Global Obama: Big Opportunities, Bigger Challenges

Barack Obama captivated people around the world with this speech in Berlin, in which he identified himself as both a proud American and a "fellow citizen of the world."

Let's start by acknowledging that this election is not over. It looks quite favorable for Barack Obama and the Democrats, top Republicans I know are down in the dumps, it could be an historic Democratic victory on November 4th. But it ain't over till it's over, as, well, quite a few folks have said.

That said, we've spent so much time on US polls, which are resolving in a fairly clear-cut and predictable fashion.

What does the rest of the world think?

And what sort of challenges will counter the global opportunity that an Obama presidency might afford America?

In his first international press conference, Barack Obama scored well in Jordan.

First, the global numbers with regard to Obama. And they are striking, indeed. The Gallup organization has polled over 70 nations around the world about the American presidential contest. The results show Barack Obama leading John McCain by about 4 to 1.

Now, there are a few caveats. In quite a few countries, the great majority of respondents had no opinion on the matter. And a number of key nations were not polled, such as Russia, China, Israel, Iraq, and Iran. Though I'm fairly certain that Obama would be favored in at least four of those five nations, not that he'd want the nod from one or two of them. (McCain was the favorite of Israeli voters prior to Obama's very high-profile visit in late summer. One poll I saw after the visit showed Obama slightly ahead in Israel.)

But we don't have those numbers. The results we do have show McCain besting Obama in only two countries. Those countries are Georgia (where McCain's friend Misha Saakashvili, who employed McCain's chief foreign policy advisor as his lobbyist, is president, and hasn't that worked out well for him?) and the Phillipines (where the U.S. Navy is quite popular, with many missing the fabled Subic Bay naval base). Obama and McCain are tied in Lithuania and Pakistan.

Obama is the clear favorite across every country in Latin America and Africa. He is also a huge favorite in such key US allies as Britain (60-15), Australia (64-14), Germany (62-10), Japan (66-15), and South Korea (50-24).

The implications are obvious. Obama has the global popularity that no American president has had in a great many years. Bill Clinton was pretty popular around the world, but we haven't seen anything like this since the days of John F. Kennedy.

This was obvious to Team McCain, as well, as you know from my columns and can see anew in this coming Sunday's New York Times Magazine cover story on the turmoil in Republican ranks. It was critically important to McCain to stop Obama from moving into an insurmountable lead following his big trip to the Middle East and Europe. Which gave rise to the famed "celebrity" ads mocking Obama for his popularity abroad.

While the McCain campaign succeeded in blocking Obama from "floating out of reach" after his extraordinary Berlin speech to more than 200,000 people, it also lost its focus on its own candidacy in the process. But that's not the point of this piece.

Obama has a tremendous opportunity, assuming his election as the next president of the United States, to give America a far more positive image in the world than it has enjoyed since President Bush squandered the international good will accorded our country after 9/11.

Barack Obama reassured many with this appearance in Sderot alongside Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

But while we have been obsessing about attack ads, Bill Ayers, Sarah Palin, and other relative trivialities, major things have been going on. Let's look at some of them. Each will be very challenging for a President Obama.

** For starters, there will be a global economic summit of sorts in Washington on November 15th. President Bush moved to get in on the global action after the European Union made it known that it would establish a council to oversee the world's 30 largest banks, many of which are US-based. Bush has already, amazingly, adopted social democratic policies to deal with the massive financial crisis. But he wasn't going to let Europe run things. Nevertheless, he's a lame duck, who has demonstrably failed again and again.

A President Obama will have to hit the ground running to influence this summit just a week and a half after the election. And signal ways in which he will influence follow-on meetings around the world even before he is inaugurated on January 20th. This is a crisis that won't wait.

Russia, Iran, and Qatar -- which control over 60% of the world's natural gas reserves -- are forming a "Gas Troika."

