Ignoring the math of disaster: political folly

Whether in Kabul, London, Washington or Pretoria global leaders appear to believe that big mouth is more important than sound math.

Let’s take the United States and the United Kingdom. Battling with two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – the latter of which seems to be getting hopelessly out of control and endangering Pakistan and potentially India – as well as massive internal economic problems and growing joblessness – 10,6% of the US 250m people and three million out of work in the United Kingdom – they’ve taken to waving a big stick at Iran.

Iran responded with alacrity allowing inspections of its nuclear plants. Now the US and its allies are demanding that Iran send uranium to be enriched in Russia before being sent to France for conversion to medical use.

Russia? I’d trust Iran’s Mahmoud AhmadinejadMahmoud Ahmadinejad before Russia’s Vladimir PutinVladimir Putin.

Ahmadinejad has countered by saying they will send small consignments to Russia instead of large consignments and given the corruption and instability of Russia, it seems a more sensible deal.

France and the US are rejecting that saying Israel might attack Iran before that happens. So why don’t they stop Israel? Who is its biggest funder? The US alone has the capacity to stop Israel.

Surely the US has enough on its plate without seeking another war? President Barack ObamaBarack Obama, whose star is sadly waning as election promises go unfulfilled has an $85billion health care bill to operationalise.

During his election campaign, he promised to pull troops out of Iran and Afghanistan and to close Guantanamo bay, but the man who is this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner has fulfilled none of those campaign promises.

He seems set to send more troops to Afghanistan as the intensity of that war begins engulfing Pakistan and poses challenges for security in India. US General Stanley McChrystal, the overall commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan wants 40 000 more US troops – or a 40% troop increase - to boost the failing battle for that country after nine years of war.

But Bagram Air Field in Parwan province, as an example, the largest US military base in Afghanistan already houses 24 000 military personnel and civilian contractors and simply has no more room.

There are plans for a new $22m air terminal and a $9m cargo yard. When the US military took over Bagram in December 2001, the base was 3 993 acres it is now 5 198 acres with furious building activity a constant feature – in the US itself, with the economic downturn construction has all but collapsed as war leeches resources.

In the United States those banks that were given billions by the Bush administration to secure their status despite track records of profligate overspending and poor management are getting ready to give multi-million dollar bonuses to executives and staff despite millions of Americans out on the street with no work.

The bankers haven’t learnt their lesson and nor has the US government remembered the lessons of Vietnam.

US historian Barbara Tuchman, wrote in The March of Folly: ‘The power to command frequently causes failure to think … If the mind is open enough to perceive that a given policy is harming rather than serving self-interest, if we are self-confident enough to acknowledge it and wise enough to reverse it, we will have reached the summit.”