United States still could muddle along with good wine and the Red Sox

By TOM BRENNAN

America today looks a lot like the Roman Empire near its end — straddling the world but losing its grip.

You can’t blame Barack Obama. It’s been coming for a long time. But his socialist policies and dithering are accelerating the process. Any country that trusts America’s commitment for its security these days is thinking wishfully, at best.

I’m not enough of a historian to give a very precise analogy to this country’s ongoing decline, but even an English major can tell we are on our way to becoming a second-rank nation. An interesting place like France, but with pretty good wine plus the Red Sox. The next world-straddling empire could be China’s, or perhaps India’s. Not Russia’s; they had their shot and blew it, though they’re probably not out of the running entirely.

Hopefully, the next stage in America’s growth will not be painful. Muddling along in world affairs like France or Britain could be enjoyable provided whoever is in charge next time doesn’t get too mean about it.

Obama is over his head as president. He is not the first “leader of the free world” to be in that position. So were George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and a number of others. (Actually, the term is a meaningless leftover from the Cold War days when the American president was de facto leader of the free and not-so-free countries that were not under Soviet domination. Since the Soviet Union has fallen apart, having the head cheese here up to his nose in a foreign substance isn’t the problem it once could have been.)

These days it seems anyone capable of doing the American president’s job is unlikely to take it. They have better things to do with their time. So those who seek the presidency are generally going to be over their heads in deep kimchee.

Bush could have been a good president — he was likable enough and had a good team behind him — but he failed to understand an important rule of thumb. Every American president can invade the small country of his choice, but he must win and wrap up the war within three years. Otherwise, he and the United States inevitably face a bloody quagmire.

Bush found out too late that he had a tiger by the tail in the Middle East. He couldn’t kill it — couldn’t win the war and pacify both Iraq and Iran — and he couldn’t let go, so this country and its courageous troops were dragged into an untenable situation. The obvious result was that both houses of Congress and the White House fell to the Democrats. Those things happen in a cycle of sorts, but when the nation is bogged down in a war it can’t win, they happen all at once.

Unfortunately, Obama is as hapless as George W. was. Obama eagerly grabbed the tiger’s tail by running for president and there is now no easy out for him — or for the country. He can’t kill the tiger and he can’t let go. Either way it’s no-win. If he doesn’t send the troops the Pentagon is asking for, he risks losing both Iraq and Afghanistan, and leaving it to his country to face the consequences, probably including increased terrorist attacks on our own soil.

If he does send the troops the generals request, America risks mounting casualties and increasing hostility from countries that would ordinarily be our allies. Obama doesn’t have the option of distracting the nation — and the world — by invading another country. Rule of thumb number two is that if the president ahead of you gets bogged down in a quagmire, you have to skip your turn. And so might whoever comes after you. Perhaps even the president after that.

What this new world order means for Alaska will depend on how its Legislature performs in the near future. Right now our economy is headed back where it started, this time with resources locked up, a tax plan designed to discourage new investment and a government structure the state can’t afford.

I’m not talking about the tax regime for the gas pipeline. Gov. Sean Parnell is doing the sensible thing there. We have two groups working toward a pipeline and their costs — necessary to determine what kind of tax burden the line can bear and still be a good investment for its owners — have yet to be determined.

At some point the two sides will have to get together, but that will happen anyway despite former Gov. Sarah Palin’s attempt to micromanage economic issues that she didn’t remotely understand. Hopefully Parnell and the Legislature will let economic reality take its course.

In the meantime, the Legislature can and should set oil taxes aimed at encouraging exploration and development. The main North Slope fields are declining, but there appear to be many small accumulations of oil waiting to be found — besides those next to known oil pools. That exploration is expensive, but a thoughtful scheme of taxation could make the seismic tests and the needed drilling a good investment.

Since gas often is found when the explorers are looking for oil, the fact that a gas pipeline seems to be in the offing would make those gas fields valuable. That makes an exploration well a much better bet than it was in the days when a gas discovery in a remote location was a liability requiring spending on an uncertain return.

If the Legislature decides to sit on its hands — as it probably will — the economy here could go limp long before we have a gas line under construction.

Tom Brennan is author of The Snowflake Rebellion, a novel about an Alaska tea party.

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