George Soros is the well-known, fabulously wealthy speculator who has written prolifically on matters political and global. Readers may recall – as he recalls ruefully here – that in 1997 he made an “unconditional prediction” about the “imminent collapse of the global capitalist system.” (Perhaps he was simply premature.) He has been in the news recently because of his pledge to devote a chunk of his considerable fortune to the electoral defeat of the present occupant of the White House. Here he goes further and argues that “it is not enough to defeat President Bush at the polls. America has to reexamine its role in the world and adopt a more constructive vision.” He is livid about how Washington has used “terror as a pretext for waging war,” in an obvious reference to the present quagmire-cum-fiasco in Iraq. “Communism used to serve as the enemy; now terrorism can fill the bill,” he concludes. This billionaire is upset that in the run-up to this conflict the “possibility that the United States was motivated by considerations such as ensuring the flow of oil supplies could not even be mentioned, because it would have been regarded as unpatriotic or worse.” Soros, on the other hand, sees petrol as very much at issue in the decision to go to war. At the same time he sees Saudi Arabia, a major source of this valuable resource, as a “treacherous ally” – a rapidly developing consensus amongst the US ruling class (except, conspicuously, the Bush White House).



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