Are we blundering into World War III?
Notwithstanding the Bush Administration’s domestic policy fiascos, its foreign policy blunders are far more reckless and foolish. They have far greater potential impact.
GOP & the Dems are on the road to world war
Democratic and Republican foreign policy makers are traveling on the same road, leading humanity to the same destination: world war. The reason: They live in the same military dream world. Both major parties share the same world view, one offering only one answer: force (military action and trade sanctions) or threats of force. After their “answer” fails to achieve the stated objective, they promise only more force and more threats of force. It’s a solid, predictable pattern.
Obvious failures
How well has it worked? It’s been an unqualified failure. Major party politicians literally do not know the meaning of the word “failure”. A partial list of the grim outcomes of specific policy blunders:
• 3.5-year-old fiasco in Iraq, a burgeoning civil war, then regional war
• Islamist takeover of Somalia
• The Israeli government has greatly politically empowered Hezbollah (and their sponsor, Iran) in overplaying their military role in their war in Lebanon.
• The Taliban is resurging in Afghanistan, bankrolled by increasing illicit opium funding.
• The bond between secular, Sunni Syrian and theocratic, Shiite Iran has grown stronger, as the Bush Administration rejects the rational strategy of “divide and conquer”.
• Iran’s apocalyptic government is closer to getting nukes. The dangerous theocratic government of Iran also enjoys vast, new influence in Iraq, thanks largely to the bipartisan military misadventure in Iraq.
• North Korea has more nukes and more paranoia.
• 47-year-old policy of isolation of Cuba with one result: Fidel Castro has remained head of state longer than any other in the world. An obvious failure of the US policy of isolation.
• Worldwide good will for America in the wake of 9/11 has disintegrated into worldwide hatred for America.
Neocons’ critique: “You don’t understand evil.”
The Bush Administration relies on only one, brain-dead response to critics (paraphrase): You clearly do not understand how evil and depraved America’s enemies are.
What the Bush Administration fails to understand is the each of the enemies – the apocalyptic theocrats in Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, the Taliban and al-Qaeda have all become more powerful – more powerful only because of Bush Administration policy.
War on Iran?
A growing number of sources inside the Bush Administration is reporting stepped up planning for war on Iran. The consequences of such a war would be “insane”, in the words of General Barry McCaffrey on “Meet the Press” on August 20, 2006:
GEN. McCAFFREY: Well, I—you know, first of all, I applaud the efforts by Secretary Rice and by others, Steve Hadley, trying to start the beginnings of building an alliance to confront the Iranians. The notion that we can threaten them with conventional air attack is simply insane. First of all, we’re more vulnerable than they are to having the Persian Gulf closed, to leaving 135,000 troops 400 kilometers up into Iraq with a Shia population on our supply lines. Never mind our allies who I think are terrified by this, the—you know, the notion that we would use air power to go after 70-some odd nuclear sites.
The Iranians are going nuclear. It’s going to change the region for the worse in the coming 10 years, and hopefully not provoke the proliferation of WMD, where you end up with an Arab Sunni bomb to counter the Persian Shia bomb. So I think the answer to this one is diplomatic, economic: build alliances, stop threatening military action.
Dubai
When Dubai Ports World planned to acquire some US port operations earlier this year, demagogues in both major parties leaped to tar all Arabs as potential terrorists.
The port in Dubai manages the entry of hundreds of American military ships in support of their missions in the Middle East. Note: The ports in Dubai are not protected by the US Coast Guard, US Customs agents, etc., as they are in the American ports; security is handled by Dubai police agencies. Why didn’t domestic port critics raise security concerns about these military assets? The answer is that, unfortunately, bigoted attitudes toward Arabs are OK in modern American politics.
How the Bush Administration is losing the war in Iraq
GOP words: Launch freedom in Iraq, then let the dominoes fall.
The Bush Administration’s case for war sounds compelling. America’s founding principles are universal. Freedom works, promoting peace and prosperity, at home and abroad. The stated objective of Bush policy is to promote freedom in the Middle East by establishing it first in Iraq and Afghanistan.
GOP deeds: Marxist policy that will ensure civil war
Based on results, the Bush Administration understands little about freedom and America’s founding principles. Its high-minded rhetoric fails to comport with the policy on the ground.
At home, the Bush Administration promotes an “ownership society”; its actions demonstrate that this is strictly rhetorically. In Iraq, it endorses the Marxist notion that the means of oil production must remain in the hands of the Iraqi government, leaving unresolved whether control is left with the central or the regional governments.
The result is predictable: an ugly spoils fight over Iraq’s vast oil income, about three quarters of Iraq’s GDP.
A solution: Try freedom in Iraq
There’s a better way. Put the means of oil production — i.e., one share of stock in the Iraqi oil industry — into the hands of individual Iraqi citizens. Fully privatize the Iraqi oil industry. Deflate this dangerous political football.
Iraqi stockholders are far more likely to report and resist saboteurs of their investments. Repeat this reform with public utilities, schools and so on to improve their security.
Another payoff of free markets: the rule of law
There is a less urgent but equally problematic outcome of a socialized Iraqi oil industry. Friedrich von Hayek forcefully argued in Chapter VI of his 1944 classic “The Road to Serfdom,” state ownership of the means of production, on a scale comparable to that in present-day Iraq, will doom all attempts to establish the rule of law.