The neocons' magical thinking is still alive and thriving in the Bush White House. Their "Project for a New American Century" still holds to the infantile notion that America is as globally dominant both militarily and monetarily as it was the day after the end of World War II.
They keep fiddling to this old song even as one of the empire's most powerful symbols of readiness, the first brigade of the famed 82nd Airborne, the brigade that is supposed to always be ready to deploy anywhere in the world in 18 to 72 hours, is no longer so ready. Bush's Iraq madness, as Congressman Murtha has shouted for over a year now, is depleting our army much faster than any enemy ever has.
Now that Congress is finally following the will of the people and standing up to Bush tyranny, we the people need to insist that our leaders rejoin the thinking people of this planet. No matter how much we rattled the saber, nothing was happening to corral Iran's nuclear ambitions until Russia, China and nonaligned nations led by South Africa joined with us. These other nations certainly have their own problems and sometimes dubious motivations, however the lesson to be learned here is that the hard way, led by John Bolton-esque neocons, simply does not get us the results that we all desire.
We need the goodwill of the world to stabilize the world and thus make us safer at home. The Middle East was already the planet's deepest morass before Bush took office. His two terms of greed, arrogance, incompetence and cronyism have added to the misery of that region immeasurably and made us less safe at home perhaps for generations to come.
Of course any sane leader would have never gotten us into Iraq, certainly would have never had us camp there permanently and would have long-since closed Guantanamo. Those are the first, sine qua non steps to garner any future global cooperation.
There are other, smaller steps that this White House could take this afternoon. Before sending Condi off for yet another unsatisfying round of Middle East negotiations, Bush could concentrate on putting out several of the smaller fires around the globe. Condi's ignored the Palestinian issue for seven years now, it's too late to all of a sudden get religion. Instead she should fly to Darfur and Somalia and use what little cred she has left to work on these smaller conflicts. She should convene regional players and actually listen to the little guys and remind the rest of the planet that when we set our mind to it America is actually good at something other than spreading misery.
Let's get a few easier wins under our belt and then ask the rest of the world to stand truly united against a nuclearized Iran.