** One good thing about the global economic slump for America is the slump in crude oil prices and, hence, gasoline prices. But while OPEC -- which today announced a big production cut -- struggles to keep the oil price up, another new group is forming to do much the same with natural gas. Russia, Iran, and Qatar have formed a "Gas Troika," as the Russian media call it. The three countries control over 60% of the world's natural gas reserves, natural gas being the preferred fossil fuel for electric power generation, as it is the most clean-burning of the fossil fuels.

This is troubling for the US on several levels. First, it indicates that Iran is hardly being isolated, as the Bush/Cheney strategy would have it. With Russia and Iran collaborating closely on energy strategy, it is more and more likely that Moscow will provide Iran with the most advanced anti-aircraft defense systems. (Qatar, one of the lesser known world powers, is a Persian Gulf state which hosts and largely funds the leading Middle Eastern news network, Al Jazeera, which is headquartered in Doha.) In addition, the three countries could well develop the whip hand over natural gas supplies as they run out in the future and gas in liquefied form, LNG, becomes a major factor in world energy markets.

And what does this mean for Iran's nascent nuclear weapons program? Perhaps nothing good.

A President Obama will need to get ahead of the curve on global energy strategy or risk finding that future natural gas pricing, and supply, is set in Moscow, Tehran, and Doha.

** For all of John McCain's rhetoric after the brutally brief Russia-Georgia War that "we are all Georgians," there is little evidence that many others feel that way. The European Union essentially let Russia do what it wanted, with little more than a harshly worded press release or two in "retaliation." Now Germany's foreign minister has made it clear that there will be no Georgia or Ukraine in NATO.

A President Obama will have to decide fairly quickly what America's stance is towards Russia and its desire to dominate the "post-Soviet space" surrounding its borders. First up is the question of the missile shield to be based in Poland and the Czech Republic, supposedly aimed at an Iranian threat which does not actually exist, but really aimed at countering Russia.

** The so-called status of forces agreement in Iraq, i.e., the UN-sanctioned agreement giving cover of law to US military operations in Iraq, runs out at the end of the year. Right now, there is no agreement on a path forward.

A President Obama will have to weigh in quickly on what he wants on the ground in Iraq as US forces begin to transition out of their extraordinarily active role in that troubled country, still very unsettled over five years after the invasion that President Bush, John McCain, and most conservatives would go off so well.

** America's position in Afghanistan is sliding toward failure. I remember the first of the Democratic presidential forums, in February 2007 in Carson City, Nevada. There I asked then presidential candidate Joe Biden about the Afghanistan situation, and he forecast precisely the set of problems we find ourselves contending with now.

A President Obama is going to have to figure out to stabilize the situation, both with more troops -- from the US and increasingly recalcitrant NATO allies -- and with new and more political approaches. Can we cut a deal with elements of the Taliban? Can a coalition government be formed in Kabul? These are thorny questions that a President Obama will have to grapple with right away, even before January 20th.

** Pakistan is sliding towards the abyss. The only Islamic nuclear power is increasingly unstable. A President Obama will have to find ways to keep the country stable -- and those nuclear weapons out of unfriendly hands -- even as he considers how to go after Al Qaeda cadres using the country as a safe haven.

Russian strategic bombers engaged in exercises in Venezuela over the summer.

** As he does these things, a President Obama has to figure out America's relationship with Russia. Moscow can be very helpful in helping rein in Iran and in aiding in Afghanistan, where Russian support was key in taking down the Taliban in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. But relations are poor now, Russia is angry about the 15-year long bipartisan strategy of NATO encirclement of its country, and it's feeling its oats after swiftly crushing the Georgian military when McCain's friend Misha Saakashvili obligingly provided a pretext with his offensive against the breakaway province of South Ossetia.

Now Russia is forging a deeper alliance with OPEC member Venezuela, sending first strategic bombers and now a naval squadron to the Caribbean. It's making moves to establish a greater foothold in the Middle East, with potential bases in Libya and Tunisia. And Gazprom, chaired until recently by President Dmitry Medvedev, will manage a new Russian-Venezuelan oil and natural gas consortium.

