THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: Meanwhile, However......

The news has been filled with Mitt Romney's vice presidential choice,
and reactions to it, with accounts of Joe Biden's latest gaffes, and
with new polls of who is ahead, and who is not, in the presidential race,
and highly-contested congressional races. This is as it should be.
After all, we are on the cusp of the climactic November national
elections.

Meanwhile, however, the world goes on with its usual and varied
fol-de-rol, even though we may not be looking attentively.

The Assad regime in Syria once more seems about to fall, as the
Qaddafi regime previously always seemed to be at the end of its
political rope. Qaddafi did fall, eventually, and so will Assad and
his cohorts. Meanwhile however, this regime remains as a Russian
client state, and President Putin keeps air in Assad's balloon as part
of the Russian chess game to reassert its place in geopolitical affairs.
The United Nations, chronically ineffective, even inept, in these
international conflicts, has once again come up empty as Iran, chief
Syrian protector, and primary threat against Israel, the primary
U.S. ally in the region, continues its shadowy machinations to
intimidate any and all, and promote anxiety among its neighbors.

Israel, meanwhile, however, assesses the immediacy of Iran gaining
nuclear weapon capability, and quietly prepares for a possible strike
at the Iranian regime's nuclear facilities, a move that would be silently
supported by most of Iran's neighbors who have grown anxious
about Iranian aggressive ambitions. Like so much in the history of
international relationships, national leaders of nations with the power
to influence events, put off any decisive action against totalitarian
figures who want to use violence to gain what they could not
accomplish with some adult behavior.

Meanwhile, however, adult behavior is nowhere to be seen as
European leaders make economic procrastination a high and perverse
art form in the midst of a dangerous and prolonged crisis of basic
fiscal governance.

It takes a singularly dramatic event to turn the attention of
Americans to matters foreign, especially during the a presidential
campaign. But the incumbent president, regardless of which party
lives in the White House, has to mind the store, domestic and foreign.

The question is not IF such an event will occur outside the borders of
the U.S., but WHEN and WHERE. It will be interesting to see how the
domestic political players deal with this event or events.

Meanwhile, however...........

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Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry Casselman.  All rights reserved.