The UN, US and Iraq IV

Nimh--
I'm glad you're skeptical about Salman Pak. It means that your mind isn't closed.

The common view in Europe is very much that Americans are our cousins with similar values and aspirations. The United States is seen generally as a benign force, somewhat hot headed perhaps, but with the input of European guidance and experience, together there is no problem on earth that cannot be tackled.

The problem with that approach in my view is that it is not realistic. History shows that as great powers emerge a state of rivalry develops between them rather than a tendency towards mutual co-operation.... I think we in Europe have been guilty of assuming that because we want to act in collaboration with the Americans, that this must necessarily be reciprocated. I'm sure there are many Americans who do desperately want partnership with the rest of the world and with Europe in particular, but even if that view is widespread in the US, it does not appear to be dominant, and certainly not under this US administration.

Given the realities of power politics, I don't believe the US particularly wants to see a strong and united Europe with an equally strong euro acting as a reserve currency against the dollar.

Sadly the future lies not necessarily in co operation with the US but more likely in economic and political rivalry, and not so much because the Europeans want that, but rather that the US will never give up its current position of dominance without a struggle.

So who will win? Well let me make it clear I'm not talking about war here. If the US and USSR can eyeball each other for 50 years with nuclear weapons I don't expect a nuclear exchange between Paris and New York any time soon.

I believe the actions of the US which appears to be to consolidate its position as global hegemon will have the effect of driving other power blocks in the world together, united in nothing other than their opposition to US influence in what they see as their home territory.

You would then have almost the entire Eurasian continent, with all its resources and peoples and cultures united in its desire to assert itself as the leading power in the world and against the interlopers from across the water(s). Then it really would be the US against the rest of the world, and there can't be much doubt about the outcome.

my god timber....you now have to link to "midland texas the home of george and laura bush, tommy franks, and wahoo mcdaniel"???

Under pressure from potential donors, the Bush administration will allow a new agency to determine how to spend billions of dollars in reconstruction assistance for Iraq, administration and international aid officials say.

The new agency, to be independent of the American occupation, will be run by the World Bank and the United Nations. They are to announce the change at a donor conference in Madrid later this week.

The change effectively establishes some of the international control over Iraq that the United States opposed in the drafting of the United Nations Security Council resolution that passed on Thursday. That resolution referred to two previously established agencies devised to ensure that all aid would be monitored and audited.

But diplomats say other countries were unwilling to make donations because they saw the United States as an occupying power controlling Iraq's reconstruction and self-rule. [..] European countries are concerned that the Coalition Provisional Authority "is the decision-making authority in Iraq," a World Bank official said. "For political reasons, they don't want their funds to be perceived as being commingled with funds controlled by the C.P.A. They want their own say over how the money is spent."

American reconstruction aid, like the proposed $20 billion that President Bush is struggling to get through Congress, would go to the previously set up entity, the Development Fund for Iraq, which is run by the occupation administrators and the Iraqis. Other resources are to come from Iraqi oil revenues. This fund has given big contracts to American companies like Halliburton and Bechtel.

But the new agency could open up that process and award contracts through bidding practices open to global companies. Donors could also give directly to Iraq, specifying that their own companies do the work. [..]

In June, when plans for Madrid got started, World Bank and United Nations officials said donors began pressing for an agency outside the control of the occupation.

At first, the Defense Department, which runs the occupation, resisted handing over financial control of Iraq's rebuilding. Instead, the Pentagon set up the Development Fund for Iraq, which is recognized by a United Nations Security Council resolution in May. [..] The administration changed its mind in recent weeks, in part because of the support of Mr. Bremer.

"We had to act because the international community was stonewalling us on aid," said an administration official. According to the official, Mr. Bremer said, " `I need the money so bad we have to move off our principled opposition to the international community being in charge.' " [..]

As it is now envisioned, the agency would oversee two new funds, one managed by the World Bank and the other by various United Nations development agencies.

Those funds would oversee spending from international funds in 14 sectors that the World Bank and the United Nations assessed earlier this month as needing $36 billion in assistance over several years. Those sectors included electricity, sewage, water and health programs, from hospitals to smaller community health centers. [..]

A remaining problem, administration officials and many others said, is that the World Bank and other donors may be reluctant to make loans to Iraq before decisions are made on the $120 billion in outstanding debt it owes to other countries, not to mention the tens of billions of dollars in reparations it owes from its past wars.

"The ulitmate objective of American policy should be benign and visionary: to shape a truly co operative global community in keeping with long range trends and with the fundamental interests of humankind. But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book."

The revelation that the mobile labs were to produce hydrogen for artillery balloons will also cause discomfort for the British authorities because the Iraqi army's original system was sold to it by the British company, Marconi Command & Control.

Are we talking Armageddon?

..The Pentagon denies that there is any sanctioned propaganda drive behind the five-paragraph letter, but one soldier told of speaking to a public affairs officer about what he thought would be a news release, then being surprised to hear he was being presented as a letter writer whose words had been published in a newspaper back home...

Perhaps no scholar has done as much to illuminate the Strauss phenomenon as Shadia Drury. For fifteen years she has been shining a heat lamp on the Straussians with such books as The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss (1988) and Leo Strauss and the American Right (1997). She is also the author of Alexandre Kojève: the Roots of Postmodern Politics (1994) and Terror and Civilization (forthcoming).

Danny Postel: The neo-conservative vision is commonly taken to be about spreading democracy and liberal values globally. And when Strauss is mentioned in the press, he is typically described as a great defender of liberal democracy against totalitarian tyranny. You've written, however, that Strauss had a "profound antipathy to both liberalism and democracy."

Shadia Drury: The idea that Strauss was a great defender of liberal democracy is laughable. I suppose that Strauss's disciples consider it a noble lie. Yet many in the media have been gullible enough to believe it.

How could an admirer of Plato and Nietzsche be a liberal democrat? The ancient philosophers whom Strauss most cherished believed that the unwashed masses were not fit for either truth or liberty, and that giving them these sublime treasures would be like throwing pearls before swine. In contrast to modern political thinkers, the ancients denied that there is any natural right to liberty. Human beings are born neither free nor equal. The natural human condition, they held, is not one of freedom, but of subordination - and in Strauss's estimation they were right in thinking so.

Praising the wisdom of the ancients and condemning the folly of the moderns was the whole point of Strauss's most famous book, Natural Right and History. The cover of the book sports the American Declaration of Independence. But the book is a celebration of nature - not the natural rights of man (as the appearance of the book would lead one to believe) but the natural order of domination and subordination.