>> So what do people think the real goal of the policy is? >>
Both the United States and its (mainly Trilateralist) partners have had a problem ever since Vietnam's victory (and since the British military stalemate in the north of Ireland): their ability to wage an actual war as an instrument of policy has been crippled, as distinct from so-called low-intensity wars formerly called counterinsurgency, or invasions of such small countries as Grenada and Haiti. (Note: Israel obviously does not share this current disability of imperialism.)
Building a popular constituency for war isn't easy, even among habitually jingoistic British and North American populations. Step one was Bush's relatively cheap war against Iraq, now being continued. But that doesn't translate into hegemonic authority to wage a major war, which requires the ability to coerce entire populations of large countries through direct military invasion, massive terror, and occupation. To accomplish that potential, conscription at a minimum has to become politically acceptable, and then -- what was lost in Vietnam -- the political ability routinely to execute deserters and mutineers.
In these respects we are still in the early stages of imperialist reconstruction. The town meeting debacle thwarted Clinton's initial attempt to rebuild the U.S. warmaking power. This time around, Clinton has hijacked the process for his personal salvation, which prompted Lott's outburst, but Blair has no alternative partner to choose. In many respects, the impeachment saga is buying time for potential insurgents to gather and grow in the U.S., and for capitalism's foundation to weaken, just as Blair's Irish quagmire is undermining the British government's pretension to be a world or regional power. That is the sense in which the Washington standoff is to be welcomed, not as either undeserved sympathy for or justly deserved schadenfreude toward the despicable White House occupant's plight.
Equally, though, anti-capitalist forces must greatly step up anti-war actions and organizing. There is no guarantee we'll be able to seize the moment, nor that objective conditions will develop to our advantage, but we are obliged to intervene as though they might, in order to enhance the possibility. A crisis of this nature in the bourgeois superstructure cannot be dispelled by tinkering with interest rates; the Fed cannot broker a bailout of imperialism's war power, once it has collapsed.
Ken Lawrence