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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (47795)	3/29/2004 1:25:59 AM
From: energyplay	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Great summary ! forgot US naval base on Ceylon/Sri Lanka.

To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (47795)	3/29/2004 3:52:31 AM
From: que seria	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

Spotted Cat: Stratfor's analyses are consistently thought-provoking and usually insightful, but here I think they miss the ongoing (and still accelerating) change in threat from other nations to terror groups. I strongly disagree, and think most U.S. citizens now disagree, with the notion that launching a war on Iraq served U.S. interests: debate over the future of American foreign policy is missing the point. Every country -- the United States included -- is more or less locked into a general theme that dictates what it must do to preserve itself. U.S. deployments to places such as Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq do not serve Republican interests, they serve U.S. interests. The Balkans are being integrated slowly into the Western alliance structure, al Qaeda is being denied the use of Afghanistan as a rallying point and training ground, and Iraq is now part and parcel of an overarching U.S. strategy to bring the entire Middle East to heel. Crushing the Taliban and trying to get as much of Al Qaeda as possible in Afghanistan was essential (and too lightly pursued--as I thought then, and even more now). Iraq is surely part of a U.S. "overarching strategy," but if that strategy is to "bring the entire Mideast to heel," it is a plan that goes against our national interest. The means by which we must pursue such a goal will be financially, morally and (much less important) diplomatically destructive to the U.S. in the long term. Intervention has been great for Iraq, though; Iraquis now at least have a chance to govern themselves as a free people. I think Friedman underrates the significance of a very alienating U.S. Mideast policy in assuring a steady supply of Al Qaeda-type actors intent upon targeting our very open society in ways that no nation could ever dare to do. Political leaders with more depth and historical understanding (of our own nation, above all) would make a better choice. Friedman's point is probably valid, though, if understood as being about the type of politician that gets nominated, and the interests he serves (those of his key supporters, and his own urge to perpetuate his power). The largely illusory choice offered U.S. voters every four years (particularly regarding foreign policy) may not change. Sadly, the only catalyst for change that I foresee is more attacks upon our nation. That may raise the question whether it serves our interest to bring an entire region "to heel." Last I looked, oil was fungible and the squalid dictators of the world--or financial intermediaries--were happy to take money for it. A fraction of our military budget, spent on energy conservation and non-hydrocarbon sources, would be a better answer to the risk of another embargo.