Edited to add: So this sank like a stone, and people told me to keep my day job. And I don't even have a day job. That's OK, I can take the heat.
I'll just sit up hear admiring the view, as I watch the fall of an Empire. But if it was
my Empire, I woulnd't let it go without a fight. --Jody
Start:
I'm no Zbigniew Brzezinski, but I'm going to give this a shot. The US has a natural enemy. China. Not Al-Qaeda. The Chinese have always seen themselves as the legitimate rulers of the world, the pure race, the One Great Civilization. Western military power may have curtailed Chinese imperialism for much of the last two centuries, but the Chinese have a virtue America does not: patience. China is now set to challenge American oil hegemony in much of the world, and they have patiently built their economy, manufacturing base and engineering to be in a position to do so.
More below the fold...
Al-Qaeda is a grass-roots political movement in the Middle East, using militant Islamic Fundamentalism to recruit and legitimize their political goals. What are their goals? The overthrow of the Great Satan, the USA? No. Al-Qaeda wants control of the Middle East, and eventually the whole Muslim world, if not in fact then by proxy and by intimidation. Previous US administrations have varied in their assessment of Al-Qaeda. When Russia invaded Afghanistan, the CIA poured roughly $500M into Al-Qaeda to fight the evil commie bastards of the time. But Al-Qaeda was only using Afghanistan as a tool to build its image, and create a recruiting and training network for their real goal, the purification of Arabia. Moderate and secular Arab governments were quaking in their boots, and falling all over themselves to forge secret alliances and publicly support a pure Islam. But they were also begging for help to contain, infiltrate and destroy Al-Qaeda, knowing how dangerous such a group could be to their own power.
In time, under Clinton, the US also recognized the threat and though most US actions were probably covert, we do know that Clinton correctly identified Al-Qaeda targets and actively worked to destroy this growing menace to stability in the Middle East. But Al-Qaeda had a much greater problem than CIA action: since the end of hostilities in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda had no righteous cause to bring the volunteers and the money pouring in. And this is when the anti-US action began. I propose that Al-Qaeda's provocative actions against US targets has always had one goal: provoke the US into military action in the Middle East, or near. Somalia was the first success, and the US ran with its tail between its legs. George Sr. may have engaged Saddam in the first Gulf War, but it was a hit and run and US forces were never exposed to guerrilla warfare. Rather than occupy Iraq, Poppy George withdrew to safety in Saudi Arabia. So far, pretty standard stuff, the US has been defending its oil hegemony in the world using a combination of diplomacy, threats, economic pressure and image building.
Enter The Shrub in 2000. By committing to a disastrous war of aggression and occupation in Iraq, with poor preparation, inadequate equipment and personnel, no plan, and no leadership, Dubya effectively took the Al-Qaeda bait. For chrissakes, the US didn't even bother to secure Iraq's borders. Of course the US toppled Saddam. Who cares? By waging an illegal war of aggression against an Arab people in Arabian Holy Land, the US made itself a magnet for every angry Muslim the world over. Dubya guaranteed Al-Qaeda a stream of young fighters and financing from all over the Islamic world, and every tale of torture and murder continues to play into Al-Qaeda's hands. Dubya has completely destroyed any credibility the US ever had with Islamic peoples. But what about US allies in the Middle East? By handing Al-Qaeda the support of the people, and the moral high ground (but they're screwing that one up), Dubya has turned Al-Qaeda into a much stronger force in the Middle East, and everyone is now terrified. The recent attacks in Jordan are warning to all that Al-Qaeda's agenda, its holy war against secular Arabs, will not go away.
But the real US interest in the region is oil (D'Oh!). Well, what do you think Al-Qaeda's interest is? By turning the whole Middle East into a giant theocracy, Al-Qaeda hopes to make Islam into a superpower, exactly how the Catholic Church was in the Middle Ages. And Dubya has almost handed them the Middle East on a plate. Do you think the US can sustain its present losses and embarrassment in Iraq for long? Will Iraqi oil, under American control, be exploitable? The neocons have had only one minor success in their whole administration, that is signing the deal for the trans-Afghanistan pipeline for Turkmen gas, but do you think that little construction project will go along without a hitch? Clearly the neocons did think they could keep control over everything, they thought that the US military buildup justified by the Iraq was would serve to secure not only Iraq's oil, but secure political stability for the secular Arab governments in the region. And so they gambled: with your kids' future. Except they couldn't conduct a war against a tribe of pygmies, much less a people who learn how to hate before they learn how to walk.
OK, now China. China was already challenging American oil hegemony in the Middle East. China was the main objector to the trans-Afghanistan pipeline. By screwing up soooo badly in Iraq, by torturing Muslims on Holy Land and alienating the entire Islamic world, Dubya has seriously weakened the political alliances the US already had in the region, he has alienated the CIA and destroyed the American intelligence apparatus that could have contained Al-Qaeda, he has destabilized the entire Middle East and put all secular Arab governments at greater risk of attack. And China emerges as a viable ally for any Arab government seeking to break ties with the US to placate Al-Qaeda. China may not yet have the oil technology that makes the US indispensable, but it's no accident that almost half of the engineering students in my school are either Asian or Middle Eastern. China will soon be a viable partner for the exploitation of an oilfield, the construction of a pipeline, and the transport of oil. And they will undercut US firms. And they're already working to convert world oil markets away from the US dollar.
Dubya has even gone so far as to alienate Canada, over a minor ($5B) tariff dispute on softwood lumber, and sent Canadian PM Paul Martin running to China to sound out for interest in developing more of Canada's abundant but technologically difficult to extract oil reserves (the world's largest single oil reserve is in Alberta). Do you think the Chinese were interested? What's next on the neocon agenda, threaten to invade Canada if we sign a deal with Beijing?
So in 5 years in office, Dubya has remade Al-Qaeda into a viable force in the Middle East, weakened the US military and Intelligence agencies indispensable for US interests, destroyed the image of the US everywhere in the world, sent the US's oldest ally running to China to sell its oil, strengthened China's bid for oil hegemony in the Middle East, and even borrowed so much money from China that your great-grandkids will still be paying the interest.