The Privilege of Becoming Death, Destroyer of Worlds, Returns to its Ancestral Homeland
Because I couldn’t think of a pun-filled header involving the words fallout, India, Bush, and deal.
So, India gets to become officially nuclear. I ain’t worried about it. It’s not like the World’s Largest Democracy (™ courtesy of Tommy Friedman) is affected by any political instability or is up to its gills in regional tension. It’s not like this deal will further weaken the already fragile international framework that controls atomic proliferation. It’s not like the US has ever used the existence of unregulated nuclear programs as a casus bellorum and has an executive branch that publicly prides itself on consistency in all matters. It’s not like I could I continue with this laundry list of fears and worries indefinitely were I willing to sacrifice style for substance.
Basta!
However, to be candid for a rare and lucid moment, it’s not the prospect of India in the nuclear club that puts my panties in such a pretzel. That kind of unexploited energy market is practically crying out for Western uranium. I am an all-a-flutter tangle of anxiety because Bush and company appear to be intensely intent on dismantling the American Principate that previous administrations successfully built and maintained over the course of the last 60 years.
Like it or not, my pretty little lefties, nature abhors a vacuum. In the post-Potsdam, pre-Guantanamo era, the world was willing to tolerate a more-often-than-not-benign, American hegemon, and, indeed, benefitted by its consent to the arrangement. Michael Mandelbaum’s new book, The Case for Goliath, provides a strong, if unidealistic, foundation for this claim. It’s nowhere near a utopian vision, but, as with the Beatles and FDR, all the singles are good and some of the B-sides are promising. Whether motivated by arrogance or impatience, the Bush administration has done its best to transform the dynamic of this arrangement, almost to the point of eradicating its future viability.
I am of the opinion that it all has to do with the emperor’s clothes. The UN, NATO, Kyoto, and the ICC–they are like the velvet (or, at least, velour) robes of empire. They satisfy the largely pride-based prerequisites of international diplomacy. Unilateral nuclear treaties reflect a Caligulan pre-occupation with the topside of sado-masochism. A superficial analogy, perhaps, but, then again, it’s a difficult task, underestimating the superficiality of our species.
