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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (2230)	10/12/2000 9:13:22 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10042

The Palestinians are obviously not going to be pacified by the benefits of trade, since they have no country and nothing to trade. That situation is ugly, and will get uglier. What the benefits of trade and engagement have done, and will continue to do, is make it far less likely that other Arab states will make any unified or effective move to support the Palestinians. We are likely to see very soon, but I really don't expect that they will be able to use the oil card effectively, or that they will make more than a nominal effort to do so. Self-interest has a place in the middle east, as everywhere, and 20 years of prosperity greatly reduces the appeal of martyrdom. Do you really think the Saudis and the Kuwaitis are going to stop shipping oil to the US because Israelis are being nasty to Palestinians? Remember that they know full well that if the US withdraws its forces from the middle east there is nothing at all to stop Iraq from re-arming and threatening them again. I don't think it's likely. I will agree that China would have to transport their oil just as we do. But what if India opts to throw their hand in with the Chinese, or at least remain neutral to their vessels, while hostile to US prescence? That's the role I believe the Indians are putting themselves in a position to by their arm deals with the Russians. This deal includes a used aircraft carrier and hundreds of their most sophisticated tanks, AS WELL AS A LICENSE for the Indians to build them in India. So we stop their tankers outside Indian waters. Unless we completely antagonize everybody else in the world (which we could do, if we get a bunch of cold war dinosaurs making foreign policy) and lose all basing rights outside the US, we could do this without difficulty. It could be done even without foreign bases, with more trouble and expense. Do you really see India's acquisition of a second-hand Russian carrier as a threat to the US fleet? How does India's acquisition of Russian tanks threaten us? Pakistan, yes, but the US? I really see over the next 10 years, other nations forming alliances to oppose our influence and economic power in order to buy themselves time to play "catch up". I think that depends largely on us. Other countries will seek influence and economic power, as is their right. If we take the position that this is a threat to us, and treat them as potential enemies, then yes, they will ally against us. If we take the position that any gain in prosperity anywhere is in our interest (which it is - prosperous people buy our goods and are less likely to make a mess) and do everything we can to help others along the road to prosperity, we will make more friends than enemies.