Russia and India have developed the world's fastest cruise missile.

It's even developed, with the former Soviet ally India -- an emerging superpower of the middle part of the 21st century -- the world's fastest cruise missile. And, with all of these things coming at the behest of Russia's long-term power broker, former intelligence chieftain Vladimir Putin, it's helping India with its space program.

With the Arctic ice cap melting due to climate change, the great Petro Rush is about to begin.

** And there is another Russian-related matter, the new Arctic Petro Rush. As the Arctic ice cap melts, due to climate change, a vast storehouse of oil and natural gas beneath what was once deep ice pack becomes much more readily available.

The best estimates are that fully 25% of the world's oil and natural gas reserves can be developed in the Arctic region. Once the ice cap has been largely dispensed with. So Russia, along with lesser power such as Canada and Norway, is staking a claim to the Arctic region.

Will a President Obama join in the Arctic Petro Rush? Or will he instead note the tragic irony of the situation? That by cooking the planet we are making it possible to cook the planet even further as we feed our fateful addiction to fossil fuels?

These are just some of the things that a President Obama -- now acclaimed around the world -- will have to make fast and hard calls on in the not terribly distant future.

Meanwhile, of course, presuming he wins the election, he can bask for a little while longer in his global acclaim. Here's what Britain's new Conservative star Boris Johnson, the new mayor of London, said about the Obama Change today in his Telegraph column endorsing him. Of course, his endorsement of Obama, as you'll see, is at least as much a denunciation of what the Republican Party has become as it is anything else.

There are all sorts of reasons for hoping that Barack Hussein Obama will be the next president of the United States. He seems highly intelligent. He has an air of courtesy and sincerity. Unlike the current occupant of the White House, he has no difficulty in orally extemporising a series of grammatical English sentences, each containing a main verb.

Unlike his opponent, he visibly incarnates change and hope, at a time when America desperately needs both. An Obama win could signify the end of race-based politics The legacy of George Bush may take years, if not decades, to determine.

But at present he seems to have pulled off an astonishing double whammy.

However well-intentioned it was, the catastrophic and unpopular intervention in Iraq has served in some parts of the world to discredit the very idea of western democracy.

The recent collapse of the banking system, and the humiliating resort to semi-socialist solutions, has done a great deal to discredit - in some people's eyes - the idea of free-market capitalism.

Democracy and capitalism are the two great pillars of the American idea.

To have rocked one of those pillars may be regarded as a misfortune.

To have damaged the reputation of both, at home and abroad, is a pretty stunning achievement for an American president.

You can check things out throughout the day on my site, New West Notes.

Comments

[Elysiumfire]

You note a number of the important international issues that president Obama will have to contend with, but unless he sorts out the domestic problems, the international ones will simply be bindings of a different order.
Be under no illusion, the international stage is not set for Obama to become a popular 'star' of the political screen, his popularity is not going to 'fix' anything, it is on the domestic issues his legacy will be judged. You are such a divided country, with a populace unwilling to participate in the policing of its own political arena. Two representative Houses whose timid betrayal of the American people by their failure to act as the 'checks' and 'balances' of the Bush doctrines, brought this crisis about, and for Obama, his potential for a successful presidency is determined by how well he manages compromise and balance.
The international stage is not a stage for conquest, but about co-operative endeavour with those, whom even now, one calls rivals, and others...allies.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Well. Wrong. Thanks.

[bioluminescence]

World public opinion about the U. S. will be affected more by the two losers in this campaign, not the one winner. The first loser is the Bush administration and its heir apparent John McCain. The Bush repudiation will remind the world that Americans voted this man in not once but twice and overwhelming approval of him fell from nearly 80 per cent to less than 20 per cent today. If the U. S. President is indeed the most powerful man in the world and the Presidential selection system so rigorous maybe it is the judgment of the electorate that is the problem. Not the actions of one man.
The second loser in the campaign is the dignity of the campaign process itself. There were many small but disturbing images such as "truthometer" analysts called upon after major addresses by either candidate to separate fact from fiction. A major network actually connected people to machines to track their reaction to major speeches and simulcasted those results to an audience of hundreds of millions. But the lasting image of the 2008 campaign was the unprecedented level of anger, hatred and vitriol it unleashed. November will produce a winner but the world will remember the losers.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

The world generally remembers the winners more than the losers.

