It seems many have taken Bismarck's Realpolitik maxim on-board recently - the end justifies the means.
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