Amazon.com: The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization

I've been re-reading Thomas L. Friedman's important book (well, actually, listening to Tom Friedman read from his important book on a long car trip that I took this week), and I'm receiving the ideas somewhat differently in the current world situation. Forcibly taking down the regime that controlled Iraq without a plan for dealing with the consequences of dissolving that system (no matter what Donald Rumsfled claims) has left us pinned down in a dense grove of olive trees. We're struggling to gain control of the situation without a sense of how our choices resonate in a deeply interconnected, globalized world where superempowered individuals can challenge our status. The days of the superpower are clearly waning. We can impose our might on a situation to a point. But the Super Markets (the bourses worldwide that now wield more power than governments) will ultimately decide whether we have been successful, and we are fueling the wrath of superempowered individuals who will easily be able to attract the loyalty of people who feel dehumanized by our myopic crusade. There is a whiff of greed about this whole undertaking, and we're not going to get away with it.