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Along with the confirmation bias inducing admissions of what was really going on with regards to US policy and involvement in the middle east and how ideologically Zionist it has always been, the piece is very interesting. One can imagine that the Foreign Affairs Policy Board meetings have been getting heated for Kagan to want to publish this.
But taking the article at face value, Kagan seems to be wanting to have things both ways when he says:
Well, how is it America First then? I understand the label insofar as it can represent the 'populist strongman' stereotype of an authoritarian coming in like a wrecking ball to 'make things right' by cutting through all the nonsense and getting things done, or whatever. But why would such an 'America First' person feel the need to consult only with Israel at the cost of everything else? Throughout decades of foreign occupations, countless lives lost and trillions down the drain, the common denominator has not been 'America First' but Zionism.
The stalwarts of neo-conservatism might imagine that their interventions were prim and proper, but it's precisely those interventions and the negative fallout that has burnt through all the necessary political power around themselves and their allies so that they can continue on enacting and supporting this type of 'US' foreign policy.
To put a lighthearted spin on it, imagine a trolley problem. The trolley has already driven through millions of innocents. Cutting them to bits and causing excruciating torturous deaths, and it's about to drive over another undetermined amount of innocents. Kagan is here to tell us that the real problem is not the mass murder of innocents in service of US's ideological commitment to Zionism, but the authoritarianism and vulgarity by which the current operator is handling the lever. At no point do we consider directing the trolley somewhere else.
As someone who has made a conscious effort to maintain some a presence on both sides of a wide cultural gulf I don't think I've seen any event since Covid that made the different algorithmic/media bubbles that people exist in more apparent than current conflict with Iran.
If you exist in a liberal oriented media bubble that includes publications like The Atlantic everyone in your feed is talking about how this came out of nowhere, how there is no plan, how Trump has betrayed MAGA principles for Zionist interests and as a result the GOP is surely going to get creamed in the mid-terms.
If you exist in a more conservative or internationalist oriented media bubble everyone in your feed is talking about how striking Venezuela and Iran props up the petro-dollar and deprives rivals like China of cheap fuel.
I'm not sure if that's a high enough resolution look at the situation. There are a lot of media bubbles. Many arrive at similar conclusions for a wide variety of reasons.
As an example, it seems a lot of people have a hard time understanding how cutting China off from Iranian or Venezuelan oil is a big geopolitical victory for the US when China is already buying most of its oil from Russia and is increasing those imports in response to current events. Russia being a country that is in a rather obvious geopolitical dispute with the EU and the US over Ukraine.
Russia selling more of its oil and gas to China effectively circumvents the sanction efforts of the EU and US. If the goal prior was to pressure Russia through sanctions then disrupting the oil market was probably the worst move possible if those disruptions alleviate pressure off of Russia.
It's even worse when we account for the bind Europe has put itself in with their own global warming minded energy reforms and how heavily the sanctions against Russia are affecting them in tandem.
So we arrive at a point of convergence. PWC Liberal World Order folks of all stripes in the US and EU want to uphold that order and punish Russia for disrupting it. Nativist Right wingers in the US and EU wanted less foreign wars for various reasons. Well, here we have a foreign war that aggravates all parties. I don't think that earmarking all of them as being trapped in a liberal oriented bubble is a very illuminating effort.
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From a Bayesian perspective, there is strong evidence that Trump really likes Jews and is not a great long term thinker. Hegseth's record does not inspire confidence either.
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Meanwhile, in an example of horseshoe theory, in my far-right-oriented "media bubble," almost everyone in my feed is talking about "how there is no plan, how Trump has betrayed MAGA principles for Zionist interests and as a result the GOP is surely going to get creamed in the mid-terms."
Not so much the "this came out of nowhere" part, though, because a lot of them are gloating about they've been saying since his first term that Trump is just containment, there to prevent a real pro-White candidate from emerging; that he pretends to be for the American people, but he's actually just another ZOG puppet; that the only surprise here is that it took something this blatant for people to start waking up to the obvious truth (that they've seen all along) that Trump is the top shabbos goy for International Jewry; and that they've once again been vindicated in believing that nothing will change until we get a Leader who truly understands the Jewish Question and how to finally solve it…
God damn, these Jew guys sound incredible. How do I get on their team?
Gonna cost you a foreskin as down payment
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Conservatives are also now all on the same page about the existence of a 47-year-long war with Iran. That that piece of propaganda worked is what surprised me the most.
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