Who needs a Super Power?

"Certainly, no one in their right mind, Israeli or American, can believe that a continued resort to force will remedy whatever it is that fuels anti-Israeli or anti-American antagonism throughout much of the Islamic world. To expect persistence to produce something different or better is moonshine." Andrew Bacevich



The above statement is not true for almost a third of America and a fairly significant right wing elements in Israel. To the extent that they have sway over their Military machines, the killings will continue and even moderate elements like Obama will want to appease them. It cannot be taken for granted that Iran will not be attacked. The Americans have not seen the horrors of war visited on them as the Europeans have. History is witness to the fact that two very strange bedfellows have influence over America's Iran policy, Saudi Arabia and Israel and they both want the same thing.

Bacevich also does not discuss that Iraq and Afghanistan are not over. The cost of exiting either country will be more expensive to the US then they can estimate. The lessons from Vietnam were never learnt but the new lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan are not even being recognised. The lesson is not that overwhelming superiority in arms or excessive use of them against the enemy will not get you what you want. The lesson is that the world does not need a super power. If the US vacated that seat, there will be no takers. China has no interest in it, but the US is not about to vacate that seat because it has somehow become glued to it.

Technology has brought a new dimension now to the waging of wars, it has to be done in the glaring light of the unofficial media. Just as you cannot now torture your enemy without every one knowing about it , you cannot go into the wilds of Afghanistan and kill women and children without every one knowing about it. America must wait for a truthful leader, unlike Bill " I did not have sex with that woman", Clinton or George ' we do not torture " Bush. America may be looking for their own Chengiz Khan who will kill, burn, rape and pillage without feeling embarrassed about it. There is an equal chance of this happening as of America going into a corner and sulking.

Khusro