Such is the way of the world.

[ggaia]

Under international law, no country currently owns, or will ever own the North Pole or the region of the Arctic Ocean surrounding it. The five surrounding Arctic states, Russia, the United States (via Alaska), Canada, Norway and Denmark (via Greenland), are limited to a 200 nautical miles (370 km/230 mi) economic zone around their coasts.

Upon ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a country has a ten year period to make claims to extend its 200 nautical mile zone. Due to this, Norway (ratified the convention in 1996), Russia (ratified in 1997), Canada (ratified in 2003[3]) and Denmark (ratified in 2004[3]) launched projects to base claims that certain Arctic sectors should belong to their territories. The United States has signed, but not yet ratified this treaty, although George W. Bush asked the United States Senate to ratify it on May 15, 2007[4] and on October 31, 2007, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 17-4 to send the ratification vote to the full US Senate.

The status of the Arctic sea region is in dispute. While Canada, Denmark, Russia and Norway all regard parts of the Arctic seas as "national waters" or "internal waters", the United States and most European Union countries officially regard the whole region as international water.
http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/annex2.htm

**********­**********­**********­**********­**********­*********
No one, not even a country can go against the International Law of the Sea.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

It's quite charming that you imagine that your interpretation of the International Law of the Sea will prevail in the Arctic Petro Rush! Especially considering that virtually no one has ever heard of it, rendering its popular influence near the vanishing point.

>No one, not even a country can go against the International Law of the Sea.

[ggaia]

It's not my interpretation. It a fact coming from the International law called the "LAW OF THE SEA". You can read it here. http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/annex2.htm

Russia is just playing games. The best thing that could ever happen for all western counties is to ween off fossel fuels, that way we will not have to keep kissing OPEC's a$$. We made a big mistake back in the early 70s. {gas wars} That's when the westeren countries should have started building our way out from under OPEC's control. They will have us all by the ba**s until we do.

[Rhuaidhri]

In Europe have heard of it and are very well away of the possible impacts of an Artic Petro Rush. If the US started actually working in the UN properly as opposed to using it as a convient excuse when it suits them and acting unilaterally when it doesn't, you might see that such resolutions are adhered to.

We certainly don't intend to let the Russians have it all their own way.

[ggaia]

Under international law, no country currently owns, or will ever own the North Pole or the region of the Arctic Ocean surrounding it. The five surrounding Arctic states, Russia, the United States (via Alaska), Canada, Norway and Denmark (via Greenland), are limited to a 200 nautical miles (370 km/230 mi) economic zone around their coasts.

Upon ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a country has a ten year period to make claims to extend its 200 nautical mile zone. Due to this, Norway (ratified the convention in 1996), Russia (ratified in 1997), Canada (ratified in 2003[3]) and Denmark (ratified in 2004[3]) launched projects to base claims that certain Arctic sectors should belong to their territories. The United States has signed, but not yet ratified this treaty, although George W. Bush asked the United States Senate to ratify it on May 15, 2007[4] and on October 31, 2007, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 17-4 to send the ratification vote to the full US Senate.

The status of the Arctic sea region is in dispute. While Canada, Denmark, Russia and Norway all regard parts of the Arctic seas as "national waters" or "internal waters", the United States and most European Union countries officially regard the whole region as international water.
http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/annex2.htm

**********­**********­**********­**********­**********­*********
No one, not even a country can go against the International Law of the Sea.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Yeah, got it.

