George Soros and Charles Koch are joining to finance a new foreign-policy think tank in Washington D.C., reports the Boston Globe. The claim is that it will promote an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing.
It will be called the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who in a seminal speech on Independence Day in 1821 declared that the United States “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” The Quincy Institute will promote a foreign policy based on this live-and-let-live principle, says The Globe.
The Globe adds:
This is a radical notion in Washington, where every major think tank promotes some variant of neocon militarism or liberal interventionism. Soros and Koch are uniting to revive the fading vision of a peaceable United States…In concrete terms, this means the Quincy Institute will likely advocate a withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and Syria; a return to the nuclear deal with Iran; less confrontational approaches to Russia and China; an end to regime-change campaigns against Venezuela and Cuba; and sharp reductions in the defense budget.
Of course, we will have to see if the Institute sticks to the principle of advocating for a foreign policy of live-and-let-live. If it does, it will be one of the most important institutes created in at least the first quarter of the 21st century and be an important part of the Charles Koch legacy. But you have to wonder. Doesn’t his partner in this venture, Soros, finance a lot of revolutions and take sides all over the damn planet? He is almost the anti-Quincy.
One wonders how Justin Raimondo, who passed just four days ago, would have reacted. In one of his last pieces, he wrote:
Charles Koch wants to be liked. Denounced by Senator Harry Reid as the reincarnation of the 19th century robber barons, demonised by the left as a symbol of heartless greed, a despoiler of the environment, and the financier of all things reactionary, the Kansas billionaire has embarked on a campaign to remake his image and redeem the family name. While the well-financed network of political action groups and thinktanks he generously supports are still working on behalf of his libertarian beliefs, Charles is determined to prove that he’s a Good Samaritan as well as a political ideologue: the list of good works stretches from agitating for criminal justice reform to giving generously to the arts and sciences, ramping up his contributions by many millions of dollars.
Now, we can add co-live and let live advocate with a funder of decidedly non-live and let live color revolutions. Justin probably hasn’t even had time to settle in his grave and Charles must have him spinning already.
Up to this point, the message of a live-and-let-live foreign policy has been delivered heroically by Justin’s (with Eric Garris) antiwar.com and by a second lone voice The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, with no backing from Charles at either organization. Both are dependent on the support of individual donors who want to hear Antiwar.com and Ron Paul and his staff deliver into a fierce warmongering wind the message of the beauty of peace and prosperity.
Qi will have to prove itself via its positions across a spectrum of wars and interventions before it can be considered anywhere near the pure anti-interventionist advocacy of Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute.
A good start might be for Qi to put out a paper analyzing the problems with color revolutions as a means to a live and let live approach.
That won’t happen, of course.
To me, it looks like Qi is just a way to position against Trump rather than real opposition to war. As Justin reported in the above-mentioned paper:
While the left characterises Koch – it’s Charles who’s the political one, while brother David is much less ideological – as the George Soros of the right, the Washington Post reports that the Koch network is now open to working with Democrats “in areas where they agree.”…what might be described as Koch’s “left turn” is in large part seemingly motivated by the rise of Trump and Trumpism within the Republican party.
Both Charles and George see the hated Trump’s crude and bullying style a weakness that they can exploit by calling for “statecraft.” When in fact what is really going on is Deep Statecraft.
Once Trump is out of the picture, the “exceptions” to diplomacy and live and let live are likely to explode at Qi.
Reprinted with permission from Target Liberty.
