G'day all,
I reckon the UK has really poisoned what was left of their relationship with
the continent (as Tony Hancock once said, 'the wogs start at Calais'), and I
reckon Unca Sam's failure to exercise the simple good manners of telling its
mates that it was about to crank up the intensity in the Middle East continues
to evince what looks like a level of plumb-stoopid arrogance that's only going
to feed anti-Washington sentiment throughout the world.
And as for Saddam, well, the west made him quite deliberately in the seventies
and eighties - are they being equally deliberate in their consolidation of his
symbolic power throughout the region now? Physically, the west is plainly
just killing Arabs. Politically, it's creating The Arab Stalwart. In terms
of its own professed ends, the west is clearly failing (what are the
no-flyover zones for nowadays? How has peace, democracy and The Amurken Way
been advanced in the region? How have hearts and minds been won?). And Unca
Sam's battered status as honest broker in the Israel/Palestine mess surely has
nothing left to it at all.
I mean, given that the Pentagon and Langley crowds aren't stupid (am I giving
too much here?), should we be looking for an economic or strategic subtext?
Is a volatile middle east worth something to Washington? Is it to keep the
likes of the Kuwaitis and Saudis nervously dependent on the US
military-industrial complex and Washington's good will? Is it to produce a
sufficiently substantial antagonistic bloc (eg Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq)
to keep domestic support for defence expenditure up to scratch? Is it to
ensure Europe and oil-procucers don't become too friendly?
If so, they're paying a hell of a price (never mind the price others are
paying) for it. In the post-Cold War era, Sam can't rely on his old allies
without paying them some occasional respect, yet he's intent on insulting them
and making life difficult for them. Continental Europe sounds livid. And
Middle-Eastern friends like Egypt, Turkey and Jordan must be finding it
particularly difficult to reconcile their ties to Washington with domestic
sentiment.
I know it's only one of thousands of sortees, but am I the only one to get the
impression that Washington is either totally unaware or uncaring about foreign
relations or deliberately breeding inter-bloc belligerence? Weird ...
Cheers,
Rob.
