I wasn't going to write again today, probably, but I saw this headline, and couldn't resist.

Powell Says U.S. Foreign Policy is Working Allow me a parodic continuation. Powell says U.S. foreign policy is working. We're not certain what it's doing yet, and it's not doing what we expected, but it's certainly doing something! President Bush has "a vision" for creating the conditions needed to bring countries into the civilized world. We have no idea if we can afford this vision, but we're doing our best, and, oh, by the way, Europe, although we insulted and snubbed you for not obeying our commands before, here's your chance to join up with us, help us pay for the ruinously expensive mess we've made, and get none of the control and very little of the credit. We might even forgive you, a bit. So, yeah, form a line, not everybody at once!

One thing that I'm not really sure about is what I'd do in BushJr's shoes on the topic of Iraq right now. I feel very strongly that getting involved was incredibly stupid, was done dishonestly, and that it's going to be a very costly mistake. However, now that the government has been disemboweled, there's very little local power base, and the rival powermongers are on the upswing, it would seem kind of wrong to walk away. The worst nightmare from before the war, and the reason my Dad thinks Saddam was left in power after the first gulf war, was that the question of "What the hell do we do now?" is a real stumper. It's apparently very expensive to stay there, the soldiers and their families now want things to be wrapped up, and it's uncertain if/how a stable, acceptable government can be put into place. Apparently the Taliban is now a force again in Afghenistan too. I'm not sure if giving the whole mess to the U.N. would be a way to dodge the blame (and the check, to some degree) or whether it might actually be a way to cool the tensions and stabilize things. One interesting thing might be to try to get a relatively friendly Arab nation, say Qatar, to install a puppet government for awhile to stabilize things, although I don't know if/how that could work, and what might be in it for Qatar. Would it be acceptable to BushJr (pretzels be unto him) for Iraq to end up being another, less agressive semitheocratic oil state, or does he really want to attempt the task of creating a real democracy there? And, of course, what about the Kurds?

Meanwhile, China is having an interesting time with HongKing Personally, I think they're doomed, in the long run, to eventually blend into the main legal system in China, and they're not going to like it. It'll be interesting to watch the balancing acts the appointed HongKong government will do, trying to keep both the people and the bosses happy. Also, WRT taiwan, China's being rude. My friend who passed the info along suggested that this might speed the standardization in Taiwan on Linux. I joked that it probably won't be Red Flag Linux (Chinese govt-developed redhat variant). The big difference between Taiwan and China and other world conflicts is that while there's high tension, there's very little action, because both sides know that if things got started, they'd be resolved to the bloody end.