This song is a scathing criticism of American Foreign Policy from 2003 onwards. The “crime” refers to the US breaking just war theory and UN resolutions in the invasion of Iraq. The US set a precedent of preemptive warfare, “changing the laws” as it were, from the post-WWII order that it had previously constructed, bypassing NATO and the UN and instead relying on ‘coalitions of the willing.’ The Pharaoh is President Bush, who along with his staff issued a new National Security Report in 2003 about America’s role in the 21st century (the “great unknown”). This report declared that America would seek to stop threats before they erupted in tragedy. After the many foreign policy failures of the 90’s, (Rwanda, Somalia, Kosovo, etc) the American people were awakened to “cheers after years on the faultline” – that is, years of inaction. The song suggests that this kind of policy of unilaterally going after every threat is unwise, “it will all fail.” The pawn, that is, a nation having almost no military capability, will win over the most powerful nation in the world (the ‘queen’). Now it remains to be seen how the rest of the countries and the United States will react to an emerging world were American unipolarity is not as solid as it was after World War 2.
This song is a scathing criticism of American Foreign Policy from 2003 onwards. The “crime” refers to the US breaking just war theory and UN resolutions in the invasion of Iraq. The US set a precedent of preemptive warfare, “changing the laws” as it were, from the post-WWII order that it had previously constructed, bypassing NATO and the UN and instead relying on ‘coalitions of the willing.’ The Pharaoh is President Bush, who along with his staff issued a new National Security Report in 2003 about America’s role in the 21st century (the “great unknown”). This report declared that America would seek to stop threats before they erupted in tragedy. After the many foreign policy failures of the 90’s, (Rwanda, Somalia, Kosovo, etc) the American people were awakened to “cheers after years on the faultline” – that is, years of inaction. The song suggests that this kind of policy of unilaterally going after every threat is unwise, “it will all fail.” The pawn, that is, a nation having almost no military capability, will win over the most powerful nation in the world (the ‘queen’). Now it remains to be seen how the rest of the countries and the United States will react to an emerging world were American unipolarity is not as solid as it was after World War 2.