[BluePrideSMW]

We won't be loathed for arrogance and unilateralism... A Change IS Gonna Come: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTba2ERcsrw

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

In the future, you mean?

[freshnotbitter]

Obama should make these quick nominations after his election:

Jamie Dimon, Sec of Treasury

Laura Tyson, Economic adviser

Greg Craig, Sec of State

Colin Powell, Natl Security Adviser

Susan Rice, Ambassador to UN

The Sec of Defence should be a hawk with balls of steel for balance. How about Hilary?

With the above team in place I think Obama would be ready to deal with the world on day one.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

I have never heard of your Secretary of the Treasury in the new Obama Administration.

Hillary Clinton is a bad choice for Secretary of Defense.

[CaptainStormfield]

I was hoping for someone like Paul Van Riper for Sec Def but Im sure thats too much to hope for.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wartech/nature.html

[freshnotbitter]

Jamie Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan.

He was the right hand man of the fellow who devoured Citicorp with Travelers and they had a falling out at which point Dimon went to a Chicago based bank (Bank One) as CEO which was involved in middle market lending (lending to businesses in mid-west as opposed to big multinational money center type deals that investment bankers do). When BankOne was merged he became CEO at JP Morgan.

The point is that he is a real banker and his bank has come through this mess much better than others. I believe he is advising the Obama campaign.

I hope he would serve.

I don't think Hilary wants defence. It was sort of a joke altho I think we need a hawk somewhere in the front lines, a kind of warrior's mask to summon the scary spirits in the minds of the barbarians. Thus, Hillary...­.....(just kidding, Hillary, you're a good looker, that's for sure!!!)

[robbie44]

It took a bunch of heavy thugs to taint the united states image .............It only takes one intelligent wise man to fix it........Obama 08.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Probably not quite so simple, I'm afraid.

[Rhuaidhri]

Just the fact that people who are voting for Obama see and regret that the USA "brand" has been tarnished due to the last eight years has already started having a positive impact on that brand.

Although I have a number of American friends, I had come to dislike the USA and all it stands for but now my opinion is being revised. Even the fact that the US under Obama would like take a leading role in energy conservation and "green power" (I don't count nuclear fission as green, which is why I say under Obama as opposed to McCain or Obama) has gone a long way to erasing the idea I have of the short sightedness of the American People.

[TRIATHLON]

RED CHINA PAKISTANS NEW BEST BUDDY!

** Pakistan is being pushed into the welcoming arms of The Peoples Republic of Red China by the illegal attacks being made by the (JSOC/CIA/SRO/IC) Joint Special Operations Forces Command / Central Intelligence Agent, Senior Regional Operative, In Charge, Afghanistan, stationed in Bagrum Air Force Base. The only Islamic nuclear power is increasingly being stabilize and protect by The Peoples Republic of Red China from United States Illegal Attack, they have signed with Pakistan to build (2) two nuclear reactors, and since then the (JSOC/CIA/SRO/IC) seems to have lost any interests in attacks upon Pakistan Territory. So a President Obama had better be nice to the Red Chinese, they can knock down satellites, and defend their interest in their backyards. And keep his hands off others nuclear weapons. Even as he considers how to keep Al Qaeda cadres from kidding yet another Western Army’s butt the United States Army.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

You are an intriguing combination of anti-American and anti-lefty.

[TRIATHLON]

OBAMA MISSED THE RUSSIAN SPACE SHUTTLE!

The former intelligence chieftain (KGB) Vladimir Putin, is helping India with its space program. Say Bill what ever became of the United States Space Program, you know (NSA) The National Space Agency, the space shuttle? Let's see The New Soviet Union is in space, Red China is in space, and now India is going to put men in space, and we have to do what, thumb a ride?

Guess Obama will either have to show a litle leg and stick out a thump, or its another missing movement moment.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

See my post below. I am interested in your views but not interested in this endless straw man-ism you have going.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Actually, sport, there is no Russian space shuttle ...

Get it?

