Evian, France–the world capital of designer water–may be a fitting city to host the heads of state from the eight most powerful industrial nations from June 1-3. But the image of wealthy leaders sipping “l’original” gourmet H20 will hardly help the G-8, as the exclusive group is known, to defend itself against charges of being an elitist and undemocratic forum.
If you assume that the United States is unstoppable, then resolution 1483 makes a certain kind of sense in that it oozes oleaginously into the hole that the Iraq invasion made in the UN Charter, and gives it at least the surface appearance of integrity. But by bowing down so quickly, the Security Council actually relinquished one of its last opportunities to get serious concessions.
Reports that top officials in the administration of President George W. Bush met Tuesday, May 27th to discuss U.S. policy toward Iran, including possible efforts to overthrow its government, mark a major advance in what has been an 18-month-old campaign by neoconservatives in and out of the administration. Overshadowed until last month by their much louder drum-beating for war against Iraq, the neocons’ efforts to now focus U.S. attention on “regime change” in Iran has become much more intense since early May and has already borne substantial fruit.
The Bush administration is presenting itself to the world as a juggernaut–a “massive, inexorable force that advances irresistibly, crushing whatever is in its path.” Bush’s National Security Strategy portrays his “war against terrorism” as “a global enterprise of uncertain duration.” It says the U.S. will act against “emerging threats before they are fully formed.” The Bush administration envisions the coming decades as a continuation of recent U.S. demands, threats, and wars. It intends to continue the aggressive behavior already illustrated by war on Afghanistan and Iraq, armed intervention in the Philippines and Colombia, and threats against Syria, Iran, and North Korea. The Bush administration and its successors are likely to continue this juggernaut until they are made to stop.
The Bush administration has its foreign policy hands full with each nation in its “Axis of Evil.” From the ongoing search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, to the appearance of negotiations with North Korea, and the push to declare Iran in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, President Bush is following through with his promise to make certain these “dangerous regimes and terrorists” can not threaten the U.S. with the world’s most destructive weapons.
The 19-member Rio Group will meet in the ancient Inca capital of Cuzco, high in the Peruvian Andes, on May 23-24. Innovative, new solutions to familiar problems, like the promotion of democracy and the war on drugs, are on the agenda of this Latin American alliance.