One must pause at times, to ponder the state of the immediate future..
We will see George Step off the podium.. Tony too.. whether their successors will be allowed to continue with their policies, as far as the Middle East, the environment, immigration, national hospitalisation programs, is moot at best.
Not that the general populace will in any way hinder what is to become future government policies, but the question is, what the puppeteers will dictate.
Italy has already voted in a government, albeit a weak one, which will turn itself away from 'the West', and towards the European Union. This in turn leaves one fewer under the American banner in the 'War Against The Axis Of Evil', and in itself is a good indicator that Europe, in general, is somewhat disinterested in the goings in in Iraq, having traditionally closer ties to those in charge in the Levant than those in the West. Whether George's replacement will be up to maintaining ties with increasingly hostile foreign governments will be crucial in the next couple of years. He has mid-term elections upcoming, and they'll indicate what the people think they think..
And Tony's leaving his Party in a state of total disarray. What with last week's revelations still looming both in the Commons and the media, he's running out of Cabinet Members capable of maintaining the status quo..
We are an island caught between a behemoth and a nascent New Holy Roman Empire... one which has replaced the religious element with financial development. Europe is teetering, this Empire is as fragile as a blown-glass poodle..
there are weekly riots in France by the unemployed and the future educated-unemployed, and riot police trying to defend not only their inept government but their own livelyhoods.. Germany is bankrupt, and will be for a few years more when the debt incurred with unification is absolved.. Russia is something of an amalgamation of the American Wild West and the American 1920's, when gangsters ran their own areas, and the best market was black.. these new states, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are beginning well, with high-tech companies wandering in to set up cheap corporate headquarters and factories staffed by folks who're more than happy to work for a wage a 'Westerner' would scoff at..
We're an island which has always depended on a strong hand on the tiller, be that hand the actual, or titular ruler.. David Cameron might get a shot, but one would expect any new government, while still 3 years away, would be a very trying coalition between a small Tory majority, dependent on Ming Campbell and the LibDems for any real clout..
Not good.
Then there's the Middle East. With the European Union leaning towards supporting the Muslim regemes, the States and Britain will be left to defend Israel.. We have an Iranian Prime Minister who had as a main plank in his election platform, the agenda to 'wipe Israel off the map', and we now have Iranian nuclear capabilities. We have an Israel that is still somewhat in a fluff about who's going to continue to lead the country, and who also has.. nuclear capabilities.
It could be almost gusrranteed, that should Israel be hit with a crippling attack by any single or group of Muslim States, that they have in place a 'Meggido Option', whereby they would render the entire Middle East, and possibly the bulk of the Mediterranian, uninhabitable. The Israeli mind would rather send itself to it's God, than allow their land to be occupied by any other.. thus is history..
And they can be somewhat over-reactive down there at times..