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Skriven 2006-12-03 10:42:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Unthinkable
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http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/1211/033.html

Fact and Comment
The Unthinkable
Steve Forbes, 12.11.06, 12:00 AM ET

While all attention is now focused on the unrelenting insurrections in Iraq, a
far bigger and infinitely more menacing threat is before us: Iran. The fanatics
running Iran are developing nuclear weapons, not as a means to extort money
from the West la North Korea but with the express purpose of firing them.
Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel recently revealed that these
lunatics plan to manufacture 25 or more atomic bombs a year. Ominously, Tehran
is building missiles with longer and longer ranges. Warns Netanyahu, "It's
1938, and Iran is Germany, and it's racing to arm itself with nuclear weapons."


President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made all too clear that, when it comes to
world Jewry, he intends to pick up where Hitler left off. Israel is his obvious
first target. A couple of nuclear weapons would wipe out most of that small
country's population. But what U.S. and Western diplomats fail to grasp is that
Tehran's ambition for mass murder goes beyond Israel. Ahmadinejad fully intends
to use nukes on Europe and, ultimately, the U.S.

Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission, once observed that 9/11 was less
a failure of intelligence than it was a failure of imagination. Who, before
that terrible day, truly thought such a thing could happen? It just seemed too
fantastic to be credible. The idea that Iran would lob nukes at us or give
smaller nukes to terrorists to set off on American soil seems nearly as
fantastic. But where murderous zealots are concerned, the unthinkable can
indeed come to pass.

Most Iranians would be quite happy to see the mullahs replaced by a less
repressive, more economic-growth-oriented regime. But maniacal, murder-minded
true believers don't depend on polls to determine policy. Time and again we
have seen what a handful of extremists controlling a country can do. Hitler is
the most notable example, but there are also Lenin and Stalin, not to mention
the biggest mass-murderer of them all, China's Mao Tse-tung. And during the
1970s in Cambodia Pol Pot and his bloodthirsty band killed upward of 3 million
people.

There's no question that it would take a major air strike to achieve the
disruption or destruction of Tehran's nuclear program. But most experts believe
that it is doable without needing to employ nuclear-tipped missiles to break
through Iran's extraordinarily deep (in some cases, 450 feet) underground
bunkers.

Alas the Bush Administration, unnerved by its unexpected setback in last
month's elections, is not likely to seriously contemplate missile strikes to
curtail Iran's nuclear efforts. A growing number of Bush officials are quite
ready to accommodate a nuclear-armed Iran and soothe themselves with the
fantasy that these martyrizing fanatics can be deterred. They'll warn the
President that, thanks to Iraq, he doesn't have the credibility to make a case
for military action and that he would be opening himself up to criticism that
he was using Iran to divert attention from the mess in Iraq. Besides which, the
Administration has done little to prepare the American public for the possible
need to launch air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities.

Israel? A stronger government than today's would probably have already carried
out air strikes. But even weak, divided and incompetent governments can, when
faced with an existential threat, undertake a major military action.

The ultimate test of George Bush's presidency is coming.


Moronic Management

Talk about incompetence. Our Treasury department wins the booby prize for the
way it has managed in recent years the servicing of our national debt, the
publicly held portion of which now comes to $4.9 trillion. When interest rates
were plunging in 2000--03, these geniuses decided to shorten the average
maturity instead of locking in long-term low yields. In 2001 they even
eliminated the issuance of 30-year bonds and only recently have revived this
instrument. In the private sector such foolishness would have led to quick
termination, perhaps even criminal indictment, for deliberately wasting
shareholders' money.

Right now 2-year Treasurys yield more than 10-year or 30-year bonds. Yet the
portion of the national debt with a maturity of more than 20 years has dropped
from 12% in 2000 to 5% currently. Debt with a maturity range of one to 10 years
has zoomed from 42% in 2001 to more than 53% last year.

All this would be similar to a homeowner forsaking a 4.5% fixed-rate 30-year
mortgage for a variable-rate mortgage of nearly 5%.

If, say, $1 trillion of 2-year debt had been financed with 30-year bonds, the
savings over 30 years--assuming no change in interest rates--would be almost
$150 billion. If the Fed continues to print too much money, as it has been
doing, short-term interest rates will be going up more; thus the long-term
savings could have been even greater.

For starters the government should issue a lot of 30-year bonds, as long as the
yields are below 5%.

This isn't the first time the Treasury has made a hash of managing our national
debt. In the private sector, companies' long-term bonds can be called in 5
years or 10 years after issuance, even if the bond's maturity is, say, 25
years. With inflation raging in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Uncle Sam was
issuing long-term debt with coupons as high as 15.75%--with no corporate-like
call provisions. When interest rates fell as inflation came down, the
government--and the taxpayers--were stuck paying those high rates. If
Washington had issued bonds the way the private sector does, the national debt
would today be several hundred billion dollars less.

Congress should grill Treasury Chief Hank Paulson on this imbecility as soon as
possible.

It Won't Happen

Democrats profess themselves to be very concerned about America's
competitiveness with the rest of the world. One measure that would help us
overseas would be to repeal an amendment slipped into legislation last spring
that dramatically increases U.S. taxation of American citizens working abroad.

The U.S. is the only major industrialized country that levies exactions on its
overseas citizens for income earned abroad. Thus, Americans are liable for
income taxes to both Uncle Sam and to the foreign country in which they reside.
By substantially boosting their taxes, the amendment discourages the hiring of
Americans in foreign lands (employers have to shell out more money to make the
after-tax incomes of these workers worth their while), which is not going to
help us in promoting our goods and services to foreign customers.

This fall the Treasury Department mitigated this suddenly more onerous burden
by changing the rules on the amount of housing costs that Americans living and
working abroad may deduct when they file their U.S. income tax returns. But the
bottom line remains the same: The cost for an American company to send
Americans overseas has been significantly raised.

Will Democrats scrap the amendment? Not likely, in no small part because the
majority of Americans living abroad are probably Republicans, who make
higher-than-average incomes and thus are guilty of that sin-of-Democratic-sins:
being "rich."

Political hypocrisy knows no bounds.

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