JustinLogan.com

Status Quo vs. Revisionist Powers

"the problem is that [the country in question] is not a status quo power. It seeks to export its ideology and interprets resistance as hostility."

That's Michael Rubin, describing the Islamic Republic of Iran.  And casting Iran as a revisionist power seems fair enough.  But there's the question of who's been doing the revising lately?  Or, to put it more bluntly, does the United States qualify, by any stretch of the imagination, as a status quo power today?

Thankfully, I attended a briefing with Rubin's AEI colleague Tom Donnelly in 2005 in which Donnelly remarked (click through to 2:41:00) that "the United States is not a status quo power.  We have never been a status quo power, and hopefully we will never be a status quo power.  The United States is the greatest revolutionary power in the history of mankind."

So it's a bit rich to hear AEI analysts grousing about how a (much weaker) foreign power has revisionist designs when you can hear your colleagues down the hall characterizing your own country in this way.  Think how it sounds in Tehran.

Back When Men Were Men

You know, I'd like a whole lot not to buy into the whole "wussification of America" story, but upon seeing that there was some kind of a hockey fight last night, and now a whole huge controversy, I can't help but recall when men were men, when hockey was hockey, and when, well, hockey was worth watching.  If the teams needed to get it out, by God, they got it out.  Now it's been neutered into some sort of figure skating with sticks.  Remember Don Cherry, dammit?

So, without further ado, I present one of my fondest hockey memories from growing up in St. Louis: the 1992 brawl with the Red Wings.  Go CuJo!!!

A Post-Bush Manifesto

Man, is this essay by William Pfaff in the NY Review of Books the best piece of foreign affairs writing I've seen in years.  It's just excellent, from the first letter to the last.

Give it a read.

Hilarious

Shorter Michael Goldfarb: "I'm a right-wing blogger, and I just talked to another right-wing blogger who sort of speculated that Iran may have been the one who supplied Strela missiles to Sunni insurgents, despite reports from the Emm Ess Emm in December indicating that Saudi Arabians were supplying Strelas to the Sunni insurgents.  Therefore, 'Iran supplying al Qaeda? Shiites working together with Sunnis to kill Americans? Anyone who still finds the idea of such cooperation far-fetched hasn't been paying close attention.'"

Right.  Stephen Hayes, call your office.