tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-134944372012-01-18T19:28:01.274-05:00NetGritsCoarsely ground corn used as a staple in the southern diet<br>Politics, humor, social commentary<br> and the occasional original idea<br><a href="http://netgrits.blogspot.com">Click here for Front Page</a>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.comBlogger2041100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-90057136938520470632012-01-18T18:26:00.003-05:002012-01-18T19:28:01.284-05:00Time Is on Our Side: The Survival of Social SecurityBy Dean Baker<br /><blockquote><i>From the editor: The <a href="http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/fundFAQ.html">Social Security Trust Fund</a> is essentially a savings account established on actuarial principals identical to those which determine the solvency of private pension plans. Working U.S. citizens are required to contribute. The trust fund invests its contributions into interest bearing promissory notes issued by the U.S. Government. These notes are perceived to be the safest investments available worldwide. The Social Security Trust Fund owns $2.6 Trillion in U.S. Government debt which makes it the largest single lender to the U.S. Government with substantially more debt than China and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/02/biggest-us-creditors_n_830167.html#s247854&title=10_Switzerland_">the next three largest nation lenders combined</a>.</i></blockquote> <br />As we approach budget time we can look forward to another burst of handwringing by the Washington elites, who will once again tell us about the need to cut Social Security and Medicare. News stories and opinion columns will be filled with solemn pronouncements about how these programs must be curtailed before they drive the nation to bankruptcy.<br /><br />We can look forward to that famously deceptive graph showing how the cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are projected to soar as a share of the economy over the next two or three decades. Those with good eyes will notice that it is the cost of Medicare and Medicaid that are soaring, not Social Security.<br /><br />This is primarily due to the projected explosion of private sector health care costs, not the impact of aging on the cost of the programs. That would lead honest people to focus on the need to get U.S. health care costs in line with costs in every other country in the world, but no one ever said that the Washington elites were honest.<br /><br />But this is old hat. We know that the elites tell stories to advance their agenda. What is worth noting – and celebrating – is that thus far they have failed.<br /><br />They have been pushing this line for the last twenty years, yet during this period there have been no substantial cuts to either Social Security or Medicare. This is a great victory for the vast majority of the country, the 99 percent, over the One Percent.<br /><br />This fact is truly an impressive accomplishment. It is not only the Republicans who want to cut these programs; top leaders in the Democratic Party have repeatedly indicated their willingness to cut these programs.<br /><br />President Clinton was all set to go along with a plan that would have reduced the annual cost of living adjustment for Social Security by as much as 1.1 percentage points. Had he gotten his way back in 1997, many seniors would be getting checks that are more than 10 percent smaller today. This sort of cut could have been devastating for people struggling to survive in the wreckage created by the incredible economic mismanagement of the last 15 years. <br /><br />More recently, President Obama indicated his willingness to support an increase in the age of eligibility for Medicare and a cut of 0.3 percentage points in the annual cost of living adjustment for Social Security. These cuts would be a great hardship to tens of millions of near retirees who have seen much or all of their wealth destroyed by the collapse of the housing bubble. <br /><br />In addition to those openly advocating cuts to these programs, Washington is also filled with a large number of “good cops.” These are people who ostensibly support these programs. The good cops tell us that we are better off taking a deal in the long-run, because otherwise the bad guys will come back with even more powerful ammunition and push through larger cuts to Social Security and Medicare.<br /><br />No one can know the motives among this group of good cops, but the fact is that they have repeatedly been proven wrong. If we had taken their advice back in the 90s, seniors today would already be receiving much lower benefits.<br /><br />And, there is no reason to think that once cuts were put in place that the elites won’t come back for more. After all, those of us who remember the 2000 presidential race know that any improvement in the budget situation is an argument for more tax cuts. And tax cuts will inevitably mean that we will have more pressure in the future for budget cuts.<br /><br />The other important part of the argument for delay is the demographic fact that we hear repeated endlessly. The country is aging. The huge baby boom cohort is reaching the eligibility ages for Social Security and Medicare.<br />This means that the percentage of the electorate directly affected by these programs is rising every year. As hard as it was to make cuts in these 15 years ago, it will be much harder in 2014 or 2016, when the percentage of the adult population eligible for Social Security will be almost 20 percent larger. Better yet, if we can delay to 2020 the Social Security eligible population will be close to 30 percent larger as a share of the adult population.<br /><br />With older people voting in much higher ratios than young people, there are not likely to be many politicians anxious to support cuts to the programs they depend upon. And, contrary to the stories of the Washington elite, the support of seniors for these programs is not driven by greed. It is driven by the fact that they recognize the importance of these programs in their own lives. They want to ensure that their children and grandchildren will enjoy the same security in their own age.<br /><br />The moral of this story is that we should celebrate the work of hundreds of thousands of people across the country who have blocked the Washington elite to cut Social Security and Medicare. And remember, the future is on our side. <br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">This work published by <a href="http://www.truth-out.org">Truthout</a> is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License</a>.</font></blockquote></center><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-9005713693852047063?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-66556273957452048062012-01-18T18:08:00.003-05:002012-01-18T18:23:13.470-05:00Occupy the NeighborhoodBy Ellen Brown<br /><blockquote><i>An electronic database called MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems) has created defects in the chain of title to over half the homes in America. Counties have been cheated out of millions of dollars in recording fees, and their title records are in hopeless disarray. Meanwhile, foreclosed and abandoned homes are blighting neighborhoods. Straightening out the records and restoring the homes to occupancy is clearly in the public interest, and the burden is on local government to do it. But how? New legal developments are presenting some innovative alternatives.</i></blockquote><br />John O'Brien is register of deeds for Southern Essex County, Massachusetts. He is mad as hell and he isn't going to take it anymore. He calls his land registry a "crime scene." A formal forensic audit of the properties for which he is responsible found that:<br /><br /> Only 16 percent of the mortgage assignments were valid.<br /> <br /> Twenty-seven percent of the invalid assignments were fraudulent, 35 percent were "robo-signed" and 10 percent violated the Massachusetts Mortgage Fraud Statute.<br /> <br /> The identity of financial institutions that are current owners of the mortgages could be determined for only 287 out of 473 (60 percent).<br /> <br /> There were 683 missing assignments for the 287 traced mortgages, representing approximately $180,000 in lost recording fees per 1,000 mortgages whose current ownership could be traced.<br /><br />At the root of the problem is that title has been recorded in the name of a private entity called MERS as a mere placeholder for the true owners. The owners are a faceless, changing pool of investors owning indeterminate portions of sliced and diced securitized properties. Their identities have been so well hidden that their claims to title are now in doubt. According to the auditor:<br /><br /> What this means is that ... the institutions - including many pension funds - that purchased these mortgages don't actually own them....<br /><br /><b>The March of the Attorneys General</b><br /><br />John O'Brien was thrilled when Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley went to court in December against MERS and five major banks - Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and GMAC. Coakley says banks have "undermined our public land record system through the use of MERS."<br /><br />Other attorneys general are also bringing lawsuits. Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden is going after MERS in a suit seeking $10,000 per violation. "Since at least the 1600s," he says, "real property rights have been a cornerstone of our society. MERS has raised serious questions about who owns what in America."<br /><br />Biden's lawsuit alleges that MERS violated Delaware's Deceptive Trade Practices Act by:<br /><ul><li> Hiding the true mortgage owner and removing that information from the public land records.<br /><br /><li> Creating a systemically important, yet inherently unreliable, mortgage database that created confusion and inappropriate assignments and foreclosures of mortgages.<br /><br /><li> Operating MERS through its members' employees, whom MERS confusingly appoints as its corporate officers so that they may act on MERS' behalf.<br /><br /><li> Failing to ensure the proper transfer of mortgage loan documentation to the securitization trusts, which may have resulted in the failure of securitizations to own the loans upon which they claimed to foreclose.<br /><br /></li></ul><br />This last allegation - that there are fatal defects in the loan documentation - may be even more conclusive than the MERS defect in establishing a break in the chain of title to securitized properties. Mortgage-backed securities are sold to investors in packages representing interests in trusts called REMICs (Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits). REMICs are designed as tax shelters; but to qualify for that status, they must be "static." Mortgages can't be transferred in and out once the closing date has occurred. The REMIC Pooling and Servicing Agreement typically states that any transfer after the closing date is invalid. Yet few, if any, properties in foreclosure seem to have been assigned to these REMICs before the closing date, in blatant disregard of legal requirements. The whole business is quite complicated, but the bottom line is that title has been clouded not only by MERS, but because the trusts purporting to foreclose do not own the properties by the terms of their own documents.<br /><br /><b>Courts Are Taking Notice</b><br /><br />The title issues are so complicated that judges themselves have been slow to catch on, but they are increasingly waking up and taking notice. In some cases, the judge is not even waiting for the borrowers to raise lack of standing as a defense. In two cases decided in New York in December, the banks lost although their motions were either unopposed or the homeowner did not show up, and in one, there was actually a default. No matter, said the court; the bank simply did not have standing to foreclose.<br /><br />In Citigroup v. Smith, 2011 NY Slip Op 52236 (U) (December 13, 2011), the mortgage document acknowledged that MERS was not the lender, but was "a separate corporation that is acting solely as a nominee for Lender and Lender's successors and assigns." The court held that since MERS was not a party to the underlying note, when it assigned the mortgage to plaintiff Citigroup there was no assignment of the note; and "a transfer of [a] mortgage without the debt is a nullity and no interest is acquired by it."<br /><br />Failure to comply with the terms of the loan documents can make an even stronger case for dismissal. In Horace v. LaSalle, Circuit Court of Russell County, Alabama, 57-CV-2008-000362.00 (March 30, 2011), the court permanently enjoined the bank (now part of Bank of America) from foreclosing on the plaintiff's home, stating:<br /><br /> [T]he court is surprised to the point of astonishment that the defendant trust (LaSalle Bank National Association) did not comply with New York Law in attempting to obtain assignment of plaintiff Horace's note and mortgage....<br /><br /> [P]laintiff's motion for summary judgment is granted to the extent that defendant trust ... is permanently enjoined from foreclosing on the property....<br /><br /><b>Relief for Counties: Land Banks and Eminent Domain</b><br /><br />The legal tide is turning against MERS and the banks, giving rise to some interesting possibilities for relief at the county level. Local governments have the power of eminent domain: they can seize real or personal property if (a) they can show that doing so is in the public interest, and (b) the owner is compensated at fair market value.<br /><br />The public interest part is easy to show. In a 20-page booklet titled "Revitalizing Foreclosed Properties with Land Banks," the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) observes:<br /><br /> The volume of foreclosures has become a significant problem, not only to local economies, but also to the aesthetics of neighborhoods and property values therein. At the same time, middle- to low-income families continue to be priced out of the housing market while suitable housing units remain vacant.<br /><br />The booklet goes on to describe an alternative being pursued by some communities:<br /><br /> To ameliorate the negative effects of foreclosures, some communities are creating public entities - known as land banks - to return these properties to productive reuse while simultaneously addressing the need for affordable housing.<br /><br />States named as adopting land bank legislation include Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, Texas, Kentucky and Maryland. HUD notes that the federal government encourages and supports these efforts. But states can still face obstacles to acquiring and restoring the properties, including a lack of funds and difficulties clearing title.<br /><br />Both of these obstacles might be overcome by focusing on abandoned and foreclosed properties for which the chain of title has been broken, either by MERS or by failure to transfer the promissory note according to the terms of the trust indenture. These homes could be acquired by eminent domain both free of cost and free of adverse claims to title. The county would simply need to give notice in the local newspaper of an intent to exercise its right of eminent domain. The burden of proof would then transfer to the bank or trust claiming title. If the claimant could not prove title, the county would take the property, clear title and either work out a fair settlement with the occupants or restore the home for rent or sale.<br /><br />Even if the properties were acquired without charge, counties might lack the funds to restore them. Additional funds could be had by establishing a public bank that serves more functions than just those of a land bank. In a series titled "A Solution to the Foreclosure Crisis," Michael Sauvante of the National Commonwealth Group suggests that properties obtained by eminent domain can be used as part of the capital base for a chartered, publicly owned bank, on the model of the state-owned Bank of North Dakota. The county could deposit its revenues into this bank and use its capital and deposits to generate credit, as all chartered banks are empowered to do. This credit could then be used not just to finance property redevelopment, but for other county needs, again on the model of the Bank of North Dakota. For a fuller discussion of publicly owned banks, see http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.<br /><br />Sauvante adds that the use of eminent domain is often viewed negatively by homeowners. To overcome this prejudice, the county could exercise eminent domain on the mortgage contract rather than on title to the property. (The power of eminent domain applies both to real and to personal property rights.) Title would then remain with the homeowner. The county would just have a secured interest in the property, putting it in the shoes of the bank. It could renegotiate reasonable terms with the homeowner, something banks have been either unwilling or unable to do, since they have to get all the investor-owners to agree, a difficult task; and they have little incentive to negotiate when they can make more money on fees and credit-default-swaps on contracts that go into default.<br /><br /><b>Settling With the Investors</b><br /><br />What about the rights of the investors who bought the securities allegedly backed by the foreclosed homes? The banks selling these collateralized debt obligations represented that they were protected with credit-default-swaps. The investors' remedy is against the counterparties to those bets - or against the banks that sold them a bill of goods.<br /><br />Foreclosure defense attorney Neil Garfield says the investors are unlikely to recover on abandoned and foreclosed properties in any case. Banks and servicers can earn more when the homes are bulldozed - something that is happening in some counties - than from a sale or workout at a loss. Not only is more earned on credit-default-swaps and fees, but bulldozed homes tell no tales. Garfield maintains that fully a third of the investors' money has gone into middleman profits rather than into real estate purchases and "with a complete loss no one asks for an accounting."<br /><br />Not only homes and neighborhoods, but 400 years of property law are being destroyed by banker and investor greed. As Barry Ritholtz observes, the ability of a property owner to confidently convey his property is a bedrock of our society. Bailing out reckless financiers and refusing to hold them accountable has led to a fundamental breakdown in the role of government and the court system. This can be righted only by holding the 1 percent to the same set of laws as are applied to the 99 percent. Those laws include that a contract for the sale of real estate must be in writing signed by seller and buyer, that an assignment must bear the signatures required by local law and that forging signatures gives rise to an actionable claim for fraud.<br /><br />The neoliberal model that says banks can govern themselves has failed. It is up to county government to restore the rule of law and repair the economic distress wrought behind the smokescreen of MERS. New tools at the county's disposal - including eminent domain, land banks and publicly owned banks - can facilitate this local rebirth.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">This work published by <a href="http://www.truth-out.org">Truthout</a> is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License</a>.</font></blockquote></center><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-6655627395745204806?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-4141631023570646092012-01-13T23:42:00.004-05:002012-01-14T00:09:35.801-05:00There is no such thing as 'society'Meryl Streep's eerie reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady" brings to mind Ms. Thatcher's most famous quip, "There is no such thing as 'society.'" None of the dwindling herd of Republican candidates has quoted her yet, but they might as well, considering their unremitting bashing of everything public.<br /><br />A society is embodied most visibly in public institutions -- public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.<br /><br />But much of what's called "public" today is increasingly private. Tolls are rising on public highways and public bridges, as are tuitions at so-called public universities, and admission fees at public parks and public museums.<br /><br />The great expansion of public institutions in America began in the early years of the 20th century, when progressive reformers championed the idea that we all benefit from public goods. Excellent schools, roads, parks, playgrounds and transit systems would knit the new industrial society together, create better citizens, and generate widespread prosperity. Education, for example, was less a personal investment than a public good -- improving the entire community and ultimately the nation.<br /><br />Yet in recent years the idea of the public good has faded. "We're all in it together" has been replaced by "You're on your own" -- as global capital outsources American jobs abroad, the very rich take home an almost unprecedented portion of total earnings, and a new wave of immigrants is described by demagogues as "them."<br /><br />Outside of defense, domestic discretionary spending is down sharply as a percent of the economy. With declining state and local spending, total public spending on education, infrastructure and basic research has dropped from 12 perent of GDP in the 1970s to less than 3 percent by 2011.<br /><br />We're losing public goods available to all, supported by the tax payments of all and especially the better off. In their place we have private goods available to the very rich, supported by the rest of us.<br /><br />Even Lady Thatcher would have been appalled.<br /><br /><i>These are just a few snippets from a thought provoking article published by The Baltimore Sun and written by Robert B. Reich. You should go <a href="http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-01-11/news/bal-the-decline-of-the-idea-of-public-good-20120110_1_public-libraries-public-institutions-public-universities">here to read the rest of it.</a></i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-414163102357064609?