America Wobbles

Long War: NATO has two major problems with its No-Fly Zone over Libya: 1) Some of the countries participating in the NFZ refuse to attack Gaddafi's ground forces. Italian jets buzz about the 700-mile wide battlefield but refuse to open fire on the bad guys. The way NATO is structured it is impossible to exclude the Italian Air Force from sorties. They are much worse than nothing because if the Italian jets are over a certain target that needs to get hit, jets from more reliable countries (like France) cannot engage. 2) America's A-10 warthogs and AC-130 gunships remain grounded. NATO's Sec. General says there is a crying need for "ground attack aircraft," probably a subtle plea to loose the warthogs and gunships. But America continues to keep them sidelined, unconcerned about winning this war.

Examples keep piling up of America's global alliance structure unwinding because of the recent wobbles in foreign policy. Egypt is reaching out to Iran, the first move in joining Iran's alliance structure, which include the following: Syria is a puppet state of Iran. Hezbollah is controlled by Iran which gives it partial control over Lebanon. Hamas is an Iranian surrogate, which gives Iran control over the Gaza Strip. The Houthi rebels in Yemen have Iranian ties as do the rage rebels in Bahrain. If we include Egypt to Iran's alliance structure it is at least as powerful in the region as the American alliance built around Saudi Arabia.

There are reports that Egypt has already loosened its blockade of the Gaza Strip and it looks like that blockade is about to be 100% lifted. This will allow weapons to flow freely into Gaza and beef up Hamas. Israel is not going to sit still for long if this trend continues.

There is an upside to all these American wobbles and it hit yesterday with the S&P downgrade on the outlook for American debt. America's ability to endlessly float debt on the world markets is based on its global military dominance. But the US federal government under both the Bush and Obama Administrations has become increasingly frivolous and reckless in its spending, just like ancient Rome with its absurd penchant for endless bread and circuses. The Federal Reserve's ultra-loose monetary policy is virtually identical to the Roman's debasing of their currency (replacing silver with lead in coins) to pay for more coliseums and gladiatorial games. This is how Rome taxed its outer provinces or emerging markets. And America has done the same thing. In both cases war within the periphery of the world empire always erupted.

If America had clobbered Gaddafi from the start, then its electronic printing presses would have really moved into high gear and spending would have gone from reckless to insane. A painful readjustment is starting now. This is long term good, but short term bad.