Two
and a half years ago I predicted George W Bush's
victory in the 2004 elections as well as the
subsequent ruin of his political fortune. "Many
will be the night during his second term," I wrote
in August 2004, "that Bush will wish he were still
in Texas, and still drunk." [1]
Here is a
follow-on forecast: brother Jeb, about to step
down as governor of the state of Florida, will be
elected president of the United States in 2008,
thanks in large measure to the rebound of
the
current president's standing. In fact, I have no
idea whether this will occur. But I raise the
prospect to show why it could occur.
Of
George W Bush apres elections, one must
ask: "If he so dumb, how come he ain't poor?"
Financial markets do not think the world is at
great risk. America's stock market gained about
14% in price during 2006, and the US economy ended
the year on a positive note. The price of oil has
fallen by roughly a quarter from its July peak.
The world continues to throw US$800 billion a year
- the savings of Asia and then some - at America's
capital markets. Asians cannot earn money to be
saved without selling to the American consumer,
and they cannot invest their savings except in
United States. Clueless as US policy might appear
now, regaining the initiative is a far simpler
matter than it seems. The US needs the help of
Russia, China and India among others. But it can
offer prospective partners enough of what they
want to obtain what it requires.
For all
America's embarrassment in Iraq, none of its
fundamental interests is impaired by Iraq's
misery. Almost a year ago, I made this argument
under the rubric The case for complacency in Iraq:
"As usual, I find things there
amiably awful!" Mephisto retorts when God chides
him for caviling about evil circumstances on
Earth. After two years of predicting civil war
in Iraq, Mephisto's words come to mind now that
civil war has arrived. God helps drunks, small
children, and the United States of America, the
old saying goes. Someone is helping the United
States in Iraq, although here it might not be
God but rather the other fellow.
[2]
The US may not get what it wants,
which is to remake the world in its own image, but
it well might get what it needs, which is the
elimination of the prospect of threats greater
than the sort that an aircraft-carrier task force
or two can swat down in a few days. Whether the
late Saddam Hussein actually represented a
potential threat of that sort, or whether bravado
and self-delusion inflated an impostor's efforts
at blackmail, historians will debate for some
time. But the US (like its European allies)
continues to have an interest in preventing a new
Shi'ite empire from dominating the Persian Gulf
region, especially if such an empire might obtain
nuclear arms.
As long as no prospective
nuclear power arises to challenge US and allied
interests in the Persian Gulf, the United States
can declare victory and go home, leaving the
unfortunate Iraqis to their own devices. The US
might simply begin aerial bombardments of Iranian
nuclear-weapons-development facilities, although
the cost of such action would be much higher oil
prices and economic instability. China would
suffer the most under such a scenario and
understandably wants no such thing to occur.
Last year I forecast (wrongly) a US strike
against Iran by year-end. [3] I had given too much
credence to widely circulated reports that Iran
might be able to deploy a nuclear device by mid-
to late 2007. US and Israeli military estimates
today give Iran a minimum of three years, and more
likely five years, to build a deployable bomb.
There simply is no reason to take preemptive
military action in the immediate future, and no
responsible power would employ this option unless
it were quite necessary.
There may be
other ways to skin the Persian cat, particularly
if Russia and China choose to cooperate in the
exercise. Iran's exportable oil surplus may
disappear during the next decade, according to
recent estimates. [4] If Saudi Arabia makes good
on the threat offered by Nawaf Obaid in the
November 28 Washington Post to sink the oil price,
Iran's capacity to subsidize its increasingly
indigent population will vanish.
Securing
Russian and Chinese cooperation with US strategic
objectives, I believe, is a far simpler
proposition than is portrayed in the myth of US
imperial decline. The challenge to US power in
Asia, as M K Bhadrakumar reported on December 23
on this site, [5] comes from Russia, China and a
number of Central Asian republics through the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Washington
persuaded the Shanghai group to reject Iran's
application for full membership, but the risk
remains that a Sino-Russian agreement to side with
Iran might seriously damage US interests.
There is no point negotiating with the
present regime in Teheran, which knows better than
outsiders that it has barely a decade to
