Shawn writes:
> A better follow up question to the US would be:
>
> Q. Do you care what Germany and France think of the US?

Ok, finally one I feel the urge to respond to, sorry :-)

Americans.  Always taking the short-term view of everything.  Probably think
this is all about containing Iraq.  Don't see that there's a bigger issue
that ought to be rather important to them as well.

Back in the Cold War days, the world was basically a two-party system and
just as the US Congress primarily has its Republicans and Democrats, the
world had the "East" and the "West", lead by the USSR and the US
respectively.  Most countries in the world probably would have described
themselves as being a member of one or the other faction (with a few notable
exceptions of course).

Just as a member of Congress does, the countries of the world generally went
along with the desires of their party leadership, except when those desires
were totally out of line with their own ideals.

But then the cold war ended, and one of the world's two "parties" basically
up and died, with its remnants quickly signing on with the opposition.

Since that time, the leader of the remaining party has basically had things
their way.  This is perhaps the ultimate fantasy of anyone who has to
compete to survive, that your competition vanishes and you can do anything
you feel like.

But if, say, all the Democrats in the US Congress quit or switched sides to
the Republicans, you'd have a similar situation for a while but only until
some portion of them notice that since the opposition is gone, there's no
longer a need to huddle together with others for protection from that
opposition.

The most interesting thing about the current disagreement over Iraq between
the US and France, Germany, Russia, etc., is that it may represent an
awakening in the rest of the world that maybe they don't *have* to do
everything the US wants any more.

These countries may find that they have a common bond resulting from the
fact that they feel that the US has always treated them like second-class
citizens, or as children needing to be protected and directed by a
"benevolent" parent, and they might ask themselves, what if we get together
and treat each other like first-class citizens?  Do we really need that
parent any more?

If the US fails to achieve a consensus that allows it to attack Iraq, and is
forced to recall its forces from the gulf (or even if it then unilaterally
attacks Iraq), it is likely to find that the rest of the world will view
this as a weakness in the former de-facto world leader, and the ability of
the US to dictate policy to the rest of the planet could be severely
damaged.

If this happens it may have a dramatic effect on the willingness of the
world to go along with US directions in areas like security (privacy issues)
and intellectual property controls.

So while the Iraq issue may be an important one, the fact that these events
could mark the demotion of the only remaining Super Power to simply being
one of many powers in the world may have much more important and
long-reaching effects on the people of the United States.

G.

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