I've seen many articles recently about North Korea's belligerence (sp?). They've buzzed our fighter planes, restarted their reactors, embarked on two separate missile tests. This is very shrewd work on their part. Then, this morning, I saw this article on Time about Iran nearing completion of a giant uranium enrichment plant. It all points to the hidden costs of this war.

Of course, to begin with, you cannot really get a good estimate of what this war with Iraq will cost. The Bush administration gives out lean figures that we all know aren't true and won't elucidate at all on what the post-war occupation costs will be (oh wait, we'll suddently remember Iraq is filled with oil and balance our costs that way). But, there are some real non-tangible costs to this war that don't even have anything to do with the losses to our international stature. These are the costs of a forced hand. We want this war so badly and are willing to go to such lengths against such public enmity, that we are forced to sit on our hands as other rogue regimes take advantage of this very opportunity.

And, who can blame North Korea? The actions they are taking right now are part of an extremely well calculated effort to not be our next target. They are taking full advantage of our unilateralism to send out their message now, while they can, that they will not stand to be next. Since we cannot possibly deal with the complexities of both situations, they are, in effect, establishing precedent. With this precedent, our options will be much fewer once the war concludes.

It seems Iran is doing likewise. Will we defeat Iraq and fix the 12 year old loose ends in that nation? Yes. Will we at the same time create a whole slew of new complications in doing so? Also, yes. Will it all balance out? Who knows? I do know that as we all keep getting more and more technologically advanced, we cannot stop nuclear proliferation forever. Eventually such proliferation is inevetible. And once we realize this, it will be like drilling in Anwar with fuel cell cars on our 15 year horizon. Or like attacking Iraq now.

Did I mention Dick Cheney's Halliburton has won the contract for Iraq oil firefighting?

By Gary at 04:41 PM in World | Comments (0)