It’s Friday (everywhere but the West Coast)…
"The great democratic crusade undertaken by this administration is going far better than most observers will admit. That’s the good news. The bad news is a development more troubling than most observers recognize: signs of the emergence, for the first time since the fall of the Soviet empire, of an anti-American bloc anchored by Great Powers."
Now go read the rest of Krauthammer. (WaPo reg. required)
Krauthammer suggests that China and Russia are aligning themselves to encourage and support mischief against the US by smaller states like Iran (much like the old Soviets). China has done precious little to reign in its client, North Korea. Bill Gertz considers China a major threat (author of THE CHINA THREAT). The US policy seems to be: make China’s population over-exposed to American capitalism, American media and American freedom and presumably plant seeds of a transformation from within. This sounds like Jimmy Carter’s plan for dealing with the Soviets. I prefer Reagan’s way.
Just like the full court press Reagan put on the USSR, China needs to be confronted on all fronts — its protected currency needs to trade on the international market, its exports to the US need to be tied to reciprocity, the National Sales tax needs to replace the federal income tax so as to force imports from China (and elsewhere) to be taxed and contribute to the treasury, alliances with South Korea and Japan need to be expanded to more countries with a greater US navy presence and joint military exercises, and Chinese obstacles to freedom need to be publicly reported and condemned.
While this is going on, we can give the left their talking points from the 80s (as they have no fidelity to history or the lessons to be learned from it); they’ll tell us that confrontations will make the communists mad at us and will destabilize the world, and that the only way to have peace is to unilaterally disarm. China is a polite-faced menace that will only grow more menacing over time.
Obviously the US hands are full in Iraq. But Iraq is the opportunity to begin a long range build-up of the navy, a forging of anti-terrorist (& military) ties with Asia, and a continued denouncing of threats to freedom by China cronies Iran & North Korea.