Sadly, 'everybody wants to rule the world'

All for freedom and for pleasure

Nothing ever last forever

Everybody wants to rule the world...

—Tears for Fears

Consider the following list of events, some of which have already happened and some of which have not, but which are all entirely plausible. Individually, they are like regional brush fires, but together they pose the most significant threat to American military hegemony since World War II.

NATO strikes a Pakistani military base killing 24 soldiers; the nation is enraged. The closure of the vital supply route from Pakistan maroons our troops in Afghanistan. Jihadists take over the Pakistani government and threaten war with America and India. India puts its nuclear defenses on trip wire alert in response to tensions with a new radical nuclear Pakistan.

Mysterious explosions level a nuclear facility and missile base in Iran. Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats plan cyberattacks against U.S. nuclear power plants. Syria is engulfed in civil war and NATO imposes a no-fly zone in support of the rebels.

At the same time, China sends its navy to the Persian Gulf and the South China Sea, telling its troops, “it’s time for war.” Taiwan puts its armed forces on high alert. Iran shuts the Straits of Hormuz to one-third of the world’s oil and invades southern Iraq. North Korea sinks a South Korean war ship near the DMZ.

Israel launches a unilateral attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and Iran uses a Chinese “sizzler” missiles to sink a US aircraft carrier in the Persian gulf. Iran and Syria escalate the war with deadly missile attacks on Israel. American bombers level Iranian missile bases. Israel retaliates with nuclear weapons against Tehran.

WELCOME TO the post-Cold War dog and pony show as Europe implodes and high-tech American drones fall into the hands of Iranian radicals — an Iranian version of “fast and furious”?

As we exit Iraq and give carte blanche power to Iran over the fate of our fragile purple-finger nation building in Baghdad after spending billions on a war that we could never actually “win,” it makes me nostalgic for the simpler days of the Cuban Missile Crisis and Cold War détente. Gee, if it could all only be that easy again.

While Republican presidential contenders froth and dither about Palestine, Iran and China, the Democrats must be thinking Hillary will somehow save the planet from Obama just in time for the Republicans to self -destruct before 2012. It’s not like Obama can run on the economy. So like… do we need more wars? No — just one really, really big stimulus package to set the world on fire.

Despite our own incompetence, Israel has its own timetable on events in the Middle East. The Israelis are not constrained by inept American politics. Remember the Israeli attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear facility in 1981? Even if you don’t, Iran remembers. For millennia, the Middle Eastern mind has smoldered over tribal blood feuds and religious wars. They don’t need more excuses to kill each other, or to kill us. We have given them reason enough into the next millennium. Got drones?

Above the din of Middle Eastern saber rattling and religious hate, the drums of war now signal that the window of opportunity to strike Iran is closing. Saudi Arabia has even threatened to pursue its own nukes if Iran is not stopped from getting the bomb. A (nuclear) war in the Persian gulf involving Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, America and NATO troops would threaten to bring in China (they need Iranian oil even if we don’t). And I don’t think Russia would be very happy either.

As “pressure” is brought to bear on Tehran by international “sanctions,” Russia and China are even telling Iran to “cool it.” But then again, our historical enemies cant help but think of how nice it would be to rule the world without the pesky American military around in the neighborhood.

Its been 70 years since Pearl Harbor, 10 years since 9/11 and the Pax Americana is being sorely tested by recent geopolitical events like never before. Just the thought of Iran shutting down the Straits of Hormuz caused the global price of oil to spike several dollars in just minutes. Are you ready for $8 gas, $10 dollar bread and $6 butter?

Everyone wants to rule the world, but there is no one left who knows how to run it. Europe is broke and has no authority even over its own house. American fiscal policy and foreign policy are a joke. The law of unintended consequences dictates that what can happen will happen. The political circus has always had its clowns, but now the clowns are in the highest positions of global power and ultimately… power hates a political vacuum.

Whether you believe in biblical eschatology, Mayan prophecy or just the Wall Street Journal, the clowns seem to be dancing ever closer to the fire.

Seymour is a Kalispell-area resident.