Looking Ahead

I haven't been posting much lately. It's not that there has been a lack of stories - just check out antiwar.com, Information Clearing House and other worthwhile sites - but perhaps I need to take a long, deep breath before we launch into this 2004 election year. It's going to be busy!

Although the US elections are not scheduled until November, campaigning is already well underway on both sides. It's disheartening to see the Democrats publicly attacking one another right now, but hopefully they will soon unite firmly behind their chosen candidate. Meanwhile, Bush is working hard at putting his house in order and everything he does from now till November will be aimed at insuring he gets another four years in power.

The results of this US election will be seen as either a vindication of the Iraq War, or a public rebuke which will dissuade future US leaders from such ill-advised adventures. If Bush wins, we can expessed an even more agressive US stance on international issues, including further pre-emptive invasions, an expanding US presence across the Middle East and an increasingly unilateral US stance on trade and other issues. We can expect the current attack on civil rights to broaden even further, we can expect further deterioration of the environment and further deterioration of international alliances and treaties. Most of all, we can expect increased corporate profiteering on a previously unseen, increasingly global scale. By 2008, the concept of a free and fair America will seem like nothing more than a distant dream. We will be told that this is all a necessary result of the never-ending "war on terror".

On the other hand, if Bush loses, there will be a hell of a lot of work for the new incumbent Democrat. The key to success, both during the election and afterwards, lies in explaining the neo-conservative madness to the US public and ensuring that - like the anti-communist hysteria of the 1950s - it can never happen again. Repairing international relations will require some potentially humiliating back-downs. Treaties like Kyoto and the International Criminal Court will need to be resurrected. The United Nations will require not just humble apologies but also US-led reformations to confront the new century as a stronger and more stable organisation. Most importantly, the new President will need to start addressing the ROOT CAUSES of terrorism (US-supported poverty, ignorance and inequality) rather than just the symptoms (bombs and threats). Again, this will require major policy shifts and a serious effort at public eduction. If Bush departs, it will be a victory for democarcy, but it will still be a bumpy road ahead for the new Prez.

In Australia, Prime Minister John Howard is due to call elections by October at the latest, a month or more ahead of the US vote. So far Howard has maintained his Teflon coating and kept his poll ratings high, despite widespread public opposition to Australia's involvement in the invasion of Iraq. Often described as the "consummate politician", Howard will bend whichever way the political winds blow in order to maintain power. Over the past four years, he has become an expert at saying one thing, then saying the exact opposite and denying that he ever said the first thing, and somehow getting away with it. As with every other election he has contested, Howard will use racist innuendos to appeal to the far right, while publicly positioning himself as a centrist. Given the succes of his last campaign, he will probably also make a few outright lies just before the election, if things get close (these lies will only be fully disproved after the election, byt which time it will no longer matter to anyone). Sad but true, such is the modern art of "consummate politics".

In Britain, Tony Blair faces the fallout from the Hutton Inquiry in January. If he maintains his leadership of the Labour Party after that, the UK public will have a chance to chastise him in a series of June polls, with elections for 143 English local authorities and all Welsh councils, the mayor of London and the European Parliament. And if he can maintain his leadership beyond that, there are UK national elections scheduled for 2005, by which time Iraq may have become a forgotten issue. I think Blair may have already learned his lesson from the Iraq War, and I doubt he would be game to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Bush again in such a way. But despite admirable progress in other areas, Blair doesn't really deserve a second chance. The best thing for Britain would be if his own party forces him out of office in 2004 and presents a new candidate for the 2005 elections. Blair versus the Conservatives is really a lose-lose proposition for everyone except the rich socialites of Kensington and Mayfair.

Finally, in Russia, President Vladimir Putin also faces a general election in April, 2004. During 2003, Putin jailed Russia's richest man, an oil tycoon who was about to make a deal with a US company, rather than allowing him to cede control of his oil assets to US control. Now Putin is threatening investigations of other oligarchs, unless they toe the Kremlin-dictated line. Putin watched quietly as a US-friendly administration took control of neighbouring Georgia in their recent "rose revolution". Forget the ideological battles of the Cold War - Putin and other Russian power-brokers know that it is US economic sumpremacy that they must combat now. Once again, it's all about oil.