You know, I have this 10 year old Korean kid and former student which still e-mails me quite often. Hes a great kid and he loves baseball, as do I. So we both celebrated the Reds breaking the curse of the Bambino.

Yes, Koreans are great people, but you pulled a typical Republic shtick by obfuscating the point with nice words but never elucidating your main point. Of course North Koreans are suffering from the US imposed sanctions and Kim Jong Il with his psychotic concepts. However, your point was not made at all.

To say that Bush is brilliant with a long term scope means you didnt take your smart pill today. So lets do a little quick analysis shall we.

How things are looking in the long term:

Iraq disintegrates into the Kurds in the north, the split Sunnis and Shiites in the middle and south. From this chaos comes infiltration and influence in Turkey, Iran and Syria. Now, the Middle East is really cooking like a hot summer day in Baghdad. More Freedom Fighters are popping up everywhere and the US military cant contain it. The US is stretched thin and the budget deficit is in the red zone. Europe keeps out and Russia uses this to hit Chechnya really hard. The US will back off Russia because it needs what little allies it can garner.

The ensuing chaos then causes a confrontation with Iran. Iran and Israel already have a row over the nukes Iran is/has developing/developed. Israel gets angry and pops a few gunships over to Iran where the nukes are supposed to be. Then Iran retaliates. The price of oil not only stays over 55 USD a barrel but keeps going up due to this crisis. China is still drinking oil, sorry Dos, like an opium crazed junky (in addition to the US). Oil skyrockets and even ESL teachers cant find work due to the sagging economy.even in .yesChina. The US drops its product consumption, as people are maxing-out their credit cards and jobs are a scarcity. This will slow consumption of Chinese goods and slow its economy as well.

Lastly, Korea now is scared of pre-emption from the US and accelerates its own nuke program and possibly contributes help to Iran and others against the US.

How Bush couldve made things for long term:

The US couldve stayed with the UN. Since the US president has strong negotiating powers over Israel, a power brokerage couldve been sealed. The deal couldve been made with the Arab states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, to name a few, to form a Muslim UN peace keeping contingency. Then the US couldve FORCED ISREAL to allow a Palestinian state and move out of the West Bank.

In return, the Muslim peace keeping force would move into Iraq and call for the peaceful hand over of Saddam. If that didnt happen, the UN-Muslim peace keepers would take out Saddam BUT LEAVE the infrastructure the same. The infrastructure would be less Saddam and his sons of course.

Then, the Muslim peace keepers could make a MUSLIM DEMOCRACY NOT an AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. The oil would be secured by OPEC and out of American hands. The Iraqi people would form a Muslim state similar to the one before Saddam was helped into power by the CIA. Iran would also be pressured but NOT sanctioned off. Israel would EXCEPT that it MUST not be a hegemony in the Middle East if peace is to continue. Since the US has the power to force Israel in that direction through its own sanctions, that wouldve given the US soooo much credibility in the Arab/Muslim world we wouldnt be having this discussion now.

Final analysis, Beatrix and Mr. me need a little more worldly understanding of history and politics before the postulate on how things will be. From the confines of their comfortable chair, religious myopia and sheltered middle-class life, they are indeed clueless of what is going on.