Vanishing Japan

If George W. Bush's catastrophically delusional obsession with Saddam Hussein — advancing here the all-too-likely theory that the "War Against Terror" and indeed all U.S. military involvement in Iraq was, is and continues to be pretext to hide Bush the Lesser's private vendetta against Saddam, who flicked boogers at Bush's daddy after the first Gulf War — leads to massive standdowns in regions of the world that do matter, such as the Far East, then Japan will be swallowed alive by China and the United States will dwindle in the nuclear afterglow of its vanished seaboards to residual grease spots in the Dakotas.

I'm not optimistic, even if Bush goes into bunker mode and fights holding actions against a hostile Congress and an even more annoyed electorate until January 20, 2009. Bush's wars have created a fascinating plethora of tunnel visions and sanity-threatening fixations, like a mad rabbit obsessed with a rattlesnake in the corner, which completely prevent wide-angle observation.

There's a great article in tomorrow's Yomiuri Shimbun by Hisahiko Okazaki, a former ambassador and long serving member of Japan's diplomatic corps, that lays it out from Japan's perspective. There's vitriol in there if you read between the lines — Japan feels abandoned by the Bush State Department, hinting (with a bit of finger drumming) that History, like a four ton hippo in a tutu, has a way of pirouetting unexpectedly on seemingly minor disappointments.

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Not to change the subject, but I wouldn't give a bucket of warm Gatorade™ for Mitt Romney's chances. Do millions of women really want to be sealed in willy nilly matrimony with him in some brightly lit Mormon afterlife?