"Destabilizing" is the sin of last resort when American politicians can't come up with any credible sin that some person they don't like has actually committed. Oh, he's destabilizing the region, Condi Rice, our esteemed secretary of state, says.

I don't know how supplying medical care and education to poor people and giving poorer countries loans and a break on the price of oil can be called destabilizing, but that's all Chavez is doing. He is opposed not to America and Americans, but to the American empire. I go along with that. The world and America were much better places before our politicians got jealous of the European empires and decided the U.S. needed an empire, too.

The Spanish-American War was our grab for empire, and all the wars we've been in since have been imperial wars. World War I was a clash of European empires, and World War II in Europe was a continuation of that clash. World War II in the Pacific was a clash between Japan, which wanted an empire, and the British, French, Dutch and American empires already in the Pacific. The Cold War, with its little hot wars, was a struggle between the American empire and the Soviet empire. The ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are also about empire, not democracy.

Lying, by the way, is a characteristic of empires and imperial wars. For Bush to refer to Afghanistan and Iraq as successful democracies is a lie. The first duty of any government is to provide security for its citizens. Neither the government in Kabul nor the one in Baghdad can do that. Any government that requires the continued presence of foreign soldiers to stay in power is illegitimate.

Well, if you are into praying, you might want to add a prayer for Chavez. The federal government has some really vicious war dogs on its payroll. I fear as soon as the CIA finally realizes that Chavez is a sure bet to win the December election, these dogs of war will be unleashed.

I have a feeling Chavez will prove to be a tragic figure. He's a good man and sincere about wanting to end illiteracy and improve the lives of the people of his region. He's a bit naive, though. I don't share his enthusiasm for Fidel Castro or Daniel Ortega, and I don't believe Chavez understands the immense power and malice of the people who would like to see him dead.

Maybe he'll be lucky. I hope so. In the meantime, by God, I'll be glad when Bush leaves office so I will hopefully have an administration I can support. I don't mind being a dissenter, but I truly wish that just once in a while, Bush would say or do something honest and decent that I could support. I'm beginning to feel like a foreigner in my own country.

He didn't warn [French President] Jacques Chirac of his intention to initiate the attack on EADS [the European aerospace consortium] stock. Neither did he consult the Europeans before Russia's state-owned Gazprom, in true high-handed fashion, decided to cut gas supplies to Ukraine last January 1, which resulted in disturbances to Europe's energy supply. And similarly, Mr. Putin has committed himself to a gas consortium with Algeria, which could in the long term curtail Europe's capacity to diversify its supply, and will require the E.U. to engage in further dialogue with Mr. Putin.

[Editor's Note: Earlier this month, a Russian state-controlled bank bought a 5.02 percent stake in EADS, Europe's leading aerospace and defense group and parent company of Airbus. Russian officials indicated then that the government hoped to increase its stake.]

It was thus a Russian president on the offensive that Jacques Chirac welcomed on Saturday, September 23. The tripartite Franco-German-Russian meeting also took place with the presence of [German] Chancellor Angela Merkel. On the French side, everything possible has been done to blur the differences that the Kremlin chief might wish to employ in his desire to restore Russian power. Mr. Chirac sees Vladimir Putin's Russia as a friendly country, for which criticism must be curtailed. It is a question of believing in Putin's desire to play a constructive role in resolving a number of questions: the continent's energy security; the proximity of Europe to Ukraine and Belarus; the resolution of "cold conflicts" and the status of Kosovo.

When meeting Mr. Putin, Jacques Chirac values the three-way France-Germany-Russia format. The grouping's highest level of cooperation came in 2003, when it acted as the "face of refusal" against launching the Iraq War. Angela Merkel has been the most reticent to take part. She questions the relevance and the impact of these meetings between "major" states, which relegates the remainder of the European Union to the sidelines. There has been little progress in formulating a coherent European policy that would help arrive at a mutually beneficial arrangement with Russia. And the lack of a more general Europe-wide energy policy has given Mr. Putin an opening to advance his pawns.

Now that the powerful Silvio Berlusconi and Gerhard Schroeder have left the scene, Jacques Chirac is the only European leader willing to shower the Russian president with attention. And ultimately, what drives this preoccupation is the need to maintain good cooperation with Moscow on Iran's nuclear file. Against the United States.