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-86059214868084048322011-12-17T00:52:00.005-05:002011-12-20T16:13:41.873-05:00Now this is a movie review<blockquote><i>I looked all over this site trying to find a way to get permission to quote this review by Roger Ebert and could not find a way. So I stand ready to take whatever consequences I may face by republishing this review without permission.<br /><br />But I must republish it. Though it is 23 years old at this writing it still stands as an example of an art form in the hands of a master. It is a write-up on a movie, Stormy Monday, itself 23 years old, which I am watching as I write. I am swept into its magic. But this is not about the movie. It's about the undeniable master who wrote it up. </i></blockquote><br />By Roger Ebert:<br /><br />"Why is it," someone was asking the other day, "that you movie critics spend all of your time talking about the story and never talk about the visual qualities of a film, which are, after all, what make it a film?" Good question. Maybe it's because we work in words, and stories are told in words, and it's harder to use words to paint pictures. But it might be worth a try.<br /><br />"Stormy Monday" is about the way light falls on wet pavement stones, and about how a neon sign glows in a darkened doorway. It is about the attitudes that men strike when they feel in control of a situation, and the way their shoulders slump when someone else takes power. It is about smoking. It is about cleavage. It is about the look on a man's face when someone is about to deliberately break his arm, and he knows it. And about the look on a woman's face when she is waiting for a man she thinks she loves, and he is late, and she fears it is because he is dead.<br /><br />"Stormy Monday" is also about symbols. It takes place mostly near the seedy waterfront of Newcastle, where a crooked Texas millionaire is trying to run a nightclub owner out of business so he can redevelop the area with laundered money. But now we're back to the story again. You see how easy it is to slip. The movie uses a lot of symbols of America: the flag, stretched large and bold behind a podium.<br /><br />Baton twirlers. A curiously frightening old man with a sinister smile, who struts in front of the baton twirlers, his shoulders thrown back, tipping his hat to the crowd. A car - big, fast, and red. Bourbon whiskey. Marlboros and cigars.<br /><br />It is also about lonely furnished rooms, and rain, and standing in the window at night looking out into the street, and signaling for someone across a crowded nightclub floor, and about saxophones, which are the instrument of the night. It is about the flat, masked expressions on the faces of bodyguards, and about the face of a man who is consumed by anger. And it is about kissing, and about the look in a woman's eyes when she is about to kiss a man for the first time. And it is about high heels, and cleavage. I believe I already mentioned cleavage. Some images recur more naturally than others.<br /><br />The movie is not all images. It is also about sounds. About the breathy, rich and yet uncertain tone of Melanie Griffith's voice, which makes her sound as if she's been around the track too many times and yet is still able to believe in love. And the flat, angry voice of Tommy Lee Jones, who never seems to raise his voice, or need to. And about the innocence in the voice of Sean Bean, an earnest young man who only wants a job and gets trapped in a bloodbath. And about the voice of Sting, who looks Jones in the eye and talks as flat and angry as he does, until Jones's shoulders slump. And about saxophones, the sound of the night.<br /><br />It is also about the sound of a deliberately discordant performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner," and about explosions and gunfire and squealing tires, and about modern jazz from Kracow. It is about the sound of ice cubes in a glass, and smoke being exhaled, and bones being broken. It is about the sound of a marching band, and about the voice of a disc jockey who wants to sound American and doesn't know when to stop. And about how a woman tells a man, "I get off work at midnight." And how she looks when she says that. And how he looks.<br /><br />So there's your review.<br /><br /><blockquote><i>And there is my republishing of it. I owe you, Roger Ebert. I owe your publisher. But I had to do this. I'm watching this movie as I speak and I can say unequivocally that you are right on every point. You are a true artist and it is my privilege to access, to read your work. I read only one critical review of this movie before deciding to watch it, yours. I am glad that I did.</i></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-8605921486808404832?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-72553525841547759252011-11-22T07:39:00.006-05:002011-12-19T16:12:08.256-05:00Syria, Iran and the Balance of PowerBy George Friedman<br /><br />U.S. troops are in the process of completing their withdrawal from Iraq by the end-of-2011 deadline. We are now moving toward a reckoning with the consequences. The reckoning concerns the potential for a massive shift in the balance of power in the region, with Iran moving from a fairly marginal power to potentially a dominant power. As the process unfolds, the United States and Israel are making countermoves. We have discussed all of this extensively. Questions remain whether these countermoves will stabilize the region and whether or how far Iran will go in its response.<br /><br />Iran has been preparing for the U.S. withdrawal. While it is unreasonable simply to say that Iran will dominate Iraq, it is fair to say Tehran will have tremendous influence in Baghdad to the point of being able to block Iraqi initiatives Iran opposes. This influence will increase as the U.S. withdrawal concludes and it becomes clear there will be no sudden reversal in the withdrawal policy. Iraqi politicians’ calculus must account for the nearness of Iranian power and the increasing distance and irrelevance of American power.<br /><br />Resisting Iran under these conditions likely would prove ineffective and dangerous. Some, like the Kurds, believe they have guarantees from the Americans and that substantial investment in Kurdish oil by American companies means those commitments will be honored. A look at the map, however, shows how difficult it would be for the United States to do so. The Baghdad regime has arrested Sunni leaders while the Shia, not all of whom are pro-Iranian by any means, know the price of overenthusiastic resistance.<br /><br />Syria and Iran<br /><br />The situation in Syria complicates all of this. The minority Alawite sect has dominated the Syrian government since 1970, when the current president’s father — who headed the Syrian air force — staged a coup. The Alawites are a heterodox Muslim sect related to a Shiite offshoot and make up about 7 percent of the country’s population, which is mostly Sunni. The new Alawite government was Nasserite in nature, meaning it was secular, socialist and built around the military. When Islam rose as a political force in the Arab world, the Syrians — alienated from the Sadat regime in Egypt — saw Iran as a bulwark. The Iranian Islamist regime gave the Syrian secular regime immunity against Shiite fundamentalists in Lebanon. The Iranians also gave Syria support in its external adventures in Lebanon, and more important, in its suppression of Syria’s Sunni majority.<br /><br />Syria and Iran were particularly aligned in Lebanon. In the early 1980s, after the Khomeini revolution, the Iranians sought to increase their influence in the Islamic world by supporting radical Shiite forces. Hezbollah was one of these. Syria had invaded Lebanon in 1975 on behalf of the Christians and opposed the Palestine Liberation Organization, to give you a sense of the complexity. Syria regarded Lebanon as historically part of Syria, and sought to assert its influence over it. Via Iran, Hezbollah became an instrument of Syrian power in Lebanon.<br /><br />Iran and Syria, therefore, entered a long-term if not altogether stable alliance that has lasted to this day. In the current unrest in Syria, the Saudis and Turks in addition to the Americans all have been hostile to the regime of President Bashar al Assad. Iran is the one country that on the whole has remained supportive of the current Syrian government.<br /><br />There is good reason for this. Prior to the uprising, the precise relationship between Syria and Iran was variable. Syria was able to act autonomously in its dealings with Iran and Iran’s proxies in Lebanon. While an important backer of groups like Hezbollah, the al Assad regime in many ways checked Hezbollah’s power in Lebanon, with the Syrians playing the dominant role there. The Syrian uprising has put the al Assad regime on the defensive, however, making it more interested in a firm, stable relationship with Iran. Damascus finds itself isolated in the Sunni world, with Turkey and the Arab League against it. Iran — and intriguingly, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — have constituted al Assad’s exterior support.<br /><br />Thus far al Assad has resisted his enemies. Though some mid- to low-ranking Sunnis have defected, his military remains largely intact; this is because the Alawites control key units. Events in Libya drove home to an embattled Syrian leadership — and even to some of its adversaries within the military — the consequences of losing. The military has held together, and an unarmed or poorly armed populace, no matter how large, cannot defeat an intact military force. The key for those who would see al Assad fall is to divide the military.<br /><br />If al Assad survives — and at the moment, wishful thinking by outsiders aside, he is surviving — Iran will be the big winner. If Iraq falls under substantial Iranian influence, and the al Assad regime — isolated from most countries but supported by Tehran — survives in Syria, then Iran could emerge with a sphere of influence stretching from western Afghanistan to the Mediterranean (the latter via Hezbollah). Achieving this would not require deploying Iranian conventional forces — al Assad’s survival alone would suffice. However, the prospect of a Syrian regime beholden to Iran would open up the possibility of the westward deployment of Iranian forces, and that possibility alone would have significant repercussions.<br /><br />Consider the map were this sphere of influence to exist. The northern borders of Saudi Arabia and Jordan would abut this sphere, as would Turkey’s southern border.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_U8RcJI2_Bw/TsudowzPcBI/AAAAAAAAAN0/x8mbH2nVmlI/s1600/East.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="257" width="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_U8RcJI2_Bw/TsudowzPcBI/AAAAAAAAAN0/x8mbH2nVmlI/s320/East.jpg" /></a></div>It remains unclear, of course, just how well Iran could manage this sphere, e.g., what type of force it could project into it. Maps alone will not provide an understanding of the problem. But they do point to the problem. And the problem is the potential — not certain — creation of a block under Iranian influence that would cut through a huge swath of strategic territory.<br /><br />It should be remembered that in addition to Iran’s covert network of militant proxies, Iran’s conventional forces are substantial. While they could not confront U.S. armored divisions and survive, there are no U.S. armored divisions on the ground between Iran and Lebanon. Iran’s ability to bring sufficient force to bear in such a sphere increases the risks to the Saudis in particular. Iran’s goal is to increase the risk such that Saudi Arabia would calculate that accommodation is more prudent than resistance. Changing the map can help achieve this.<br /><br />It follows that those frightened by this prospect — the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — would seek to stymie it. At present, the place to block it no longer is Iraq, where Iran already has the upper hand. Instead, it is Syria. And the key move in Syria is to do everything possible to bring about al Assad’s overthrow.<br /><br />In the last week, the Syrian unrest appeared to take on a new dimension. Until recently, the most significant opposition activity appeared to be outside of Syria, with much of the resistance reported in the media coming from externally based opposition groups. The degree of effective opposition was never clear. Certainly, the Sunni majority opposes and hates the al Assad regime. But opposition and emotion do not bring down a regime consisting of men fighting for their lives. And it wasn’t clear that the resistance was as strong as the outside propaganda claimed.<br /><br />Last week, however, the Free Syrian Army — a group of Sunni defectors operating out of Turkey and Lebanon — claimed defectors carried out organized attacks on government facilities, ranging from an air force intelligence facility (a particularly sensitive point given the history of the regime) to Baath Party buildings in the greater Damascus area. These were not the first attacks claimed by the FSA, but they were heavily propagandized in the past week. Most significant about the attacks is that, while small-scale and likely exaggerated, they revealed that at least some defectors were willing to fight instead of defecting and staying in Turkey or Lebanon.<br /><br />It is interesting that an apparent increase in activity from armed activists — or the introduction of new forces — occurred at the same time relations between Iran on one side and the United States and Israel on the other were deteriorating. The deterioration began with charges that an Iranian covert operation to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States had been uncovered, followed by allegations by the Bahraini government of Iranian operatives organizing attacks in Bahrain. It proceeded to an International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran’s progress toward a nuclear device, followed by the Nov. 19 explosion at an Iranian missile facility that the Israelis have not-so-quietly hinted was their work. Whether any of these are true, the psychological pressure on Iran is building and appears to be orchestrated.<br /><br />Of all the players in this game, Israel’s position is the most complex. Israel has had a decent, albeit covert, working relationship with the Syrians going back to their mutual hostility toward Yasser Arafat. For Israel, Syria has been the devil they know. The idea of a Sunni government controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood on their northeastern frontier was frightening; they preferred al Assad. But given the shift in the regional balance of power, the Israeli view is also changing. The Sunni Islamist threat has weakened in the past decade relative to the Iranian Shiite threat. Playing things forward, the threat of a hostile Sunni force in Syria is less worrisome than an emboldened Iranian presence on Israel’s northern frontier. This explains why the architects of Israel’s foreign policy, such as Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have been saying that we are seeing an “acceleration toward the end of the regime.” Regardless of its preferred outcome, Israel cannot influence events inside Syria. Instead, Israel is adjusting to a reality where the threat of Iran reshaping the politics of the region has become paramount.<br /><br />Iran is, of course, used to psychological campaigns. We continue to believe that while Iran might be close to a nuclear device that could explode underground under carefully controlled conditions, its ability to create a stable, robust nuclear weapon that could function outside a laboratory setting (which is what an underground test is) is a ways off. This includes being able to load a fragile experimental system on a delivery vehicle and expecting it to explode. It might. It might not. It might even be intercepted and create a casus belli for a counterstrike.<br /><br />The main Iranian threat is not nuclear. It might become so, but even without nuclear weapons, Iran remains a threat. The current escalation originated in the American decision to withdraw from Iraq and was intensified by events in Syria. If Iran abandoned its nuclear program tomorrow, the situation would remain as complex. Iran has the upper hand, and the United States, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia all are looking at how to turn the tables.<br /><br />At this point, they appear to be following a two-pronged strategy: Increase pressure on Iran to make it recalculate its vulnerability, and bring down the Syrian government to limit the consequences of Iranian influence in Iraq. Whether the Syrian regime can be brought down is problematic. Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi would have survived if NATO hadn’t intervened. NATO could intervene in Syria, but Syria is more complex than Libya. Moreover, a second NATO attack on an Arab state designed to change its government would have unintended consequences, no matter how much the Arabs fear the Iranians at the moment. Wars are unpredictable; they are not the first option.<br /><br />Therefore the likely solution is covert support for the Sunni opposition funneled through Lebanon and possibly Turkey and Jordan. It will be interesting to see if the Turks participate. Far more interesting will be seeing whether this works. Syrian intelligence has penetrated its Sunni opposition effectively for decades. Mounting a secret campaign against the regime would be difficult, and its success by no means assured. Still, that is the next move.<br /><br />But it is not the last move. To put Iran back into its box, something must be done about the Iraqi political situation. Given the U.S. withdrawal, Washington has little influence there. All of the relationships the United States built were predicated on American power protecting the relationships. With the Americans gone, the foundation of those relationships dissolves. And even with Syria, the balance of power is shifting.<br /><br />The United States has three choices. Accept the evolution and try to live with what emerges. Attempt to make a deal with Iran — a very painful and costly one. Or go to war. The first assumes Washington can live with what emerges. The second depends on whether Iran is interested in dealing with the United States. The third depends on having enough power to wage a war and to absorb Iran’s retaliatory strikes, particularly in the Strait of Hormuz. All are dubious, so toppling al Assad is critical. It changes the game and the momentum. But even that is enormously difficult and laden with risks.<br /><br />We are now in the final act of Iraq, and it is even more painful than imagined. Laying this alongside the European crisis makes the idea of a systemic crisis in the global system very real.<center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2"><br /><br />Copyright 2011 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-7255352584154775925?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-376426320887039022011-09-10T02:03:00.004-04:002011-12-19T16:34:20.886-05:00Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the CultBy Mike Lofgren<br /><br /><br />(Mike Lofgren retired on June 17 after 28 years as a Congressional staffer. He served 16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees.)<br /><br /><div class="content clearfix"><br /><div class="art-body"><br /><em>Barbara Stanwyck: "We're both rotten!"</em><br /><p><em>Fred MacMurray: "Yeah - only you're a little more rotten." -"Double Indemnity" (1944) </em></p><p>Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America. Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot. The main reason the Democrats' health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the Democrats' rank capitulation to corporate interests - no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to Big Pharma.</p><p>But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.</p><p>To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.</p><p>It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill. A couple of months ago, I retired; but I could see as early as last November that the Republican Party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of World War II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. Then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages.</p><p>The debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel - how prudent is that? - in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.</p><p>Everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care. This fact, which ought to be obvious, has nevertheless caused confusion among the professional pundit class, which is mostly still stuck in the Bob Dole era in terms of its orientation. For instance, Ezra Klein <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-republicans-have-won-but-can-they-stop-there/2011/07/25/gIQAFHVIYI_blog.html?fb_ref=NetworkNews" target="_blank">wrote</a> of his puzzlement over the fact that while House Republicans essentially won the debt ceiling fight, enough of them were sufficiently dissatisfied that they might still scuttle the deal. Of course they might - the attitude of many freshman Republicans to national default was "bring it on!"</p><p>It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.</p><p>In his "Manual of Parliamentary Practice," Thomas Jefferson wrote that it is less important that every rule and custom of a legislature be absolutely justifiable in a theoretical sense, than that they should be generally acknowledged and honored by all parties. These include unwritten rules, customs and courtesies that lubricate the legislative machinery and keep governance a relatively civilized procedure. The US Senate has more complex procedural rules than any other legislative body in the world; many of these rules are contradictory, and on any given day, the Senate parliamentarian may issue a ruling that contradicts earlier rulings on analogous cases.</p><p>The only thing that can keep the Senate functioning is collegiality and good faith. During periods of political consensus, for instance, the World War II and early post-war eras, the Senate was a "high functioning" institution: filibusters were rare and the body was legislatively productive. Now, one can no more picture the current Senate producing the original Medicare Act than the old Supreme Soviet having legislated the Bill of Rights.