George Handlery about the week that was. The burden of innocence and guilt. History indicts all of us. Europe’s power frightens some Europeans. The challenge that follows from the end of American unilateralism. Jihadists can gain politically – if they know something besides killing. Monarchic lessons and the Korean Question.
 
1. Condy Rice is appalled that the international community is unable to deal with dictators. Her shock is justified. Any surprise is unwarranted. Most UN members are not democracies. More correctly put, they are democracies in name only. Such as in “The Democratic This or That of Whatever”. Generally, sharks do not attack each other when swimmers are available. The result is tolerance for the intolerable. The illustration is delivered free of charge by the inability of southern Africa’s political organization to treat Mugabe the way his record deserves it and the peril of his subjects demands.
 
2. The ethnic issues embedded in some multinational states are apt to ferment. This happens while the international community does all it can not to take notice. Once alerted, international opinion, unprepared and partially informed as it usually is, inclines to look for the guilty party of the moment. Unfortunately, such issues as problems of the present are not optimally approached by bringing up past guilt and innocence. Most nations are now located on territory that had once been the possession of a conquered, and by now probably extinct, people. In the case of the Americans, it is even OK to discuss the matter loudly and in public. If you raise your sights above the frequently skewed national perspectives phrased in response to the moment’s need, you discover that all parties to current disputes have been victims as well as the cause of suffering. Not the moral core derived from the ethnicity of virtue determined the roles that had been played.
Momentary strength led to commit (or to suffer) what had been done and what one does not care to get back. Therefore, the solution of such disputes resides in the mutual ability to forgive the past shaped by others and to ask for forgiveness for ones own record. This can work only if ongoing retaliatory actions that are designed to “pay them back” cease.
 
3. Observe the use of historical arguments and counter arguments that are supposed to shed supportive light on the origins and the legitimacy of some contemporary problem. If you penetrate beyond the propaganda, you might conclude that today’s complaining victim has once been a violator. (This is not to suggest that the contemporary claim is without merit.) History is conveniently bent to indict others but actually in history through our ancestors we are all guilty.
 
4. It is a ritual of politicians to worry about antagonizing Russia by careless moves. For Russia’s immediate neighbors the worry is the West’s concern regarding the appropriate physical response to possible acts of encroachment. Oddly, regarding the USA such analogous inhibitions are largely missing. This tells much about the thesis that the two powers are equivalent even if they are often located on opposite poles between which disputes are carried out.
 
5. It has been a perennial accusation leveled at Bush that the tensions of the transatlantic relationship were the consequence of his mismanagement flowing from American “unilateralism”. We can rest assured that once Obama’s bonus evaporates in the heat generated by emerging facts, the nexus will again sour. By the logic of his position, Obama might also feel forced to repeat in an important and unavoidable respect what Bush had done. He will need to ask nominal allies that wish to be neutral when action in behalf of their security is demanded, for their contributions to further the common cause.
 
6. Europe might worry about Russia, China, Islamists and whatever. Nevertheless, it is most frightened by the consequences of its own potential – and avoided – strength. Strength? Well, just look at the GDP, the size of the population and similar trifles. Europe’s weight might provoke demands to step into the ring in a way that is commensurate to its class and the need to use muscle. This reluctance is precisely what is wrong here. Needing to act is the challenge that scares Europe more than you would be if you were to find a crocodile in your pool.
 
7. As US power supposedly recedes, the unfolding process is accompanied by hearty cheers. At the end of the realignment, Europe will be called upon to adjust her geopolitical role. As long as the US led and while Europe, by its own volition had no power, the Old World still had “influence”. This influence derived from her ability to hold back and to block the USA. (If you surmise here that this power had been, therefore, an unintended derivate of American power, then you are, at least to the writer, right.) This ability counted during the era of US dominance. Therefore, this influence made Europe into a courted entity. As American power declines or is redirected this factor will diminish in significance.
 
8. Obama’s suggested strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan seems to imply that vigorous combat and clever negotiation will be paired. If the first of these produces results, the resulting losses could convince the Jihadists to talk. In case they will be ready to make a deal they can expect to get a good one. This is the strength, respective the potential of Obama’s apparent concept. The weakness of the notion is that the Taliban’s thinking might not enable them to get to their goal the easy way. Do they understand that the change in the presidency implies a new hand dealt to them? Will they perceive the new approach as signifying more than only weakness and sagging resolve? If they assume that the US is stumbling then they will be pre-disposed to give the wrong response. That might mean to persevere in doing what they do best and prefer. That is more killing while the goal of total victory is pursued. This implies that they miss an opportunity for a compromise that tilts in their favor.
 
9. Cheap oil. Only the fools think that it can last. Nevertheless, a window of opportunity to pursue a far-off-in-the-future alternative of supplies and sources is opened. More important than the pecuniary aspects of this is that numerous dictatorships – or the very foundation of global dictatorship – depends on high oil-generated revenues. The list ranges from clowns such as Chavez to stone-crunchers as in Russia. Revenues that recede like male hairlines might reduce the number of cards these hold and moderate their inclination to take strategic risks. If this happens, the question will be whether the opportunity will be exploited or whether the democracies will enjoy filling-up at a discount and settle for a political status quo.
 
10. Korea. (The other one, silly.) You are probably familiar with the kind of trick drawings which consist of a scene within which subtly another object is hidden. You are supposed to find this secret if you overcome your inclination to be bound by the image on the surface that is designed to tell you much while it conceals what you are looking for. The title these have sound like “Where is...” On a more serious level, regarding Korea, we are being asked, “Where is Kim?” the Ruler of the Empire of Starvation. Actually, finding the Dear Leader might be unimportant. The real question is who will succeed him. The right to rule by inheritance seems to be sufficiently established to trigger informed talk about which one of His known descendants is the least qualified. The problem regarding the guideline inherent in dynastic succession without a crown (at the moment this is written) is one that Europe has experienced in the Middle Ages. After a few generations, families get large enough to complicate an otherwise clear case. What even the most carefully cultivated ancestral line and tradition cannot guarantee is that the ability to exercise inherited power is genetically perpetuated in the family.
 
11. Prejudice. What if a unease’s roots are imbedded in events that took place elsewhere with others cast in the role of the victim? Must a personal experience serve as a prerequisite for reservations in order not to be labeled as “prejudicial”? Ergo, to avoid the charge of prejudice, must I wait until it happens to me too?