1) Containing the Islamist movement.

2) Ensuring access to the oil supplies.

3) Prevention or at least slowing down the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the region.

Our foreign policy objectives for the region should be strictly limited to these three objectives only. Any other objective is counter-productive to our rational self-interest and should, therefor, be rejected automatically. We should not concern ourselves with any other consideration.

Machiavelli's Discourses is a good guide book to playing this game. It should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in politics or foreign service. I consider the Discourses to be the only book necessary reading to understand politics and how to do it.

I'm wondering if there is anyway to play the various powers in the region against each other such as to bust up OPEC and to ensure a continuous supply of cheap oil. I have to reread my copy of the Discourses again.

It shouldn't be news to anyone that the likes of Yasser Arafat and Hassan Nasrallah lie and dissemble in front of Westerners. This week Osama bin Laden even pretends to be concerned about global warming, which I think is hilarious.

Just be careful not to lump good people in with Abu Musab al Zarqawi just because the concept of "taqqiya" exists in the world.

That's really all I have to say about that. I apologize for coming across as a knee-jerker when you first brought it up.

Posted by: del at January 29, 2010 11:33 am "

My life in colonial Hong Kong for six years prior to a couple more in S. Viet Nam and Laos as a civilian during those most tragic, volatile 1960's taught me all I ever want to know about the risks associated with cultural mis-understandings.

Here's another posting I like very much: "I'll listen, make my best guess about motivation, and then step back and see if context and patterns bring clues.

Posted by: Paul S. at January 29, 2010 4:05 pm "

My most recent tipping point on our Islamic Problem seems to have centered on this amorphous concept of "taqiyya". New concept for me, that one. This acknowledged subtlety creates even more complications which can work in several directions. This "taqiyya" in conjunction with all past events of terrorism is one more ingredient in a noxious stew.

Last terse quotation which I like..."I'll listen, make my best guess about motivation, and then step back and see if context and patterns bring clues."...Paul S. 29th, 4:05pm

Indeed, they do with this, to me, new reagent named "taqiyya".

My Host may rest assured that... "Fine, keep it in your mind, but be very very careful about being deterministic about it."

The sum of events seems to me to be that we Westerners are blindly groping among vipers.

I'll be my own judge about my being "deterministic".

end.

In much the same way that MJT is leery about anyone who mentions "taqiyya", I'm leery of anyone who quotes a soldier in a war zone. I recall a certain Italian documentary a few years ago in which they found an American soldier (or marine, I can't recall) who said on camera and in uniform that an 81mm mortar round has a 100 meter blast radius, for instance. And it just gets worse from there when you start asking people about their personal opinions. There's a reason things like "The Marine Corps isn't paying you to think!" were such common mantras when I was in