</p><p>Far from being a rarity, virtually every bill, every nominee for Senate confirmation and every routine procedural motion is now subject to a Republican filibuster. Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that Washington is gridlocked: legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. As Hannah Arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.</p><p>John P. Judis <a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/john-judis/92958/obama-lincoln-debt-ceiling" target="_blank">sums up</a> the modern GOP this way:</p><blockquote><p>"Over the last four decades, the Republican Party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. It is the party of Watergate and Iran-Contra, but also of the government shutdown in 1995 and the impeachment trial of 1999. If there is an earlier American precedent for today's Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery."</p></blockquote><p>A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.</p><p>A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).</p><p>The media are also complicit in this phenomenon. Ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. Hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness. Paul Krugman has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/opinion/krugman-the-centrist-cop-out.html?_r=4&hp" target="_blank">skewered</a> this tactic as being the "centrist cop-out." "I joked long ago," he says, "that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read 'Views Differ on Shape of Planet.'"</p><p>Inside-the-Beltway wise guy Chris Cillizza merely proves Krugman right in his Washington Post analysis of "winners and losers" in the debt ceiling impasse. He <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-debt-ceiling-deal-winners-and-losers/2011/07/31/gIQAHl7FmI_story.html" target="_blank">wrote</a> that the institution of Congress was a big loser in the fracas, which is, of course, correct, but then he opined: "Lawmakers - bless their hearts - seem entirely unaware of just how bad they looked during this fight and will almost certainly spend the next few weeks (or months) congratulating themselves on their tremendous magnanimity." Note how the pundit's ironic deprecation falls like the rain on the just and unjust alike, on those who precipitated the needless crisis and those who despaired of it. He seems oblivious that one side - or a sizable faction of one side - has deliberately attempted to damage the reputation of Congress to achieve its political objectives.</p><p>This constant drizzle of "there the two parties go again!" stories out of the news bureaus, combined with the hazy confusion of low-information voters, means that the long-term Republican strategy of undermining confidence in our democratic institutions has reaped electoral dividends. The United States has nearly the lowest voter participation among Western democracies; this, again, is a consequence of the decline of trust in government institutions - if government is a racket and both parties are the same, why vote? And if the uninvolved middle declines to vote, it increases the electoral clout of a minority that is constantly being whipped into a lather by three hours daily of Rush Limbaugh or Fox News. There were only 44 million Republican voters in the 2010 mid-term elections, but they effectively canceled the political results of the election of President Obama by 69 million voters.</p><p>This tactic of inducing public distrust of government is not only cynical, it is schizophrenic. For people who profess to revere the Constitution, it is strange that they so caustically denigrate the very federal government that is the material expression of the principles embodied in that document. This is not to say that there is not some theoretical limit to the size or intrusiveness of government; I would be the first to say there are such limits, both fiscal and Constitutional. But most Republican officeholders seem strangely uninterested in the effective repeal of Fourth Amendment protections by the Patriot Act, the weakening of habeas corpus and self-incrimination protections in the public hysteria following 9/11 or the unpalatable fact that the United States has the largest incarcerated population of any country on earth. If anything, they would probably opt for more incarcerated persons, as imprisonment is a profit center for the prison privatization industry, which is itself a growth center for political contributions to these same politicians.<a href="#[1]">[1]</a> Instead, they prefer to rail against those government programs that actually help people. And when a program is too popular to attack directly, like Medicare or Social Security, they prefer to undermine it by feigning an agonized concern about the deficit. That concern, as we shall see, is largely fictitious.</p><p>Undermining Americans' belief in their own institutions of self-government remains a prime GOP electoral strategy. But if this technique falls short of producing Karl Rove's dream of 30 years of unchallengeable one-party rule (as all such techniques always fall short of achieving the angry and embittered true believer's New Jerusalem), there are other even less savory techniques upon which to fall back. Ever since Republicans captured the majority in a number of state legislatures last November, they have systematically attempted to make it more difficult to vote: by onerous voter ID requirements (in Wisconsin, Republicans have legislated photo IDs while simultaneously shutting Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) offices in Democratic constituencies while at the same time lengthening the hours of operation of DMV offices in GOP constituencies); by narrowing registration periods; and by residency requirements that may disenfranchise university students.</p><p>This legislative assault is moving in a diametrically opposed direction to 200 years of American history, when the arrow of progress pointed toward more political participation by more citizens. Republicans are among the most shrill in self-righteously lecturing other countries about the wonders of democracy; exporting democracy (albeit at the barrel of a gun) to the Middle East was a signature policy of the Bush administration. But domestically, they don't want <em>those people</em> voting.</p><p>You can probably guess who <em>those people</em> are. Above all, anyone not likely to vote Republican. As Sarah Palin would imply, the people who are not Real Americans. Racial minorities. Immigrants. Muslims. Gays. Intellectuals. Basically, anyone who doesn't look, think, or talk like the GOP base. This must account, at least to some degree, for their extraordinarily vitriolic hatred of President Obama. I have joked in the past that the main administration policy that Republicans object to is Obama's policy of being black.<a href="#[2]">[2]</a> Among the GOP base, there is constant harping about somebody else, some "other," who is deliberately, assiduously and with malice aforethought subverting the Good, the True and the Beautiful: Subversives. Commies. Socialists. Ragheads. Secular humanists. Blacks. Fags. Feminazis. The list may change with the political needs of the moment, but they always seem to need a scapegoat to hate and fear.</p><p>It is not clear to me how many GOP officeholders believe this reactionary and paranoid claptrap. I would bet that most do not. But they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base with a nod and a wink. During the disgraceful circus of the "birther" issue, Republican politicians subtly stoked the fires of paranoia by being suggestively equivocal - "I take the president at his word" - while never unambiguously slapping down the myth. John Huntsman was the first major GOP figure forthrightly to refute the birther calumny - albeit <em>after</em> release of the birth certificate.</p><p>I do not mean to place too much emphasis on racial animus in the GOP. While it surely exists, it is also a fact that Republicans think that no Democratic president could conceivably be legitimate. Republicans also regarded Bill Clinton as somehow, in some manner, twice fraudulently elected (well do I remember the elaborate conspiracy theories that Republicans traded among themselves). Had it been Hillary Clinton, rather than Barack Obama, who had been elected in 2008, I am certain we would now be hearing, in lieu of the birther myths, conspiracy theories about Vince Foster's alleged murder.</p><p>The reader may think that I am attributing Svengali-like powers to GOP operatives able to manipulate a zombie base to do their bidding. It is more complicated than that. Historical circumstances produced the raw material: the deindustrialization and financialization of America since about 1970 has spawned an increasingly downscale white middle class - without job security (or even without jobs), with pensions and health benefits evaporating and with their principal asset deflating in the collapse of the housing bubble. Their fears are not imaginary; their standard of living is shrinking.</p><p>What do the Democrats offer these people? Essentially nothing. Democratic Leadership Council-style "centrist" Democrats were among the biggest promoters of disastrous trade deals in the 1990s that outsourced jobs abroad: NAFTA, World Trade Organization, permanent most-favored-nation status for China. At the same time, the identity politics/lifestyle wing of the Democratic Party was seen as a too illegal immigrant-friendly by downscaled and outsourced whites.<a href="#[3]">[3]</a></p><p>While Democrats temporized, or even dismissed the fears of the white working class as racist or nativist, Republicans went to work. To be sure, the business wing of the Republican Party consists of the most energetic outsourcers, wage cutters and hirers of sub-minimum wage immigrant labor to be found anywhere on the globe. But the faux-populist wing of the party, knowing the mental compartmentalization that occurs in most low-information voters, played on the fears of that same white working class to focus their anger on scapegoats that do no damage to corporations' bottom lines: instead of raising the minimum wage, let's build a wall on the Southern border (then hire a defense contractor to incompetently manage it). Instead of predatory bankers, it's evil Muslims. Or evil gays. Or evil abortionists.</p><p>How do they manage to do this? Because Democrats ceded the field. Above all, they do not understand language. Their initiatives are posed in impenetrable policy-speak: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The <em>what</em>? - can anyone even remember it? No wonder the pejorative "Obamacare" won out. Contrast that with the Republicans' Patriot Act. You're a patriot, aren't you? Does anyone at the GED level have a clue what a Stimulus Bill is supposed to be? Why didn't the White House call it the Jobs Bill and keep pounding on that theme?</p><p>You know that Social Security and Medicare are in jeopardy when even Democrats refer to them as entitlements. "Entitlement" has a negative sound in colloquial English: somebody who is "entitled" selfishly claims something he doesn't really deserve. Why not call them "earned benefits," which is what they are because we all contribute payroll taxes to fund them? That would never occur to the Democrats. Republicans don't make that mistake; they are relentlessly on message: it is never the "estate tax," it is the "death tax." Heaven forbid that the Walton family should give up one penny of its $86-billion fortune. All of that lucre is necessary to ensure that unions be kept out of Wal-Mart, that women employees not be promoted and that politicians be kept on a short leash.</p><p>It was not always thus. It would have been hard to find an uneducated farmer during the depression of the 1890s who did not have a very accurate idea about exactly which economic interests were shafting him. An unemployed worker in a breadline in 1932 would have felt little gratitude to the Rockefellers or the Mellons. But that is not the case in the present economic crisis. After a riot of unbridled greed such as the world has not seen since the conquistadors' looting expeditions and after an unprecedented broad and rapid transfer of wealth upward by Wall Street and its corporate satellites, where is the popular anger directed, at least as depicted in the media? At "Washington spending" - which has increased primarily to provide unemployment compensation, food stamps and Medicaid to those economically damaged by the previous decade's corporate saturnalia. Or the popular rage is harmlessly diverted against pseudo-issues: death panels, birtherism, gay marriage, abortion, and so on, none of which stands to dent the corporate bottom line in the slightest.</p><p>Thus far, I have concentrated on Republican tactics, rather than Republican beliefs, but the tactics themselves are important indicators of an absolutist, authoritarian mindset that is increasingly hostile to the democratic values of reason, compromise and conciliation. Rather, this mindset seeks polarizing division (Karl Rove has been very explicit that this is his principal campaign strategy), conflict and the crushing of opposition.</p><p>As for what they really believe, the Republican Party of 2011 believes in three principal tenets I have laid out below. The rest of their platform one may safely dismiss as window dressing:</p><p><strong>1. The GOP cares solely and exclusively about its rich contributors.</strong> The party has built a whole catechism on the protection and further enrichment of America's plutocracy. Their caterwauling about deficit and debt is so much eyewash to con the public. Whatever else President Obama has accomplished (and many of his purported accomplishments are highly suspect), his $4-trillion deficit reduction package did perform the useful service of smoking out Republican hypocrisy. The GOP refused, because it could not abide so much as a one-tenth of one percent increase on the tax rates of the Walton family or the Koch brothers, much less a repeal of the carried interest rule that permits billionaire hedge fund managers to pay income tax at a lower effective rate than cops or nurses. Republicans finally settled on a deal that had far less deficit reduction - and even less spending reduction! - than Obama's offer, because of their iron resolution to protect at all costs our society's overclass.</p><p>Republicans have attempted to camouflage their amorous solicitude for billionaires with a fog of misleading rhetoric. John Boehner is fond of saying, "we won't raise anyone's taxes," as if the take-home pay of an Olive Garden waitress were inextricably bound up with whether Warren Buffett pays his capital gains as ordinary income or at a lower rate. Another chestnut is that millionaires and billionaires are "job creators." US corporations have just had their most profitable quarters in history; Apple, for one, is sitting on $76 billion in cash, more than the GDP of most countries. So, where are the jobs?</p><p>Another smokescreen is the "small business" meme, since standing up for Mom's and Pop's corner store is politically more attractive than to be seen shilling for a megacorporation. Raising taxes on the wealthy will kill small business' ability to hire; that is the GOP dirge every time Bernie Sanders or some Democrat offers an amendment to increase taxes on incomes above $1 million. But the number of small businesses that have a net annual income over a million dollars is de minimis, if not by definition impossible (as they would no longer be small businesses). And as data from the Center for Economic and Policy Research have shown, small businesses account for only 7.2 percent of total US employment, a significantly smaller share of total employment than in most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.</p><p>Likewise, Republicans have assiduously spread the myth that Americans are conspicuously overtaxed. But compared to other OECD countries, the effective rates of US taxation are among the lowest. In particular, they point to the top corporate income rate of 35 percent as being confiscatory Bolshevism. But again, the effective rate is much lower. Did GE pay 35 percent on 2010 profits of $14 billion? No, it paid zero.</p><p>When pressed, Republicans make up misleading statistics to "prove" that the America's fiscal burden is being borne by the rich and the rest of us are just freeloaders who don't appreciate that fact. "Half of Americans don't pay taxes" is a perennial meme. But what they leave out is that that statement refers to federal <em>income</em> taxes. There are millions of people who don't pay income taxes, but do contribute payroll taxes - among the most regressive forms of taxation. But according to GOP fiscal theology, payroll taxes don't count. Somehow, they have convinced themselves that since payroll taxes go into trust funds, they're not real taxes. Likewise, state and local sales taxes apparently don't count, although their effect on a poor person buying necessities like foodstuffs is far more regressive than on a millionaire.</p><p>All of these half truths and outright lies have seeped into popular culture via the corporate-owned business press. Just listen to CNBC for a few hours and you will hear most of them in one form or another. More important politically, Republicans' myths about taxation have been internalized by millions of economically downscale "values voters," who may have been attracted to the GOP for other reasons (which I will explain later), but who now accept this misinformation as dogma.</p><p>And when misinformation isn't enough to sustain popular support for the GOP's agenda, concealment is needed. One fairly innocuous provision in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill requires public companies to make a more transparent disclosure of CEO compensation, including bonuses. Note that it would not limit the compensation, only require full disclosure. Republicans are hell-bent on repealing this provision. Of course; it would not serve Wall Street interests if the public took an unhealthy interest in the disparity of their own incomes as against that of a bank CEO. As Spencer Bachus, the Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/banking-financial-institutions/133379-bachus-tells-local-paper-that-washington-should-qserveq-banks" target="_blank">says</a>, "In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks."</p><p><strong>2. They worship at the altar of Mars. </strong> While the me-too Democrats have set a horrible example of keeping up with the Joneses with respect to waging wars, they can never match GOP stalwarts such as John McCain or Lindsey Graham in their sheer, libidinous enthusiasm for invading other countries. McCain wanted to mix it up with Russia - a nuclear-armed state - during the latter's conflict with Georgia in 2008 (remember? - "we are all Georgians now," a slogan that did not, fortunately, catch on), while Graham has been persistently agitating for attacks on Iran and intervention in Syria. And these are not fringe elements of the party; they are the leading "defense experts," who always get tapped for the Sunday talk shows. About a month before Republicans began holding a gun to the head of the credit markets to get trillions of dollars of cuts, these same Republicans passed a defense appropriations bill that <em>increased</em> spending by $17 billion over the prior year's defense appropriation. To borrow Chris Hedges' <a href="http://www.amazon.com/War-Force-that-Gives-Meaning/dp/1400034639/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312410221&sr=1-1" target="_blank">formulation</a>, war is the force that gives meaning to their lives.</p><p>A cynic might conclude that this militaristic enthusiasm is no more complicated than the fact that Pentagon contractors spread a lot of bribery money around Capitol Hill. That is true, but there is more to it than that. It is not necessarily even the fact that members of Congress feel they are protecting constituents' jobs. The wildly uneven concentration of defense contracts and military bases nationally means that some areas, like Washington, DC, and San Diego, are heavily dependent on Department of Defense (DOD) spending. But there are many more areas of the country whose net balance is negative: the citizenry pays more in taxes to support the Pentagon than it receives back in local contracts.</p><p>And the economic justification for Pentagon spending is even more fallacious when one considers that the $700 billion annual DOD budget creates comparatively few jobs. The days of Rosie the Riveter are long gone; most weapons projects now require very little touch labor. Instead, a disproportionate share is siphoned off into high-cost research and development (from which the civilian economy benefits little); exorbitant management expenditures, overhead and out-and-out padding; and, of course, the money that flows back into the coffers of political campaigns. A million dollars appropriated for highway construction would create two to three times as many jobs as a million dollars appropriated for Pentagon weapons procurement, so the jobs argument is ultimately specious.</p><p>Take away the cash nexus and there still remains a psychological predisposition toward war and militarism on the part of the GOP. This undoubtedly arises from a neurotic need to demonstrate toughness and dovetails perfectly with the belligerent tough-guy pose one constantly hears on right-wing talk radio. Militarism springs from the same psychological deficit that requires an endless series of enemies, both foreign and domestic.</p><p>The results of the last decade of unbridled militarism and the Democrats' cowardly refusal to reverse it<a href="#[4]">[4]</a>, have been disastrous both strategically and fiscally. It has made the United States less prosperous, less secure and less free. Unfortunately, the militarism and the promiscuous intervention it gives rise to are only likely to abate when the Treasury is exhausted, just as it happened to the Dutch Republic and the British Empire.</p><p><strong>3. Give me that old time religion.