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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (16774)	1/18/2002 7:05:14 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Nadine Carroll; Re: "Power abhors a vacuum. If we leave, who comes in?" No one, hopefully. But if Europe comes in, I don't see the problem. Russia and China are becoming more and more like us, I don't see them as rivals, but yeah, China and Russia are just dying to get their soldiers stationed in Saudi Arabia. Hey, that's a new idea, atheistic China allied with Islamic Iran, surely a match made in heaven. Re: "Don't you like living in the world's only superpower? ... We get a lot of bene's from our superpower status." There's a lot of oil producing states that are Moslem, and it's a good idea for us to keep good relations with them. If that means not occupying them with our military, then I'd say that that's a good idea. Certainly Israel's occupation of Arab territory hasn't led them to have a wonderful relationship with their neighbors. And how much oil does Israel have, anyway? *You might as well give up on promoting Israel as the US's faithful little helper. Israel has nothing that the US needs.* Even your arguments that Israel has a lock on morality in the Middle East were more persuasive. Re: "The dollar is the world's reserve currency, and as you pointed out, with our current accounts deficit we have no choice but to maintain a strong dollar policy. Think that will survive our "disengagement"? I don't." Even after the dollar crashes it will still be the world's primary reserve currency. And that crash is inevitable, just as the rise was inevitable as well. I agree that it could happen as a result of a perceived weakness in US power, but since it didn't happen as a result of 9/11 (contrary to what I believe Osama's expectations were), I don't think it's going to happen as a result of disengagement from the Middle East. It's always been the case that the country which was the global reserve currency has had brutally steep secular trends in its balance of payments. The system is built with huge amounts of short term positive feedback and long term negative feedback. We're no exception. The history of this dates back even to the days of the British gold standard when gold was forced into and out of Britain. But we can look back in recent history and see what was going on the last time the US went through one of these crises. It was in the late 70s. The US had high defense spending due to the Vietnam war. Then the US disengaged from Vietnam in what was widely thought to be an historic defeat. This could be compared to the Middle East situation, but I don't think it follows too closely. The fact is that the US was triumphant in Afghanistan. This is about as strong as a super power has ever been perceived as. But it really doesn't matter. The US doesn't execute a foreign policy based primarily on monetary considerations. And from the point of view of the risk of new oil embargoes, the advantage to the US is disengagement from Israel. It's a simple fact that the oil producers make better natural allies for the US than Israel does. Re: "Deserting all our allies ..." Any reading of the last 100 years of history will reveal that the *US' primary allies are Britain and France. France supports the Palestinians, and Britain is largely disengaged. Disengaging ourselves will bring us into line with our allies. Re: "... and going home to sit between our two oceans -- oceans which have been shown to be unable to protect us -- will quickly lead to a loss of superpower status." It was our engagement in the Middle East which exposed us to terrorism. Israel has to fight the stuff because their survival as a government is based on a conflict with the Arabs. That's their fight, not ours. Re: "I believe that the US government will weigh the alternatives and conclude that remaining the world's only superpower is a better alternative." Funny, the government is already weighing the alternatives and it doesn't look too good for "engagement". Today's news: "... The New York Times reported this week that senior officials in Congress and at the Pentagon (news - web sites) had called for the pullout of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia because of what they see as its tepid support for the U.S. war on terrorism and restrictions on U.S. military operations. ..." dailynews.yahoo.com US diplomats are going to spin it that we are pulling out of Saudi Arabia as "punishment" for their support for terrorism, but the fact is that the result is exactly in line with the disengagement I am predicting, and in fact, is exactly in line with one of Osama bin Laden's demands. I have no doubt that in private talks, both the US and Saudi Arabia agree that a pullout is best for both parties. And this is not an indication that we won't be there for the Saudis when they need us, nor that the Saudis will continue to pursue oil pricing strategies that are in American interest. It's just not in the interest of both nations for us to keep soldiers there. We're not going to disengage from the Middle East because of Osama bin Laden's demands. We've already proved that he doesn't decide US foreign policy, we've either killed him or put him to flight. We're disengaging because it will increase the level of peace, prosperity and security in the United States.* That's what the US is about. Our superpower status is at least partly about arranging for the world's brush wars to be fought in places other than downtown Manhattan. In this, Osama was successful, as opposed to his vision of an Islamic revival. *But it is a fact that now, our foreign policy must take into account our domestic safety from terrorism.* That means that we will be forced to disengage. The whole purpose of superpower status is safety and wealth for US citizens. The purpose is not to promote safety for Israel. I mean really, aren't you aware of how insistent Americans are on their own personal safety? The basic question you're ignoring is: *Why should the American public take a bullet for Israel?* The US isn't going to drop support for Israel instantly, pride will assure that. But it will probably do stuff like decrease aid, and increase assistance and contacts with Islamic governments. Or did you notice the thawing of relations with Iran? -- Carl