Great Moments in Diplomacy
I shore do wish I had wunna them master’s degrees in International Relations to an’ lurn fancy dip-lo-mat talk.
“The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, ‘Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,”‘ Musharraf said.
I wonder what Madeleine Albright might have done differently, although this seems unnecessarily blunt.
This isn’t actually new news. Armitage wasn’t free-lancing either – this verbiage can only have come directly from the White House (State Department people can leak, but they can’t disobey a direct order to say some specific thing). What Musharraf then did was go to Beijing to ask the Chinese if they would back him if he stiff-armed Uncle Sam. The Chinese gave him the back of their hand, since they wanted no direct part in the Muslim world’s covert jihad against Uncle Sam.
This is the meaning of Chinese cooperation in the War on Terror – they refused to align themselves with terror-sponsoring states. The Chinese will sell weapons (cash on the barrel) to them, but not actually fight their wars for them. This represents Chinese prudence rather than any love for Uncle Sam, of course. And Muslim fanatics are being silly when they attempt to use China to fight their enemies – only Uncle Sam is naive enough to fight other people’s battles in their behalf.
My feeling is that Rumsfeld’s repeated assertion that “all options are on the table” (at the behest of the White House) wasn’t necessarily directed at the Taliban. Pakistan and China might have been the intended recipients of the message. Note that Musharraf showed up before the cameras, ashen-faced, a short time after 9/11, and declared to his nation that Pakistan had to do an about-face, due to a change in circumstances and talked about some amorphous (at the time) danger to Pakistan’s survival. Armitage’s message from the White House – coupled with Musharraf’s getting brushed off during his hasty post-9/11 trip to Beijing – was likely the triggering factor.
This isn’t actually new news. Armitage wasn’t free-lancing either – this verbiage can only have come directly from the White House (State Department people can leak, but they can’t disobey a direct order to say some specific thing). What Musharraf then did was go to Beijing to ask the Chinese if they would back him if he stiff-armed Uncle Sam. The Chinese gave him the back of their hand, since they wanted no direct part in the Muslim world’s covert jihad against Uncle Sam.
This is the meaning of Chinese cooperation in the War on Terror – they refused to align themselves with terror-sponsoring states. The Chinese will sell weapons (cash on the barrel) to them, but not actually fight their wars for them. This represents Chinese prudence rather than any love for Uncle Sam, of course. And Muslim fanatics are being silly when they attempt to use China to fight their enemies – only Uncle Sam is naive enough to fight other people’s battles in their behalf.
My feeling is that Rumsfeld’s repeated assertion that “all options are on the table” (at the behest of the White House) wasn’t necessarily directed at the Taliban. Pakistan and China might have been the intended recipients of the message. Note that Musharraf showed up before the cameras, ashen-faced, a short time after 9/11, and declared to his nation that Pakistan had to do an about-face, due to a change in circumstances and talked about some amorphous (at the time) danger to Pakistan’s survival. Armitage’s message from the White House – coupled with Musharraf’s getting brushed off by the Chinese during his hasty post-9/11 trip to Beijing – was likely the triggering factor.
Armitage is a bigmouth. He recently admitted that he leaked the identity of Valerie Plame. He has resigned from the State Dept., thank goodness.
Armitage was also North Korea’s best friend in our own State Department, so I guess Mi Hwa and I get to agree again.