(July 25, 2015 at 6:51 am)abaris Wrote:(July 25, 2015 at 5:48 am)Crossless1 Wrote: And unfortunately, we -- our "leaders" and the electorate at large -- are piss poor at Realpolitik, which is a strange and potentially dangerous disability for a nation as significant in world affairs as the U.S. I suppose our lack of finesse at playing the game has to do with our toxic 24-hour news cycle where everything is react, react, react!. Regimes like Iran (and China, to take another example) can play the long game because people aren't constantly running for re-election.
Iran is one of the select few Islamic countries that have elections. The problem is rather that the Mullahs must approve of the candidates before they're allowed to run.
As for the US, personally I think, the biggest problem is politics being a commodity with candidates for sale to the highest bidder. That way Eisennhower's dire warning of 1961 became a reality. The military industrial complex is one of the strongest donators. And they certainly aren't interested in anything resembling peace. It's bad for business.
As regards Iranian elections, you're quite right. I guess I was thinking of elections in which the candidates weren't figureheads simply doing the bidding of entrenched interests. You know, elections like in the U.S.
Oh, wait . . .