</strong> Pandering to fundamentalism is a full-time vocation in the GOP. Beginning in the 1970s, religious cranks ceased simply to be a minor public nuisance in this country and grew into the major element of the Republican rank and file. Pat Robertson's strong showing in the 1988 Iowa Caucus signaled the gradual merger of politics and religion in the party. The results are all around us: if the American people poll more like Iranians or Nigerians than Europeans or Canadians on questions of evolution versus creationism, scriptural inerrancy, the existence of angels and demons, and so forth, that result is due to the rise of the religious right, its insertion into the public sphere by the Republican Party and the consequent normalizing of formerly reactionary or quaint beliefs. Also around us is a prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science; it is this group that defines "low-information voter" - or, perhaps, "misinformation voter."</p><p>The Constitution to the contrary notwithstanding, there is now a de facto religious test for the presidency: major candidates are encouraged (or coerced) to "share their feelings" about their "faith" in a revelatory speech; or, some televangelist like Rick Warren dragoons the candidates (as he did with Obama and McCain in 2008) to debate the finer points of Christology, with Warren himself, of course, as the arbiter. Politicized religion is also the sheet anchor of the culture wars. But how did the whole toxic stew of GOP beliefs - economic royalism, militarism and culture wars cum fundamentalism - come completely to displace an erstwhile civilized Eisenhower Republicanism?</p><p>It is my view that the rise of politicized religious fundamentalism (which is a subset of the decline of rational problem solving in America) may have been the key ingredient of the takeover of the Republican Party. For politicized religion provides a substrate of beliefs that rationalizes - at least in the minds of followers - all three of the GOP's main tenets.</p><p>Televangelists have long espoused the health-and-wealth/name-it-and-claim it gospel. If you are wealthy, it is a sign of God's favor. If not, too bad! But don't forget to tithe in any case. This rationale may explain why some economically downscale whites defend the prerogatives of billionaires.</p><p>The GOP's fascination with war is also connected with the fundamentalist mindset. The Old Testament abounds in tales of slaughter - God ordering the killing of the Midianite male infants and enslavement of the balance of the population, the divinely-inspired genocide of the Canaanites, the slaying of various miscreants with the jawbone of an ass - and since American religious fundamentalist seem to prefer the Old Testament to the New (particularly that portion of the New Testament known as the Sermon on the Mount), it is but a short step to approving war as a divinely inspired mission. This sort of thinking has led, inexorably, to such phenomena as Jerry Falwell once writing that <a href="http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36859" target="_blank">God is Pro-War</a>.</p><p>It is the apocalyptic frame of reference of fundamentalists, their belief in an imminent Armageddon, that psychologically conditions them to steer this country into conflict, not only on foreign fields (some evangelicals thought Saddam was the Antichrist and therefore a suitable target for cruise missiles), but also in the realm of domestic political controversy. It is hardly surprising that the most adamant proponent of the view that there was no debt ceiling problem was Michele Bachmann, the darling of the fundamentalist right. What does it matter, anyway, if the country defaults? - we shall presently abide in the bosom of the Lord.</p><p>Some liberal writers have opined that the different socio-economic perspectives separating the "business" wing of the GOP and the religious right make it an unstable coalition that could crack. I am not so sure. There is no fundamental disagreement on which direction the two factions want to take the country, merely how far in that direction they want to take it. The plutocrats would drag us back to the Gilded Age, the theocrats to the Salem witch trials. In any case, those consummate plutocrats, the Koch brothers, are <a href="http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/07/michele-bachmann-koch-brothers-2012" target="_blank">pumping</a> large sums of money into Michele Bachman's presidential campaign, so one ought not make too much of a potential plutocrat-theocrat split.</p><p>Thus, the modern GOP; it hardly seems conceivable that a Republican could have written the following:</p><blockquote><p>"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid." (That was President Eisenhower, writing to his brother Edgar in 1954.)</p></blockquote><p>It is this broad and ever-widening gulf between the traditional Republicanism of an Eisenhower and the quasi-totalitarian cult of a Michele Bachmann that impelled my departure from Capitol Hill. It is not in my pragmatic nature to make a heroic gesture of self-immolation, or to make lurid revelations of personal martyrdom in the manner of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blinded-Right-Ex-Conservative-David-Brock/dp/1400047285/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312417920&sr=1-1" target="_blank">David Brock</a>. And I will leave a more detailed dissection of failed Republican economic policies to my fellow apostate <a href="http://www.amazon.com/New-American-Economy-Failure-Reaganomics/dp/0230615872/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312418383&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Bruce Bartlett</a>.</p><p>I left because I was appalled at the headlong rush of Republicans, like Gadarene swine, to embrace policies that are deeply damaging to this country's future; and contemptuous of the feckless, craven incompetence of Democrats in their half-hearted attempts to stop them. And, in truth, I left as an act of rational self-interest. Having gutted private-sector pensions and health benefits as a result of their embrace of outsourcing, union busting and "shareholder value," the GOP now thinks it is only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions and benefits, too. Hence the intensification of the GOP's decades-long campaign of scorn against government workers. Under the circumstances, it is simply safer to be a current retiree rather than a prospective one.</p><p>If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté.<a href="#[5]">[5]</a> They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be "forced" to make "hard choices" - and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked.</p><p>During the week that this piece was written, the debt ceiling fiasco reached its conclusion. The economy was already weak, but the GOP's disgraceful game of chicken roiled the markets even further. Foreigners could hardly believe it: Americans' own crazy political actions were destabilizing the safe-haven status of the dollar. Accordingly, during that same week, over one trillion dollars worth of assets evaporated on financial markets. Russia and China have stepped up their advocating that the dollar be replaced as the global reserve currency - a move as consequential and disastrous for US interests as any that can be imagined.</p><p>If Republicans have perfected a new form of politics that is successful electorally at the same time that it unleashes major policy disasters, it means twilight both for the democratic process and America's status as the world's leading power.</p><p>Footnotes:</p><p><a name="[1]"></a>[1] I am not exaggerating for effect. A law passed in 2010 by the Arizona legislature mandating arrest and incarceration of suspected illegal aliens was actually drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative business front group that drafts "model" legislation on behalf of its corporate sponsors. The draft legislation in question was written for the private prison lobby, which sensed a growth opportunity in imprisoning more people.</p><p><a name="[2]"></a>[2] I am <em>not</em> a supporter of Obama and object to a number of his foreign and domestic policies. But when he took office amid the greatest financial collapse in 80 years, I wanted him to succeed, so that the country I served did not fail. But already in 2009, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, declared that his greatest legislative priority was - jobs for Americans? Rescuing the financial system? Solving the housing collapse? - no, none of those things. His top priority was to ensure that Obama should be a one-term president. Evidently Senator McConnell hates Obama more than he loves his country. Note that the mainstream media have lately been hailing McConnell as "the adult in the room," presumably because he is less visibly unstable than the Tea Party freshmen</p><p><a name="[3]"></a>[3] This is not a venue for immigrant bashing. It remains a fact that outsourcing jobs overseas, while insourcing sub-minimum wage immigrant labor, will exert downward pressure on US wages. The consequence will be popular anger, and failure to address that anger will result in a downward wage spiral and a breech of the social compact, not to mention a rise in nativism and other reactionary impulses. It does no good to claim that these economic consequences are an inevitable result of globalization; Germany has somehow managed to maintain a high-wage economy and a vigorous industrial base.</p><p><a name="[4]"></a>[4] The cowardice is not merely political. During the past ten years, I have observed that Democrats are actually growing afraid of Republicans. In a quirky and flawed, but insightful, little book, "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Populism-Hatred-John-Lukacs/dp/0300107730/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312415333&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred</a>," John Lukacs concludes that the left fears, the right hates.</p><p><a name="[5]"></a>[5] The GOP cult of Ayn Rand is both revealing and mystifying. On the one hand, Rand's tough guy, every-man-for-himself posturing is a natural fit because it puts a philosophical gloss on the latent sociopathy so prevalent among the hard right. On the other, Rand exclaimed at every opportunity that she was a militant atheist who felt nothing but contempt for Christianity. Apparently, the ignorance of most fundamentalist "values voters" means that GOP candidates who enthuse over Rand at the same time they thump their Bibles never have to explain this stark contradiction. And I imagine a Democratic officeholder would have a harder time explaining why he named his offspring "Marx" than a GOP incumbent would in rationalizing naming his kid "Rand."</p></div></div><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">This work published by <a href="http://www.truth-out.org">Truthout</a> is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License</a>.</font></blockquote></center><br /><center><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0;" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/3.0/us/88x31.png" /></a></center><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-37642632088703902?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-67374193046265014082011-08-24T18:05:00.003-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.257-05:00Israeli-Arab Crisis ApproachingBy George Friedman<br /><br />In September, the U.N. General Assembly will vote on whether to recognize Palestine as an independent and sovereign state with full rights in the United Nations. In many ways, this would appear to be a reasonable and logical step. Whatever the Palestinians once were, they are clearly a nation in the simplest and most important sense — namely, they think of themselves as a nation. Nations are created by historical circumstances, and those circumstances have given rise to a Palestinian nation. Under the principle of the United Nations and the theory of the right to national self-determination, which is the moral foundation of the modern theory of nationalism, a nation has a right to a state, and that state has a place in the family of nations. In this sense, the U.N. vote will be unexceptional.<br /><br />However, when the United Nations votes on Palestinian statehood, it will intersect with other realities and other historical processes. First, it is one thing to declare a Palestinian state; it is quite another thing to create one. The Palestinians are deeply divided between two views of what the Palestinian nation ought to be, a division not easily overcome. Second, this vote will come at a time when two of Israel’s neighbors are coping with their own internal issues. Syria is in chaos, with an extended and significant resistance against the regime having emerged. Meanwhile, Egypt is struggling with internal tension over the fall of President Hosni Mubarak and the future of the military junta that replaced him. Add to this the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and the potential rise of Iranian power, and the potential recognition of a Palestinian state — while perfectly logical in an abstract sense — becomes an event that can force a regional crisis in the midst of ongoing regional crises. It thus is a vote that could have significant consequences.<br /><br /><b>The Palestinian Divide</b><br /><br />Let’s begin with the issue not of the right of a nation to have a state but of the nature of a Palestinian state under current circumstances. The Palestinians are split into two major factions. The first, Fatah, dominates the West Bank. Fatah derives its ideology from the older, secular Pan-Arab movement. Historically, Fatah saw the Palestinians as a state within the Arab nation. The second, Hamas, dominates Gaza. Unlike Fatah, it sees the Palestinians as forming part of a broader Islamist uprising, one in which Hamas is the dominant Islamist force of the Palestinian people.<br /><br />The Pan-Arab rising is moribund. Where it once threatened the existence of Muslim states, like the Arab monarchies, it is now itself threatened. Mubarak, Syrian President Bashar al Assad and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi all represented the old Pan-Arab vision. A much better way to understand the “Arab Spring” is that it represented the decay of such regimes that were vibrant when they came to power in the late 1960s and early 1970s but have fallen into ideological meaninglessness. Fatah is part of this grouping, and while it still speaks for Palestinian nationalism as a secular movement, beyond that it is isolated from broader trends in the region. It is both at odds with rising religiosity and simultaneously mistrusted by the monarchies it tried to overthrow. Yet it controls the Palestinian proto-state, the Palestinian National Authority, and thus will be claiming a U.N. vote on Palestinian statehood. Hamas, on the other hand, is very much representative of current trends in the Islamic world and holds significant popular support, yet it is not clear that it holds a majority position in the Palestinian nation.<br /><br />All nations have ideological divisions, but the Palestinians are divided over the fundamental question of the Palestinian nation’s identity. Fatah sees itself as part of a secular Arab world that is on the defensive. Hamas envisions the Palestinian nation as an Islamic state forming in the context of a region-wide Islamist rising. Neither is in a position to speak authoritatively for the Palestinian people, and the things that divide them cut to the heart of the nation. As important, each has a different view of its future relations with Israel. Fatah has accepted, in practice, the idea of Israel’s permanence as a state and the need of the Palestinians to accommodate themselves to the reality. Hamas has rejected it.<br /><br />The U.N. decision raises the stakes in this debate within the Palestinian nation that could lead to intense conflict. As vicious as the battle between Hamas and Fatah has been, an uneasy truce has existed over recent years. Now, there could emerge an internationally legitimized state, and control of that state will matter more than ever before. Whoever controls the state defines what the Palestinians are, and it becomes increasingly difficult to suspend the argument for a temporary truce. Rather than settling anything, or putting Israel on the defensive, the vote will compel a Palestinian crisis.<br /><br />Fatah has an advantage in any vote on Palestinian statehood: It enjoys far more international support than Hamas does. Europeans and Americans see it as friendly to their interests and less hostile to Israel. The Saudis and others may distrust Fatah from past conflicts, but in the end they fear radical Islamists and Iran and so require American support at a time when the Americans have tired of playing in what some Americans call the “sandbox.” However reluctantly, while aiding Hamas, the Saudis are more comfortable with Fatah. And of course, the embattled Arabist regimes, whatever tactical shifts there may have been, spring from the same soil as Fatah. While Fatah is the preferred Palestinian partner for many, Hamas can also use that reality to portray Fatah as colluding with Israel against the Palestinian people during a confrontation.<br /><br />For its part, Hamas has the support of Islamists in the region, including Shiite Iranians, but that is an explosive mix to base a strategy on. Hamas must break its isolation if it is to counter the tired but real power of Fatah. Symbolic flotillas from Turkey are comforting, but Hamas needs an end to Egyptian hostility to Hamas more than anything.<br /><br /><b>Egypt’s Role and Fatah on the Defensive</b><br /><br />Egypt is the power that geographically isolates Hamas through its treaty with Israel and with its still-functional blockade on Gaza. More than anyone, Hamas needs genuine regime change in Egypt. The new regime it needs is not a liberal democracy but one in which Islamist forces supportive of Hamas, namely the Muslim Brotherhood, come to power.<br /><br />At the moment, that is not likely. Egypt’s military has retained a remarkable degree of control, its opposition groups are divided between secular and religious elements, and the religious elements are further divided among themselves — as well as penetrated by an Egyptian security apparatus that has made war on them for years. As it stands, Egypt is not likely to evolve in a direction favorable to Hamas. Therefore, Hamas needs to redefine the political situation in Egypt to convert a powerful enemy into a powerful friend.<br /><br />Though it is not easy for a small movement to redefine a large nation, in this case, it could perhaps happen. There is a broad sense of unhappiness in Egypt over Egypt’s treaty with Israel, an issue that comes to the fore when Israel and the Palestinians are fighting. As in other Arab countries, passions surge in Egypt when the Palestinians are fighting the Israelis.<br /><br />Under Mubarak, these passions were readily contained in Egypt. Now the Egyptian regime unquestionably is vulnerable, and pro-Palestinian feelings cut across most, if not all, opposition groups. It is a singular, unifying force that might suffice to break the military’s power, or at least to force the military to shift its Israeli policy.<br /><br />Hamas in conflict with Israel as the United Nations votes for a Palestinian state also places Fatah on the political defensive among the Palestinians. Fatah cooperation with Israel while Gaza is at war would undermine Fatah, possibly pushing Fatah to align with Hamas. Having the U.N. vote take place while Gaza is at war, a vote possibly accompanied by General Assembly condemnation of Israel, could redefine the region.<br /><br />Last week’s attack on the Eilat road should be understood in this context. Some are hypothesizing that new Islamist groups forming in the Sinai or Palestinian groups in Gaza operating outside Hamas’ control carried out the attack. But while such organizations might formally be separate from Hamas, I find it difficult to believe that Hamas, with an excellent intelligence service inside Gaza and among the Islamist groups in the Sinai, would not at least have known these groups’ broad intentions and would not have been in a position to stop them. Just as Fatah created Black September in the 1970s, a group that appeared separate from Fatah but was in fact covertly part of it, the strategy of creating new organizations to take the blame for conflicts is an old tactic both for the Palestinians and throughout the world.<br /><br />Hamas’ ideal attack would offer it plausible deniability — allowing it to argue it did not even know an attack was imminent, much less carry it out — and trigger an Israeli attack on Gaza. Such a scenario casts Israel as the aggressor and Hamas as the victim, permitting Hamas to frame the war to maximum effect in Egypt and among the Palestinians, as well as in the wider Islamic world and in Europe.<br /><br /><b>Regional Implications and Israel’s Dilemma</b><br /><br />The matter goes beyond Hamas. The Syrian regime is currently fighting for its life against its majority Sunni population. It has survived thus far, but it needs to redefine the conflict. The Iranians and Hezbollah are among those most concerned with the fall of the Syrian regime. Syria has been Iran’s one significant ally, one strategically positioned to enhance Iranian influence in the Levant. Its fall would be a strategic setback for Iran at a time when Tehran is looking to enhance its position with the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Iran, which sees the uprising as engineered by its enemies — the United States, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — understandably wants al Assad to survive.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the fall of Syria would leave Hezbollah — which is highly dependent on the current Syrian regime and is in large part an extension of Syrian policy in Lebanon — wholly dependent on Iran. And Iran without its Syrian ally is very far away from Hezbollah. Like Tehran, Hezbollah thus also wants al Assad to survive. Hezbollah joining Hamas in a confrontation with Israel would take the focus off the al Assad regime and portray his opponents as undermining resistance to Israel. Joining a war with Israel also would make it easier for Hezbollah to weather the fall of al Assad should his opponents prevail. It would help Hezbollah create a moral foundation for itself independent of Syria. Hezbollah’s ability to force a draw with Israel in 2006 constituted a victory for the radical Islamist group that increased its credibility dramatically.