McCain, Clinton and Obama: Debating the Future of the American Empire

Without acknowledging it, the three remaining major party candidates for the presidency are debating that oldest of imperial questions----how to keep the American Empire within manageable limits.

The empire is severely overstretched, as a consequence of the massive incompetence of the Bush administration. Militarily, the empire is embroiled in two wars with no end in sight, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Young men from poor families, the life blood of the U.S. Army, are enlisting in reduced numbers, and that poses serious problems for the future. Interconnected with the military crisis is its even larger economic companion. Unwilling to choose between guns and butter, the administration refused to raise taxes to pay for the war.

The administration also took no steps to regulate financial markets to head off the bursting of the property bubble, a threat foreseen for years by economic analysts. It also did nothing to halt the hemorrhaging of American manufacturing that is the consequence of Chinese exports and Wal-Mart. The U.S. current account deficit has soared; foreign central banks, including those of China and Japan hold trillions of dollars worth of U.S. treasury bills and other securities; and the American net indebtedness to the rest of the world is now greater than two trillion dollars. Even as George W. Bush prepares to spend all his time at the ranch, the American Empire is being forced to pare back its military and economic roles in the world. That's what the current global crisis is really all about.

In the U.S., it is unthinkable for a mainstream politician to acknowledge the existence of an American Empire----this was the land that fought a revolution against the British Empire---so politicians vying for the White House cannot directly debate the downsizing of their Empire.

Instead, they posture.

John McCain is the Little Caesar who would stay in Iraq for a hundred years to win the war---he even said ten thousand years in a fit of pique---on the grounds that America must never look weak in front of potential foes, even if its original reasons for going to war were dumb. The other day he pointed out that a representative of Hamas in the United States had said positive things about Barack Obama----this is his idea of not going negative, you're allowed to smear your opponent for who choose to like him. (On this basis, I'm thinking of declaring my support for McCain to allow his opponents to charge him with being endorsed by a Canadian leftist who wants Canada to cut back its exports of dirty and polluting oil sands crude to the United States.)

Hillary Clinton, who voted for the resolution that allowed Bush to invade Iraq, has never repudiated that vote, and is vague about how she would extract the United States from the Iraqi quagmire. She has taken to playing the tough commander-in-chief in her fight against Barack Obama. Not only has she encountered faith and the blessings of guns, she threatened last week that if the Iranians attacked Israel while she was in the White House, the U.S. could obliterate them. In addition to this thoughtful contribution to the debate, there was her television ad in Pennsylvania----”If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”----showing footage of everything from the 1929 stock market crash to Osama bin Laden to make the point that Obama is a weakling.

Even Barack Obama, who has said that he would have U.S. troops out of Iraq within sixteen months of becoming president, can be goaded into playing the schoolyard tough guy, on occasion. Last summer, he said that if he knew where the top leadership of Al Qaeda was hiding out in Pakistan, he would launch a military strike there, even if the government of Pakistan said no to that. When you're running for emperor, it doesn't do to show too much respect for the sovereign rights of other countries.

Given the level of the debate, Americans could be forgiven if they weren't clear about what the stakes are in this election campaign.