Posted by Sigismund on March 28, 2009, at 3:06:28
In reply to Re: Obama and stuff » Sigismund, posted by Garnet71 on March 27, 2009, at 22:46:18
Foreign policy requires wisdom, one ingredient of which should be credibility. Obama has that. He sounds like he is talking about this world. Anything can go wrong in diplomacy, but he has been real and generous. The rest of the world though may see things through the history they have experienced.
The Saudis amaze me. All that kitsch you mention, and indeed I read that in the redevelopment of Mecca, when the Prophet's house was due to be bulldozed, the greatest dispensation that could be gained by a Saudi archeologist was to have a stay of demolition for something like a month until the building could be properly recorded.
In India Islam and Hinduism eventually came to an accommodation, where Sufi Islam became a tolerant and interesting faith. So much has been lost by the spread of fundamentalism.....petrodollar Wahabiism. The Middle East from Pakistan to the Mediterranean has been ethnically cleansed in the last 100 years.
poster:Sigismund
thread:887302
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20090221/msgs/887357.html