<br /><br />The 2006 military confrontation was also a victory for Damascus, as it showed the Islamic world that Syria was the only nation-state supporting effective resistance to Israel. It also showed Israel and the United States that Syria alone could control Hezbollah and that forcing Syria out of Lebanon was a strategic error on the part of Israel and the United States.<br /><br />Faced with this dynamic, it will be difficult for Fatah to maintain its relationship with Israel. Indeed, Fatah could be forced to initiate an intifada, something it would greatly prefer to avoid, as this would undermine what economic development the West Bank has experienced.<br /><br />Israel therefore conceivably could face conflict in Gaza, a conflict along the Lebanese border and a rising in the West Bank, something it clearly knows. In a rare move, Israel announced plans to call up reserves in September. Though preannouncements of such things are not common, Israel wants to signal resolution.<br /><br />Israel has two strategies in the face of the potential storm. One is a devastating attack on Gaza followed by rotating forces to the north to deal with Hezbollah and intense suppression of an intifada. Dealing with Gaza fast and hard is the key if the intention is to abort the evolution I laid out. But the problem here is that the three-front scenario I laid out is simply a possibility; there is no certainty here. If Israel initiates conflict in Gaza and fails, it risks making a possibility into a certainty — and Israel has not had many stunning victories for several decades. It could also create a crisis for Egypt’s military rulers, not something the Israelis want.<br /><br />Israel also simply could absorb the attacks from Hamas to make Israel appear the victim. But seeking sympathy is not likely to work given how Palestinians have managed to shape global opinion. Moreover, we would expect Hamas to repeat its attacks to the point that Israel no longer could decline combat.<br /><br />War thus benefits Hamas (even if Hamas maintains plausible deniability by having others commit the attacks), a war Hezbollah has good reason to enter at such a stage and that Fatah does not want but could be forced into. Such a war could shift the Egyptian dynamic significantly to Hamas’ advantage, while Iran would certainly want al-Assad to be able to say to Syrians that a war with Israel is no time for a civil war in Syria. Israel would thus find itself fighting three battles simultaneously. The only way to do that is to be intensely aggressive, making moderation strategically difficult.<br /><br />Israel responded modestly compared to the past after the Eilat incident, mounting only limited attacks on Gaza against mostly members of the Palestinian Resistance Committees, an umbrella group known to have links with Hamas. Nevertheless, Hamas has made clear that its de facto truce with Israel was no longer assured. The issue now is what Hamas is prepared to do and whether Hamas supporters, Saudi Arabia in particular, can force them to control anti-Israeli activities in the region. The Saudis want al Assad to fall, and they do not want a radical regime in Egypt. Above all, they do not want Iran’s hand strengthened. But it is never clear how much influence the Saudis or Egyptians have over Hamas. For Hamas, this is emerging as the perfect moment, and it is hard to believe that even the Saudis can restrain them. As for the Israelis, what will happen depends on what others decide — which is the fundamental strategic problem that Israel has.<center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2"><br />Copyright 2011 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><br />Eleven years ago I wrote <a href="http://netgrits2.blogspot.com/2005/09/they-were-there.html">this</a> about Palestinian statehood. Absolutely nothing has changed.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-6737419304626501408?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-2977212079875910672011-08-11T18:11:00.002-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.257-05:00Shame on Wall Street<blockquote><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PP5G6Pu5I/AAAAAAAAACA/OPTrS2L5yyQ/s144/quote.gif">The only people who know what business Wall Street is in are the traders. They know what business Wall Street is in better than everyone else. To traders, whether day traders or high frequency or somewhere in between, Wall Street has nothing to do with creating capital for businesses, its original goal. Wall Street is a platform. It's a platform to be exploited by every technological and intellectual means possible.</blockquote><blockquote><br /><br /> <font face="arial" size="-2"> ---- MARK CUBAN</font></blockquote><br />Nice call, Mark.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-297721207987591067?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-52995374033183176532011-08-02T15:16:00.006-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.257-05:00Debt posturing<blockquote><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PP5G6Pu5I/AAAAAAAAACA/OPTrS2L5yyQ/s144/quote.gif">It is self-evident that no sickness can be successfully cured without proper diagnosis of the illness. In their frantic efforts to remedy the plague of national debt and deficit, however, US policy makers tend to shy away from the root causes of the problem and focus, instead, on scapegoats. <br /><br />What are the root causes of the national debt and deficit? They are, first and foremost, the multi-trillion dollar bailout packages that were bestowed upon Wall Street in order to rescue the financial gamblers, the constantly escalating costs of war and militarism, the huge tax giveaways to the wealthy, and the skyrocketing costs of healthcare, systematically jacked up by the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.</blockquote><br />Click the headline to read the rest of this excellent analysis by Ismael Hossein-Zadeh.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-5299537403318317653?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-34051230361601326712011-08-01T19:26:00.000-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.257-05:00Dollar versus Swiss Frank<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g6UCdeKWWNk/Tjc2FtH4BHI/AAAAAAAAANg/3tJdMgqsgqo/s1600/USD-CHFmonthly3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="273" width="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g6UCdeKWWNk/Tjc2FtH4BHI/AAAAAAAAANg/3tJdMgqsgqo/s400/USD-CHFmonthly3.png" /></a></div><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-3405123036160132671?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-17607411375941703702011-07-30T21:31:00.003-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.257-05:00The beauty of a simple factWhereas the rightward tilt of the United States since the Reagan administration has created a large number of new billionaires, it has impoverished our country as a whole.<br /><br />This fact cannot be argued. It is obvious in the extreme.<br /><br />As a fifty year capitalist, entrepreneur, trader, investment banker and now observer I never paid a tax I could legally avoid. What was left to pay I paid without a qualm. It is elementary that I could have set up offshore companies to soak up profits and avoid all taxes entirely but I could not stomach that.<br /><br />But I became an expert on how to do it. I actually did it once to shelter some investment profits arising from a merger I put together but it was legal then, barely. It's an every day thing for U.S. corporations now and it is not legal. It is certainly not smart. The largest companies do it as a matter of course and it's called outright evasion.<br /><br />While running my companies I worked with the various unions. They represented my priceless employees and that was a good thing because so did I.<br /><br />You got me on that? So did I.<br /><br />As CEO and primary owner who the hell else would I represent?<br /><br />The union busters of today make me sick. These are ignorant people who have no clue as to what it takes to make stuff, to get something done, to prosper, to build a company, to build a country.<br /><br />As I look around me I know with certainty that I've gained more from contributing to my community, the United States of America, than I've gained from my own endeavors.<br /><br />Now that's a mouthful. But it's true.<br /><br />Our country has moved away from manufacturing what we consume to simply buying it from other countries with money earned by providing decreasingly valuable services to each other.<br /><br />Our banks are controlled now by traders, not lenders.<br /><br />It has not been this way since the early 1920's.<br /><br />This has to change.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-1760741137594170370?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-37794674966894230452011-07-27T19:19:00.003-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.257-05:00Long the dollar<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P5Xn2P6xHzM/TjCe6aeexiI/AAAAAAAAANY/A4RiBP5HwIs/s1600/dollar-sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="270" width="187" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P5Xn2P6xHzM/TjCe6aeexiI/AAAAAAAAANY/A4RiBP5HwIs/s320/dollar-sign.jpg" /></a></div><br />The strain is beginning to show on the faces of our congressional representatives and senators. And that is a good thing.<br /><br />Considering the deadly serious nature of the issue they are dealing with anyone not feeling considerable strain at this point could well be considered psychopathic. <br /><br />Lobbyist Grover Norquist comes to mind. (The fact that he, an outsider lobbyist, was able to convince legitimate, elected members of congress to take a 'no tax pledge' is astonishing. I don't personally know anyone who has taken a 'pledge' after the eighth grade.)<br /><br />In any case I'm sure that our elected representatives, including our president, will do the right thing. It may look like a three ring circus but it's really democracy in action. And that's why I love this freaking country.<br /><br />I'm long the dollar.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-3779467496689423045?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-44078426803011780862011-07-24T00:28:00.001-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.258-05:00There Once was a ‘Grand’ Old Party<blockquote><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PP5G6Pu5I/AAAAAAAAACA/OPTrS2L5yyQ/s144/quote.gif">What remains now of a great party is vestigial and hardly recognizable to the naked eye. Painstaking forensic examination might identify it but that is a nasty business, looking at what is left.<br /><br />What follow are some of the thoughts and actions of men who have represented the Republican Party. Would they be tolerated in the Tea Party era?</blockquote><br />Click the headline to read all of this short, brilliant article.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-4407842680301178086?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-70544637417113403582011-05-17T12:09:00.002-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.258-05:00Visegrad: A New European Military ForceBy George Friedman<br /><br />With the Palestinians demonstrating and the International Monetary Fund in turmoil, it would seem odd to focus this week on something called the Visegrad Group. But this is not a frivolous choice. What the Visegrad Group decided to do last week will, I think, resonate for years, long after the alleged attempted rape by Dominique Strauss-Kahn is forgotten and long before the Israeli-Palestinian issue is resolved. The obscurity of the decision to most people outside the region should not be allowed to obscure its importance.<br /><br />The region is Europe — more precisely, the states that had been dominated by the Soviet Union. The Visegrad Group, or V4, consists of four countries — Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary — and is named after two 14th century meetings held in Visegrad Castle in present-day Hungary of leaders of the medieval kingdoms of Poland, Hungary and Bohemia. The group was reconstituted in 1991 in post-Cold War Europe as the Visegrad Three (at that time, Slovakia and the Czech Republic were one). The goal was to create a regional framework after the fall of Communism. This week the group took an interesting new turn.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IYllxWeuPxc/TdKb72wRrbI/AAAAAAAAAM0/f93ul32Dlb4/s1600/Visegrad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IYllxWeuPxc/TdKb72wRrbI/AAAAAAAAAM0/f93ul32Dlb4/s320/Visegrad.jpg" /></a></div>On May 12, the Visegrad Group announced the formation of a “battle group” under the command of Poland. The battle group would be in place by 2016 as an independent force and would not be part of NATO command. In addition, starting in 2013, the four countries would begin military exercises together under the auspices of the NATO Response Force.<br /><br />Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the primary focus of all of the Visegrad nations had been membership in the European Union and NATO. Their evaluation of their strategic position was threefold. First, they felt that the Russian threat had declined if not dissipated following the fall of the Soviet Union. Second, they felt that their economic future was with the European Union. Third, they believed that membership in NATO, with strong U.S. involvement, would protect their strategic interests. Of late, their analysis has clearly been shifting.<br /><br />First, Russia has changed dramatically since the Yeltsin years. It has increased its power in the former Soviet sphere of influence substantially, and in 2008 it carried out an effective campaign against Georgia. Since then it has also extended its influence in other former Soviet states. The Visegrad members’ underlying fear of Russia, built on powerful historical recollection, has become more intense. They are both the front line to the former Soviet Union and the countries that have the least confidence that the Cold War is simply an old memory.<br /><br />Second, the infatuation with Europe, while not gone, has frayed. The ongoing economic crisis, now focused again on Greece, has raised two questions: whether Europe as an entity is viable and whether the reforms proposed to stabilize Europe represent a solution for them or primarily for the Germans. It is not, by any means, that they have given up the desire to be Europeans, nor that they have completely lost faith in the European Union as an institution and an idea. Nevertheless, it would be unreasonable to expect that these countries would not be uneasy about the direction that Europe was taking. If one wants evidence, look no further than the unease with which Warsaw and Prague are deflecting questions about the eventual date of their entry into the Eurozone. Both are the strongest economies in Central Europe, and neither is enthusiastic about the euro.<br /><br />Finally, there are severe questions as to whether NATO provides a genuine umbrella of security to the region and its members. The NATO strategic concept, which was drawn up in November 2010, generated substantial concern on two scores. First, there was the question of the degree of American commitment to the region, considering that the document sought to expand the alliance’s role in non-European theaters of operation. For example, the Americans pledged a total of one brigade to the defense of Poland in the event of a conflict, far below what Poland thought necessary to protect the North European Plain. Second, the general weakness of European militaries meant that, willingness aside, the ability of the Europeans to participate in defending the region was questionable. Certainly, events in Libya, where NATO had neither a singular political will nor the military participation of most of its members, had to raise doubts. It was not so much the wisdom of going to war but the inability to create a coherent strategy and deploy adequate resources that raised questions of whether NATO would be any more effective in protecting the Visegrad nations.<br /><br />There is another consideration. Germany’s commitment to both NATO and the EU has been fraying. The Germans and the French split on the Libya question, with Germany finally conceding politically but unwilling to send forces. Libya might well be remembered less for the fate of Moammar Gadhafi than for the fact that this was the first significant strategic break between Germany and France in decades. German national strategy has been to remain closely aligned with France in order to create European solidarity and to avoid Franco-German tensions that had roiled Europe since 1871. This had been a centerpiece of German foreign policy, and it was suspended, at least temporarily.<br /><br />The Germans obviously are struggling to shore up the European Union and questioning precisely how far they are prepared to go in doing so. There are strong political forces in Germany questioning the value of the EU to Germany, and with every new wave of financial crises requiring German money, that sentiment becomes stronger. In the meantime, German relations with Russia have become more important to Germany. Apart from German dependence on Russian energy, Germany has investment opportunities in Russia. The relationship with Russia is becoming more attractive to Germany at the same time that the relationship to NATO and the EU has become more problematic.<br /><br />For all of the Visegrad countries, any sense of a growing German alienation from Europe and of a growing German-Russian economic relationship generates warning bells. Before the Belarusian elections there was hope in Poland that pro-Western elements would defeat the least unreformed regime in the former Soviet Union. This didn’t happen. Moreover, pro-Western elements have done nothing to solidify in Moldova or break the now pro-Russian government in Ukraine. Uncertainty about European institutions and NATO, coupled with uncertainty about Germany’s attention, has caused a strategic reconsideration — not to abandon NATO or the EU, of course, nor to confront the Russians, but to prepare for all eventualities.<br /><br />It is in this context that the decision to form a Visegradian battle group must be viewed. Such an independent force, a concept generated by the European Union as a European defense plan, has not generated much enthusiasm or been widely implemented. The only truly robust example of an effective battle group is the Nordic Battle Group, but then that is not surprising. The Nordic countries share the same concerns as the Visegrad countries — the future course of Russian power, the cohesiveness of Europe and the commitment of the United States.<br /><br />In the past, the Visegrad countries would have been loath to undertake anything that felt like a unilateral defense policy. Therefore, the decision to do this is significant in and of itself. It represents a sense of how these countries evaluate the status of NATO, the U.S. attention span, European coherence and Russian power. It is not the battle group itself that is significant but the strategic decision of these powers to form a sub-alliance, if you will, and begin taking responsibility for their own national security. It is not what they expected or wanted to do, but it is significant that they felt compelled to begin moving in this direction.<br /><br />Just as significant is the willingness of Poland to lead this military formation and to take the lead in the grouping as a whole. Poland is the largest of these countries by far and in the least advantageous geographical position. The Poles are trapped between the Germans and the Russians. Historically, when Germany gets close to Russia, Poland tends to suffer. It is not at that extreme point yet, but the Poles do understand the possibilities. In July, the Poles will be assuming the EU presidency in one of the union’s six-month rotations. The Poles have made clear that one of their main priorities will be Europe’s military power. Obviously, little can happen in Europe in six months, but this clearly indicates where Poland’s focus is.<br /><br />The militarization of the V4 runs counter to its original intent but is in keeping with the geopolitical trends in the region. Some will say this is over-reading on my part or an overreaction on the part of the V4, but it is neither. For the V4, the battle group is a modest response to emerging patterns in the region, which STRATFOR had outlined in its 2011 Annual Forecast. As for my reading, I regard the new patterns not as a minor diversion from the main pattern but as a definitive break in the patterns of the post-Cold War world. In my view, the post-Cold War world ended in 2008, with the financial crisis and the Russo-Georgian war. We are in a new era, as yet unnamed, and we are seeing the first breaks in the post-Cold War pattern.<br /><br />I have argued in previous articles and books that there is a divergent interest between the European countries on the periphery of Russia and those farther west, particularly Germany. For the countries on the periphery, there is a perpetual sense of insecurity, generated not only by Russian power compared to their own but also by uncertainty as to whether the rest of Europe would be prepared to defend them in the event of Russian actions. The V4 and the other countries south of them are not as sanguine about Russian intentions as others farther away are. Perhaps they should be, but geopolitical realities drive consciousness and insecurity and distrust defines this region.<br /><br />I had also argued that an alliance only of the four northernmost countries is insufficient. I used the concept “Intermarium,” which had first been raised after World War I by a Polish leader, Joseph Pilsudski, who understood that Germany and the Soviet Union would not be permanently weak and that Poland and the countries liberated from the Hapsburg Empire would have to be able to defend themselves and not have to rely on France or Britain.<br /><br />Pilsudski proposed an alliance stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and encompassing the countries to the west of the Carpathians — Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. In some formulations, this would include Yugoslavia, Finland and the Baltics. The point was that Poland had to have allies, that no one could predict German and Soviet strength and intentions, and that the French and English were too far away to help. The only help Poland could have would be an alliance of geography — countries with no choice.