What US Policy Planners Have to Accept: That Shah of Iran is Dead. That Cold War is Over

George W. Bush could have gone down in history as a man who brought change in this world because, as a college drop-out with none of the scholastic airs and strings to bind him to a standard, he could have started on a clean slate.

Instead, he chose Presidency as an opportunity to avenge his vanquished father and his dead friends and to take revenge on his father's enemies, especially, old-friends-turned-enemies.

And, these old-timers know only one thing: War. They think patriotism is fighting wars. If there is no war, they will create one - because that is the only job they know of.

The only US Presidents who can rightfully claim to be "War Presidents" belong to the Civil War and the World War II eras. They didn't create wars and strife on their own. Instead, wars were thrust on them.

Economics - be it Capitalistic or Socialistic - never said war improves economy. In fact, one of the specific red-flags about a country in economic and financial checklists is the country's love for war.

Even when Soviet Union is gone and Russia wants to forget everything to start a new life as an oil producer, our experts don't want that. They want Russia to keep on playing our enemy so that they can continue to eat out of the US taxpayer's money.

George W. Bush is prodding the Czechs and the Polish to irritate the Russians. This is why the Germans and the French want a new NATO without USA - a combined EU army without US interference.

And, the greatest fools are the Georgians who think that they can keep on irritating their immediate neighbor with the help of friends from afar. One gulp by the Siberian Tiger is enough to gobble up Georgia whether we help them or not. Because, geopolitical sensitivities and realities do not favor us, however powerful we are. A Bush or Condy Rice going to Tibilisi to make fiery speeches is not going to change that strategic reality. Remember we had fully equipped bases in Da Nang too!

Republican old-guards should realize that Europeans are fed up with this game. We should not force them to a point where they have no choice but to tell us "Get Out."

Sitting on this side of the Atlantic and claiming European descent may make us oblivious to how much Europeans are fed up with our war-games. Nor, will they say it out of courtesy while we are there on short visits. So better not to drive them to the fence.

Now in return for Bush's bullying, Russia has retaliated by reviving the plans for regular flights of their long-range TU-160 Bombers to Cuba.

We cannot go to Tibilisi and childishly talk rubbish, incite trouble in Russia's backyard and then demand they don't fly to Cuba. Otherwise, whatever Kennedy and Reagan said and did comes to nothing.

That means Bush has turned the clock back by half a century to the sixties!

What we want from our Presidents are not replays of the Kennedy and Reagan heroics. Those Presidents had to do their act because history dictated that they do it, so that world becomes a better place.

But, that doesn't mean that their successors to Presidency keep on scratching Russia's butt so that Cuban Missile Crisis can be revived or that they create fake opportunities to make "Tear down these walls, Mr.Russian President" speeches again and again from the Brandenburg Gate, once every decade.

We Americans want to move forward into new eras. We want them to build on the foundations laid by Kennedy and Reagan, not destroy them.

We don't want our leaders and their "don't-want -to-learn-new-things" experts in the State Department and the Pentagon to push us back into old and bygone eras of hate and mistrust - again and again and again.

We don't want our Presidents whipping up the "Russians are coming, Russians are coming" paranoia again in our children and grandchildren. One complete generation of Americans were forced to live in fear by a handful of "experts".

If I need a Russian obelisk or scarecrow in my backyard to remind me daily to love Ma USA, I should be a hypocrite of a son.

The World knows and acknowledges that we are a super-power - in fact, the only one at this time. So, we need not flex our biceps every minute and threaten the world every day to remind them about our prowess like empty-headed musclemen.

The World is facing an irony: They love American PEOPLE for the good things America's ancestors did for the world. Yet, they have no choice but to hate today's American LEADERS who only create strife and pain in the world.

Many Americans would have thumped their chest in victory as they saw a chained Saddam fearlessly walking to the gallows and courting death.

The question that came up in my mind at that time was how many lying American traitors who contracted Osama to massacre 3000+ innocent compatriots on that fateful day will show Saddam's fortitude if they were led to the gallows like that? Time alone will tell us that.

Unlike those, I don't need a foreign enemy scarecrow to induce me to love Ma USA.