State of the world in 2004: The backdrop of the early stages of World War IV

As we welcome in 2004, it’s time to take stock of the geopolitical panorama that provides the backdrop for the early stages of what is becoming known as World War IV:

– Mop-up operations after the hugely successful Battle of Afghanistan and Battle of Iraq, and formidable reconstruction of those blighted countries;

– Al Qaeda’s efforts to reconstitute itself, to continue funding its networks, to franchise its operations to other organizations, and to plan even more spectacular and deadlier attacks;

– Fissures in the Saudi-led Wahhabi global terrorist support network, from the epicenter in Riyadh to the cell-level arrests and neutralization of key operatives in the US and abroad;

– A strengthening, pro-US, democratic revolutionary movement in Iran – despite Washington’s unwillingness to embrace it;

– Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi apparently folding his WMD arsenal in the face of American-led firepower and iron will in Iraq, opening his programs up to international inspectors including the CIA, and publicly exhorting other regimes to follow his example (while paradoxically not following a similar course concerning his longtime support for international terrorists);

– The shrill third leg of the Axis of Evil, the North Korean regime, turning up the volume of its nuclear threat;

– The People’s Republic of China, led by a corrupt and decrepit Communist Party, milking the West on the North Korea issue, while geometrically increasing its military spending, advancing its nuclear weapon and space-launch programs, encroaching on the sovereignty of nearly all its neighbors, threatening to destroy democratic Taiwan, running extremely aggressive espionage operations against the US and its allies, and pretending to be an ally in the war against the terrorists;

– A Franco-German axis that is dividing a newly united Europe against itself and its American ally;

– An onrush of harsh anti-US populism throughout Latin America, manifested in the Chavez regime of Venezuela, and the political movements behind the new governments of Argentina and Brazil;

– Sustained, sophisticated political warfare operations waged against US interests by the anachronistic but still influential Communist regime in Cuba;

– The continued strength of narcoterrorists, especially in Colombia – as well as the new strength of those resisting and, yes, destroying narcoterrorists;

– A Mexican government whose national strategy is to export millions of illegal aliens into the United States to relieve domestic political and economic pressures, and to siphon billions of dollars in US wage remittances and Social Security payments into the Mexican economy;

– A US government that intentionally, for political reasons, refuses to enforce its own immigration laws designed to secure the borders and control who enters the country;

– Increased understanding of how jihadist political influence operations work inside the US, and gradual degradation and isolation of those operations through arrests, raids, and public exposure;

– A US government that still cannot figure out how to use political persuasion abroad to win the war;

– A president and his defense team who, despite the formidable foreign and domestic obstacles, are committed to following through and destroying the enemy, regardless of how long it may take.