A few years ago I took a course in Harvard University in Cambridge, USA.
The course was called the Owner/President Management (OPM) program and was designed for people who managed their own businesses or had a significant share in the business they managed.
One of the classes was on globalization and its effects on business. The professor stated on our first class that the US had decided that the whole world must follow its example and those who fail to do so would be punished.
“Sort yourselves out or we will come and do it for you” or words to that effect.
He made these statements in a dry matter of fact voice and with an implacable menace in his eyes.
Needless to say, I was terrified.
My American classmates noticed how disturbed I was and were slightly embarrassed by the professor’s frankness.
They kindly tried to soothe me and calm my fears for which I was quite touched. They were like people coming to give condolences at a funereal.
The problem was that it was my funereal.
I later realized that I had just met one of the group we now call the neocons who are making such trouble for the world today.
Remember this was at the time of the Clinton administration when G.W. Bush was not even a twinkle in the republican’s eyes.
Since then over the years I have watched as the US embarked on precisely what the professor had warned us.
Sorting the whole world out and shaping it to suit them with the Middle East bearing the brunt of this new mission to civilize.
It is therefore a source of great wonder and amazement, for me, how a nation with so many resources and so much expertise can get itself into such a mess.
In Iraq for example, the Americans find themselves more and more being put in the position of declaring a set timetable for their withdrawal from that occupied land.
I will not go into an elaborate explanation of why this will have a devastating effect on US policy in Iraq because I like to leave some things to the intelligence and imagination of my readers.
To help you I will ask two questions:
One, what impact would knowledge of a precise date for US withdrawal have on its friends and allies in Iraq?
Two, what impact would such knowledge have on US friends and allies outside of Iraq?
Please notice the expression these days on the faces of those who are not considered particularly friendly by the US. They have a smile that looks like the smile of the Cheshire cat in the story of Alice in Wonderland.
Their smile, however, will change (I humbly predict) in the coming few months to that of a shark as it lazily circles its thrashing prey.
I therefore also predict that a great hunt will begin in Washington very soon.
The chase will be on for that legendary almost mythical beast .... the great North American scapegoat!
It will be very interesting (for those who care about such things) to see what individual or group will be given the honor of taking on the collective sin of the US, and in a Christ-like manner be punished in expiation of such sin.
I will give you three guesses.