<br /><br />It follows from this that the logical evolution here is the extension of the Visegrad coalition. At the May 12 defense ministers’ meeting, there was discussion of inviting Ukraine to join in. Twenty or even 10 years ago, that would have been a viable option. Ukraine had room to maneuver. But the very thing that makes the V4 battle group necessary — Russian power — limits what Ukraine can do. The Russians are prepared to give Ukraine substantial freedom to maneuver, but that does not include a military alliance with the Visegrad countries.<br /><br />An alliance with Ukraine would provide significant strategic depth. It is unlikely to happen. That means that the alliance must stretch south, to include Romania and Bulgaria. The low-level tension between Hungary and Romania over the status of Hungarians in Romania makes that difficult, but if the Hungarians can live with the Slovaks, they can live with the Romanians. Ultimately, the interesting question is whether Turkey can be persuaded to participate in this, but that is a question far removed from Turkish thinking now. History will have to evolve quite a bit for this to take place. For now, the question is Romania and Bulgaria.<br /><br />But the decision of the V4 to even propose a battle group commanded by Poles is one of those small events that I think will be regarded as a significant turning point. However we might try to trivialize it and place it in a familiar context, it doesn’t fit. It represents a new level of concern over an evolving reality — the power of Russia, the weakness of Europe and the fragmentation of NATO. This is the last thing the Visegrad countries wanted to do, but they have now done the last thing they wanted to do. That is what is significant.<br /><br />Events in the Middle East and Europe’s economy are significant and of immediate importance. However, sometimes it is necessary to recognize things that are not significant yet but will be in 10 years. I believe this is one of those events. It is a punctuation mark in European history.</p><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2"><br />Copyright 2011 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-7054463741711340358?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-84450039926653310012011-05-14T22:43:00.006-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.258-05:00Huckabee announces<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZexBcIv2fC4/Tc9I018GbVI/AAAAAAAAAMs/r28du13DXho/s1600/Huck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="270" width="187" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZexBcIv2fC4/Tc9I018GbVI/AAAAAAAAAMs/r28du13DXho/s400/Huck.jpg" /></a></div><br />"Being president is a job that takes one to the limit of his or her human capacity."<br /><br />"My answer is clear and firm," Huckabee said. "I will not seek the Republican nomination for president this year. I'm going to continue gladly doing what I do."<br /><br />Even Donald Trump had a few words to say. "Your ratings are terrific. You're making a lot of money. You're building a beautiful house in Florida. Good luck," Trump said.<br /><br />Huckabee hosts a show on Fox News, has a syndicated radio program and makes speeches. He has a $2 Million home under construction in Florida. Not long ago he was a Baptist preacher in Hope, Arkansas.<br /><br />Ed Rollins, Republican strategist, supported Mike Huckabee. Rollins chaired Huckabee's 2008 campaign and had been talking with fundraisers about a 2012 Huckabee bid and said it would be difficult to find another opportunity like this.<br /><br />"It was all there for him," Rollins said.<br /><br />Rollins has become widely known for the following quote:<br /><blockquote><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PP5G6Pu5I/AAAAAAAAACA/OPTrS2L5yyQ/s144/quote.gif">You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising budget is big enough. <font face="arial" size="1"><br /> ... ED ROLLINS</blockquote></font>Click the headline to read the full story.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-8445003992665331001?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-66601868839534499972011-04-30T01:57:00.003-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.259-05:00Another word on TrumpI don't get it. I've watched Trump since the beginning. He was smart, pushy and got the job done. His name became an icon. Never mind the various bankruptcies, he continued to survive. He just wouldn't give up. What a man!<br /><br />There was a time when he was within an inch of going totally broke and he just wouldn't accept it. He fought back, worked hard and managed to save a small part of his empire, but most importantly saved his name. Since then he's slowly regained some of what he had.<br /><br />He only owns a tiny sliver of most of the properties which bear his name. But he was able to save the name and sell it. His dad's name.<br /><br />He's become a reality TV star. His pay per show has gone from $50K during its first year to $1.5 million per episode today. Nice work.<br /><br />Celebrity Apprentice. Off issue but sorry I can't watch it. It's just too stupid. I far preferred his first show, Apprentice.<br /><br />So now Trump rolls around the country speaking to little groups, promising he'll announce one day soon whether or not he'll be a candidate for President. He rants against the folks in Washington. My God.<br /><br />President of the United States? Are you kidding me? As much as I love this guy for his never say never attitude, for the fact that he brought himself back from the edge of extinction to a modicum of status, I just can't buy that. Not even close.<br /><br />What I don't get is that he doesn't seem to understand the damage he's doing to his 'brand'. His father's name, now his.<br /><br />Fred Trump was a real developer. A very good one. He left a lot of money to his kids.<br /><br />Meantime, the Donald is now engaged in several businesses. He even sells vitamins.<br /><br />He seems to need to convince people that he is a bigger man than his father. That he is at least worthy of the name.<br /><br />That's not going to work.<br /><br />In any case I'll have to remind him of this:<blockquote><i><br />Do what thy manhood bids thee do,<br />From none but self expect applause;<br />He noblest lives and noblest dies who<br />Makes and keeps his self-made laws.</i><br /><br /><font size="-2">---- SIR RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON</font></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-6660186883953449997?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-62987109019724718842011-04-13T18:27:00.000-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.259-05:00The Final Factor on LibyaFinally, the Libyan rebels need money. NATO nations have frozen a great deal of money formerly controlled by Ghaddafi. The United States alone has frozen $33 billion. It now appears that the players have decided where this money will go.<br /><br />Read it <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/world/africa/14libya.html">here</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-6298710901972471884?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-61602724094313023202011-04-13T17:38:00.000-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.259-05:00Thought for the DaySpeculators, traders, brokers are in control of most of your bank deposits. They are not lenders. Think about this.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-6160272409431302320?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-55207951293794444202011-04-08T19:41:00.002-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.259-05:00Remember ...<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="380" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JU1IMXe8EkI?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-5520795129379444420?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-33007419983237475182011-03-28T22:57:00.002-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.259-05:00Trump?You know all the wannabes come out whenever Obama says something. Trump (The Donald -- quack quack) has declared himself a Republican in recent weeks and so is doing what he now does best under that umbrella. He mouths off. And he's mouthing off about OPEC deciding the price of oil. His implication is that Obama has somehow done something wrong regarding Libya.<br /><br />Ridiculous.<br /><br />The price of oil has been determined for a long time now by speculators. Guys who have way too much Other Peoples Money to 'invest' and who have minimal to no oversight. The quantity of oil traded in the futures market is about seven times the entire global supply. This reminds me of the 'credit default swaps' that were trading in an amount that exceeded the entire world's GDP by a multiple of six. Get real.<br /><br />In any case, Libya produces only 2% of the world's oil supply during any given month. There are a half dozen suppliers who could compensate for the loss of that supply with a two day notice.<br /><br />The Libya trip has to do, above all, with the fact that a very diverse set of nations asked us to intervene. The Arab League and various European nations. Our allies.<br /><br />Libya fronts the Mediterranean Sea. Europe is just across that sea and Arab nations are all around it.<br /><br />This has nothing to do with oil in Libya for the United States. Yes, oil has a modicum of importance for Europe in that Libyan oil exports go to Europe.<br /><br />But the primary reason for our participation in this intervention is that we were asked to do so. How simple.<br /><br />By the way, oil -- on the basis of supply and demand -- should be going for about $40 a barrel.<br /><br />And should my readers miss the comment to this post that I myself wrote, I'll copy it here:<br /><blockquote>I've got to add a little something to this. Trump with all his recent 'birther' comments is making it very clear that, after all is said and done, he is truly a total moron.</blockquote>And yes, there are rich morons.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-3300741998323747518?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-16715561467863226922011-03-28T20:30:00.000-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.260-05:00Obama's Libya SpeechIt was simple and clean and yet covered everything that needed to be covered. Already the cable news people are suggesting that we've just heard "The Obama Doctrine". It has not yet been 30 minutes since the speech.<br /><br />The Obama Doctrine? That we should not work alone in the world?<br /><br />I believe that particular doctrine was, in recent times, first demonstrated by George H. W. Bush in his prosecution of the Gulf War. It was a brilliant success in every way and cost us nothing. The actual financial cost to the United States was reimbursed by all the participants. Every cent.<br /><br />Bill Clinton pursued the same tactic with the Balkans war. United States involvement was requested by a host of European countries and we complied. Costs were shared.<br /><br />Works for me.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-1671556146786322692?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-12503521158778077292011-03-19T20:06:00.000-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.260-05:00The Libyan War of 2011By George Friedman<br /><br />The Libyan war has now begun. It pits a coalition of European powers plus the United States, a handful of Arab states and rebels in Libya against the Libyan government. The long-term goal, unspoken but well understood, is regime change — displacing the government of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and replacing it with a new regime built around the rebels. </p><p>The mission is clearer than the strategy, and that strategy can’t be figured out from the first moves. The strategy might be the imposition of a no-fly zone, the imposition of a no-fly zone and attacks against Libya’s command-and-control centers, or these two plus direct ground attacks on Gadhafi’s forces. These could also be combined with an invasion and occupation of Libya. </p><p>The question, therefore, is not the mission but the strategy to be pursued. How far is the coalition, or at least some of its members, prepared to go to effect regime change and manage the consequences following regime change? How many resources are they prepared to provide and how long are they prepared to fight? It should be remembered that in Iraq and Afghanistan the occupation became the heart of the war, and regime change was merely the opening act. It is possible that the coalition partners haven’t decided on the strategy yet, or may not be in agreement. Let’s therefore consider the first phases of the war, regardless of how far they are prepared to go in pursuit of the mission.</p><p>Like previous wars since 1991, this war began with a very public buildup in which the coalition partners negotiated the basic framework, sought international support and authorization from multinational organizations and mobilized forces. This was done quite publicly because the cost of secrecy (time and possible failure) was not worth what was to be gained: surprise. Surprise matters when the enemy can mobilize resistance. Gadhafi was trapped and has limited military capabilities, so secrecy was unnecessary.</p><p>While all this was going on and before final decisions were made, special operations forces were inserted in Libya on two missions. First, to make contact with insurgent forces to prepare them for coming events, create channels of communications and logistics and create a post-war political framework. The second purpose was to identify targets for attack and conduct reconnaissance of those targets that provided as up-to-date information as possible. This, combined with air and space reconnaissance, served as the foundations of the war. We know British SAS operators were in Libya and suspect other countries’ special operations forces and intelligence services were also operating there.</p><p>War commences with two sets of attacks. The first attacks are decapitation attacks designed to destroy or isolate the national command structure. These may also include strikes designed to kill leaders such as Gadhafi and his sons or other senior leaders. These attacks depend on specific intelligence on facilities, including communications, planning and so on along with detailed information on the location of the leadership. Attacks on buildings are carried out from the air but not particularly with cruise missile because they are especially accurate if the targets are slow, and buildings aren’t going anywhere. At the same time, aircraft are orbiting out of range of air defenses awaiting information on more mobile targets and if such is forthcoming, they come into range and fire appropriate munitions at the target. The type of aircraft used depends on the robustness of the air defenses, the time available prior to attack and the munitions needed. They can range from conventional fighters or stealth strategic aircraft like the U.S. B-2 bomber (if the United States authorized its use). Special operations forces might be on the ground painting the target for laser-guided munitions, which are highly accurate but require illumination.<p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Iu4wMHvQbPs/TYVE2Hth5EI/AAAAAAAAAMk/2F6eQAmKH3E/s1600/MilitaryAssets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="254" width="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Iu4wMHvQbPs/TYVE2Hth5EI/AAAAAAAAAMk/2F6eQAmKH3E/s320/MilitaryAssets.jpg" /></a></div><br />At the same time these attacks are under way, attacks on airfields, fuel storage depots and the like are being targeted to ground the Libyan air force. Air or cruise missile attacks are also being carried out on radars of large and immobile surface-to-air (SAM) missile sites. Simultaneously, “wild weasel” aircraft — aircraft configured for the suppression of enemy air defenses — will be on patrol for more mobile SAM systems to locate and destroy. This becomes a critical part of the conflict. Being mobile, detecting these weapons systems on the ground is complex. They engage when they want to, depending on visual perception of opportunities. Therefore the total elimination of anti-missile systems is in part up to the Libyans. Between mobile systems and man-portable air-defense missiles, the threat to allied aircraft can persist for quite a while even if Gadhafi’s forces might have difficulty shooting anything down.</p><p>This is the part that the United States in particular and the West in general is extremely good at. But it is the beginning of the war. Gadhafi’s primary capabilities are conventional armor and particularly artillery. Destroying his air force and isolating his forces will not by itself win the war. The war is on the ground. The question is the motivation of his troops: If they perceive that surrender is unacceptable or personally catastrophic, they may continue to fight. At that point the coalition must decide if it intends to engage and destroy Gadhafi’s ground forces from the air. This can be done, but it is never a foregone conclusion that it will work. Moreover, this is the phase at which civilian casualties begin to mount. It is a paradox of warfare instigated to end human suffering that the means of achieving this can sometimes impose substantial human suffering itself. This is not merely a theoretical statement. It is at this point at which supporters of the war who want to end suffering may turn on the political leaders for not ending suffering without cost. It should be remembered that Saddam Hussein was loathed universally but those who loathed him were frequently not willing to impose the price of overthrowing him. The Europeans in particular are sensitive to this issue.</p><p>The question then becomes the extent to which this remains an air operation, as Kosovo was, or becomes a ground operation. Kosovo is the ideal, but Gadhafi is not Slobodan Milosevic and he may not feel he has anywhere to go if he surrenders. For him the fight may be existential, whereas for Milosevic it was not. He and his followers may resist. This is the great unknown. The choice here is to maintain air operations for an extended period of time without clear results, or invade. This raises the question of whose troops would invade. Egypt appears ready but there is long animosity between the two countries, and its actions might not be viewed as liberation. The Europeans could do so. It is difficult to imagine Obama adopting a third war in Muslim world as his own. This is where the coalition is really tested.</p><p>If there is an invasion, it is likely to succeed. The question then becomes whether Gadhafi’s forces move into opposition and insurgency. This again depends on morale but also on behavior. The Americans forced an insurgency in Iraq by putting the Baathists into an untenable position. In Afghanistan the Taliban gave up formal power without having been decisively defeated. They regrouped, reformed and returned. It is not known to us what Gadhafi can do or not do. It is clear that it is the major unknown. </p><p>The problem in Iraq was not the special operations forces. It was not in the decapitation strikes or suppression of enemy air defenses. It was not in the defeat of the Iraqi army on the ground. It was in the occupation, when the enemy reformed and imposed an insurgency on the United States that it found extraordinarily difficult to deal with. </p><p>Therefore the successes of the coming day will tell us nothing. Even if Gadhafi surrenders or is killed, even if no invasion is necessary save a small occupation force to aid the insurgents, the possibility of an insurgency is there. We will not know if there will be an insurgency until after it begins. Therefore, the only thing that would be surprising about this phase of the operation is if it failed. </p><p>The decision has been made that the mission is regime change in Libya. The strategic sequence is the routine buildup to war since 1991, this time with a heavier European component. The early days will go extremely well but will not define whether or not the war is successful. The test will come if a war designed to stop human suffering begins to inflict human suffering. That is when the difficult political decisions have to be made and when we will find out whether the strategy, the mission and the political will fully match up.</p><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2"><br />Copyright 2011 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-1250352115877807729?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-33141665281682427232011-03-16T19:26:00.001-04:002011-12-19T16:12:08.260-05:00The Japan LessonJapan is undergoing a huge learning experience which will inevitably help all of us.<br /><br />We are going to learn a lot from this. We need to. We learned something from 3 Mile, we learned something from Chernobyl. But on balance we learned very little. Chernobyl was unique in that it did not have a containment structure so we didn't learn much from that. Our structures all had containment, even the old Mark 1s. So we were kind of smug on that issue.<br /><br />The Japanese problem is unique in that we can identify with it. So we will be able to learn from it.<br /><br />And, no doubt, we have much to learn. I firmly believe that the production of power from nuclear fusion is where we must go in the present time. It's a relatively new science and, relatively speaking, has had little hands-on experience to help guide it. We humans tend to learn from our mistakes and we are on track to learn quite a bit.<br /><br />The Japanese situation is getting worse by the hour and every move made or not made in response to it is input for for all the rest of us.<br /><br />At best we should (and we will) take this problem as brand new input which has been for a long time needed but not supplied. Now we finally have something to analyze so that we can better plan for the future from here, all of us, world wide.<br /><br />The input had not been supplied before because we had already planned around foreseeable problems to the best of our momentary capacity. Our capacity has increased. This event gives us the knowledge to plan better within a larger horizon.