Every month it's confirmed that those officers, who before the occupation had calculated troop requirements of several hundred thousand, were correct. The laboriously negotiated creation of a "government of national unity" three months ago had been celebrated by the White House as a turning point; but now after all that has been heard from Iraq, it would be better described as a turning point in its deterioration. Hope is diminishing that the U.S. armed forces and the Iraqi security forces can reverse the situation. Statements by prominent Sunnis, Shiites and Islamic extremists suggest that the warring parties are far from tired. On the contrary. According to a recent statement by a trusted friend of the terrorist Moqtada al Sadr, after the U.S. departs, a year of civil war will be required for the Shiite majority to establish a regime based on Sharia law.

TROOP REINFORCEMENT CAN'T BE IMPLEMENTED

Meanwhile, within neo-conservative circles demands are circulating that the project to democratize the Middle East by force be saved by a substantial reinforcement of troops. But like so many of the Neo-cons' shattered dreams, this request is detached from reality. Even if President George W. Bush suddenly had a flash of insight that his occupation strategy has failed, he has neither the soldiers nor the political capital to implement a doubling of American troop strength in Iraq, particularly because no one can guarantee that more soldiers on the Euphrates and Tigris would result in the desired pacification. Result: If the situation can't be stabilized with current force levels, ignominious retreat of the U.S. from a nation overrun by chaos is only a matter of time.

The Iraq War is unpopular in the U.S. and only a minority believe government assertions that September 11 forced the invasion of that nation. In speech after speech, Bush seeks the support of voters with what to Iraqis is an inconceivably cynical statement: That it's better to fight international terrorists on the streets of Baghdad, because by tying them up there, no attacks will be perpetrated against America. The cruelty of this logic as far as the inhabitants of Baghdad are concerned is not on the U.S. agenda, because Americans quite naturally and naively accept that if such is the price of protecting their homeland and their own people, the deaths of foreigners should not be an obstacle.

As long as a large minority of Americans foes along with the arguments of the President, as long as there's a spark of hope for an improvement of the situation in Iraq, Bush might manage to withstand the calls for a troop withdrawal for the duration of his term of office. But the debate over the whys and the wherefores of America's operational readiness in Iraq has begun. In November, the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate face re-election; the demand for a retreat from Iraq is an issue with which many Democratic candidates hope to score. If the Democrats win a majority in one or both houses of Congress, the debate over withdrawal may dominate politics in the coming year. And at the latest, it will be the main topic of the 2008 Presidential election, requiring each candidate for the White House, as a potential Commander-in-Chief, to take a clear position.

MORE AT STAKE THAN DURING VIETNAM

In light of the developments in Iraq and the political almanac in the U.S., if the Americans hold out for two or three more years, the result of their adventure seems preordained. The Americans will withdraw if the country is not stabilized. American foreign policy would be faced with a debacle, the effects of which could exceed those of the Vietnam War. The ignominious departure from Saigon in 1975 RealVideo opened a period of American introspection and left Vietnam to the communists. American failure in Iraq could shake fragile borders and power structures all over the Middle East. It would give Islamic fundamentalists the sort of propaganda victory that, five years ago, Osama bin Laden could have only dreamed of.

The exact consequences of a longer civil war or even a collapse in Iraq for countries like Turkey, Jordan, Iran, Egypt or Saudi Arabia cannot be measured. It is clear, however, that America would need years to get over its own failure and to find its way back to the high regard it enjoyed after its victory over the Soviets. It also seems clear who would push its way into the developing leadership vacuum: Such a defeat of America would occur at a time in which the equally ambitious and skilled strategists in China plan to elevate their country to superpower status.

The failure is more devastating still than Napoleon's defeat in Russia, after a carelessly planned occupation of Spain, 200 years ago. "This calamitous war in Spain was the root of the problem, the main cause of the misfortune that later swept over France," complained the emperor after he abdicated. The failure of the Iraqi occupation could mean the end of America's dream of making the 21st century another age of U.S. imperium.

