Reply #62: not quite correct re the attitudes in Europe [View All]

[McKenzie]

Europe is essentially based around the UK, France and Germany. Admittedly, there is a certain element of support for Bush in the UK but much less than in the US.

The recent deal between Iran and certain EU member states viz a viz nuclear development could be interpreted as a coded message. The deal happened just around the time that there were rumblings in the US neocon circle about Iran being a threat. The timing of the deal might be co-incidence but it is equally possible that it was meant as a signal that another invasion would not be supported. If the US did invade and asked for EU support that would almost certainly result in huge public opposition over here. I doubt if EU leaders would risk alienating their electorate particularly after seeing the mess that has become Iraq. So the EU does not seem to be supporting Bush.

As for warfare there are other ways to destabilise a country apart from military might. The slide of the dollar, for example, might well be geared towards weakening the euro and reducing the possibility of it becoming the petroeuro as opposed to the petrodollar. There is considerable evidence that the Iraq war was precipitated by alarm at Saddam's switch to the euro and the possibility of a domino effect. Does Iraq still trade oil in euros? Other posters in this thread have mentioned the massive debt that the US sustains; that debt can only be serviced by the ability to print dollars on the basis that the dollar is the de facto reserve currency. Make no mistake, the need to keep the dollar as the world's reserve currency is vital to the US.

As for military conflict...exceedingly unlikely. Besides, the UK and France have nukes. Not as many as the US (not nearly as many lol!) but even half a dozen nukes landing on major cities in the US would be unacceptable damage. (god forbid that anyone even has to think about that scenario) And invading the US would be impossible even if it was ever deemed politically acceptable. Your military might is too great quite apart from which the very idea is utterly loopy in the first place.

Nope, I think any challenge to the US is likely to be economic. How a dollar crash would affect the rest of the industrial economies I'm not qualified to say. There might be a clue in the (supposed) reason that Blair supported Bush. Maybe Blair knew that it was in the UK's best interests to support Bush in regaining dollar hegemony by invading Iraq...if the US crashed maybe the UK would have went down too...who knows? Reasonable inference to draw though because I can't see any other strategic reason for Blair allying the UK with the US against Iraq. I don't think ideology played any part in the alliance...just global economic policy.