An End to Magical Thinking in the Middle East

[TomSea]

Excerpt, provocative read at the least. I personally don't like how he lays into Trump early in the article. He penned this article as if he really had something to say. Pretty long so it might be worth a few sittings to digest.

An End to Magical Thinking in the Middle East
William J. Burns

It’s time to abandon the dogma that’s driven our foreign policy and led to so much disaster in the region.

President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

...


America’s post–Cold War journey in the Middle East looked a lot more promising at first than it does today. Blessed with a stronger geopolitical position than its successors, the George H. W. Bush administration was also less prone to magical thinking. The administration brought discipline to the challenge of mobilizing the Desert Storm coalition—and to resisting the temptation to pursue fleeing Iraqi forces to Baghdad and overthrow Saddam Hussein. Secretary of State James Baker masterfully orchestrated the Madrid peace conference between Arabs and Israelis, but kept his expectations in check, careful not to overpromise what might come of the long slog of negotiations.

Bill Clinton built on that foundation, with painstaking progress throughout the 1990s but a debilitating setback at the Camp David Summit in 2000. George W. Bush’s modest successes, such as persuading Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya to abandon terrorism and a rudimentary nuclear program, were overwhelmed by the massive failure of the Iraq War in 2003. That tragically unnecessary conflict laid bare the deep and violent fissures of Iraq, opened the playing field for Iranian ambitions, and unsettled Arab partners already drowning in their domestic dysfunctions. The War on Terror crowded out other priorities. To the extent that the administration tried to press other concerns—about the political and economic stagnation on which terrorists fed, for example—the debacle in Iraq and our own War on Terror abuses made us unpersuasive messengers.


...

If we can recover the sense of discipline and limits that animated the diplomacy of George H. W. Bush and Baker, if not the geopolitical weight of their America, there is no reason we can’t navigate a very different moment in the Middle East without massive setbacks, and maybe even with occasional successes. It is certainly time to try.

Read more at: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/end-magical-thinking-middle-east/602953/?utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2019-12-08T11%3A00%3A12&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_source=twitter

So, it appears William Burns was a Bush appointee to start out with, thus, a rather clear favorable attitude towards that administration.

And as said, he appears to be president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank.

[Absalom]

What a load of flatulence from this Bush flunky.
It was Wilson who winked and nodded us into the Great War, a colossal
mistake which internationalized our State Dept; producing an apologist
such as Burns, who is the essence of our foreign affairs types.
Minding one's own business is history's sage advice for both individuals
as well as nation/states.

[Fishrrman]

The Atlantic?
Furgheddaboutit.