McCAIN'S STRENGTH A GREAT WEAKNESS
What's interesting and important about this is not that it is a counter to the appeasement line taken by McCain.
What it points to is fundamental misunderstandings that McCain has about the region, this region that he himself has put at the center of American needs for stability and peace.
HIS RESTRICTIVE "HONOR-CENTRIC" VIEW OF THE WORLD - NOT NEARLY ENGAGED ENOUGH
From the slip-up about the Shia and al-qa'ida in Iran, to his indignation that the Iranian President might call Israel a "stinking corpse".
He doesn't understand the Arab street, he doesn't understand the regional politics, he doesn't understand how people can say the most outrageous things about each other but suddenly show the most profound ... hospitality.
I'm not saying that he needs to understand every culture or milieu to be President. What he does need to understand are his own weaknesses, and his mindset to pigeon-hole people and to let folks like his bff Lieberman sway him so greatly to pigeon-hole. It all suggests a lack of fundamental capacity to read a situation in its entirety, under his own steam.
It's very dangerous, that. Very dangerous.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Israel Talking to Syria
