university press of kentucky peace out of reach middle eastern travels and the search for reconciliation jun 2007

[...]... In the eyes of the world, the foreign policy of the Bush administration increasingly resembles that of a corporate thug—half obsessed with power and half paranoid at the thought of that power being challenged This has led to erosion of the international support for the United States following the 9/11 attacks Style counts in foreign affairs The international commu7 PEACE OUT OF REACH nity views the. .. Introducing the need for a different approach is the purpose behind Peace Out of Reach As in so many other fields of inquiry, however, the general interpretation of foreign policy has made way for empirical and relatively technical works dedicated to examining the crisis of the moment This trend has had a debilitating impact on public discussion and the development of a strategic intelligence among the citizenry... connection between the ends they seek and the means they use to realize them The idea that the end justifies the means has always rested on casuistry It only begs the question of what justifies the end, and to this question, there can be only one answer: the means used to achieve it Neoconservatives like to claim that the democratic Iraq of the future will justify the sacrifices made in the present Of course,... terms of the sacrifices made by the citizens of Afghanistan and those of the United States, it is necessary to highlight the importance that should have been attached to the reconstruction of Afghanistan.6 Even after Kabul fell, the United States still possessed the moral high ground Its demand for justice, for the prosecution of Osama bin Laden and his band of criminals, was accompanied by promises of. .. once the sun went down There were goods in the stores, schools were functioning, and the streets were safe Women had entered the social mainstream, the religious attended their mosques, and all raised their families Life under Saddam Hussein was anything but pleasant, but despite the fear of the police and loathing of the government, people went about their business None of this, of course, is the case... apology for dictators and aiding Islamic fascism None of us played the role of what Lenin termed the “useful idiot,” and we never romanticized the “other” in the manner of days gone by Our statements, in fact, expressed dismay over the constriction of civil liberties and sharp criticisms of the authoritarian states we visited Our explicit aims were to help correct the misinformation generated by the American... a kind of unsatisfying foreplay that, form dictates, must occur prior to the real thing: the preemptive strike Of course, it’s not as if the Democratic Party has developed much of an alternative in foreign affairs Most of its major representatives are equally culpable for the resentment of the world community, given their support of an ill-defined war on terror and the invasion of Iraq Nevertheless,... anti-Semitism, and fear of the Enlightenment legacy It is concerned with curbing unbridled ambitions and inhibiting those passions associated with 9 PEACE OUT OF REACH intolerance and violence That is possible only by recognizing the limits of power and resisting the attempts—as one Bush of cial so delicately put it—to “make reality” as the reigning superpower and its allies see fit Peace Out of Reach calls... organically rather than through the intrusion of nations with new imperialist ambitions and of cials virtually bereft of knowledge about the societies they wish to transform Citizen diplomacy can prove useful in this regard Building bridges and creating linkages between those with similar values on both sides of the divide is, in my view, the task of the cosmopolitan in a post-9/11 world Peace Out of Reach. .. secret diplomacy outside the public purview That changed irrevocably not only because of the 5 PEACE OUT OF REACH American defeat in Vietnam, which left a lasting imprint on my generation, but also because of the advent of the Internet and the possibility of a genuinely global exchange of information The “war on terror” has also shown that large-scale undertakings in foreign policy demand more than a . alt="" Peace Out of Reach This page intentionally left blank Peace Out of Reach Middle Eastern Travels and the Search for Reconciliation Stephen Eric Bronner THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Publication. Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All. Data Bronner, Stephen Eric, 1949- Peace out of reach : Middle Eastern travels and the search for reconciliation / Stephen Eric Bronner. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8131-2446-9