[TRIATHLON]

OBAMA MISSED SHIPS MOVEMENT ON RUSSIA RELATIONSHIP

President Obama has to figure out America's relationship with Russia, missed ships movement on this on too. Look below your article Bill Ads by Google.Russia Wants Anti-US Pact, Medvedev slams the US, pushes for European alliance. Read at Newser. (www.Newser.com)

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

I'd appreciate it if you stopped mimicking the points I'm making as a means of making a straw man attack on Obama. It gets tedious.

And, finally, you do not understand the word "Soviet."

[Martha601]

Thank you for pointing that out. We get lots of "trolls" on here, we just have to smoke 'em out.

[TRIATHLON]

OBAMA MISSED SHIPS MOVEMENT TO ARCTIC

Russia, President Dmitry Medvedev has stated that further developing the Arctic which provides for (20%) twenty percent of the New Soviet Russian (GDP) Gross Domestic Product, and (22%) twenty-two percent of its exports, was “strategically important, to it’s energy security, long-term national interests, and competitiveness in global markets of the New Soviet Russia, with the Arctic continental shelf estimated to containing up to (1/4) one-fourth of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas has marked off its Arctic territory so it can claim a large share of the region's mineral resource, with the making of the external border of the continental shelf a long-term goal.

Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev stated that the New Soviet Russia will defend its interests against nations may oppose its expanding influence in the region. And has by sending two mini-submarines and planting a Russian flag on the seabed of the (1,240-mil­e/2000-kil­ometer) Lomonosov Ridge under the Arctic made its part of Russia’s continental shelf

Obama missed the Ice-Breaker and mini-sub sailing, flat missed ships movement!

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Oh, I am QUITE sure that Obama did not "miss the movement of Russian ships to the Arctic."

Once again, you totally misunderstand the meaning of the word "soviet."

If you want your posts to be taken seriously, make that badly needed adjustment.

[funnypaysoff]

I wonder if TAIsabel could get that promise in writing from his cab driver...Most of the countries that have pledged to support us if Obama gets elected we already support....You could lose three limbs in an accident and still have enough fingers to count out our real friends in the world. I travel the world constantly and I have not been in a country yet other than Great Britain whose opinion would matter to me...

If Obama ever gets elected when they sing the National Anthem instead of putting our hand on our heart we should all just bend over and hold on tight!

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for your churlish post.

You completely miss the point.

[mjt218]

" have not been in a country yet other than Great Britain whose opinion would matter to me..."

I think this is the wrong view on so many levels. If we continue our unilateralism and don't seriously confront issues like torture our position in the world will continue to be eroded.

Without the world's respect our position as the world's leader in education will continue to erode. Without the world's respect China and India will strengthen their positions in the developing world, cutting off access for US exports and for natural resources. Without the world's respect we will continue to be challenged in forming alliances and coalitions to address humanitarian causes like Darfur.

As our education system erodes, we will attract less bright minds and be placed at a competitive disadvantage against other nations in new technology development. As we use access to markets for the limited goods we provide, our own economy will continue to decline and our ability to act as a service provider in many industries will falter as well. Take away our ability to address humanitarian issues and our status diminishes even further both externally and internally.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Obviously.

[TRIATHLON]

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI FIRST STRIKE DOCTRINE!

In dealing with any perceived threat or possible enemy, but, unlike the Old Capitalist Republic United States Military Industrial Complex, Imperial Presidency Government, The (18th) Century museum piece John Locke and Thomas Jefferson Republic, which rejected any First Strike Doctrine, the New (21st) Century Socialist Government of the (DNIP) Democratic Nominee for the Imperial Presidency, has embraced the concept of Full-Spect­rum-World-­Dominance, which includes military superiority, and not military equivalence, of its Chief Military Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski part of the World Chessboard Strategy.

