October 15, 2006, New World Disorder
We'll start with a discussion of the breakdown of the world's nuclear non-proliferation mechanism in the Los Angeles Times. The article discusses the fact that it now seems (surprise, surprise) that the international consensus that led to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in place for 36 years now seems to be breaking down. That consensus basically pledged most of the world not to develop nuclear weapons, and the then five "original" nuclear nations (which, not coincidentally, were the five U.N. Security Council veto holders, U.S.A., U.S.S.R. (now Russia), China, Britain and France) pledged to reduce their nuclear arsenals.
But things seem to be breaking down. For one thing, both China and Russia aren't jiggy with military enforcement against North Korea, and have agreed instead to a watered down series of trade sanctions (and even those are watered down, in turn, because China is unlikely even to inspect N.K. bound cargo for nuclear material.) And those nations may well view it as in their national interests not to have such a... robust... enforcement mechanism for non-proliferation matters. Which is troubling enough as it is, as the only existing mechanism, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is itself pretty weak, with inspectors pretty much at the mercy of host governments to let them inspect, and at the whim of the aggressions of other governments (such as the United States in early 2003) that won't let them do their job.
Oh yes... the big driver of things nuclear-disorderly now is the American policy of regime change: certain... troublesome... states... believe that if the United States will not guarantee their security (such as the case of staunch allies Taiwan and South Korea), then they had better guarantee their own security from the United States itself, especially a United States whose leadership doesn't merely recite the words "regime change" but showed everyone it was quite serious about this in Iraq... and we have... North Korea and Iran going all out to join the nuclear club. (We won't talk about other American policy such as the side deal with India, that also hastens the breakdown in international atomic order... no, we just won't.)
While it may be possible for some kind of new international equilibrium to develop and restore some measure of international order (perhaps "freezing" the current nuclear "haves" in exchange for more open inspections and tracking of nuclear material)... it will have to wait at least two years until some semblance of coompetent or rational leadership arises in the United States. Until then... as usual... the human race will have to rely on a wing and a prayer and just hope that too much bad s*** doesn't develop in the interim.
And in the precursor to that regime change (American version, legislative branch), we give you this from AmStreet's Kevin, noting that an arguably important part of the right wing noise machine, its mega-bloggers (notably Hinderaker and Reynolds) seem to be throwing in the towel vis a vis the mid-term elections... at least until their new marching orders get e-mailed to them... as things look bad for the GOP Home Team. To be sure, this seems absurd to me, as the best the Democrats could hope for would be around 219 House seats and maybe... MAYBE... 51 senate seats, and that one seat majority likely dependent on the whims of Joe Lieberman... hardly Armageddon if you're the GOP... but, these guys have perennially showed the courage of fans of any team with a huge lead... when that lead looks vulnerable... they suddenly remember another appointment and head for the parking lot.
Which is what we'all had better not do: Democrats still have to realize that 24 days is a political eternity. Time to pour it on, and pour it on some more. And it's no time to run AWAY from foreign policy, Iraq, etc., as we have done in prior elections: the party in power is the party of dangerous incompetence in areas of security (not to mention enablers of pederasty). Really, our only hope of restoring any semblance of sanity, and ultimate security, is turning out that party.