A World Of Woe

Iran is massing troops on Afghanistan's border threatening an invasion. Saddam Hussein is thumbing his nose at the U.S. and the U.N. while apparently continuing to build weapons of mass destruction.

The Balkans threaten to explode again, with Serbia ravaging Kosovo with quote ethnic cleansing. There is an in-danger-of-spreading war in middle Africa, centered in the Congo. The Middle East peace negotiations between Israel and Palestinians are stalled, threatening to collapse.

Radical Muslim terrorists are plotting to blow-up more U.S. installations. Russia is descending ever deeper into economic collapse with who knows what consequences. Japan is in recession. China is fighting to prevent having to devalue its currency. The whole global economy reflects these signs of trouble still to come.

In the U.S. Congress, moves to strengthen Social Security for the future are stalled.

Against this backdrop, Congress is debating whether to change U.S. presidents or not. In a mini-news conference this afternoon, with the president of the Czech Republic at his side, President Clinton answered questions mostly about the Monica Lewinsky mess.

By any reasonable analysis, this is one of the most interesting- and potentially dangerous - times in recent history.

The United States is the world's ranking superpower. But for at least this moment in history, to much of the world, rightly or wrongly, it resembles a Gulliver, tied down by the Lilliputians of its own internal politics.

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