Don't know how you could say Iraq has been a democracy for a year since they just held an election, there is no governing body yet, no constitution and the participation level of the Sunnis has yet to be determined. Civil war could still break out, and Iran remains a player.
Afghanistan is looking better, but the opium business tends to perpetuate the warlord/tribal territorial private militia kind of behavior there.
As for the US being the worlds largest consumer, we are so far in debt that we have precious little left to buy with, or haven't you noticed the drastic measures going on in the consumer world to keep selling stuff, signs of a top in housing, wages not keeping up with inflation, the shift of foreign central banks to holding euros instead of dollars, chinese officials saying they have lost faith in the dollar. The world is buying $2B worth of US treasuries per DAY to keep us on this buying binge. When a few key players decide they aren't getting a fair return for the risk they are taking, it's good bye dollar. Sure, there's alot of politics to it, but since this administration doesn't listen to and doesn't much care what the rest of the world has to say to us (the US didn't even ATTEND the world economic conference in Davos last week), I don't see it all ending well. |
