Is it safe to contemplate the New Reality? Like the refugees filtering back into what is left of their homes in South Lebanon, or the shopkeepers lifting their store shutters in Haifa, the rest of the world is poking its head above the dust of the latest Middle East war, wondering what it all means.
Some anonymous White House official warned us several years ago we would be in this position. You remember that Ron Suskind quote about how this administration is in the business of creating new realities - it could have come from Cheney, Rumsfeld, Libby, Addington, though it doesn't sound like something George Bush would articulate. It represents a mindset unlike anything seen before in the U.S. government: a self-confidence that transcends hubris or arrogance. It is an assumption of omnipotent power to shape the world, its problems, its resources, and its beliefs in whatever way the United States desires.
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