Foreign Policy Oscar Nominations

This post is based on an article in foreignpolicy.com's Passport blog, asking for Oscar nominations based on foreign policy in 2009. Here are mine. I left out the costume nominations, since I couldn't think of anything.

Best Picture: "Engagement." An inexperienced minor politician suddenly becomes leader of the free world after an unlikely campaign. His utter cluelessness about foreign policy, and his massive ego lead him to believe that he can talk his enemies into being his friends. Equally funny & disturbing at the same time.

Best Drama: "Rogue State." A third-rate country led by a cabal of religious fanatics works to develop nuclear weapons, while supporting terrorism, and conducting a vicious repression of dissent amongst their own population. Despite their weakness, they cleverly exploit the stupidity and desire for peace of their far more powerful adversaries, who lack the will to act in their own interests.

Best Comedy:  "Pirate Power." The nations of the world inexplicably forget over 2000 years of lessons on how to combat piracy, letting pirates rampage at will, and refusing to effectively utilize their massive naval power. Pirates get caught and then released!

Best Romantic Comedy: "Pander Bear Goes to Cairo." You'll laugh hysterically at the naivete of Pander Bear as he goes to Cairo to woo people who hate him, believing that the power of  his words will actually convert deep-seated hatred into love. 

Best Romantic Drama: "China Desire." The tortured relationship of lovers drawn together by a shared desire for wealth and success, yet kept apart by fundamental differences in character.

Best Action: "Death From the Sky." Shadowy terrorist leaders from different organizations are themselves terrorized by robotic, missile-firing drones that hunt them down, killing them and anyone who happens to be near them.

Best Special Effects: "Death From the Sky." For the drones.

Best Director: The Iranian mullahs in "Rogue State," for successfully preventing effective action by far more powerful states, and for actually convincing gullible idiots that they really aren't working on nuclear weapons.

Best Actor: Barack Obama, for "Engagement," for his amazing performance as a clueless neophyte thrust into a position of world leadership.

Best Actress: Nancy Pelosi for "Engagement." Nancy nails her role as the obnoxious, overbearing chief of the leader's domestic power base. As he bumbles and stumbles abroad, her incredibly aggressive partisan tactics help undermine him at home.

Best Supporting Actress: "Hillary Clinton for "Engagement." Hillary plays an older, wiser advisor who really knows better, but who cynically helps direct her leader's naive and ineffective policies.

Best Supporting Actor: Robert Gibbs for "Engagement." When his leader isn't doing the speaking, Gibbs speaks for him, doing a stellar job of making him seem even more feckless and out of touch than he already is.

Lifetime Achievement Award: Fidel Castro, for retaining an iron grip on power through communist tyranny, yet remaining a heroic figure to ignorant America-bashing leftists like Michael Moore.