foreign policyBy John R. Houk
© 4/4/06
Basically the players in the future Iran confrontation are America, Britain and France on one side. Russia and China are on another side. Iran is the focus. The UN is supposed to be the organization enforcing peace. The laugh is the UN! Iraq and now Iran have shown that the organization is impotent and useless in maintaining the peace. It is time for the USA to dump the UN and form a multilateral alliance league in which the National Interests are at least shared in general. Obviously Russia and China will noticeably look to their own National Interest. That Interest may not love Iran, however Russia dearly wishes to counter American hegemony and China is interested in growing its emerging economy (meaning the need for oil as its life blood). Ironically China finds itself in the same position that Imperial Japan found itself in upon solidifying itself as global chief. China will have to choose capitalism and markets (America in that equation) or confrontation (anti-Americanism in that equation with Russia on the teeter totter going either way).
So here is the deal: Iran must be stopped; UN is a wussy and ineffective; and Russian and China believe supporting Iran helps them. That leaves some kind of multilateral approach with America taking the lead (as usual).
