ZGram - 7/22/2003 - "Buchanan: Approaching imperial overstretch"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

July 22, 2003

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Another good one from Pat Buchanan:

[START]

Approaching imperial overstretch
Patrick J. Buchanan
Posted: July 21, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

The news from Iraq is not good. Each day brings new attacks on U.S. 
troops. As many Americans have now died since Saddam's statue fell 
from its Baghdad pedestal as perished in the war.

Gen. John Abizaid, who replaced Tommy Franks, has contradicted 
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to declare that Iraqis are now engaged 
in a "classical guerrilla-type campaign against us."

Franks thought the U.S. Army would be in Iraq two to four years at 
least. Gen. Barry McCaffrey predicts five to 10 years to pacify and 
democratize the country. Rumsfeld says the cost of occupying and 
rebuilding Iraq is now $4 billion a month.

Yet, it is hard to recall a 20th-century guerrilla war that did not 
last longer or cost more than projected. And lest we forget, most of 
these wars were lost. The French lost in Indochina and Algeria, the 
Americans in Vietnam, the Israelis in Lebanon.

Western nations prevailed when they aligned themselves with 
nationalists and were able to deny guerrillas a privileged sanctuary 
in a neighboring country. Thus, the Brits prevailed in Malaya, and 
Americans aided the Greeks in defeating communist rebels and 
Filipinos in defeating the Huks.

In Nicaragua, Angola and Afghanistan, Reagan turned the tables on 
Moscow by aligning the United States with nationalists fighting to 
dump over odious Marxist client regimes of the Soviet Empire.

But the omens are not good in Iraq. The morale of U.S. troops, who 
were told "the road home lies through Baghdad," is sinking, as is 
support for the president, as Americans realize the fighting and 
dying have only just begun.

The initiative has passed to the enemy. He chooses the time and place 
of attack, he has the element of surprise. And the presence of a U.S. 
army of 150,000 occupying an Arab country is a lure to every Muslim 
who hates us to slip over the border and kill Americans without 
having to face the firepower of U.S. fleets and planes.

Another problem the president faces is that we are running out of 
army. With U.S. active duty forces down to half what Ronald Reagan 
left us in 1989, we have troop deployments and treaty commitments 
President Reagan never had to honor.

Packets of U.S. forces are now not only in Germany, South Korea and 
Japan, but Colombia, the Philippines, Eastern Europe, Bosnia, Kosovo, 
the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iraq and 
the Gulf. U.S. troops are being requested for Liberia. And with a 
guerrilla war now being waged in Iraq, two other axis-of-evil 
nations, Iran and North Korea, are driving for nuclear weapons. 
Confrontation, even conflict, with either cannot be ruled out of 
Pentagon plans.

America is now approaching the imperial overstretch toward which we 
have been lunging and stumbling since the Cold War. For 10 years, the 
"jodpurs-and-pith-helmets" jingo crowd at the little magazines has 
been beating the drum to drive us toward this cataract.

Now, we are there, the United States is facing what Walter Lippmann 
called "foreign-policy bankruptcy."

A foreign policy is bankrupt when a nation's strategic assets – its 
forces and alliances – are insufficient to cover its liabilities, 
what it has committed to defend. U.S. foreign-policy bankruptcy was 
reached before Pearl Harbor, when Franklin Roosevelt was issuing 
ultimata to Japan without the naval power to defend the Philippines 
and any other island possessions in the far Pacific. So, our notes 
were called, we had insufficient funds to cover them, and the war 
came.

Foreign policy bankruptcy is a condition that invites a run on the 
bank by a nation's enemies and adversaries. So today, we see 
axis-of-evil nations defying the Bush Doctrine and driving toward 
nuclear weapons, Iraqis rising up to expel us, Muslim fanatics 
slipping into Iraq to attack our soldiers, and alienated allies 
sitting back and relishing watching the "American hyper-power" thrash 
about.

As our reserves are being called up, not only is our active duty U.S. 
military stretched thin. Our budget deficit is $455 billion and 
rising, our trade deficit is $500 billion and rising, our dollar has 
fallen 25 percent against the euro.

In ruthless candor, President Bush does not have the surplus of 
resources – military, strategic, financial, political – to hold the 
empire. As some of us predicted a decade ago, the compulsive 
interventionism of the Bushites must lead to imperial overstretch.

Something has to give. It is going to be the empire. We are at or 
close to high tide now. From here on, it begins to recede. Either 
President Bush starts discarding imperial responsibilities we cannot 
carry, and bringing the troops home, or his successor will.

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