<br /><br />If anything this should unite everyone into the effort to get behind nuclear energy. When you have learned something you must use the knowledge.<br /><br />Or, I suppose, you could become a frog or slug or snail. <br /><br />I love to eat snails.<br /><br />There are only two problems with the widespread production of nuclear power (actually, it is already widespread -- I'm talking <i>way</i> more so) and they are -- (a) the upfront cost and (b) how to control the son of a bitch.<br /><br />We are learning about the control aspect right now and good for us! The upfront cost is being slowly ameliorated by inflation and the rising 'cost' of other energy forms. The application of common sense (still slowly evolving) is becoming a positive factor.<br /><br />We humans will build on our experiences as we've always done.<br /><br /><br /><br />Oh yeah.<a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-3314166528168242723?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-42117249963523216942011-02-10T20:56:00.019-05:002011-12-19T16:12:08.283-05:00Hosni Mubarak -- 48 Hours<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HzBa2zGl0eU/TVScL6XyP4I/AAAAAAAAAMc/82YyHKVasJs/s1600/mubarak2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="" height="270" width="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HzBa2zGl0eU/TVScL6XyP4I/AAAAAAAAAMc/82YyHKVasJs/s400/mubarak2.jpg" /></a></div>This moment in Egypt's history might also be an insight into the nature of a man.<br /><br />Hosni Mubarak has made clear in times past that he is a stubborn man. He has said as much. This stubborness may have been a great asset in the past and all evidence suggests that it was.<br /><br />So how does a man's great asset become, suddenly, a liability?<br /><br />When events sweep like the wind past a man's ability to cope, a man attempting to use his most familiar tool may find that particular tool ineffective, that's how.<br /><br />History will treat Hosni Mubarak in a very kind way. He has been a giant in all respects. He is not to be treated lightly, not to be slighted. He is the kind of man many other men would like to be.<br /><br />His declared intention to remove himself from a leadership role in Egypt is obviously a true thing. This should be understood and respected. Whether this transition can happen within a few hours, within a few days, within a fortnight or within a few months remains to be seen.<br /><br />I must say though that the man himself deserves to retire in peace within the country to which he has devoted his entire life.<br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">For the picture thanks to <a href="http://www.shiapost.com">shiapost.com</a><br />No further republication without copyright owner's permission.</font></blockquote></center><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-4211724996352321694?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-8113318510838000852011-02-03T04:51:00.000-05:002011-12-19T16:12:08.283-05:00Why Obama has to get Egypt rightBy George Soros<br />February 3, 2011<br /><br />It's really not possible to say it better than this:<br /><blockquote><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PP5G6Pu5I/AAAAAAAAACA/OPTrS2L5yyQ/s144/quote.gif">Revolutions usually start with enthusiasm and end in tears. In the case of the Middle East, the tears could be avoided if President Obama stands firmly by the values that got him elected. Although American power and influence in the world have declined, our allies and their armies look to us for direction. These armies are strong enough to maintain law and order as long as they stay out of politics; thus the revolutions can remain peaceful. That is what the United States should insist on while encouraging corrupt and repressive rulers who are no longer tolerated by their people to step aside and allow new leaders to be elected in free and fair elections.<br /><br />Some have articulated fears of adverse consequences of free elections, suggesting that the Egyptian military may seek to falsify the results; that Israel may be adamantly opposed to a regime change; that the domino effect of extremist politics spreading to other countries must be avoided; and that the supply of oil from the region could be disrupted. These notions constitute the old conventional wisdom about the Middle East - and need to be changed, lest Washington incorrectly put up resistance to or hesitate in supporting transition in Egypt.<br /><br />The main stumbling block is Israel. In reality, Israel has as much to gain from the spread of democracy in the Middle East as the United States has. But Israel is unlikely to recognize its own best interests because the change is too sudden and carries too many risks. And some U.S. supporters of Israel are more rigid and ideological than Israelis themselves. Fortunately, Obama is not beholden to the religious right, which has carried on a veritable vendetta against him. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is no longer monolithic or the sole representative of the Jewish community. The main danger is that the Obama administration will not adjust its policies quickly enough to the suddenly changed reality.</blockquote><br />Read the rest of it here: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/02/AR2011020206091.html">Soros on Egypt</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-811331851083800085?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-55969170841590046992011-02-03T01:11:00.007-05:002011-12-19T16:12:08.283-05:00The Birth of Democracy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_G2I_mOU2-mQ/TUo7UztNH2I/AAAAAAAAAMU/aslL_kJiVWc/s1600/cairo2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:"><img border="2" height="190" width="260" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_G2I_mOU2-mQ/TUo7UztNH2I/AAAAAAAAAMU/aslL_kJiVWc/s400/cairo2011.jpg" /></a></div>We are watching the birth of democracy in the Middle East. True democracy. We are not watching the invasion of Egypt by a foreign army and the destruction of its country. We are watching the people, as a whole unit, stand up and say 'Now's the time. Right now.'<br /><br />These people are winning. They have gained the attention of the entire world including, of course, that of the leadership of other Middle Eastern countries.<br /><br />We in the United States have spoken of exporting democracy for quite a while now. OK. It's happening. We'd best get behind it and appreciate the fact that our own revolution, and that of the French, certainly set the stage and certainly set the markers and the benchmarks and the guidelines which describe exactly how this is done.<br /><br />The Egyptian people are following our guidebooks to the letter.<br /><br />They will succeed. No doubt about it.<br /><br />The beauty of this is that we are now standing here with our jawbones bouncing off our kneecaps saying how the hell did we miss this.<br /><br />Because we weren't paying attention. That's how we missed it. These people in Egypt and inevitably around the rest of the Middle East, they are not watching us. They are watching our founders. They are watching the people who founded the United States of America. Can we wrap our tired minds around this?<br /><br />I sincerely hope so. If not we'll wonder what the hell happened and why we are left out.<br /><br /><blockquote><i>One of my favorite reads is <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">Stratfor.com</a>. For example, just a few days ago they wrote the following (these paragraphs are widely spaced excerpts):<br /></i><blockquote><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PP5G6Pu5I/AAAAAAAAACA/OPTrS2L5yyQ/s144/quote.gif">Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak remains the lifeblood of the demonstrators, who still number in the tens of thousands in downtown Cairo and in other major cities, albeit on a lesser scale. After being overwhelmed in the Jan. 28 Day of Rage protests, Egypt’s internal security forces — with the anti-riot paramilitaries of the Central Security Forces (CSF) at the forefront — were glaringly absent from the streets Jan. 29. They were replaced with rows of tanks and armored personnel carriers carrying regular army soldiers. Unlike their CSF counterparts, the demonstrators demanding Mubarak’s exit from the political scene largely welcomed the soldiers. Despite Mubarak’s refusal to step down Jan. 28, the public’s positive perception of the military, seen as the only real gateway to a post-Mubarak Egypt, remained.<br /><br />The United States, Israel and others will thus be doing what they can behind the scenes to shape the new order in Cairo, but they face limitations in trying to preserve a regional stability that has existed since 1978. The fate of Egypt lies in the ability of the military not only to manage the streets and the politicians, but also itself.</blockquote></blockquote><br />In any case, I'm betting on the Egyptian people.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">For part of this, and the picture taken by PETER MACDIARMID/Getty Images:<br />Copyright 2011 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-5596917084159004699?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-72040079009232808672011-01-18T20:45:00.002-05:002011-12-19T16:12:08.283-05:00On Children and Guns<p><div style="clear:both;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_G2I_mOU2-mQ/TTOXLtlJ3yI/AAAAAAAAAMI/SlWA5-Sb32o/s1600/wes2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="291" width="233" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_G2I_mOU2-mQ/TTOXLtlJ3yI/AAAAAAAAAMI/SlWA5-Sb32o/s400/wes2.jpg" /></a></div>Still true, eleven years later.<br /><br />"K" posted a query/comment filled to the brim with one of the most haunting issues of our age. I first read it late in the evening before I attended a birthday party for my own much loved, now four year old, grandson. I considered it too important to answer under pressure from the alarm clock, and decided to save it till now. I didn't sleep well that night. This issue was with me all night and when I showed at the party I must have looked like a man lost in the woods for a month.<br /><br />Let me start with this: I'm 55 and have sons, daughters and grand-kids. I'm a good shot, experienced, and capable with either pistol or rifle over almost any range.<br /><br />I've shot exactly one living thing in my life. I was 11 and shot a bird on a power line with my new BB gun. The bird struggled to fly away, finally dropping within my view. It struggled to breath for a while, fluttering its wings. The bird was the first and last living thing I ever aimed at.<br /><br />I can't wait to tell this story to my grandson, as I have to my sons. The memory has stayed with me in order to be told.<br /><br />To shoot a living being for sport is not good -- for me. This is not to say it isn't good, just that it isn't good for me. Those I love should understand every side of this.<br /><br />I've never hunted but have fished many, many times for food -- starting as a boy. In Florida I'd bring home dinner for 3 or 4 two or three times a week. The fish had exactly the same trauma and will to live as the bird but I was looking for food and was willing to kill. Today there are countless fishermen who fish for sport. They'll unhook the fish, gently, and ease it back into the water. I can't do that. Why should the fish have this nightmare?<br /><br />Hunting "game" animals for sport has its place in today's over-populated world. Humans procreate damn near as fast as bugs or rabbits. Wild animals lose their homesteads by the day and are shot as a means to preempt the slower death ... starvation. In this sense sports hunting has its dark place.<br /><br />Though I never have, I would hunt - and kill - for food, if required. I'd personally skin and cut the animal whose life I had taken. I would eat or use every molecule of the precious life I was destined/enabled to absorb. He or she would be my friend. We will have lived and served, with honor, the great unrelenting stream.<br /><br />Before the invasion American Indians lived as a part of the dying process -- and paid homage to their fellow creatures as they were absorbed.<br /><br />Having said all that I am not prepared to cast a final stone in regard to what about our sons right now. I would take the words above to make sure the kid gets the full picture. But I would submit the following as well.<br /><br />There is a social aspect.<br /><br />When my oldest son, now near 16, was 10 I bought him a BB gun, BBS, and a target. I taught him hour after hour the safe way to handle a rifle (and later - a pistol, also BB.) I mean it was drilled. I also taught him how to aim, and reach the "bulls-eye". We shot only the targets, and no other use was permitted, or even considered seriously. I told him the bird story and more.<br /><br />I did all this because I knew that sooner or later he'd run into a situation where he'd be introduced to a gun and be expected to handle it. I did not want him to have a short hand in a fast game, or to be forced outside. He was a willing, but not easy, student. For some reason getting his eyes to focus correctly was problematic and was never resolved completely. But he did learn, absolutely learn, the tenets of safety and principal.<br /><br />A few years later he was a guest at his older sister's home and was invited by her husband to go hunting. They lived at a place where hunting and eating game animals was a part of a day's work. From a tree my son - having been unceremoniously handed the rifle as only an in-law can do - shot dead a duck from 150 feet with one shot from a .22. To this day my daughter's husband, dumbstruck then, says that's the finest shot he's ever seen.<br /><br />Jerry, my son-in-law, retrieved and saved the duck thinking I'd want to stuff it for my son's trophy shelf. No. Though I didn't respond in such a way as to criticize Jerry's thinking, I never really responded. Months later he threw the body away, wasted entirely.<br /><br />But I would not have denied my son the supreme feeling he gained by rising to that occasion, rather unexpectedly too.<br /><br />I've taken cruises on ships in the past and one of the funnest things to do on an otherwise uneventful, perhaps boring day is to shoot "skeet" off the stern. At the very rear end of the boat there's a sling that propels clay disks into the retreating wind and folks aim shotguns and try to blow them apart. Yes, perhaps there's a leftover here from war days or from the days of Theodore Roosevelt (whose happiest ambition was to shoot game animals) but it is now a social thing. I'd want my son, and my grandson, to be able to participate without embarrassment.<br /><br />Mostly, I want my sons and grandsons to confidently participate in all the events thrown at them, knowing full well that they can, while knowing also that some of them are very poorly grounded, and why.<br /><br />The larger issue is about the gun. The gun exists.<br /><br />From cowboy days boys have been fascinated by guns. At 9 I found a blank gun hidden deeply within my mother's private space. Nine year old boys can find anything. Later, she explained that a yo-yo had given it to her at a party where he had pulled it out and shot it, deafening everyone, and especially her. She was highly pissed and the man, the yo-yo, gave it to her in retribution. At 9 I showed it to all my friends and a few parents. No, I wasn't arrested but calls to my mother were made.<br /><br />That same year I decided I was part Indian, if not entirely, and said so to whoever would listen. I also found (again -- looking deep) some of my long lost father's Air Force things and wore them around the neighborhood. Boys for sure explore, and some girls do too. My point is that I want a kid to explore with as full a deck as can be provided.<br /><br />The kid will be provided the challenge. The idea is to prepare the kid.<br /><br />Yes, Batman. Not only my favorite hero long ago, but still today. I liked (like) Superman, too. Clean as a pin. Nice guy. No guns. Plastic Man, Spider-man, Mighty Mouse, Wonder Woman, and countless others - no guns.<br /><br />Not one of them uses a gun.<br /><br />K's theory on guns ("when they are mature enough to know what guns do ...") and "-- to each his own --" is almost sound. But it is not sound. "They" are going to be exposed. Someone is going to hand them a gun someday, or try to. At that moment in time your kid needs to know the truth and exactly how to handle it.<br /><br />The idea is to prepare the kid. Your way.<br /><br />Yes, it is a "necessary item for them to get acquainted with" -- so that the idea of using it in a negative way is not an option.<br /><br />As a boy I was privileged to have been taught by the NRA - National Rifle Association - how to shoot, and how to respect the rifle/gun in my hands. This was a long time ago when they were into teaching, not lobbying. I was aggressive and looked them up, then joined. I bicycled to the range twice a week.<br /><br />At 12-13 I became an expert shot and an avowed safety aficionado. I was on their junior rifle team. They provided the single shot .22 rifles and all equipment. I was enabled to, later, be a member of the Georgia Military Academy Rifle Team (11th grade) and, later, in the Army ... well, the experience served me well.<br /><br />Now I have a grandson, newly four, who needs to know as much as he can know. He has a good mind and soul, and needs to be able to walk in today's world with a full deck, confidently, and in as full possession of truth as is possible.<br /><br />My youngest son has a close friend whose mother will not allow him to ride a bicycle. She is afraid for what might happen to him. He is 10 years old now and has never ridden a bicycle. He doesn't know what it is good for, or bad for. When I take my son there occasionally, to spend a half day or so, I caution him not to mention the bicycle thing (my kid is an avid and capable rider who knows how to be safe) but am I doing the right thing? Perhaps I should insist on teaching her kid how to ride safely. Perhaps I should seriously insist, and even supply the bike. Maybe it would open a new dimension for the boy, or save him from untold embarrassment or worse, later.<br /><br />My theory, I suppose, is that those under my tutelage should know the "availables" as soon as they are capable of absorbing them, along with my view of what makes them relevant, manageable, and meaningful. I'd prefer that a kid didn't have to walk into a wall face-up, or a pit.<br /><br />In any case, I can tell my bird story well enough to break a kid's heart and, without another word or action, inform the kid about ... guns ... and life and death.<br /><br />My theory on guns is not "to each his own". It is to teach the full story. This applies to every other "weapon" as well -- bow and arrow, blow gun, sling shot, fist, words .. you name it.<br /><br />As I run off at the mouth here, I must say that some of the Oriental disciplines -- Karate, for example -- teach cleanly that an ability to hurt is no justification for doing so.<br /><br />Reading over K's own words, though: "Or is it, with this day and age, a necessary item for them to get acquainted with for when they mature?"<br /><br />Yes. And not only for this day and age. For all days and ages before us. It has always been necessary.<br /><br />And the time, gently, is now.<br /><br />As an aside, I've been preparing a hiking stick for my grandson. Well into it, I realized the wood I was working on was imperfect, not safe or durable. It is a boy I am talking about. When he goes to hike, and needs a stick to cross a treacherous stream, I want him to have, first time out, something he can lean on against the slope. I'm making another for him and it is filled - stiff, flexible, durable - with all that I know.<br /><br />Another day, another challenge.</br><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-7204007900923280867?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-14526198997434024542010-11-17T23:35:00.002-05:002011-12-19T16:10:26.637-05:00Welcome to the White House, 1932<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_G2I_mOU2-mQ/TOStAO4wMVI/AAAAAAAAAL4/iCMCjVe1wVk/s1600/1932.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" ox="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_G2I_mOU2-mQ/TOStAO4wMVI/AAAAAAAAAL4/iCMCjVe1wVk/s320/1932.gif" width="295" /></a></div><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img alt="make or read comments" src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" /></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-small;">COMMENTS</span></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" height="16" src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" width="16" /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-small;">NEWSVINE</span></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-1452619899743402454?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-2249217482109133252010-11-17T23:17:00.001-05:002010-11-17T23:20:04.667-05:00Prosperity in 1913<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_G2I_mOU2-mQ/TOSobWZ15rI/AAAAAAAAAL0/maZWMr5n3tA/s1600/prosperity1913.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" ox="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_G2I_mOU2-mQ/TOSobWZ15rI/AAAAAAAAAL0/maZWMr5n3tA/s320/prosperity1913.gif" width="255" /></a></div><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img alt="make or read comments" src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" /></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-small;">COMMENTS</span></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" height="16" src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" width="16" /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-small;">NEWSVINE</span></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-224921748210913325?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-22239022862906274072010-11-10T17:18:00.000-05:002010-11-10T17:18:02.818-05:00A short story on water boarding<object width="400" height="325"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qUkj9pjx3H0?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qUkj9pjx3H0?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="325"></embed></object><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-2223902286290627407?