By W.SCOTT THOMPSON
New Straits Times
BANGKOK. The city is manifestly booming again, despite the unsettledness of the past four years. The long-time foreign minister Thanat Khoman once said to me that the economic miracle here was because the government let the (Chinese) businessmen run the economy, quite separate from whatever conflict roiled the top places of power.
But this has been different. When international airports are shut down and riots figure regularly, not just tourism is affected. There has been all but a war between Thaksin Shinawatra's Red Shirts and the Yellow Shirts loyal to the King and the old establishment. It's come close to civil war.
Sometimes conflicts end -- according to very carefully calibrated formulae -- when both sides just tire of it. The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s is a classic case, where the end was in fact predicted by that formula, when the cost had come close to a trillion dollars.
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