Submitted by Don Robertson, Dec 29, 2006 08:52

I am continually bemused by the Administration as policy decisions are pushed forward that strikingly correspond to the interests of big oil. The Adminstration never makes clear whether this is a moral decision, or it is a strategic decision. The delicate balance is too obvious not to spell yet more hypocrisy and a continued degradation of the good will of the U.S. around the world.

The moral side of this argument is that Iran is a country that should not be allowed to gain nuclear capabilities, so much so, argues the Administration, Iran's people should be made to suffer under sanctions imposed by the U.N. and more by the U.S. under its own laws.

The strategic side of the argument is that the U.S. is willing to risk good relations with China to prevent China from gaining a foothold in Middle East oil, while trying to prevent Iran from establishing commercial ties to China that would supply it with trade and China with resources China needs to continue its growth.

I don't think either argument is viable. The moral justification can be dismissed almost out of hand, as the U.S. has clearly lost the moral high ground in the venue of world politics. The Iraq war has so debased U.S. standing in the world, no moral justification the U.S. puts forth carries any weight within the arena of world politics today. If that were not enough, the Adminstration and indeed even the American people simply do not have any cogent definition of what morality might be, which would give any interpretation to that missing effect any credibility.

The reason Napoleon was such a threat was because he had a firm grasp of the relevant moral arguments of his time. George W. Bush has no such grasp of morality And, the American people are mired in a centrist view of an arcane secular humanist approach to the world so much so, they are almost, if not completely, irrelevant when they speak on moral matters.

Morality is this: The moral imperative of life is to live a life that detracts not at all from the lives available to those who will follow us into this world. That is the new paradigm of morality that appeals univerally, and which might carry some political weight in the world. Were Napoleon alive today, that is the moral song he would be singing, and he again would be a threat.

Strategically, the Administration is playing economic warfare games that do not accord with the free trade Libertarian ideals that still rule the power-roost of our government. Of course free-trade Libertarian ideals are arcane and rapidly are becoming obsoleted by more pressing concerns than the once heralded continued economic growth, which of late is becoming more and more the bane of our human existence. Growth is the last thing this world needs today, though it will likely continue to our horror.

What this world needs is to seek a sustainable paradigm of economic activity, not growth. Morally, what is needed is for the U.S. to step forward and condemn even its own nuclear weapons arsenal, that of Israel and every other politcla entity in the West for whom we can speak, and then to raise the spector of what continued economic growth will mean to the world.

The game today is about calling the shots on exactly how the world will limit its growth, Kyoto, and beyond into a sustainable future for the future, and not directly for our selfish benefit today at all.

Bearing all that in mind, the U.S. can continue to be a world leader.

Ignoring it, the U.S. is doomed to be ignored because we will be irrelevant.

Such benificent leadership is all we really have to offer the world today, but, as Napoleon would have noted for us, it is something the world cries out for with increasing desperation as war, unrestrained growth, greater poverty, threatening pestilence and over populations continue to debase all human existence in every corner of the globe.

If the U.S. does not do this, a balance will be found, but by much crueler means than planning and preparing for the future.

Don Robertson, The American Philosopher
Limestone, Maine

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