This calls for and is critical component of the Full-Spectrum-World Domination Theory that a Military First Strike Doctrine be planned and acted upon. This rejects the concept of (MAD) Mutual Assured Destruction, in favor of a well executed First Nuclear Strike. It is critical to the success of this attack that missiles of extreme accuracy, speed, with light load single warhead high yield Thermo-Nuclear Warheads be as close a possible to high value military targets, followed by slower more distant multiple war head high yield second strike missiles.

The Ends Justify the Means! Thermo-Nuclear War Global Obama! Talk after the first strike?

[BottomLine2008]

Okay then.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Indeed.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

There's no Obama first strike doctrine.

[TRIATHLON]

MODERN MARVELS

That's not correct there is a first strike doctrine, and it was aired on Television on the Modern Marvels show, it showed the weapons to be used and gave their specifications in detail, plus the targets to be hit. The New York Times also ran an article on the first strike doctrine, both of the STRAWMEN adhere to the first strike doctrine, its come directly from the MILITARY ADVISER TO OBAMA, Chief Military Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski part of the World Chessboard Strategy. The Shock & Awe was first strike doctrine, the use of MOAB in Tora-Bora was first strike doctrine, the illegal attacks upon Pakistan are first strike doctrine. "BELIEVE IT OR NOT"

[23000Days]

No one wants to face this, but the truth is, with India, Pakistan, Israel and likely Saudi Arabia posessing nuclear weapons, should Iran gain it's own nuclear capability, it will more likely add to the stability of the middle east rather than upsetting it. As a plus, we would no longer be able to threaten them with nuclear muscle.
The Iranaian people have been amazingly unagressive over the centuries, except when attacked.

I stand firmly for nuclear disarmament, but we will not accomplish that by playing favorites. Since we seem to be promoting the opposite direction, particularly in the countries presently posessing Nukes, all one can really say is "Fair Is Fair......"

[BottomLine2008]

Yeah, well, let's hope then that the religious fanatics running Iran don't believe their apocalyptic rhetoric, right?

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

One can only hope.

But I think that's ultimately accurate.

Ahmadinejad is a front.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Well, if you pay attention to what some of the folks running things in Iran are saying, the thought of Iran with nuclear weapons is deeply troubling.

[23000Days]

I assume you referring to Ahmadinijad. We all know he's a loose front-man for the Ayatollas, with no real power to sway Iranians. Try judging them by their actions and you arrive at a somewhat different viewpoint.
It would be fair to ask hom much slanderous propaganda has been thrown their way, as well.

[TRIATHLON]

FIRST STEPS TO THE SOCIALIST UTOPIA!

Bill, which is it going to be Democracy and capitalism are the two great pillars of the (PAST) American idea, or as you and I have determined in all your other articles we are in fact going to be doing Social Order Restructuring, Weath Redistribution, thru Progressive Income Taxing of the Upper Capitalist Class combined with Aggressive Affirmative Action Policies, replacing the Social Safety Net with a wealth redistribution Propping up of the society.

Bill we agreed that this country was to no longer be Capitalist and is a (18th) Century museum piece and ours is like "a dying person sinking fast". And, the (DNIP) Democratic Nominee for the Imperial Presidencywill replace it with a (21st) Century Socialistic State, ending the present Republic based upon the John Locke and Jefferson model, with a Karl Marx and Comade Mao Tse-Tung the greatest Marxist-Leninist of our era.

Bill you said basically that you had rejected historical idealism and that the Class struggle, between Capitalism and Socialism will be over with the election of the (DNIP) , with the elimination of Capitalism and its replacement by Socialism, and the remaining social class struggle would end under Aggeressive Affirmative Action, and the re-education of Capitalist Criminals.

What's is First Step in the (6K) Six Thousand Mile Journey to the Socialist Utopia, were does it begin and in what direction?

[BottomLine2008]

Huh?

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

You need to step back from the precipice.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

I have not said that I reject "historical idealism," whatever that is.

However, considering your months-long inability to understand the obvious meaning of the word "Soviet" ...

>Bill you said basically that you had rejected historical idealism