Convenient Friends, and Certain Allies

The United States' diplomacy and international entanglements has not enjoyed a good week. They do deserve a break, but it doesn't seem likely one will eventuate any time soon. Trouble at home, trouble on the international stage. Life's no blast of late.

First U.S. vice-President Joe Biden, in the Middle East to assure America's great good friends, Israel and the Palestinian Authority that the U.S. stands steadfast on behalf of both their futures, and ungracious Israel smacks him in the face with a smelly herring on East Jerusalem. And then U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gibbs is unpleasantly surprised with a 'ships-passing' slight by the presence of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad before Mr. Gibbs has even left Afghanistan.

That's what happens, one supposes, when you're the world's undisputed super-power, and still you're refused the respect that should be accorded in reflection of your stature and unreserved dedication to assisting the world out of its smelly, messy stomped on cow-pies.

It's kind of difficult to figure out which is the most insultingly assaultive; Israel's carelessness in ensuring a little face-saving kindness on behalf of their long-time mentor and friend, or Afghanistan's airy dismissiveness of its obligations toward the country providing major assistance it requires to ensure its longevity. But Hamid Karzai has in the past, lest we need reminding, remarked on what a great good friend Afghanistan has in Iran.

That Iran just incidentally provides assistance to the Taliban in the form of weaponry the better to ensure that the heartily-detested "Great Satan" suffers as many casualties and deaths as possible through increasingly-sophisticated IED devices, is a tad inconvenient, but easily overlooked withal, because neighbours are neighbours after all, and the U.S. and its western allies will eventually leave.

Canada's and the U.S.'s grave differences with the Islamist Republic of Iran did nothing to stop Hamid Karzai from travelling to both countries, begging cap in hand, to grovel with thanks at the sacrifices Western countries are making to stabilize his poverty-stricken and war-riven country. Being allies obviously never means having to prove you're worth the trouble; simple 'thanks, pals' does the trick.

And isn't it a blast that the very Taliban that the allies are helping the struggling Afghan Police Force and the Afghan Military to defeat, are the very same Islamists whose fanaticism held Afghanistan in thrall for years in fundamentalist misery, yet this same President Karzai finds it now convenient to overlook the atrocities committed in their zeal to retake the country, and to invite them to join him in an (unholy) coalition of like-minded nationals?

So Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was heartily embraced as a brother - as indeed he most assuredly is; a brother in Islam at the very least - and given the splendid opportunity to speak from a pulpit in Afghanistan decrying the presence of the U.S. and Canada and other NATO troops far from their homes where they have no business being: "What are you even doing in this area? You are from 10,000 km over there. Your country is on the other side of the world. What are you doing here?"

Doing here? Why attempting to dissuade al-Qaeda from the belief that they will ever find permanent haven anywhere in the world, from whence they may once again launch a well-organized surprise for those whom they most detest in the world; although truth to tell jihadis detest a whole lot of diverse, un-Islamist groups.