Monday, February 16, 2015

Menendez and the Demise of American Liberalism. UPDATE: Part 2 with Guiliani

The Middle East Forum
Those who call themselves liberals have been unable or unwilling to name and recognize the affinities between Islamism in its Sunni and Shia variations and deeply reactionary forms of totalitarianism of the twentieth century. Liberalism, which was historically the home of anti-fascism, has, in its predominant currents, ceded that position to centrists and conservatives. 

. . . "He has led the push for deeper sanctions in the perhaps futile hope that economic pressure would lead the Iranians to turn away from the bomb without the need to resort to force.


Sen. Menendez has command of both broad strategic issues and technical details of the negotiations.
"The senator has done so with tact, deep knowledge of the subject and by holding numerous congressional hearings on the subject. In the process, he has earned the respect of senators in both parties because he is formidably well informed and has command of the broad strategic issues as well as the daunting technical details of the negotiations. It is precisely because the President cannot dismiss him as a member of the political opposition that he has been a thorn in the side of the Administration. Yet Menendez has been swimming against the main current of liberalism in the Obama era, one that finds little or no room for the traditions of liberal anti-fascism that were once one of American liberalism's defining features." .  Full article here.

Jeffrey Herf is a professor of History at the University of Maryland-College Park and a fellow at the Middle East Forum. His recent works include: Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World (2009) and The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust (2006).\





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