Most op-ed writers are not like Carter, Kissinger, etc. They are most often professional writers, academics, think tank fellows, etc. Those members of the power elite and/or ruling class who write op-eds are a faction out of power. Those who are in power do not have to write.
> It seems to me that the significant divisions between the leaders of the
> corporate, executive, legislative, judicial, administrative, coercive, and
> ideological institutions are not primarily structural, but political -
> between those individuals broadly identified as belonging to the "liberal"
> or "enlightened" fraction of the bourgeoisie and those associated with its
> "conservative" or "reactionary" wing, and shades in between.
It would be interesting to look at where individual members of the ruling class in a given country invest their money -- what proportion goes to investment in the government of, and corporations that make money in, the country whose citizenship s/he holds, and what proportion goes elsewhere. By now it is possible that a majority of the ruling class do not feel that their fortunes are tied with that of any single country, their own or even that of the United States of America. So, a majority of even the American section of the multinational ruling class -- let alone the others who live in Japan, China, the EU, etc. -- don't feel they need to extricate Washington out of the Iraq War or change its Middle East policy. If they care about politics at all, they mainly care about tax rates, trade policy, fiscal policy, monetary policy, intellectual property rights, and so forth, rather than geopolitics.
That leaves a tiny minority of the American section of the ruling class, who are organized and either become members of the power elite or fund political campaigns of those who seek to become or remain members of the power elite, to direct the multinational empire (which is led by Washington but encompasses Japan and the EU, and potentially China, Russia, and maybe India also in the near future). They are zealots driven by fantasy of the domino theory, it seems to me. When a majority are disengaged, a tiny minority can take control. That's as true of the ruling class as of the working class.
On 8/7/06, Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
> My favorite conjecture in this regard is grounded in the path dependency
> theory claiming that chance decisions (i.e. choices between more or less
> equally probable options) made at strategic points affect the probability
> that subsequent decisions will tend to resemble the initial choice.
On 8/7/06, Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
> I agree with you [Wojtek] about the difficulty of maneuvering the Titanic; it seems
> to me that politicians necessarily have to act within certain parameters
> determined by the "system" as its interests are defined over time.
In the case of Iraq, it is the consequence of the initial choice -- the rise of Shia factions, especially the faction led by Moktada al-Sadr who can mobilize masses (as he showed again last Friday) and looks to Tehran* -- that makes the US power elite disinclined to cut and run, for, if they cut and run, Tehran can conceivably have its way in Iraq**. They do fear the possibility of a militant Shia crescent anchored by Iran that may encompass Iraq, Lebanon, parts of Afghanistan (especially the areas populated by the Persian-speaking Tajiks and the Shii Hazaras), and parts of Central Asia***, perhaps even exercising influence over Shiis in the Gulf states, the crescent of militancy that stands in solidarity with Sunni Palestinians and therefore can win the hearts and minds of Sunni Muslims elsewhere. The possibility a militant Shia crescent is real, but the power elite's fear of it is far disproportionate to its odds.
* "Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, and Moghtada Al Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army in Iraq, both made unofficial, and unannounced visits to Tehran last week. It must be noted that this is Moghtada Al Sadr's second visit to Iran in less than a month" (Meir Javedanfar, "Iran: Secret Visits by Militants," 13 March 2006, <http://www.middleeastanalyst.com/Iran_secret_militant_visits.htm>).
** It won't be easy for Tehran to do so, and it can very much blow back in its direction, too, if it really tries, since Iraq is now the jihad central populated with all manner of guerrillas and terrorists, many of whom are Sunni. Tehran can very well inherit a sectarian hot potato from Washington, the hot potato in whose making both of which are responsible, though the latter more than the former.
*** If Tehran makes mistakes there, it will lose Moscow's protection completely. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>