[Editor's Note: In 1808, after dethroning King Charles IV of Spain, Napoleon made his brother Joseph Bonaparte king of the country. The Spanish, however, rose up and drove Joseph out of Madrid. A war between the French and Spanish then took place, known as the Peninsular War (fought from 1808 to 1814). The French were eventually defeated, suffering huge losses which severely dented the size of Napoleon's army in Russia where Napoleon was famously and ultimately defeated at Waterloo, in present-day Belgium].

Having strongly opposed one another in the past, a certain bond has formed between Jacques Chirac and George W. Bush over the years. This was evident during their meeting in New York alongside the U.N. General Assembly yesterday morning.

In the opinion of both leaders' entourages, they've long since made amends. Following a period of mutual defiance, the two nations' historical legacy, shared values and solid common interests have served to swing the pendulum of transatlantic relations and restore confidence. However, the smiling mask of courtesy and warm words worn by both men continually threatens to fall off and reveal a less rosy reality. Yesterday, first at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel where their meeting took place and later at the U.N. tribunal where they each gave a speech, it became apparent through their declarations that neither one has in any way abdicated his beliefs or surrendered an inch on policy. Their respective approaches continue to diverge considerably on the most important issues facing the world today.

Such is the case with respect to Iran. Yesterday, Jacques Chirac reminded his American counterpart of his proposal, formulated the day earlier on Europe 1 [a French radio station], which is meant to exploit recent "tremors" provoked by this issue and "seeks a solution" to this crisis. The French President's plan first calls for the scheduling of a series of talks between Iran and the "U.N. Six" (the Security Council's five permanent members, plus Germany). The latter would subsequently renounce bringing the issue before the Security Council, while the Iranians would suspend their enrichment of uranium during the talks. From this perspective, the French President declined to set a deadline for possible sanctions should the Iranians not comply. Though awaiting clarification, the French proposal undoubtedly surprised certain of President Bush's advisors. The White House, which has never formally ruled out the use of force against Iran, demands a complete halt to uranium enrichment as a necessary precondition to any talks. Yesterday, Jacques Chirac's aides minimized their differences with the Americans, speaking only of a "difference in tone" and denying any negotiation with the Iranians outside the U.N.

But the French approach has clearly changed. The presence of 2,000 French soldiers serving as U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon encourages greater prudence in dealing with Teheran. In addition, Iran's methodic progress toward mastering the atom is increasingly regarded as a fait accompli. They've already won the first round. The Europeans, led by the French, consider that the second round cannot be won without negotiations. A senior French diplomat argues that "imposing sanctions would steer us straight into a wall." The subject was supposed to have been raised at a dinner for the diplomatic heads of the U.N. Six plus Italy, but the French have emphasized the difficulty of imposing monetary sanctions within the framework of the European Union.

PLAYING TWO HANDS

George W. Bush, who was careful not to cross paths with [Iran's President] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the corridors of the U.N. yesterday, once again allowed for the possibility of sanctions. But he also stated that "the time has come for the Iranians to sit down at the bargaining table." Thus, the Americans are placing a double bet. First, on talks led by the Europeans and in which Washington could later decide to participate. Second, on the threat of sanctions should negotiations fail; this would allow the American President to retain his hard-line stance before the coming midterm elections.

Jacques Chirac remains convinced that George W. Bush will need the Europeans. "By declaring war on the axis of evil in 2001, the American president put a definitive end to the unipolar world," points out an influential diplomat close to Jacques Chirac. The Americans, he explains, now realize that they cannot handle such crises alone. From this perspective, Chirac congratulates himself for having been right with regard to Iraq and is confident of having "convinced" George W. Bush of Lebanon's strategic importance in the Middle East.

"Our relationship with the United States will never be one of submission," he declared Monday, in a gibe aimed at [French Interior Minister] Nicolas Sarkozy. [Sarkozy wants Chirac's job]. In line with this credo, the President of the Republic took the opportunity during his speech to the U.N., the last of his mandate, to disagree with George W. Bush.

True, both called in unison for the UN to act in Darfur, to which the Americans have named a special envoy. But by pleading in favor of multilateralism, a peace conference for the Middle East and creating a United Nations for the environment, as well as by inaugurating Unitaid, an international drug purchase program for the poor, Jacques Chirac had a few digs at the United States.

The Khartoum government and the Sudanese people, by a crushing majority, categorically oppose the presence of foreign troops other than African Union troops presently on its territory. They believe that the real intention of America and its allies is to execute a secret plan to divide up the county within the framework of their regional strategy.

