Taro Aso after Tzipi Livni and before... ?

Hardliners have become so mainstream in Israel that Tzipi Livni passes for a moderate in Tel Aviv. She succeeds Ehud Olmert, who decided to leave on a positive and almost dovish note (yes, I resign because I'm not a perfect man, but Israel didn't behave that well either). Yet, make no mistake : we'll get more of the same.

Ultranationalists have become so influent in Japan that they easily crowned Taro Aso as the "new" Prime Minister. He succeeds Yasuo Fukuda, whose fate was sealed last summer : after understanding that he couldn't run the country without the old Imperialist clique, Fukuda ignited a new controversy with former colony Korea, and he almost won the day when revisionist lobbyists had the Library of Congress change "Dokdo" for "Takeshima" or "Sea of Japan islands" in their labelling systems. But then George W. Bush and Lee Myung-bak went down on their knees, prayed, and put Dokdo back on the US maps*. With Taro Aso, both China and Korea know exactly what to expect from day one : more of the same.

The Israeli, Palestinian, and Japanese people didn't chose their "new" leaders : Kadima and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) decided for them.

Ditto in South Africa : the African National Congress (ANC) picked Kgalema Motlanthe as the interim "leader" between "found guilty of corruption" Thabo Mbeki (who also resigned) and "not found guilty of corruption" Jacob Zuma. When the 2010 World Cup starts, many South Africans may be wishing they'd had more of the same instead of Zuma.

George W. Bush won't resign. But if Americans let the GOP chose his successor, they should know what they will get...


* see "Korea on the Rocks Part II" (Seoul Village, following "Save Dokdo = save Japan! "), or "Le Japon décide de recoloniser Dokdo" (blogules VF)