The new, new world order.

Jeff Huber at Pen and Sword:

The shape of the Next World Order is starting to gel. Hopefully, America still has a chance to resconfigure the mold before the blob hardens.

From a November 2nd story by Steve Guttermanneocon and Edith M. Lederer of the Associated Press:

Russia and China indicated that they will not support a draft U.N. resolution imposing tough sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt its nuclear enrichment program.

Shiver me timbers and blow me down. The only person on the planet who didn't see that coming was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. On October 24th, she told conservative radio talk show host Sean Hannity "I think we'll have a Security Council resolution with sanctions against Iran in the next few weeks."

The failure of diplomatic efforts regarding Iran's nuclear program was not only predictable, it was inevitable.

[...]


America's end zone fumble in Iraq took our eye of the real terrorist threat, but more importantly, it gave our Cold War nemeses the opening they needed to reemerge as major players on the world stage.

By the time the U.S. sprang Operation Iraqi Freedom on the world, China, Russian and Iran had already formed an energy partnership that included assistance from the two larger powers in helping Iran develop an independent nuclear energy program. The jury is still out on whether or not Iran seeks to develop nuclear weapons, but the weapons aren't the key to that country's aim to become a dominant regional power. The more Iran can fuel its industrial growth with nuclear energy, the more of its oil it can sell to jumpstart its economic growth. What's more, as the rest of the world weans itself from oil dependency, Iran will become the portal through which the rest of the Middle East makes the transition to nuclear power and creates an industrial base to replace its petroleum revenues.

At that point, the "axis of energy" (which now includes Venezuela) will have all but shouldered the western nations out of the Middle East, and America won't have a friendly shoulder to cry on because the other western nations will have crawled between the sheets with the axis of energy.

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