A first stage of this plan is already unfolding, with the recently agreed to autonomy of South Sudan. According to information emerging from this region, there is now a massive presence of American instructors there, training future officers of the South Sudanese army.

Informed observers are astonished at Washington's stubborn desire to replace African Union troops with a U.N. peacekeeping force which would be comprised only of NATO and Israeli soldiers.

If they really wanted to assist the population of Darfur and relieve them of their misery, the Americans wouldn't need to require the immediate departure of those troops already in place. The most logical way to help would be to reinforce and supply them logistically and financially.

It is true that the province of Darfur, in the West of Sudan, has been subject to serious hostilities since 2003. But not on a level that would justify being the number one priority of a George Bush or a Tony Blair, who are already bogged down elsewhere. In the case of Darfur, have the U.S. President and British Prime Minister, who have subjected Iraq and Afghanistan to a horrific sea of fire involving the deaths of thousands of children, women and old men, suddenly rediscovered a moral direction in life that had been dozing within?

When the occupant of No. 10 Downing Street says that the Darfur question will remain "at the top of his agenda," one cannot help but smile, even if the drama in Darfur truly encourages one to cry ...

We also acknowledge that the Jews had been equally dehumanized and disenfranchised in other parts of the world. Nevertheless, we have constantly warned that the use of extreme methods of terror to protest or challenge a crime against a people, rather than alleviate the problem, aggravates it. Our belief remains that when a great crime is perpetrated in the name of revenge or expiation, it diminishes the cause that it is supposed to justify.

I felt that the 9-11 events generated just such a diminishment. In spite of U.S. support of Israel's devastation of Palestine, the attacks created more sympathy for the American power mongers. These criminal acts, which the terrorists sought to justify as vengeance for the deeply wounded Palestinian people, only served to damage the Palestinian cause.

[Editor's Note: Actually, according to a 'fatwa' issued by al-Qaeda, the Palestinian cause is only one of a number of motives for the attacks RealVideo].

On that day, the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Presidents Khatami of Iran and Saddam Hussein of Iraq, were among the first Middle East leaders to express sorrow and distress over the event. Yasser Arafat even offered his own blood to the wounded.

Five years later, Yasser Arafat has been hounded to death by Israeli firepower and the physical blockade of his home; Iran is described by America's President George Bush as "a center of evil and America's greatest enemy in the Middle East," and Iraq, poor Iraq, lies in ruins. What has happened?

We're not by any stretch of the imagination suggesting that Saddam Hussein's well documented acts of brutality against certain segments of his own people were vindicated by his expressions of sympathy for America's tragedy. Subsequent events have shown that good intentions sometimes do more harm than good, if these are what America's invasion of Iraq was based on. In seeking to rid Iraq of its dictator, America has devastated that nation's population far worse that the way the terror attacks of September 11 did to the people of the United States. There is simply no justice in America's attack against people who didn't attack them and in fact, who truly sympathized with the people of the United States, since Iraqis considered Osama bin Laden their common enemy.

The tale that Iraq was attacked in retaliation for 9-11 has become one of the greatest falsehoods of all time. During the recent memorial events in New York, one American protestor who turned up to question the Bush Administration's record since the terror strike carried a banner that said simply and devastatingly: "You Intended to Attack Iraq Before 9-11."

Mr. Bush and his closest collaborators have repeatedly denied this, but more and more people have come to believe it. Over 2,700 people died in America as a result of the September 11 terrorist attack, and not all of them white American Christians. Among the haunting images of the grief-stricken among those who lost their loved ones, many were immigrant Muslims, several hundred were African-Americans, and it cannot be forgotten that a number of Nigerians lost their lives in the World Trade Towers. To date, 2,600 Americans have died in Iraq, and at the present rate of violence far more Americans will have died in Iraq and Afghanistan by the time the year is over than were killed on 9-11. This is madness.

The Bush Administration has squandered the greatest outpouring of goodwill and sympathy toward America that the world has ever witnessed. Over the last five years, instead of building a fundamental and strategic basis for global cooperation and reform, the Bush Administration has bullied its way into a position of global isolation. His nation more disliked and distrusted than it was before September 11. Some of Mr. Bush's allies, especially Britain's Tony Blair, have lost influence in their own communities because of their attachment to Bush's fundamentally flawed response to the September 11 outrage.

