Colleague Stanley Rubin on Sudan, Myanmar
May 15th, 2008 . by MartyMy old pal and Harding Institute cohort Stanley Rubin just bent my ear over a midday Dewars at McCormick & Schmick’s about how we should really be reconsidering our relationship with so-called rogue states like Sudan and Myanmar. In what is fast becoming a return to the polarized Cold War-like era of satellite states and surrogate wars, America needs to compete against China (and yes, Russia) not for resources per se, but for INFLUENCE.
Stanley just got back from a well-heeled fact finding mission as a guest of the Sudanese goverment, and he says that there’s a real willingness for the Sudanese to open avenues to the White House. Frankly, they’re not so crazy about their new found benefactors, the Chinese. Whether it’s a racial thing, or they just can’t figure out how to use chopsticks, they’d rather be bought off by the West than the East. If it weren’t for that pesky Darfur thing and the UN’s mishandling of it all, Stanley assures, we’d have Sudan in our pocket in a heartbeat.
