PART I:
    When you woke up Wednesday morning you may have been surprised to see it all seemed like business as usual. There were no burning cars in the streets. Regis and Kelly were still on NBC yammering mindlessly on about how well yellow underwear look on fat women. Only on 24/7 news stations was there that little afterglow, like an ex-virginal bride the day after her wedding night. You can expect the media's oral congress given this story to last another 6 weeks, but if you're not a news junkie, things will seem altogether normal.
    And it will be the same on the day after Obama is inaugurated.
    But soon after that things will begin to change. There is actually a plan (we don't know what it is, but have two-three ideas as to how it might play out) and if things are allowed to go according to plan, the changes will be subtle, or least reported to you subtly, as no big deal. That will be the new role of the national media, to put mustard on your shite sandwiches.
    We report this in two parts. First, we look at those things that can carry the more peaceful plan completely off-course, for short of a national uprising, they will be things external to the US, things beyond Obama's administration to control.
     Interestingly, we see Hugo Chavez, not Israel as potentially the greater fly in Obama's ointment. I say this because Chavez feels some sort of socialist comradeship with Obama, but trust me, left wing Dem's in Washington will have no truck with hoi polloi, no matter how socialist their rap. Right now, Chavez is making nice with Russia in a gold deal to bolster Moscow's banks (receipts are off), not understanding that while his own animus is toward the old America, about to pass, and not the new emerging America, Russia's beef is with the USA. Period. No socialist will ease the animus felt by the old Russian guard for America. Chavez will feel the squeeze, and Obama is most likely to dis Chavez at exactly the wrong time.
     To better understand this, the Clinton's were hegemonists, but were unable to execute a global plan. The world was supposed to have been split into spheres of influence, China getting Asia (yes, not just Taiwan, but also Japan and South Korea would eventually have been sacrificed of the altar of this scheme), Russia getting Central Asia, including the Middle East, Europe getting to die the slow cancerous death it is already engaged in, the US getting the western hemisphere, and the United Nations getting Africa.
     An old World War I political idea conceived by the French, and (I thought) long ago proven to be pretty stupid (which may explain why Madelaine Albright embraced it) the Russians like it, the Chinese like it, the UN likes it, and the Europeans I think, are pretty much out of the loop. There are two major components of hegemonism that made it palatable to American Democrats both then, and now. First is that America would abandon mideast oil, under the still startling illusion that we could run our country's fuel needs on windmills and stagnant stump water, and never once have to drill another hole anywhere in the earth's crust. But wait! There is much truth to this analysis if you stop to consider that under a far more strident socialist regime than the Clintons imagined, if the political elites and their select friends (and no one else) will have any need for motor fuel. This is now doable, though not without a lot of pain. Calvera the Bandit, (Al Gore) especially will be pleased to see 30%-40% of the cars taken off the road, and not one of them his.
    The second part of this new hegemonism is that America and Europe would cede most of their interantional military planning over to the UN. It would be the UN's duty, not multi-lateral pacts such as we now see in Iraq and Afghanistan, to muster troops and shuttle them off to the world's hotspots. (Feel better now?) NATO would be dead, pleasing Russia, who's never had any evil intentions toward Europe anyway, and most of all, hundreds of billions in defense funds could be transfered over to domestic needs back home. This would include shifting men, materiel and dollars into the new national police force (Americorps) a concept I don't think the Clintons ever enteratined. Obama will have his Praetorian Guard, Stormentruppen, Janissaries. Whatever.The good news is that profiteering defense contractors won't really mind who's driving their tanks, and who they're being aimed at. (see Part II)
    The Afgan war will continue, but it will be fought with absolutely no intention of winning. Obama will hunt for Osama in much the same way OJ hunted for his ex-wife's killers. Afghanistan is the perfect contrived Vietnam, a no-win terrain (after Petraeus is fired), but one where the few remaining patriots in America can feel we are still looking for a final reckoning for 9/11. Afgahnistan will be the bone Obama throws to the American people. But what if Pakistan nukes Waziristan, thus killing everone, including a few bad guys? Or, what if the Taliban steals a nuke and blows Amedabad off the map? These are problems. And I doubt if Obama has a Plan B.
    Then, finally, there is Israel and Iran. We've mentioned this before, but should Iran take any provocative action, publicly or privately, Israel will likely test Obama's new Secretary of State only once. One he/she drops the ball, they will act alone, possibly thrusting the whole region into an Armagedon of biblical proportions. Why? That region, remember, belongs to Russia, under the "hegemony pact.". It is likely that Obama will not confront Russia, who will almost assuredly side with Iran. Americans will sit here dumbstruck, depending on how the news is presented to us, if at all, wondering why we have abandoned Israel or alternately, what it was that made Israel turn so "bad". It won't be long then before Iraq will fall to the forces of Islamo-facsism, and, after all appropriate retribution has been exercised (1-2 million dead), the middle east and Russia in full fascist handshake. Or, worse, what if the people of Iran take to the streets, and the Army sides with them?
     Like Cambodia, no American will stand in the well of history for yet another million or so deaths for no other reason than the puny pursuit of freedom. But the pacific plan for socialization may jump the track early. And often.
     Next time, three domestic scenarios.
Bernard Chumm