No question Rice has been a moderating influence and Gates appears to be a good man.

If Cheney and those who influence the President have it set in their minds it is important to bomb or invade Iran (for what ever reason), they are sitting in the seats of authority to make it so. Just based on prior acts and rhetoric alone, I would not be surprised with some form of military action before they leave office.
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Fabius Maximus replies: Who can say? But I will stick with what I have said for the past several years: probably no strike, although we might conduct small raids on training camps in Iran.

The fact that wars are trumped up for resources is nothing new in history, but follows history since armies stood up for nations.

Circumstances might change war with Iran, as the bog-down in Iraq did, but if it is already decided on, it is going to take place circumstances permitting.
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Fabius Maximus replies: Nobody can say for certain, except for the Bush and DoD inner circle, but I do not believe that we will strike Iran (except perhaps, for raids on a few training camps). See these articles: War with Iran?

“Building a Case for War in Iran - Part 2“, posted at The Yankee Sailor (8 May 2008) — Excerpt:

“News continues to roll in that the United States may be nearing a decision to strike Iran. In my previous installment, I discussed the storm of tough talk currently unleashed from Washington. In this installment I’ll lay out some of the other events in the region in recent weeks.”

“The Fleet Positions Itself For War“, posted at Information Dissemination (7 May 2008) — Lists developments which the author believes as preludes to war: “Part of that strategy includes the buildup of rhetoric, the shuffling of resources, and the preparation in Iraq for a military action against Iran.”

What I find disturbing is the widespread enthusiasm for war with Iran, as seen in the opening to the above post:
“We believe the only successful exit strategy from Iraq travels a road through Iran.”

Oh come on, that’s not the ‘old Europe’ attitude, is it?

The problem of the USA in the NATO is that despite its size and influence, countries like Norway and Luxembourg have probably done more to enhance the national security of European alliance members than the USA (some small European countries have admirable neutral agent diplomats whose activities are rarely reported).

Many U.S. Americans consider their country as the one that gets called if there’s a problem somewhere - and then it comes and solves the problem, afterwards complaining that others don’t do their homework and are ungrateful.
Seriously, I cannot remember a real-world example of this in the past 17 years, almost the entire post-Cold War time. They were called upon sometimes, they came sometimes - but solved problems? There were too many complications. The bitching happened, that’s for sure.
Look at the recent Kenya conflict. Look at the negotiator list. No American. No-one even bothered to ask for one.

It’s easy to remember CAUSED troubles, visits without invitation and calls for their allies, though.
(Europeans are doing a lot of non-sense in foreign policy, too. Like the Kosovo non-sense.)

But as I understand it, it’s still not mainstream insight in the U.S. that 9/11 was a blowback, caused by its foreign policy?
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Fabius Maximus replies: “that 9/11 was a blowback, caused by its foreign policy” — Yes, it is still a fringe view. We will have to wait for Bin Laden’s autobiography to know for sure.

To put it in very simple terms, if the World’s population was only 1 billion, then we could all live like kings. At 20B it gets tough.

It is self correcting. As the population reduces, things get cheaper. Houses get cheaper. There are more jobs. People shortages mean better wages. Then people breed more (ref Black Death) . Nothing to get worried over, despite Spengler’s (read the Asia Times) rabid nonsense.

Prediction: the birthrate of the US will drop over the next few years. Lower wages, more unemployment, higher prices of food, energy, less homes, etc.

Hey, an Australia with only 10 million would be wonderful, an US at 100 million would be a paradise. What’s the problem?
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Fabius Maximus replies: Since most of the US is empty, and most of its wealth and income results from the work of its people, why would a 2/3 reduction in population would make us “live like kings”?
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Much of the land fought over in the “wild west” is abandoned today, as we have concentrated in dense urban areas. Perhaps we would continue to do so if the population crashed.
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Nor is it clear why our birthrate affects population. Immigration from Asian, Africa, and Latin America might easily keep the population at current levels, esp. as the new Americans will have far higher birthrates (at least for the first few generations). All three Presidential candidates favor open borders, although McCain pretended otherwise during the Republican primary season, so this scenario is easy to imagine.

A continued neocon foreign policy (if McCain wins) would stress existing alliances of the USA.
Europe might decide that it’s actually safer if its collective is organized along EU lines.
Australia might decide it’s better off as neutral power selling good amounts of iron ore to both China and the USA.
Japan might decide that it doesn’t want to wait till it’s drawn into a war.
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Fabius Maximus replies: Interesting speculation! Americans tend to assume that we have common interests with Europe, hence concern to adapt NATO for the 21st century. Perhaps the alliance is dead, on the current terms.
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As Spengler at Asia Times has said, a people that cannot bother to reproduce are not likely to fight for their non-existent future.