If there is anything that I am doing privately, I do not get involved on the government side,'' says Zakheim. If we don't do it, the French will, and if not them, the Israelis and then the British, and the Chinese and the Soviets. International Advisers Inc. Former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci III and former Secretary of State James Baker have formed what is known as Carlyle Group, a private firm which industry sources say has made a fortune on acquisitions and mergers and the complex deals that finance international weapons transfers. With all this money being made by some of America's former top policy-makers, Bandar philosophizes it is cash that truly binds one nation to another. Strategic interests, he argues, are only secondary.
Commercial interests survive longer than strategic interests.
Take, for example, China. An archenemy of the United States. When we do business together, countries stay together. Sure Clinton wishes that a China or an Indonesia would come around on human rights, but they are not going to lose money over it . . . Back to Boston.