"America Is Building a World Order"

[kskiska]

US foreign policy Critics say it is time for a major rethink

David E Sanger New York Times, August 31

"As President George Bush ended a month-long stay at his ranch ... to return to a world of foreign policy headaches, a question hung in the air: How will he define the word 'tolerate'? Last spring, Mr Bush declared that he would not tolerate a nuclear North Korea. As summer approached, he said he would not tolerate an Iran with nuclear capability. For the better part of the past eight months, he and his aides have said they would not tolerate outside interference in Iraq, nor challenges to the American objective of bringing democracy to the country.

"Mr Bush, who prided himself on the clarity of his warnings to Iraq last autumn ... now favours some strategic ambiguity in defining 'tolerate'. He says he reserves the right to execute Iraq-like pre-emptive military action, but thinks that a slow squeeze, including intercepting North Korean ships at sea, may well do the trick. Iran is a more complex calculation. Unlike North Korea, it has oil revenue and lots of friends. And it has chosen not to go the North Korean route of open defiance of the west ...

(snip)

Alain Touraine El Pais, Spain, September 2

"The US ... is building a world order, prepared by itself and justified only by being at the service of God, so that the US more and more resembles the regimes it threatens ... The Europeans so indecisive, so apathetic - will they ever understand that they must oppose the American crusade, create a distinct relationship with the Islamic countries, and impose a return to multilateralism, after this warrior episode of US policy, which may end like Napoleon's expedition to Russia?"

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1034443,00.html

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Impossible to build a world order

when your own foundation is shaky. It can't be done without betraying the very American freedoms that Bush claims our enemies hate us for.

[zonmoy]

2. actually

considering that the world order that they are building is coming from the same forces that funded and set up hitler Do you honestly think that their order has any room for any part of the bill of rights.

[ddoumeche]

3. What do you mean by world order ?

When Rome built its empire, it achieved it via some military expedition, but mostly by build roads, and the introduction of currencies and cultures.
So did the British empire (despise its failure in China) and the USA in 1945. Rooselvet rebuild Europe and Japan via the Marshall plan, thus establishing the dollard as the worldwide currency and maritimes roads. Clinton managed the empire correctly during its mandate, but prepared the trend. Well, not him but the whole system.

The trend in question is indeed a new World order, aka the deconstruction of this Empire, accelerated by the Bushteam :
- Biggest European players are heading their own way, and UK will likely follow by disgust of Blair and the US leadership. Other nations will do the same, and not only in Europe (remember Canada and Mexico position at the UNSC ?)
- the 5 cents question : does Iraq worth losing key allies in the world ? if the answer is not, it means than the US influence is extremly dimished.
- the dollard is heading to a major crisis, as the Euro is replacing it (watch excange rate) *and* China alone possessing 50% of dollard currency in Asian. It means than they can control dollard rate easily and its position is very weak.
- now, the US don't export anymore but import at an accelerated rate since compagnies move their jobs to foreign countries. It means than the industrial base is dying and will be unable to produce innovations for consumers in the future.
- the economical crisis created by a stupid management (as Krugman notice, with a 500bn$ deficit, you create 10 millions jobs) will accelerate thoses trends.
- it's Japan, South-Korea and China who build Asia, European who build Central Europe.
- And as Charles Kupchan noticed, "at the moment is that Empire Lite might become Empire Heavy and rather than reassure others, we'll alienate them." And that's why the neocons, stucked in their cold war mentality, fail to understand. By trying to rule the world by military migth, they increase the chaos. And this is the most dangerous part because it may finish in a national tragedy.

So, the centers of decisions will move outside the US. And if Washington don't listen to them, it will get more and more isolated.
Democrats may slow down the trend, but not halt it.
It's not so suprising : the world is rebuilt, and it don't need another superpower to protect it from USSR.

[ddoumeche]

4. Post Scriptum...

It doesn't not mean than the US will head to another Great Depression, vanish or than Gates to Hell will open in Arkansas.
It just mean than the US place in the world will be rebalanced, as it is since Vietnam war which is the beginning of this decline.

For thoses who don't believe than Clinton prepared Bush, remember than he :
- supports Bush policy in Middle-East
- supports Wesley Clark candidate for 2004 elections (typical Gop, imho)
- avoided the UN during the kosovo war and than Balkans are still an unmanaged mess
- selected Richard Holbrooke and the other old bitch as ambassadors.
- didn't agree with the ICC or the Kyoto agreements but signed the first one the 31 december 2000 for political agenda.
- failed to convince Israel to withdraw from settlements.
- launched the NMD tests, the F-35 and the stryker.
- bombed Iraq during MonicaGate despise knowing than there was no WMD left (Operation Desert Fox, with UK as the second knife as usual).

Bush is just the incompetent face of Clinton, badly elected (if Gore had won, people would have say he was badly elected too), but able to do his own mistakes (and big ones).