Condi Rice on Status Quo vs. Revisionist Powers

Here's Secretary Rice at the Economic Club of New York:

America has always been, and will always be, not a status quo power, but a revolutionary power.

For everybody who stubbornly wants to shoehorn Rice into the "responsible realist" role in the Bush saga, it bears noting that she's cribbing this stuff from Tom Donnelly.  There's a strong whiff of Kagan in here, too.

You really do have to ask yourself how this sort of thing sounds in, say, Tehran.

Comments

[Joerg]

I think Tehran is not very concerned by that speech. They know that this is rhetoric.

Besides, they will read the end of her speech as well, where she gives an example of American's revolutionary policies:

"In Darfur, victims of genocide are grateful for our humanitarian relief, but they also know that the United States will continue to sanction the Sudanese government, until the violence against innocents stops."

Tehran will yawn at this and confirm that all this talk about America's revolutionary moral policies bringing democracy and freedom to the world and light to the darkness is just pure domestic rhetoric.

[Gregory Scoblete]

I'd be more worried about how the speech plays in China and India - the two countries we're trying to coax into the international community as "responsible stakeholders."

[Justin]

A good point, Greg. Status quo for thee but not for me.

[Garry]

Condi's speech is just more evidence of what should be obvious to everyone by now: protecting the rights and lives of Americans is not the main goal of American foreign policy. It just isn't.

Our government obviously has more important things to do, like divvy out welfare to the world or invade other countries to make sure the people of some other nation are "free".

Whether such actions are a benefit or detriment to our security is often overriden by other concerns... such as spreading freedom or beating up the Hitler of the day whether it be Saddam Hussein, Milosevic or now, Ahmadinejad.

Hopefully, people will realize that and effect some change. Reaction to Ron Paul outside of the mainstream media and party hacks is encouraging.

[Ed Nashton]

Gosh, I hate sound clichéd but 1984 anyone? What happened to transformational diplomacy? Is "American Realism" the new pseudonym for neoconservatism these days?

These sorry attempts to repackage their bankrupt ideology are astounding. Is Condi channeling Charlotte Beers these days?

I'm sorry to say this but, now I know how the Muslim world felt about America while she was running things over at Public Diplomacy.