Beyond the Water's Edge: How Partisanship Corrupts U.S. Foreign Policy w/ Paul R. Pillar

NOTE: Record 5/29; Released 8/2/24; subject matters deal with history as well as current events that are still unraveling before us now; also Producer's Credits on this episode were recorded in July so if you are a new $10 or above tier subscriber on Patreon you'll hear your producer's credit on the next episode.

On this edition of Parallax Views, Paul R. Pillar, a 28-year veteran of the CIA and a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, returns to discuss his incredibly interesting book, Beyond the Water's Edge: How Partisanship Corrupts U.S. Foreign Policy. You're probably thinking that's an incredibly academic title that indicates a rather dry survey of how Republicans and Democrats have handled U.S. foreign policy over the years in ways that were more driven by ideological concerns rather than National Security interests. But while Pillar's book is a scholarly examination of those issues, one should not mistake the book for being a boring look at these matters. Which is to say that Pillar exposes all kinds of skullduggery related to how political partisans, especially on the Republican side of the spectrum but also encompassing the Democratic Party as well, when it's come to U.S. foreign policy over the years. Case in point: there's an entire section on the October Surprise. For those unfamiliar the October Surprise was an alleged plot by the Ronald Reagan campaign to pay of the Iranians to not release the hostages of the Iran hostage crisis until after the election in order to sabotage Jimmy Carter's reelection chances. Paul and I will cover that as well as skullduggery related to Richard Nixon and the Vietnam war. And by the end of the conversation, we'll delve into the ideological underpinning of the neoconservatives that made up the George W. Bush administration and pushed America into the Iraq War. Additionally, we'll discuss Donald Trump, Russiagate, George HW Bush's showdown with AIPAC on Israel, how Wilson and FDR dealt with WWI and WWII, Israel/Palestine, and a number of other issues. I won't give away all the subjects we cover because this is one you really just need to listen to.