Mr. Blair is a shadow of his pre-9-11 self, as he struggles to leave a legacy of confidence and trust among his own followers before he leaves office sometime next year. Instead of departing on a note of triumph, he faces the possibility of leaving office still protesting his innocence over charges that he helped provide a false basis for the Iraq invasion. Neither have his attempts to recover some foreign affairs credibility been a total success. On a visit to Beirut on September 11, he confronted a major embarrassment RealVideo when a number of well-behaved but determined protestors crashed his press conference with the Lebanese Prime Minister and accused him to his face of duplicity over Israel's recent attacks on Lebanon. Nothing could have better illustrated the fundamental distress of Mr. Bush's foreign collaborators.

Mr. Bush's protestations of innocence over the devastation in Iraq have escalated. All of this while Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization, the enemy that Bush targeted five years ago, continues to give every indication that it is growing in strength. We want to make clear that we don't support the methods or doctrines espoused by al-Qaeda, but we are convinced that Mr. Bush's reactions to 9-11 have served to give al-Qaeda greater legitimacy, but as a resistance group rather than a terrorist organization.

This can be said because American tactics have devastated so many Middle East communities that any resistance to these strategies look like genuine acts of martyrdom. The 9-11 attacks were universally condemned as an outrage, but America's operations in Iraq, its bullying stance at the U.N., and its attempt to force the rest of the world to join it in loudly condemning Iran have diminished this sympathy.

That the balance of power in the world is lopsided is obvious. But what is even more obvious is that American power is being deployed to punish enemies of its own choosing rather than to prevent and punish acts that threaten world peace. This has been repeatedly proven since September 11, as the U.S. has taken actions driven by racial arrogance rather than humane retribution. Whenever it confronts issues related to 9-11, the psyche of the Bush Administration gets locked in the cowboy syndrome, which is an improbable state of catatonic dysfunction.

Unfortunately, this dysfunction is backed up by America's overwhelming wealth and military might, so the likelihood of a reversal of these misguided policies that have lost America so much global goodwill may not be on the cards for a long time to come.

For all of the world's right-thinking people, the memories of that tragic day five years ago are no less painful today. The pity is that as we mourn America's loss the Bush Administration has created a situation in which we must also condemn America's reaction to that loss. These years have been notable for the squandering of the goodwill that a new order of global cooperation should have been built.

But instead of cooperation, a new level of division has evolved.

Now, nine years later, the Project for the New American Century is closing - due to a shortage of funds, it is said. Those that remain there are looking for work. Their ranks are thinning. The New American Century has taken too long to arrive. An ideology is packed up and in moving crates. One couldn't have a sight more pregnant with symbolism.

One needn't look long for the crisis of neo-conservatism. The magic word is Iraq. The central project of this foreign policy school, the democratic transformation of Mesopotamia [Iraq], has not gone as hoped. Theory didn't withstand contact with reality, and that reality has now swept away some theoreticians. And at the same time, a harvest of new treatises is emerging.

The thinking of neo-conservatism, especially after 9/11, is based on an astute criticism of what had been the established foreign policy in America and Europe. The neo-cons rejected the usual left-liberal theory about the causes of the attacks, according to which the attackers were motivated by unfairness and a lack of modernization in the Middle East. Instead, the reason for the terror is a lack of democracy. But the terrorists recognized the hypocrisy of the West, which wants the Middle East's oil, and despite its pro-democracy rhetoric entered into an evil pact with the authoritarian rulers of the region. The terrorist attacked the hypocrite.

For neo-conservatives, since the stability of the region was imposed by dictatorship, it was akin to the peace of the grave. They wanted to convince the West, especially America, to accept a policy beyond oil. In the long-term, not dictatorship but democracy would create security in the face of terror. And when necessary, the American military must be used to help assure this breakthrough for democracy: Weapons as tool of moral power and America as good-natured hedgemon, performing a public service for the entire world.

This theory had already come under heavy fire. But it successfully implemented an alliance between its adherents and traditional conservatives in the execution of the neo-cons' central project - the violent ouster of the dictator in Baghdad and the attempt to democratize Iraq. Afterwards the region would be seized by an attraction toward democracy. So much for their idealistic domino theory.

