US may collapse as a superpower: analyst

[PSPS]

In his latest book, The Mess they Made: the Middle East after Iraq, Gwynne Dyer says there's no doubt that the US will withdraw its troops from Iraq once President George W. Bush leaves office.

But he predicts that already that war has set in motion events that will radically transform not only the Middle East but the role of the United States in the world.

- snip -

ELEANOR HALL: You're certain that all of those will be withdrawn, not just the US troops, but the US subsidies as well?

GWYNNE DYER: Not all and not right away, but enough to create a momentum, in which Congress will be reluctant to vote new funds, Congress will be very suspicious about new commitments to support Arab regimes, and meanwhile the momentum in the streets in the Arab world will be moving very rapidly in the favour of the revolutionaries. And that's what they are, after all, the Islamists, after all, are political revolutionaries, they're not just religious fanatics.

- snip -

ELEANOR HALL: What do you think the odds are though, of the United States attacking Iran?

- snip -

A short but good read at: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2007/s1939849.htm

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Hasn't it already?

[Warpy]

7. All we have left is a shell of nuclear warheads

the interior is rotting away: crumbling infrastructure, vanishing industry, innovation crushed by underfunding, unemployment, and lack of reason to go into debt for education, and the most corrupt ruling class that has been seen since the Roman Empire.

All that's left is the final collapse and the disintegration into smaller states who don't like each other much.

[Erika]

2. W attacking an innocent Muslim country ruined our reputation

And any type of moral superiority we enjoyed. Damn Bush and his enablers.

[Blue_In_AK]

3. It can't come soon enough for me...

I want the U.S. to be like Finland or something. You don't see Finland getting in trouble all over the world. Sounds like a nice life.

[IndianaGreen]

9. "You know the United States is a twelve year old with a shotgun".

A senior Japanese diplomat said to me, last year, he said "You know the United States is a twelve year old with a shotgun". And what he meant was that as the United States begins to suspect that it's past the apogee of its trajectory, its on the way down, as a great power no longer on the way up or at the top securely, that it is becoming extremely erratic, that is lashing out in all sorts of ways to try and slow or stop what it perceives as insipient decline.

So there is concern that we're getting into rather deep water here, that we may be going into an era where the Americans become highly unpredictable and quite dangerous.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2007/s1939849.htm

Gwynne Dyer doesn't mention that the US is being led by a delusional man suffering from a major case of messianic complex, so we can't expect any rational behaviour from the US for as long as Bush is in power.

Empires can collapse quite suddenly, and we may well be living through one such collapse.

[depakid]

20. "an era where the Americans become highly unpredictable and quite dangerous."

We ain't seen nothin' yet.

Wait until the reality of economics and energy sets in hard.

Hopefully, the international community has gotten the message over the past 7 years that America is not- and will not be their friend. A large majority doesn't care one bit about people in other nations- and will support anything they think might preserve their wasteful, unsustainable lifestyles.

[bemildred]

4. And will be much weakened even in the best case scenario.

Not that the last six years give much hope for a best case scenario.

[papau]

5. Superpower means we give our corporations an advantage over other corporations - it does nothing for

real people since those corporations are not loyal to real people and will ship your job out for an extra dime of profit, and screw you and prevent unions that might help you as long as you work for them.

I see little downside to no longer being a super power - heck perhaps then we can get the military budget under control and down to a more normal percentage of our annual GDP.

[Cobalt-60]

19. one of the main reason for the final collapse of great powers

has been the final disconnection of the majority of citizens from the supposed prosperity of their Empire.
When parasites are draining away every drop of the once great nation's economic blood, the game is over.
Whether that is a bunch of fat guys in silk togas or thinner ones in striped suits is unimportant. The effect is the same.
It's like an Ox being exanguinated by ticks.

[BeyondGeography]

6. I don't disagree, but Dyer is only partially coherent here

our departure from Iraq will not be accompanied by any strategic or financial disengagement from the region; our insatiable need for oil precludes that. I do agree with him on the rise of revolutionary regimes in the Middle East, however, and I agree that our misadventure in Iraq has provided and will provide enormous political capital to fundamentalist, anti-American movements.

Dyer is also obviously capable of the occasional gross mistatement:

<Well the Americans actually have never committed troops in the Middle East, never actually fought a war in the Middle East, the United States, before.>

We've never occupied a Middle Eastern country before, but we have fought a war there. Unless he's got another term for the war to expel the Iraqi military from Kuwait.

