X: Obama: A Looming World Tragedy 371way with crossed vetoes. At the same time, the old neocon idea of the US, UK, and Israel at war
with the rest of the world until the end of time simply will not work, because these powers are far
too defeated, discredited, isolated, and bankrupt. Accordingly, the new idea is to institutionalize the
coalition of the willing in permanent form, splitting the world into a US-UK “democratic” bloc,
which will face off against a “rogue” bloc centered on Russia and China. The precondition to
forming this bloc would be an unprecedented level of gullibility and servility on the part of Europe,
Japan, and other parts of the planet. Lake, a kind of mini-Brzezinski, has motivated this new version
of the Holy Alliance as follows: “One thing is clear,” he wrote in the American Interest. “Crises in
Iran, North Korea, Iraq and Darfur, not to mention the pressing need for more efficient
peacekeeping operations, the rising temperatures of our seas and multiple other transnational
threats, demonstrate not only the limits of American unilateral power but also the inability of
international institutions designed in the middle of the 20th century to cope with the problems of the
21st.” As Jackson Diehl comments, “... a post-Cold War and post-George Bush United States will
not have the capacity or the legitimacy to unilaterally take on global crises. But working through the
United Nations, as Bush himself tried to do for the past several years, is more often than not a recipe
for paralysis, because of the resistance of non-democratic states. Take the past few months: China,
helped by Russia, has stopped the Security Council from discussing a humanitarian intervention to
rescue the 1.5 million Burmese endangered by the criminal neglect of their government following a
cyclone. Strong sanctions against Iran for its refusal to freeze its nuclear program have been
blocked by Russia. An attempted U.N. intervention in Darfur is failing, largely because of Chinese
and Russian refusal to authorize stronger measures against the government of Sudan. Whether
Obama or McCain, the next president will take office knowing that he inherits the messes in Darfur,
Burma and Iran and also that new crises will erupt during his term. If he is unable to respond — if
he, like Bush, ends up watching as tens or hundreds of thousands of people die in a weak or failed
state while China and Russia block U.N. action — he will be harshly judged. That’s why McCain
has smartly begun to talk about his League of Democracies and promised early action to create it. If
Obama is wise, he will make Daalder’s Concert of Democracies part of his own campaign.”
(Jackson Diehl, “A ‘League’ by Other Names,” Washington Post, May 19, 2008) And if Brzezinski
finds this institutional camouflage useful for his apocalyptic confrontation with Russia, China, and
their allies, we can be very sure that puppet Obama will comply.
Another prominent foreign policy adviser of the Obama campaign was the abrasive Susan Rice,
who had been the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa during the Clinton Administration. Before
she drank the Kool-Aid for Obama, Taylor Marsh recalled that ‘along with [Anthony] Lake, Dr.
Susan Rice is one of the people responsible for the disastrous policy towards Rwanda in the 1990s,
for which Bill Clinton deservedly took so much heat and eventually apologized. As for Power, she
obviously is simply unprofessional.’ Rice attracted attention for her clumsy gaffe during the
controversy about Clinton’s Texas ad suggesting that Obama was not prepared to react to a 3 a.m.
telephone call to the White House announcing a strategic emergency. Rice countered that charge by
arguing in effect that both candidates were equally unqualified: “Clinton hasn’t had to answer the
phone at 3 o’clock in the morning and yet she attacked Barack Obama for not being ready. They’re
both not ready to have that 3 a.m. phone call.” This performance caused Rice to be nominated by a
least one blog for the dubious honor of being named the ‘worst foreign-policy spokesperson ever.”
(March 6, 2008)