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Editorial: Support comes with a price tag

Iraq is a far-away country of which Taiwanese know little. And the George W. Bush administration in the US is the warmest toward Taiwan since, perhaps, the Eisenhower presidency in the 1950s. So should Taipei unequivocally throw its support behind the Bush administration's plans to engineer regime change in Iraq, as some DPP lawmakers were suggesting last week?

A gesture of friendship and solidarity from Taiwan will certainly not do the nation any harm, given the flak that Washington is taking from countries which used to be close allies. And it is worth noting that, if a war goes ahead without UN blessing, the UN might also absent itself from any part in clearing up the post-war mess. Given that a UN commitment to anything usually means Taiwan's exclusion, our government should be ready at the earliest opportunity to let the Americans know of our willingness to do whatever we can to help with the reconstruction effort.

That said, there is reason to worry about Bush's policy. It is worth remembering that the first Gulf War was paid for largely by Japan and Saudi Arabia, whereas the burdens of the coming war and its aftermath might have to be met out of America's pocket alone. And the Iraq war -- and we are assuming that war is inevitable -- is just the first stage of the huge task of recasting the Middle East in a modern democratic form. This is likely to be hugely expensive -- some estimates of the cost of a tough war followed by an extended occupation of Iraq reach US$1 trillion -- nearly four times Taiwan's annual GDP.

On top of this large expenditure comes Bush's tax cuts, estimated to take another trillion dollars out of the US treasury. A trillion here, a trillion there and soon you're talking about real money. Can the US really afford it?

Then there is North Korea. How this situation will play itself out nobody knows and the potential for mayhem is huge.

Oh, and Osama bin Laden is still alive, and his al-Qaeda organization still flourishes.

Pleasant as the support of the Bush administration might be now, the long-term scenario is worrying. Of course things might go swimmingly, the war may be short, the remaking of the Middle East relatively painless, the North Koreans might blink, bin Laden might be captured or killed. But perhaps not.

In which case the government might like to consider this scenario: It's 2010, the Republicans have been ousted in the 2008 election by a US electorate burdened with a crippling budget deficit, steep tax hikes to try to balance the books and an economy in recession. After a number of extremely bruising and hugely expensive foreign adventures, the new government has been elected on a basis of limited fiscal resources being devoted to domestic projects. It is in no mood to reshape the world.

And all this just around the time that China's military becomes a match for Taiwan's, just around the time of the 100th anniversary of the 1911 revolution, which some PLA officers are contemplating as the date for unification being completed or else. And all this amid a new world order in which international rules of good behavior -- the UN Charter for example -- have been replaced by the unilateral definition of "national interest" by powerful states and the impossibility or reluctance of anybody to stand in their way.

Is this worrying? It certainly should be. Bask in the warm glow of Bush administration approval and support as Taiwan might today, it should at least be aware of the possibility of US overstretch, and a future retreat from international involvement as extreme as the current administration's bold commitment. This would hardly be good for Taiwan. Better then to think about what to do do now. Forewarned is forearmed.
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