Domination of the world, the old legend held, was Russian Tsar Peter the Great's last will and testament to his heirs and successors.  From the way Russia expanded through the 18th, 19th centuries and the Soviet Union's expansion through the Warsaw Pact, one would think the legend was actual codified law.

The legend of Peter's testament was always in the background of the Great Game.

The Great Game, the rivalry between Russia and Britain in the early to mid 19th century for domination of Muslim Central Asia, was largely a battle for commercial enterprise.  The British East India Company trying to open markets and trade routes before the Russians.  The British were also fearful the old legend of Peter The Great was true and Russia had designs on India.

The Great Game was played out in countries that are in today's headlines--Georgia, Afghanistan, Iran.

The justifications used by the Russians in the 19th century to engage in military incursians--to free Russian citizens from the Khan of Khiva--mirror the modern justification for invading Georgia--freeing Ossentian Russians from Georgia.

If the Great Game is on again, only the Russian side is playing for keeps. 

In the new version of the game, the goal is not access to the bazaars and trading cities of central asia--but the resources of central asia.

A perusal of the Forbes billionaire list shows a strikingly large number of Russians.  Moreover, many of the Russian billionaires are in the raw materials industries--they take stuff out of the ground and turn it into a useable commodity.

Below is a list of the modern version of the Great Game countries and their resources as listed in the CIA World Factbook .

Afghanistan--natural gas, petroleum, coal, copper, chromite, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, zinc, iron ore, salt, precious and semiprecious stones

Armenia--small deposits of gold, copper, molybdenum, zinc, bauxite

Azerbaijan--petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, nonferrous metals, bauxite

Georgia--forests, hydropower, manganese deposits, iron ore, copper, minor coal and oil deposits; coastal climate and soils allow for important tea and citrus growth

Iran--petroleum, natural gas, coal, chromium, copper, iron ore, lead, manganese, zinc, sulfur

Kazakhstan--major deposits of petroleum, natural gas, coal, iron ore, manganese, chrome ore, nickel, cobalt, copper, molybdenum, lead, zinc, bauxite, gold, uranium

Kyrgyzstan--abundant hydropower; significant deposits of gold and rare earth metals; locally exploitable coal, oil, and natural gas; other deposits of nepheline, mercury, bismuth, lead, and zinc

Tajikistan--hydropower, some petroleum, uranium, mercury, brown coal, lead, zinc, antimony, tungsten, silver, gold

Turkmenistan--petroleum, natural gas, sulfur, salt

Ukraine--iron ore, coal, manganese, natural gas, oil, salt, sulfur, graphite, titanium, magnesium, kaolin, nickel, mercury, timber, arable land

Uzbekistan--natural gas, petroleum, coal, gold, uranium, silver, copper, lead and zinc, tungsten, molybdenum

If the new version of the Game is as commercially oriented as the original, then the former Russian dominions above have what the Russian billionaires specialize in--oil, gas, minerals and energy.  The countries are also the routes in which it will have to be delivered.

I am not a scholar of the Great Game, but definately a fan.  And as a fan, I see the commercial prospects as the driving force now as it was nearly 200-years-ago.

The greatest prize of the game then was India.  And it still may be.  Not the conquest of India--but the market of India for the raw materials.  China is also a market for the raw materials with its manufacturing industry--many of those plastic products are made with petroleum.

Both economies, like all others, are fueled by oil and natural gas.

The legend of the final testament of Peter The Great--for Russia to dominate the world--is probably not true.  But even if it was, the way to dominate the modern world is as it always was--a mixture of arms and commerce.  In that sense, though the players of the game may termporarily change, the game is always on.

Ah, the Spring and Summer of 2007, when the war in Iraq was lost, Generals like Petraeus were scolded as incompetent and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was committed to forcing vote after vote to end the war .  Truly the halcyon days for the  Democrats and anti-war left.  But so much has changed since then.

The roll call votes and rhetoric of scarcely 12 months ago are now a campaign issue--an issue many, like Senator Obama, would like to avoid.

Back in 2007, supporting the surge was seen as a major risk.  The Democrats wanted to impose defeat through legislation or force Republicans to on the record as a wedge issue.  The record would then be used in the upcoming elections.

But history did not cooperate with Reid and the Democrats.  Petraeus proved the most competent of Generals.  The war in Iraq is now the exact opposite of 'lost.'  And the wedge is now being used against Obama and Democrats.

In June of 2007, the Politico reported on a letter Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent to President Bush:

  "As many had foreseen, the (Iraq) escalation has failed to produce the intended results," Reid and Pelosi said in a letter sent to   Bush prior to their meeting. "That is why we intend to again send you legislation that would limit the U.S. mission in Iraq, begin the phased redeployment of U.S. forces and bring the war to a responsible end."

