Yesterday, Pat Buchanan wrote an article that basically boils down to isolationism. North Korea, Iran, so on and so forth, are not primarily our problem, let China, Israel, Japan, so on and so forth, handle it since no one wants to help or work with us. It is of course tempting. Would it work though? I tend to think it would not. Our commitments to Japan and Taiwan aside, the last time we tried isolationism, Europe ended up in World War II, Japan bombed us, and we ended up fighting in both hemispheres. That is not a history I would describe as a particularly successful attempt at letting others handle their own problems. On the other hand, our own record of success is not too great either. While we did essentially end World War I and World War II, we also set up Iraq, which we now had to take apart and are putting back together again. We failed in Vietnam, and North Korea is not exactly going "well," now is it? Lets not mention dropping the ball in China back at the end of World War II, or Cuba back when we had a chance to buy it. Just think of all the problems both might have saved. I asked Vincas what he thinks of this article yesterday, and more or less got a non-answer, I think because he had to leave for work. I should ask Ederlyn and Joe about it.
