more machiavelli - less obama says the NZZ

Submitted by myth (Germany), Nov 26, 2013 at 16:42

I read in Zürich's main paper, the NZZ, commenting on sunday's deal with Iran.

http://www.nzz.ch/meinung/uebersicht/mehr-machiavelli-und-weniger-obama-1.18191954

I join the NZZ in their wishes. Looking though the eyes of a Machiavelli what have we learned so far?

1. Western sanctions are more likely to undermine the resolve of the Western alliance than they are likely to break Iranian persistence.
2. The US today prefers a bunch of weak allies over a single reliable one. Here the US secretary of state smiles along with Catherine baroness Ashton representing an utterly powerless EU rather than siding with the prime minister of the most powerful state in the Middle-East, Israel that is.
3. The US' taste for military intervention or even deterrence has degraded over ten years. From the large-scale invasion of Iraq to a half-hearted intervention in Libya, to an imaginary red-line in Syria,now down to John Kerry armed with a sharpened pencil in Geneva.
4. Obama's speech given from the center of sunni Islam in Cairo unexpectedly resonated with the shiite Islamist regime of Iran. Note that Rouhani did not mention Israel at all while "reaching out" with his Washington Post letter. He did however identify sunni radicals of the Al Qaeda type as a common enemy.
5. The idealistic desire of "regime change" or "democratization" is gone. Today the US reverts to signing deals with the most undesirable regimes of Syria and Iran. Realpolitik is the nature of these deals from the Syrian or Iranian perspective but it is helplessness from the American perspective.

Machiavelli would agree when I say there are three great powers in this world: first nature, second human stupidity, third the US military. On sunday Obama surrendered US military to the next greater power.

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