Now, 14 months later, Senator Obama wants to avoid talking of those votes and the strategy of his party's leadership to impose a legislative end to the war.

Obama claims bringing up his past votes and positions is smearing his patriotism.

Obviously the votes and strategy of the Democrats in 2007 has backfired horribly--as I predicted it would in February of 2007 .

In 2007 Obama did not object to the Reid plan to "force a series of votes on Iraq designed exclusively to make Republicans up for reelection in 2008 go on record in favor of continuing an unpopular war." 

Now that Obama's voting record is on the opposite side of history, he is hiding from it using the last refuge of a scoundrel.

If this photo of Senator Obama meeting with a tribal leader in Anbar province is supposed show Presidential level foreign policy gravitas--then I have a little of that gravitas as well.

Because here I am with the interim leader of the Jumali Tribe.

What else gives me the image of foreign policy gravitas? 

Helicopter ride over Baghdad--I've done that.
 
Walked across the tarmac at Baghdad International Airport--done that a bunch of times.
 
Sip the tea with tribal leaders--but only three cups per sitting.
 
And a lot of other people have that Presidential foreign policy gravitas.  People like Michaely Yon, Michael Totten, Bill Roggio, Jeff Emanuel, Bill Ardolino, Col. GI Wilson, Bing West, Mario Loyola and hundred of Army and Marine officers and NCOs.  (If  photos of  Iraq lend Presidential qualification--I'm gonna angle for a position in the Yon administration!)

But those were not photo ops.  They were not one-time discussions during a campaign.  I lived with the Jumaili tribe.  The Marine and Army officers work with the tribal leaders every day.

Some of us embeds have cut a large swath through Iraq we know Sheiks and tribal leaders in multiple provinces.

More importantly, we did it back when body armor was a requirement--not an option.  I was doing it up and down the Euphrates river valley before a lot of people realized what the Anbar Awakening was.

One newspaper column declared Obama's trip as "unprecedented."

But the chair he sat in for his photo op in Ramadi has held many men before Obama.

The Blackhawk that ferried him from BIAP to the Green Zone has carried thousands of others.

Hundreds of thousands have walked the tarmac at BIAP.

Obama's trip to Iraq is a novelty not because the trip is so rare--but because it is so rare for Obama.  And that rarity is a clear sign not of foreign policy gravitas--but the absence thereof.

Answer this question:

If the U.S. withdraws all combat troops from Iraq, will terrorists stop trying to attack the United States?

Eighty percent said no, 15% were not sure, 5% said, "yes, if we leave Iraq they will stop trying to attack us."
That 5% probably posts incessently at DU, HuffPo and Kos.

What is more interesting from the same Rasmussen poll is that 16% are not sure if "it possible for the U.S. to win the war in Iraq?"

Forty percent say it is possible, 44% say it is not possible--but 16% is a large number of people are "not sure."

But this report is missing the key and logical follow-up question: why?

Why is it not possible?
Why are you not sure?

A few years ago, Pew asked a similar poll question and a surprising number of people answered, "can win, but will not."  Pew, like Rasmussen, didn't ask the obvious follow-up question. 

The answers to those questions will shape the debate and foreign policy as implemented by elected officials for the next 10 months.

From the Sunday New York Times :

"Mr. [Khalid Shaikh] Mohammed met his captors at first with cocky defiance, telling one veteran C.I.A. officer, a former Pakistan station chief, that he would talk only when he got to New York and was assigned a lawyer — the experience of his nephew and partner in terrorism, Ramzi Yousef, after Mr. Yousef’s arrest in 1995."

KSM assumed it was still 9/10.  It wasn't.  But with the Supreme Court's ruling Boumediene, granting Habeas Corpus to terrorists, we are back the way KSM thought it should be--lawyers and all.

Presumeably, Zawahiri, bin Laden et.al., would be able to lawyer up and demand the full effect of Federal Criminal procedure. 

The global war on terror is over.  Welcome back to the criminal investigation of terror.

I think we all remember how effective that was.

"Sen. McCain may not be willing to face the reality of the situation, but a majority of Americans are." Obama Campaign Spokesman David Axelrod, May 28, 2008

"Still, the rapidly improving conditions should allow U.S. commanders to make some welcome adjustments -- and it ought to mandate an already-overdue rethinking by the "this-war-is-lost" caucus in Washington, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)...When Mr. Obama floated his strategy for Iraq last year, the United States appeared doomed to defeat. Now he needs a plan for success." Washington Post Editorial Board, June 1, 2008

Reconciling those divergent statements is Obama's challenge.