Iran versus Saudi Arabia: quite. (But Saudi Arabia will never, ever be named a "rogue nation", or a member of the "axis of evil", even if, say, footage of every genuinenly influential prince in the House of Saud personally attending a stoning would be broadcast on CNN, and we all know why.)
The most famous example of "our man in x, right or wrong" would be Saddam Hussein, wouldn't it? I seem to recall our papers quoting Rumsfeld (back when he was in the Reagan administration) re: Saddam during the Iran/Iraq-War and the use of poison gas, "he may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch". (Though I've also seen that quote attributed to Alexander Hague about Noriega.)
On the brighter side: I really think there is a lot of potential for change here. Not overnight, but the fact that Americans would vote for a man who had a Muslim father, spent his first decade in a Muslim country like Indonesia and had "Hussein" as his middle name really left an impression, at least in the Turkish papers here in Germany (the Turks being our biggest Muslim minority) and in the Egyptian papers I've seen quoted from. It's a show, not tell way to prove that Americans as a people aren't the bigots they've been presented as by the local propaganda (which exists in additon to Republican realities). So there should be potentially more people ready to listen to what an Obama goverment has to say. (And perhaps, if we're lucky, less undecideds willing to be swayed to travel to Pakistan or Afghanistan and enlist with Al Quaida.)
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Date: 2008-11-08 09:51 am (UTC)The most famous example of "our man in x, right or wrong" would be Saddam Hussein, wouldn't it? I seem to recall our papers quoting Rumsfeld (back when he was in the Reagan administration) re: Saddam during the Iran/Iraq-War and the use of poison gas, "he may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch". (Though I've also seen that quote attributed to Alexander Hague about Noriega.)
On the brighter side: I really think there is a lot of potential for change here. Not overnight, but the fact that Americans would vote for a man who had a Muslim father, spent his first decade in a Muslim country like Indonesia and had "Hussein" as his middle name really left an impression, at least in the Turkish papers here in Germany (the Turks being our biggest Muslim minority) and in the Egyptian papers I've seen quoted from. It's a show, not tell way to prove that Americans as a people aren't the bigots they've been presented as by the local propaganda (which exists in additon to Republican realities). So there should be potentially more people ready to listen to what an Obama goverment has to say. (And perhaps, if we're lucky, less undecideds willing to be swayed to travel to Pakistan or Afghanistan and enlist with Al Quaida.)