In reply to Keith Halderman’s comments below:

To expand on his final comment, first: I did not have space to place all of the Russian comments in the article, but their intent, if they come into Iraq, would be to aid the American military in the Sunni sectors, not the Shia ones, which form the majority of territory. I mentioned this was the Izvestia observation.

I certainly agree that our government has no business trying to pressure the Russians toward some of our own ill-conceptualized notions of Democracy.

Whether the Russians join us in Iraq, and with their own growing problem in Chechnya they may have the same military manpower problems as the US, my major point was that the two Empires are “coming” to resemble each other in their growing Statism.

As I noted in a graphic in A History of Florida (3rd ed., U. of Miami Press, 1999), while discussing that State’s conceivable role in the Caribbean, there are at least three levels of possible interaction between two nations; people, business and government. Under the rhetoric of ‘Public Diplomacy” the US has increasingly relied on gov’t-gov’t relations, especially military solutions. As Bob Woodward quotes, GeoII/43 in Bush at War (p. 115), I doubt our beloved President has any concept of real Public Diplomacy as espoused by Cong. Dante Fascell over his whole career.

America is an Empire, and is just beginning to realize some of the consequences of that seemingly exalted status.