Play it as it lays

Sometimes you can’t remake your world in a way in which you would like. At those times, you have to do the best you can with what you got.

Rory Stewart, a former British Foreign Service officer, has written an op-ed piece in the NYTimes titled All Politics is Local, applying an old Tip O’Neal saying to our foreign policy in the Middle East and Afghanistan. I was directed to this wonderful little piece by Fred Kaplan over at Slate, whose praise for Stewart as someone with extensive experience with indigenous personnel made me check it out.

Don’t you just love a gem that you run across that confirms everything you thought on a subject by someone with all kinds of credentials whether titled, registered or de facto accomplished that makes you confident in your own opinions. I can understand why Fox News is such a hit; it feels so good to read what you all ready know to be true.

The Neocons saw way too many John Wayne movies when they were growing up. Compared to the results of the Neocon’s idealistic but none the less naïve strategy, what Mr. Stewart is offering up is a realistic approach to not only the Middle East but in other areas of the world.

We cannot impose our form of democracy – or even democracy in general – on other people. Democracy takes practice as we are proof.

Whoever gets elected in 2008, I hope they bring a realistic and professional level of foreign policy and NO idealists from the conservatives or the liberals. Don’t go thinking you got to compensate for our current appointed officials by replacing them with those who would put some liberal ideal before what is practical and what works.