That's one of the better analyses I have seen of the situation, Robert.
Thank you!
Do you think the Bush administration is doing any of the long term
planning you allude to, in addition to the "quick" action of
forcing a regime change?
I think their time horizon is no more than ten years, although Vice
President Cheney's daughter is running a low budget operation that has
longer term goals. But I think her operation (education, rights for
women, and so forth) is funded as yet another weapon against the
Saudis and such, although she herself may well be sincere and far
sighted.
If the time horizon for the Bush administration were more than ten
years, the administration would not be recommending its tax cut and
other financial policies: clearly, over time, these policies mean
that Bush donors pay fewer taxes -- that favors the Bush
administration; but as a side effect they also destroy the US economy
and the US government's ability to influence others.
The deficits mean that more money goes to government borrowing and
less to private investment. The country grows more slowly; it has a
harder time paying for social security and the military, not to
mention homeland security.
Deficits mean that over time the US government has less to work with.
In the early 1990s, for example, the US lost a major opportunity in
dealing with Russia: the government simply did not have the hundred
billion or so extra dollars that would have been needed to help
rebuild the place after 70 years of Communism. The Reagan
administration's deficit spending was simply too high; by the time
Bush and Clinton became presidents, they lacked funds. (Yes, the
government could have borrowed another hundred billion or so -- but
politically, that would have been difficult, and no one did.)
The administrations did the best they could, but no one was willing to
say `we will purchase 20,000 of your nuclear weapons for one million
dollars each' -- an action that would have improved our security and
provided funds to a poverty stricken Russia (as well as huge bribes to
former Soviet wheeler-dealers). I was told by someone who worked in
the Treasury that those who thought the US had undue influence on the
World Bank and the IMF were fools: `we don't have the money to buy the
influence we would like to have'.)
So I don't think the time horizon is more than ten years. Perhaps it
is less. (The Bush administration recently cut its forecasts from ten
to five years, but I don't think that has anything to do with their
time horizon; I think the administration is embarrassed at the size of
the deficit -- a government deficit is an unRepublican activity.)
... If so, I can't understand Bush's speech warning N. Korea and
Iran that they were next. It seems that both states started
accelerating their nuclear weapons development when they heard
they were next. Why warn them?
I don't think those two countries accelerated them. The Iranians have
been trying to persuade the Russians to finish a nuclear reactor for
them for years. The Russians agreed just recently.
The North Koreans come across to me as having read the same books as I
have on games theory, brinkmanship, and what Nixon and Kissinger did;
they are repeating their hitherto successful `crazy, fearsome,
cripple' ploy right now because the US is distracted by Iraq, and
therefore the North Koreans' negotiation position is stronger.
Of course, it may be that the North Koreans are misjudging President
Bush the same way the Argentine military leaders misjudged British
Prime Minister Thatcher before the Falkland Islands war. They thought
she would make a few speeches, and surrender the islands. They were
wrong. If the North Koreans are equally wrong about Bush, many people
could get killed.
Also, why do you think the situation seems so important to the French?
First, I think the French are as afraid of terrorists as the US; they
do not want the US to waste itself; and they do not want to attract
attention.
Second, the French are much more dependent on Middle Eastern oil than
the US -- you refer to this as `a little oil price volatility' -- but
supply interruptions could well lead to more damage to France and the
rest of Europe than to the US, and to changes of government.
Third, as the EU expands, and when Germany regains economic dominance,
the members of the French elite see themselves as losing what little
power they now have. A US win in Iraq not means French loss of
contracts with the current Iraqi government, but it means the US
becomes the major Middle Eastern hegemonist.
You and I may not care about power or a `little bit of ego' but for
people who scrabble for power, which is to say, for many senior people
in government, the loss of it is defeat.
Fourth, suppose the French are correct in their assessment.\? If they
act on their assessment, and if the US loses (perhaps by having to
fight a messy urban battle in Bagdad, or by having to deal with a
radiological bomb near the British Houses of Parliamen), then people
in other governments will decide that the people in the US government
made a stupid decision and the people in the French government made a
smart one.
--
Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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