Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | A | Arena Magazine

Not to speculate: although it is necessary to recognise the probable impact of the policies of Washington''s `recycled Reaganites'', it is crucial to focus on the means of influencing and resisting those events.

Article Excerpt
C.P. Do you have any predictions about what we might expect in the coming weeks?

N.C. If anything's obvious from the history of warfare, it's that very little can be predicted. But what's going to happen is not war. The disparity of force is so extraordinary that the term `war' doesn't apply. We wouldn't call it a boxing match if the world champion were in a ring with a kindergarten child. So this one is fairly predictable, just as it was predictable, and predicted (right here, for example) that the Taliban would be easily defeated.

My guess is that the superhawks are right. There'll be a devastating blow, and the society will collapse. What happens then in Iraq is anybody's guess. Or elsewhere, including here. There is no reason to doubt the near-universal judgement that an attack on Iraq will increase the threat of terror and the development and use of weapons of mass destruction. And the threat is serious, as has been known for many years, long before 9/11. Perhaps it is enough to quote the primary conclusion of the high-level Hart-Rudman task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations: America--Still Unprepared, Still in Danger: the threat of `catastrophic terrorist attack on US soil' is grave, and `the need for immediate action [to counter the threat] is made more urgent by the prospect of the United States's going to war with Iraq'. The reasons have been repeatedly explained, and are pretty obvious without reliance on experts.

Is there any chance of Blair backing out at this point, and if so do you think Bush would consider proceeding solo?

Blair is under a lot of internal pressure, and the same is true of other members of `the coalition of the willing'. It can hardly have escaped notice that...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!