Foreign policy as a wrestling tournament

Gene Lyons has come up with a good image for the Dick Cheney theory of foreign policy: professional wrestling. In Reality not violent enough for neo-cons Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 04/11/07, he writes:

To some people, the themes of international politics are indistinguishable from those of professional wrestling. They see in the relations of nation states a ritualized melodrama of dominance vs. submission, triumph vs. humiliation. To them, every game’s a zero sum game; millions of individual human beings are labeled “good” or “evil.” All conflicts that don’t end violently, end shamefully; compromise equates with cowardice. So it was with the standoff between Great Britain and Iran over 15 Royal Navy sailors taken captive in the Persian Gulf. Ordinary people welcomed their release with happiness and relief. Actually, it’s tempting to say most normal people did. A perilous situation had been resolved without tragedy and without provoking a potentially disastrous war.

The blowhard white-guy crowd was really disappointed that Britain resolved the crisis with Iran over the captured sailors without going to war. Lyons writes:

Disappointment was profound among those clamoring for war with Iran. FOX News pundit William Kristol complained of U. S. passivity. He favored bombing Tehran. So did GOP presidential wannabe Newt Gingrich. He appeared on right-wing talk radio calling for the destruction of Iranian oil refineries and a blockade of the Persian Gulf—potentially doubling the price of oil and throwing the world’s economy into a tailspin.

And for what ? Try to believe even Gingrich said it: To "show the planet that you’re tiny and we’re not."

See, it’s not enough to invade Iran’s neighbors, Afghanistan and Iraq, and to fill the Persian Gulf with U. S. and British warships. Mere reality never suffices. To really make these jokers feel all virile and manly, it’s necessary to kill a lot of people, and strut around the ring with the championship belt raised over their heads.

Maybe they should teach themselves to get their jollies from porno or something less costly in lives than starting wars.

Tags: bush doctrine, gene lyons