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Mike Lee and the Need for Discretion in Foreign Policy
Senator Mike Lee of Utah recently got hot over a Trump administration briefing that he saw as disrespectful. According to Lee, when pressed about what exactly the Trump administration needed congressional approval for, the administration responded by saying there were almost no limits. As to legal justification, the administration officials responded, “I’m sure we could think of something.” Well, Senator Lee was mad, as he should be. The power that Congress has ceded to the executive in matters of foreign policy has exceeded the time horizon envisioned in its initial approval of the war on terror. It’s well past time to reign the executive back in.
I’m afraid, however, that Senator Lee in his anger has made an unforced blunder with his bluster. When to speak is as important as what is said, particularly in matters of foreign policy. Right now, Trump is in the middle of a standoff which requires that any threat he makes, either real or implied, be credible. If the Senate or, even worse, a handful of senators even give a hint that they won’t follow through with retaliatory action, mixed messages are sent to Iran. Mixed messages lead to miscalculation, and miscalculation in foreign policy leads to bloodshed.
The Trump administration attempted to deescalate the rising problem of Iranian aggression with deterrent action. Mike Lee out of personal pique is threatening to throw this clear strategy into disarray. It’s past time for the Congress to take back the control afforded to it by the Constitution, but prudence dictates patience.
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No, Its short for “true conservative”…..which is a take on “true Scotsman”…which is a reference to people that enforce purity on another group and anyone thats not 100% pure is trashed.
Anyways, I’m not disagreeing that Rubio lost because of immigration. My point was that your ratings were faulty, because they were based on Trump’s views in a primary, where he supported views that don’t have any chance of becoming reality (in order to win primary votes), rather that stress ideas that are actually doable. But,you can decide if purity is the best approach for achieving anything on immigration.
Only used in the context that President Trump had so far managed to avoid these traps and therefore deliver conservative results.
As to Reagan, his outright amnesty was supposedly in exchange for improved border protection. President Trump seems to have learned that lesson.
Agreed, but don’t say they gave us those things. They didn’t. Or at the very least, they are only partially responsible for them.
You didn’t declare it was unblockable, so it’s ineffective. Also I can’t hear you LA LA LAH LAH LA.
[Sheesh. This guy is childish.]
Reminds me of 2000 and 2004 when I was NeverBush. I had to put up with that nonsense about my (non)choice being a vote for the Democrat, even though I could use math to prove that it wasn’t. So I’m inclined to cut a little slack for some of the NeverTrumpers.
But one of the good things about Trump is that he kept another Bush out of the White House. Talk about your basic unfit-for-office. Trump saved us from it.
I don’t care if Jeb! was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I’m against dynasties.
It’s like Dennis Miller’s phrase about comparing Harry Truman to modern presidents who essentially proclaim that “…the buck never got here.” If Bush thought more taxes were really important and wanted to take responsible for his tax pledge, he shouldn’t have run for re-election.
Now for a source on the ground. From the US Sun:
Emphasis added. It seems my earlier comments on the process were correct.
Yeah, I’m still not sure. They didn’t know it was coming significantly beforehand.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/01/11/middleeast/iran-strike-al-asad-air-base-exclusive-intl/index.html
Looks like they didn’t know exactly what was coming, but were tipped off. I’m not saying early warning systems weren’t important, because they clearly were. I’m saying it was a confluence of Intel and technology.
I had a chance to read that PDF. It’s tremendously interesting. Someone (you) should write a summary of the relevant bits.
That is what I had said, they knew when the missiles launched due to early warning (SBIRS, radar) and triggered appropriate notifications (think air-raid sirens). This occurs within a time span measured in minutes, not hours.
When we look at these things, we tend to break between what we call “Strategic warning” and “Tactical warning”.
Most of the definitions we use for Strategic warning boils down to just about anything that is relatively specific and is outside of tactical warning.
We tend to define “Tactical warning” as the time interval between launch detection and projected impact of a warhead to include projected impact location.