Condoleeza Rice's Pax Americana

'Condi' is in town, Sydney Australia that is, meeting with her Australian counterparts and with the 'outspoken' Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso.

Polls indicate that she enjoys an approval rating of 52 percent in the USA, compared with George W Bush's 33 percent (and falling). And the macabre jokes about Condi versus Hillary in 2008 are starting to look increasingly like reality.

"There is one, and only one, figure in America who can stop Hillary Rodham Clinton," writes Dick Morris, the former political adviser to Bill Clinton, in his book Condi vs Hillary. "If there is a Hillary, there must be a Condi. One will spawn the other."

I've often wondered what makes this rather scary woman tick, and how someone so obviously intelligent could be party to the Middle East policies of GW Bush - policies that I am convinced will be seen in retropect as the biggest collective strategic blunder in the history of the USA, Vietnam included. It may well be that Bush is not nearly so dumb as he appears. Perhaps the silly walk, the stilted diction, the mispronunciations, the malapropisms and so forth are a strategy to endear himself to the people, to appear unpatrician, a regular dude - unlike the "almost French" John Kerry for instance. But he comes over as stoopid, the fall-guy for comedians around the world. Rice, by contrast, is plainly very bright, has studied history and politics at doctoral level, and has been known to draw parallels between the Roman Empire's 'Pax Romana' and America's stated policy of exporting Western-style democracy to the rest of the world.

Taking this desire at face value for a moment, putting aside the cynical vew that it's all to do with oil and that vile dictatorships are tolerated where oil and other strategic advanteges exist for the USA, you'd still have to seriously question the judgement behind the invasion of Iraq.

Or maybe not. Whether USA Middle East policy is ultimately seen as mistaken all depends on what the game plan is. There are some, including Southeast Asian leaders, that do not regard the Vietnam debacle as ultimately a failure, despite the effective military defeat of the USA.

I have always been convinced that the 'overt' plan for Iraq - the phantom WMDs, removing a vile dictator (so recently a valued ally), the establishment of a democracy, has always been a front for the real game plan - establishing a permanent force of 350,000 or so American soldiers at the heart of the Middle East, between the Sunni 'West' - The Arabs (and the 60-odd year old settlement that is modern Israel) and the Shiite 'East' - the non-Arab Iran, the old Persian Empire.

The reasons for this? The stakes that have plainly factored in an 'acceptable' American death toll of perhaps a thousand soldiers a year for the foreseeable future? I recenty saw the excellent 'Syriana', and the Matt Damon character, in answer to just such a question by a young Emir-in-waiting, says something like "Isn't it obvious? It's RUNNING OUT! THE OIL! THEY THINK IT'S RUNNING OUT!".

So far so obvious. But oil cannot be the whole answer. USA policy is surely concerned with far more than just Iraq's oil reserves. Saudi Arabia has to be an imporatant part of any Middle Eastern geopolitical equation. The House of Saud is one of America's staunchest allies in the region, and I believe that everyone knows it is only a matter of time before that regime colapses, an outcome to which Osama Bin Laden has dedicated himself. The American troops there are, I suspect, being quietly withdrawn.

And then there is Iran - a non Arab country also with significant reserves of oil, but more alarmingly perhaps for the USA, the apparent means to build nuclear weapons, combined with a wish to export its religious revolution. Apart from the protection of Israel and other USA client states in the region, is this what the large standing US force in Iraq is really about? Are we seeing the same inexorable move towards war with Iran as we saw with Iraq in 2003, Are Tehran's WMDs also phantoms?

And where, in all this, is Condi's 'Pax Americana'?

Paul McGeogh, writing for Australia's Fairfax Press last week, quoted former US and UN envoy Peter Galbraith lamenting what he describes as a little noticed consequence of America's failure in Iraq: "We invaded Iraq to protect ourselves against nonexistent WMDs and to promote democracy. Democracy in Iraq brought to power Iran's allies, who are in a position to ignite an uprising against American troops that would make the current problems with the Sunni insurgency seem insignificant."

McGeogh goes on to quote an unnamed Jordanian source: "Iran has wanted to control the Sunni Arabs for 1000 years and they are doing it now. Ayatollah Khomeini tried - and failed - to export his revolution for 15 years, but Bush has done it for him in just two years", and adds 'The US did Tehran a giant favour by invading Iraq, because Saddam Hussein was the Sunni bulwark against Iranian Shiite ambition. Now, in his absence, Iran is winning a place in Sunni hearts and minds across the region by assuming the fallen dictator's manipulative interest in the Palestinian cause. Given the bungled US effort in Iraq, neighbouring countries are wary and weary of speculation that Washington might attempt military intervention - if only by bombing from beyond Iran's borders - in its efforts to thwart Tehran's well-developed nuclear ambitions.'

McGeogh then quotes democracy analysts Marina Ottaway and Thomas Carothers writing in Foreign Policy late last year: "Promoting democracy throughout the Middle East will require doing away with the fantasies of a sudden US-led transformation of the region and taking seriously the challenge of building credibility with Arab societies. Moreover, if the US is to play a constructive supporting role, it must seriously revise its cosy relations with autocratic regimes and show a sustained ability to apply nuanced diplomatic pressure with well-crafted and wellfunded assistance."

I wonder if Condoleeza Rice is listening. The future of our planet may depend on it.