The reality was far different: an exaggerated threat in regard to the dictator, a badly planned occupation, a rebellion, a new threat of terror, all possible violations of human rights by their own troops and increasing radicalization in the entire has raised doubts amongst some neoconservatives. The first was Francis Fukuyama, professor at John Hopkins University. Another, Andrew Sullivan, followed. Both pointed out what they see as the most important mistakes of neo-conservatism:

1. Excessive confidence in the capabilities of the American government. The faith that one knew exactly what was in Iraq's arsenal has been proven misplaced. The shock of the September 11 attacks produced an exaggerated estimate of the threat. Doubts about the perceived threat were too rejected.

2. Excessive confidence in the inevitability of democratization. The marvelously peaceful end to the Cold War encouraged the mistaken notion that democracy is a kind of natural state for humans, or can nevertheless be established with minimal effort. Fukuyama reminds us that early neo-conservative cultural criticism in the 1960s and 70s pointed out to American liberals the limits of social engineering. Now they had become victims of the assumption that one can change societies with the turn of a hand.

3. Excessive confidence in the America's reputation its instruments of power. The idea that America is the sole guardian of the liberal world order on earth and could be such without pursuing its own interests is simply improbable for foreigners. The neo-conservatives underestimated how much resistance American supremacy generated, since it is clear that in the long run, neo-conservatives are interested in marrying universalism [transcending national boundaries] with American nationalism. According to Fukuyama, the drama of the neo-cons consists of the way they overlooked how unacceptable American nationalism is to other nations.

Fukuyama's essay (America at the Crossroads - Democracy, Power and the Neoconservative Legacy), Sullivan's analysis (What I Got Wrong About The War) as well as some other essay-version mea culpas have now received a sharp rebuke. It comes from Norman Podhoretz, a living legend of neo-conservatism and one of its founding fathers. It's in the September issue of the right-wing intellectual journal Commentary [Is the Bush Doctrine Dead?].

Podhoretz asks whether the Bush doctrine is actually dead. No, it absolutely is not, everything is just a misunderstanding and a misinterpretation of the President's character, writes the old master. He argues the neo-conservatism has by no means faded. For Podhoretz, the disappointment lies in the growing number of fellow travelers turning away: some because the theory in regard to the Middle East proved unrealistic; others, because the policy of the President is no longer sufficiently neo-conservative. Among the latter is Richard Perle; the former Pentagon advisor recommends continued toughness toward dictators in the Middle East. In the first group we would find David Frum, who coined the phrase Axis of Evil for the President but who is now disillusioned.

Podhoretz denies the starting point of neo-conservative self criticism: that the Bush doctrine didn't survive its test in Iraq. After all, Iraq has been liberated from one of the worst tyrants in the Middle East; three elections have been held; a decent constitution has been written; a government is in place; and previously unimaginable liberties are being enjoyed. By what bizarre calculus does all this add up to failure? And by what even stranger logic is failure to be read into the fact that the forces opposed to democratization are fighting back with all their might?

For Podhoretz there is no change of American foreign policy, no End of Cowboy Diplomacy. There is no sign that Bush has strayed from the principles of the doctrine that bears his name. But the neo-conservatives who have given up on Bush ignore a simple fact: That he is a politician. As President, he's constantly involved in tactical compromises. But history will one day see Bush as a pivotal figure. For Podhoretz, there is no loss of American power, no fatigue to the military, no longing of the American population to withdraw, and also no change in Bush's foreign policy. Who reads Podhoretz, must assume: There are at least two neo-conservatives left in America. And on one of them, everything depends.

In theory, Bush's line of reasoning, which he has repeated more or less verbatim for years, isn't entirely wrong and has a certain internal logic. In practice, it has long since been proven unsuitable as a strategy in the battle against Islamic terror, or as a justification for the Iraq War. That Bush continues to rattle this off proves yet again that for the President, reality is an uncomfortable parallel universe, one with which he prefers not to come into contact.

In the U.S. there's an election and beside his steadfastness as an anti-terror warrior, Bush has little to offer the voter. A speech to the nation on the anniversary of September 11 was a good opportunity for him to remind Americans of this point.