[ixion]

12. the last 'war' we were in was WW II, IMO...

the rest have been a (rather tragic) series of "police" actions.

[dave_p]

8. Reports of America's death are exaggerated

America's relative power in the world faces decline whichever way you look at it. Bush just made the inevitable transition a bit harder to manage. Washington can cope with the changes that are coming by working intelligently to mould a more secure world, rather than lashing out at those it's going to be living on more equal terms with in future.

Osama's not going to follow the aborted Crusade home from Iraq:

: ... you pull the troops out of the Middle East, and the West is no longer occupying Muslim countries, I think the wind goes out of the sails of that particular (aQ) interpretation.

Hall: There's not a danger that having Islamist republics in the Middle East might inspire terrorism around the world?

Dyer: No, I don't see why, because I mean, once they're in power, what do they need to bother us for?

But there's one word missing: Israel. The Palestinian issue's still there to keep the pot bubbling, and Israel still has its itchy finger on the region's only nuclear arsenal. The US can extricate itself from this mess, but it's going to have to do something about that first.

Interesting comments about Iran:

Dyer: I change in my view from week to week on this, which presumably means they're about 50/50. I mean, the forces are in place, the runways have been lengthened, you know, the extra carriers are in the Gulf.

Hall: And yet there are constant denials from the Bush administration…

Dyer: Well of course there are, but that's what you'd have in this situation, so it means nothing. Could all be bluff, and I hope it is, but if it isn't, then it is imaginable that the Bush administration decides to roll the dice one last time. If they attacked Iran, they would lose, and of course, the Iranians would close the Gulf to the tanker traffic, and so suddenly there's a global economic crisis, and then in two or three months we get America off the hook, somehow and get the Gulf reopened. But by that time, frankly, I think Nato will have broken up, I think the Russians will have decided they'd better make a deal with the Chinese, it would change the look of the chessboard very dramatically.

May we live in interesting times.

[movonne]

10. May collapse...it is well on its way..

[lvx35]

11. It will collapse based on all the lies.

Corruption is corruption. Its rot. It bodes poorly for the system as a whole. Corruption will drag us down. Bullshitocracy will drag us down.

[shrike]

13. Call if the Afghanistan strategy

I mean, Bin Laden and his Mujadeen (and us) outlasted the Soviet Union, and that superpower collapsed. Who's to know if the past and present Mujadeen are waiting it for happen to us.

[reprobate]

16. You DO know who started and funded the Mujahadeen and Bin Laden, don't you?

His name was George Herbert Walker Bush, and he was in charge of the CIA at the time. Since then the Bin Ladens and the Bushes have been inseparable.

IMO it's the Bush family that has been behind All the problems we've faced since JFK. And Bush Sr. was somehow involved in that. He was a CIA operator at the time and drove a car from Miami to Dallas with a truckload of rifles in the company of a female FBI agent.

If we were smart we'd line the entire family up against a wall and then do what comes naturally. After, of course, a trial and conviction. Never let it be said that we oppose justice.

[CJCRANE]

17. Yes, the mujahadeen

came in handy to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Then they were rebranded as Al-Qaeda and used to stir up trouble whenever it seems like global peace and prosperity is about to break out, which of course would be bad for BFEE business. The BFEE is basically the global elite - a bunch of de facto trillionaires who see the whole world as theirs to divide and conquer and who seem to have a lock on the MSM in the English-speaking world.

[TankLV]

14. US may collapse as a superpower - I fervently hope and pray that this comes to pass...

We need to be ONLY ONE AMONG MANY EQUALS - not the neighborhood bully we've become under REPUKE rule...

[LongTomH]

15. Getting out of the superpower business would be..................

............the best thing that could happen to the U.S. Then we could start rebuilding our domestic economy and infrastructure.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. I completely agree

The best course of action would have been not to become a superpower in the first place.

If you're not a superpower, you can enjoy a steady, stable rise in your standard of living, as Canada and the Scandinavian countries have done.

If you're a superpower, there's the temptation to starve your domestic sector (prime case: the Soviet Union) to achieve military supremacy, something that the U.S. has been doing since Reagan, and the decline of a superpower (the Soviet Union, and in earlier times Great Britain and Spain) is a real decline.

[defendandprotect]

21. Neo-con agenda is world domination ---

Is having the nukes enough?

[Demeter]

22. And This Is Bad Why?

If a person or a country or a corporation cannot exercise power responsibly acording to legal and moral strictures, then it should be stripped of that excess power.

[Vidar]

23. For the world's sake, I hope the US reign is ending.