P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
A nation with a goofy foreign policy needs a very serious policy of defense.
O'Rourke, P. J. Parliament of Whores. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1991, p. 182.
Russia is not the only nation who believed this. There were and are some politicians and military officers in almost every country who believe this. However, for the last few centuries, this has rarely been the view held by the majority of the politicians and military in most nations. And even fewer where the leadership accepted this posiitin. Russia, was one of those counties that did hold this few and kade it policy was in the 2nd decade of 2016,
He was referring to the United States fighting against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan to keep Al Qaeda from attacking the United States easily.
Plan Orange was the code name of the united states plan for possible war with Japan. In this ironic quotation, American military planners realized five years before Pearl Harbor that surprise attack was the major vulnerability. We were surprised and had no help from our intelligence service which despite the recommendations was almost nonexistent.
One difficulty of diplomacy with many Islamic leaders is that the culture produces very aggressive rhetoric and very aggressive actions like Islamic terrorism. This quotation is often cited to demonstrate that it is the Iranians that had decided that America is it’s enemy; that America is to be humbled; and that their weapons development are targeted at America. This along with the most frequent Iranian slogan, “Death to America,” for many argues for preemptive military action or maintenance of a high state of readiness. Given statements like this from the leading soldier of the theocracy, there is little doubt that Iranian nuclear weapons would be a great danger to America. Therefore when Iran complains that America did not object to the fact that other nations have the nuclear bomb, they do not take their own rhetoric into account. No other nation with possible nuclear capability has made America its major military adversity and claims as an objective to humble the United States.
Patrick Jake O'Rourke is an American political satirist and journalist. O'Rourke is the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute and is a regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard, and frequent panelist on National Public Radio's game show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! Since 2011, he has been a columnist at The Daily Beast.
