Europe on Iran, China on North Korea, US on the sidelines

■"Bush to ëthink aboutí Europeís Iran strategy: Meeting with Schroder leads to ëconvergenceí on how to deal with nuclear tthreat (US president still insists Tehran must give ground)," by James Harding and Huge Williamson, Financial Times, 24 February 2005, p. 1.

■"China applies gentlest of flicks to Pyongyangís reins: Beijing resists manipulating North Korea dependence on Chinese oil and food supplies," by Richard McGregor and Anna Fifield, Financial Times, 24 February 2005, p. 7.

Europe leads on Iran, while China hosts the six-party talks. If nothing else, this signals the limits of U.S. military power right now: our inability to do the SysAdmin job in Iraq means thereís little we can do on either Iran or North Korea. Ultimately, weíll end up living with the consequences of this strategic weakness, which is why weíd be so much better off seeking dramatically better answers in the short-term with serious leadership instead of watching from the sidelines. Iran will get the bomb, and Europe will end up making the deal. North Korea will eventually implode, and what Asia will get is a dominating China with America nowhere in sight.

These things are going to happen. Our strategy right now seems only to consist of holding them off for as long as possible. The neocons feel burned by their one attempt at a System Perturbation, which is too bad, because itís working wonders in the Middle East, but when you basically beg off hot pursuit of the initial conditions youíve altered, itís like youíve thrown the ball down to the five-yard-line in football, only to punt on the next down. Youíve got to laugh when you hear the notion that somehow the neocons are running the world right now. If anyone is, itís China and India by sheer default: their strategic rise provokes more vision and diplomacy than anything weíre doing. Weíve set off the Big Bang in the Middle East to do what? Return back to the same myopic fears of balance-of-power dynamics that the Bush administration seemed so consumed by prior to 9/11? These are very important years for a lack of U.S. global leadership, for growing and securing the Core will always out-shadow shrinking the Gap as THE strategic task.

And you know what? Whenever America gives off that zero-sum vibe regarding the rising New Core, we accomplish exactly what we need to avoid in coming years: we convince the Core that weíre probably quite zero-sum in our efforts to shrink the Gap. That impression just moves other Core powers to focus on integration with one another while hoping that those crazy Americans will remains obsessed with security and bogged down in the Gap.

China holds real cards on North Korea, and we see fit not to exploit that connectivity whatsoever because of our larger fears about China. Kim survives on oil and food from China, all of which stream across just three rail lines and 15 roads. But if youíre China and you see the U.S. constantly working to limit its quest for security, of course your chief fear on North Korea is that those crazy Americans will start something that youíll be left to deal with militarily. I mean, look at Americaís postwar effort in Iraq!

But you gotta know that Beijing fears a nuclear North Korea greatly, but not directly. A nuclear Kim could easily drive both South Korea oróeven more likelyóJapan into a similar nuclear stance, something Beijing fears far more. This isnít my analysis: itís the analysis of Cheng Fenguin of Beijing University. As he notes, ìTaiwan will also find excuses to start its own nuclear programme.î

Add it all up and tell me we canít put together a package on Kim that Beijing could buy into. But instead, what do we do? We get Japan to join our little security package on Taiwan.

This, my friends, is what passes for strategic vision right now in DC.