On The Margins

(Masood Mortazavi)

All | Persian (فارسی) | Announcements | Art (هنر) | Business | Code | Culture | Design | Economics | Here | History | Java | Mathematics | Media | Networks | Papers | Personal | Philosophy | Science | Society | Sports | Sun Microsystems Inc. | Technology | Telecommunications | This | Web | Work

(Books)(Blogger)(java.net)
Check Google Page Rank

20070110 Wednesday January 10, 2007

[ History ] Modern Diplomacy

The "gunboat diplomacy" which was a constant feature of British Empire's 19th and 20th century dealings with Persia has been picked up for a dreamy revival by the new empire -- a dream that this time may prove ready to turn into a real nightmare! Other perspectives seeing recent developments in the U.S. occupation of Iraq can be found here, here, here and here. President Bush's speech can be found here. (Unfortunately, the latter speech blames others for the problems caused directly by the occupation and the consequent and gradual destruction of Iraq's civil society. It seems that Iraq must bleed more before it is left to its own account: "We must expect more American and Iraqi casualties"!) Financial Time's editorial about the same, can be found here. The Washington Post reports the story and some poll results here and elsewhere in an editorial. Unfortunately, the editorial, while advocating some pragmatism, accepts some of the fiction told earlier repeating several false mantras when it comes to the region.

The WP also carries Zbigniew Brzezinski's column analyzing the president's speech. Of the old guard of U.S. diplomacy, he has the keenest view of the trends in the region. He observes: "America is acting like a colonial power in Iraq. But the age of colonialism is over. Waging a colonial war in the post-colonial age is self-defeating. That is the fatal flaw of Bush's policy." [Some have produced evidence that Brzenzinski, who served in President Carter's administration, was the American diplomat who gave the green light to Saddam to attack Iran when Iran had disbanded its military after the revolution and the hostage crisis. See for example, Noam Chomsky's Towards a New Cold War: Essays on the Current Crisis and How We Got There (1982 edition). So, Brzezinski is no dove.]

2007-01-10 18:53:09.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

On the Margins Tag Cloud

america apache art berkeley blogs books business canada capital code communications community computing conference connectors content contribution corporate costs culture databases derby design desktop developers development economics education energy engineering film finance history information innovation international internet iran isfahan java java-db javaone law linux logic management markets mathematics media mobile music mysql netbeans networks news open open-solaris open-source opensolaris opensource os persian philosophy phones photography photos politics postgresql practice privacy products programming ruby science server services social society software solaris sports strategy sun sun-microsystems systems technology tehran telecommunications tools transactions transportation travel tv us video war web windows work writing

Del.icio.us

RSS Feeds

XML

All
/ Persian (فارسی)
/Announcements
/Art (هنر)
/Business
/Code
/Culture
/Design
/Economics
/Here
/History
/Java
/Mathematics
/Media
/Networks
/Papers
/Personal
/Philosophy
/Science
/Society
/Sports
/Sun Microsystems Inc.
/Technology
/Telecommunications
/This
/Web
/Work

Disclaimer

I work at Sun Microsystems. The opinions expressed here are purely my own, and neither Sun nor any other party necessarily agrees with them.

Coordinates

Locations of visitors to this page

« November 2009
SunMonTueWedThuFriSat
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
     
       
Today


blogs.sun.com
Weblog
comments
Login

www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from M.Mortazavi. Make your own badge here.

Entry Statistics

Entries: 1246
Comments: 919

Recent Entries

StatCounter

Statistics from StatCounter

Page Rank

Check Google Page Rank

On the Margins Tag Cloud

america apache art berkeley blogs books business canada capital code communications community computing conference connectors content contribution corporate costs culture databases derby design desktop developers development economics education energy engineering film finance history information innovation international internet iran isfahan java java-db javaone law linux logic management markets mathematics media mobile music mysql netbeans networks news open open-solaris open-source opensolaris opensource os persian philosophy phones photography photos politics postgresql practice privacy products programming ruby science server services social society software solaris sports strategy sun sun-microsystems systems technology tehran telecommunications tools transactions transportation travel tv us video war web windows work writing

RSS Feeds

XML

All
/ Persian (فارسی)
/Announcements
/Art (هنر)
/Business
/Code
/Culture
/Design
/Economics
/Here
/History
/Java
/Mathematics
/Media
/Networks
/Papers
/Personal
/Philosophy
/Science
/Society
/Sports
/Sun Microsystems Inc.
/Technology
/Telecommunications
/This
/Web
/Work

Other Places




Landmine Casulties
free counters'

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
© Masood Mortazavi
This is a personal weblog, I do not speak for my employer.