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-6984248450273778542010-10-15T17:03:00.009-04:002010-10-15T17:40:26.655-04:00A Personal MessageIt's Fall. The weather is beautiful. And so are you.<br /><br /><object width="410" height="300"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-ZJDNSp1QJA&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-ZJDNSp1QJA&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="410" height="300"></embed></object><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-698424845027377854?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-30568250891869410822010-09-24T17:22:00.005-04:002010-10-08T20:34:59.365-04:00Give me a Break!A Word to the Would Be Wise<br /><br />It's been a while since I've spoken to you directly. Instead I've chosen to re-publish articles written by others who made some acute observations and some very succint points. I've respected the observations, agreed with the points and, with permission, republished.<br /><br />But now as we become mired in the mid-term election hoopla wherein within weeks enough pure crap is bandied about to satisfy an ordinary country's need for bullshit for a decade, I feel the need to speak.<br /><br />First, I must remind you that I am a pure, unaldulerated capitalist and, if you will, a sovereign individual. I've never been a member of any political 'party' and have zero interest in becoming one.<br /><br />I've visited several places around the world and have lived all over the United States. I am fully aware of the fact that I can live in any country I wish to live in. I choose the United States.<br /><br />The United States is not an ordinary country.<br /><br />So what does this have to do with the mid-term election hoopla?<br /><br />This -- right now, for this moment, I support the Obama administration without reservation, and also the Democratic Party and everything it is trying to do, without reservation.<br /><br />Remember this: the 98% of the country who are not among the top 2% of the country work for, in one way or another, the top 2%. There is no question about this. The 98% are either employed by or buy the products and services of the top 2%. Without the 98% there would be no 2%.<br /><br />What the smart ones among the 2% do is take care of their people, take care of their market. Like Henry Ford who massively increased the compensation paid to his assembly line employees (over what they could have earned at a competitor) while reasoning that he wanted the Ford employees to be able to buy a Ford. How simple can it get?<br /><br />The idea here is that we have to take care of our country. The country consists of the 98% plus those pesky two percenters. Keep this in mind: we must take care of our country, and right now our country's bank account is severely overdrawn.<br /><br />My entire adult life (which started when I was eighteen) I've been a part of the two percent, and the vast majority of that time the top one percent. I've employed many people. But never have I resisted the call of my country. It needed people in the Army? I went. It needed tax dollars? The check's in the mail.<br /><br />Our country's finances have bellied up over the past ten years. We brought on two wars, a massive tax cut and an $18 Trillion Dollar gift to the pharmaceutical industry via the Medicare Part D program, not a single cent of which was paid for. What the hell were they thinking?<br /><br />Our government now is dealing with these problems and is trying to lessen them, trying to ameliorate them. Trying to make them become an unremembered slice of bad history. This government has my unaldulterated support. Anybody worth a damn has to feel the same way.<br /><br />By the way, I'm all for the "Tea Party". They are excising, one after another, some of the fiscally irresponsible 'bad guys'. Way to go!<br /><br />Having said that, it is amazing to me that so few people understand that the Democrats are far superior to Republicans when it comes to running the economy. I mean if people would simply google such search terms as 'government employment' to discover that under Republican administrations government employment escalates while under Democratic administration it declines. Or google 'government debt annual' (or some such words) and discover that government debt always heads straight up under Republican administrations while it slows massively during Democratic administrations. There's no contest! Look at 'jobs created annual' or 'annual employment' and see in clear terms that Democratic administrations create many, many more jobs than Rebublican administrations. Spend a little time on the Bureau of Labor Statistics site (bls.gov).<br /><br />Get serious. I can't believe that everyone doesn't know this. Doesn't anyone do any homework before voting?<br /><br />This tax issue now roiling around the country and congress is absurd. We need to raise money. This ten year tax cut the Bush administration put into effect is going to expire in December. We should let it expire. Every cent of it. That'll make a $400 Billion annual difference in our deficit. Oh sure -- we'll still have a $600 Billion annual deficit and most of that will be due to the interest we have to pay on our debt.<br /><br />I'm not going down on Reagan here (I liked him - who didn't) but that dude tripled our national debt. Tripled! Then Bush Jr doubled the national debt. More than 70 percent of the national debt of the United States which has been accumulated over 225 years are traceable directly to the Reagan and Bush administrations.<br /><br />Give me a break!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-3056825089186941082?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-8406172064364853892010-09-15T15:08:00.005-04:002010-09-17T08:05:51.033-04:00Some Wise ObservationsDuring my daily reading I run across a great deal of good writing along with some not so good writing. This particular article got my attention from the start and kept me focused to the end. In the write-up entitled <i>The Aftermath Of The U.S. Withdrawal From Iraq</i> Hasan Kanbolat made some observations which could enlighten any interested reader. It comes from <i>Turkish Press</i> which for me has now become a regular stop.<br /><br />Check this out:<blockquote><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PP5G6Pu5I/AAAAAAAAACA/OPTrS2L5yyQ/s144/quote.gif">Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the US was not familiar with the Middle East and the Arab world. It attempted to familiarize itself with the region through diplomats and Israel’s looking glass. Along with the occupation of Iraq, US military forces in particular were able to gain experience in dealing with the Middle East and the Arab world. This situation makes us think that the US may make radical changes in favor of Arabs, without neglecting Israel in its Middle Eastern politics.</blockquote>Now that was just a sliver of one viewpoint from Turkey, a friend and major presence in the Middle East, a neighbor of Iraq, a heartbeat from the European Union and an ally of both the West and the East in every meaningful way.<br /><br />Read up. Click the headline for the full story.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-840617206436485389?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-85823081805413674862010-09-05T17:00:00.002-04:002010-09-05T17:22:44.570-04:00Afghanistan and the War LegendBy Robert W. Merry<br /><br />U.S. President Barack Obama’s Aug. 31 Oval Office speech on the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq had many purposes: to claim a measure of credit for largely fulfilling one of his major campaign promises; to thank those who have served and sacrificed in the cause; to spread the balm of unity over any lingering domestic wounds; to assure Americans that it has all been worth it and that no dishonor was attached to this foreign adventure, which was opposed by many in Obama’s own party and by him from the beginning.<br /><br />Of all those purposes, and any others that might have been conceived, the need to express assurance of the war’s validity — and honor in its outcome — is by far the most important. Any national leader must protect and nurture the legend of any war over which he presides, even those — actually, particularly those — he has brought to a close. The people need to feel that the sacrifice in blood and treasure was worth it, that the mission’s rationale still makes sense, that the nation’s standing and prestige remain intact. <br /><br />In terms of America, nothing illustrates this more starkly than the Vietnam experience. This was a war that emerged quite naturally out of a foreign policy outlook, “containment,” that had shaped American behavior in the world for nearly two decades and would continue to shape it for another two decades. Hence, one could argue that the Vietnam War was a noble effort entirely consistent with a policy that eventually proved brilliantly successful. But the national pain of defeat in that war spawned an entirely different legend — that it was a huge mistake and a tragic loss of life for no defensible purpose. The impact of that legend upon the national consciousness could be seen for decades — in war-powers battles between the president and Congress, in a halting defense posture often attributed to what was called the “Vietnam Syndrome,” in the lingering civic hostility engendered when the subject emerged among fellow citizens, in the flow of tears shed daily at Washington’s Vietnam Memorial. <br /><br />So the presidential responsibility for the legend of war is no trivial matter when young Americans begin returning home in body bags. A wise president will keep it well established in his mind in selling a war, in prosecuting it and eventually in explaining it at its conclusion. <br /><br />This important presidential function posed two particular challenges for Obama during his Oval Office speech: First, his past opposition to the war in Iraq created a danger that he might appear insincere or artificial in his expressions, and second, it isn’t entirely clear that the legend can hold up, that the stated rationale for the war really withstands serious scrutiny. Yes, America did depose Saddam Hussein and his regime. But the broader aims of the war — to establish a stable, pro-Western regime in the country and thus maintain a geopolitical counterweight to the regional ambitions of Iran — remain unfulfilled. The president handled the first challenge with aplomb, hailing the war’s outcome (so far) while avoiding the political schisms that it bred and delivering expressions of appreciation and respect for his erstwhile adversaries on the issue. Whether he succeeds in the second challenge likely will depend upon events in Iraq, where 50,000 American troops remain to support Iraqi security forces and help maintain stability.<br /><br />But Obama’s effort to preserve the war’s legend, which was ribboned throughout his speech, raises the specter of an even greater challenge of preserving the legend of a different war — the war in Afghanistan, which Obama says will begin to wind down for America in July of next year. It remains a very open question whether events will unfold in that nettlesome conflict in such a way as to allow for a reassuring legend when the troops come home. That open question is particularly stark given the fundamental reality that America is not going to bring about a victory in Afghanistan in any conventional sense. The Taliban insurgency that the United States is trying to subdue with its counterinsurgency effort is not going to go away and, indeed, the Taliban will likely have to be part of any accommodation that can precede America’s withdrawal.<br /><br />Thus, the Obama administration has become increasingly focused on what some involved in war planning call “the endgame.” By that, they mean essentially a strategy for extricating the country from Afghanistan while preserving a reasonable level of stability in that troubled land; minimizing damage to American interests; and maintaining a credible legend of the war that is reassuring to the American people. That’s a tall order, and it isn’t clear whether the nearly 150,000 U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan, under U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, can affect the magnitude of the challenge one way or another. <br /><br />Very quietly, top officials of the Obama administration have initiated a number of reviews inspecting every aspect of this endgame challenge. Some involve influential outside experts with extensive governmental experience in past administrations, and they are working with officials at the highest levels of the government, including the Pentagon. One review group has sent members to Russia for extensive conversations with officials who were involved in the Soviet Union’s ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Others have traveled to Pakistan and other lands, including the United Kingdom, Germany and France, to master the diplomatic implications of any Afghan exit strategy. <br /><br />It’s too early to determine just what impact these review groups will have on administration thinking, which appears to remain in a state of development. But it can be said that at least some of these outside experts are pressing hard for an endgame approach that moves beyond some earlier thinking about the war and its rationale. For example: <br /><ul><br /><li>The need to involve Afghanistan’s neighbors in any accommodation that would allow for at least a reasonably graceful American exit. In addition to next-door Pakistan, these likely would include Russia, India and perhaps even Iran. All have a stake in Afghan stability, and all have their own particular interests there. Hence, the diplomatic game will be extremely difficult. But it is worth noting that during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Russia served as a facilitator of U.S. cooperation with the northern ethnic tribes, and Russians even provided personnel and vehicles to America’s Northern Alliance allies. Iran also helped facilitate the invasion by suggesting security for American pilots faced with ditching over Iranian territory.</li><br /><li>The necessity of working with local power centers and finding a way of developing a productive discussion with the different ethnic groups that need to be part of the Afghan endgame. How to do that reportedly was one question posed to Russian officials who were involved in the Soviet Union’s Afghan experience and who had to deal with insurgent leaders on the way out.</li><br /><li>A probable requirement that the United States relinquish any hope that a strong central government in Kabul will form and bring about stability in the country. Afghanistan has never had a strong central government, and the various ethnic and religious groups, local warlords, tribes and khans aren’t going to submit to any broad national authority. Their mountainous homeland for centuries has afforded them plenty of protection from any invading force, and that isn’t going to change.</li><br /><li>A probable need to explore a national system with a traditionally weak central government and strong provincial actors with considerable sway over their particular territories.</li></ul> <br />Underlying all this is a strong view that the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force cannot impose an endgame. The Taliban are not going to submit to U.S. blandishments for negotiation as a result of any fear of what will happen to them if they don’t. That’s because they are winning and possess the arms, wiles, knowledge of terrain and people and insurgency skills to keep on winning, irrespective of what Petraeus does to thwart them. Besides, the tribes of Afghanistan have demonstrated through the centuries that they have the patience to outlast any invader.<br /><br />If the Taliban won’t negotiate out of fear of what the U.S. military can do to them, the question becomes whether they will negotiate out of a sense of opportunity — as a means of bringing about the U.S. exit that American government officials increasingly seem to want as well. There are indications the Taliban might be interested in participating in such a negotiated American exit, perhaps in exchange for some kind of international recognition. At this point, however, there is no firm evidence that such an approach could prove fruitful, and hence this question remains one of the great imponderables hovering over America’s presence in Afghanistan. <br /><br />But, if that does prove possible, the question of America’s war legend will loom very large indeed. Those involved in the review groups reportedly are well aware that the nature of the U.S. departure will inform the legend, and they are intent on crafting an outcome that will honor America’s Afghanistan war dead and U.S. war veterans. In other words, in this view, there must remain a narrative that explains why America was there, what was accomplished, and why the departure was undertaken when it was. It must resonate throughout the nation and must be credible.<br /><br />This poses another fundamental question: Is there an inherent inconsistency between the outlook emerging from these governmental review groups and the recent pronouncements of Petraeus? Many of the review-group participants seem to be working toward what might be called a “graceful exit” from Afghanistan. Yet Petraeus told The New York Times on Aug. 15 that he does not see his mission in such small terms as a “graceful exit.” Rather, he said his marching orders were to do “all that is humanly possible to help us achieve our objectives.” By “our objectives,” he seemed to mean establishing, through military force, a sufficient degree of stability in the country to allow a negotiated exit on American terms, with his Iraq record serving as the model. Even if that is possible, it certainly will take considerable time. The general made clear in the Times interview and in others that he fully intended to press Obama hard to delay any serious troop withdrawal from Afghanistan until well beyond the July 2011 time frame put forth by the president. <br /><br />Thus, the nature and pace of withdrawal becomes another big question hovering over the president’s war strategy. Many high-ranking administration officials, including the president, have said the pace of withdrawal will depend upon “conditions on the ground” when July 2011 arrives. Obama repeated that conditional expression in his Iraq speech the other night. But that leaves a lot of room for maneuver — and a lot of room for debate within the administration. The reason for delaying a full withdrawal would be to try to apply further military pressure to force the Taliban to become less resistant. That goal seems to be what’s animating Petraeus. But others, including some involved in the review groups, don’t see much prospect of that actually happening. Thus, they see no reason for much of a withdrawal delay beyond the president’s July deadline — particularly given the need to preserve the country’s war legend. The danger, as some see it, is that an effort to force an outcome through military action, given the unlikely prospect of that, could increase the chances of a traditional military defeat, much like the one suffered by the Soviets in the 1980s and by the British in two brutal military debacles during the 19th century. <br /><br />Many of the experts involved in the Afghanistan review effort see a link between the departure of U.S. combat troops from Iraq, as described by Obama in his Oval Office speech, and the imperative to fashion an Afghanistan exit that offers a war legend at least as comforting to the American people. Certainly, the importance of the war legend was manifest in Obama’s Iraq speech. First, he repeatedly praised the valor and commitment of America’s men and women in uniform. Even in turning to the need to fix the country’s economic difficulties, he invoked these U.S. military personnel again by saying “we must tackle those challenges at home with as much energy, and grit, and sense of common purpose as our men and women in uniform who have served abroad.” He expressed a resolve to honor their commitment by serving “our veterans as well as they have served us” through the Department of Veterans Affairs, emphasizing medical care and the G.I. Bill. And he drew an evocative word picture of America’s final combat brigade in Iraq — the Army’s 4th Stryker Brigade — journeying toward Kuwait on their way home in the predawn darkness. Many Americans will recall some of these young men, extending themselves from the backs of convoy trucks and yelling into television cameras and lights, “We won! We’re going home! We won the war!”<br /><br />But, as Obama noted in his speech, this is “an age without surrender ceremonies.” It’s also an age without victory parades. As he said, “we must earn victory through the success of our partners and the strength of our own nation.” That’s a bit vague, though, and that’s why Obama’s speech laid out the elements of the Iraq success in terms that seemed pretty much identical to what George W. Bush would have said. We succeeded in toppling Saddam Hussein. We nurtured an Iraqi effort to craft a democratic structure. After considerable bloodshed, we managed to foster a reasonable amount of civic stability in the country so the Iraqi people can continue their halting pursuit of their own destiny. Thus, said the president, “This completes a transition to Iraqi responsibility for their own security.” He added, “Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it’s time to turn the page.”<br /><br />That’s probably enough of a legend to fortify the good feelings of those young men yelling of victory from the backs of Stryker Brigade vehicles on the way out of Iraq. But getting to even that degree of a war legend in Afghanistan will be far more difficult. And, as the endgame looms in that distant land, the administration will have to grapple not only with how to prosecute the war and foster a safe exit but also with how to preserve a suitable legend for that war once the shooting stops.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2"><a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100903_afghanistan_and_war_legend">Afghanistan and the War Legend</a> is republished with permission of STRATFOR.</font></blockquote></center><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-8582308180541367486?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-87084252577833837412010-08-07T20:47:00.007-04:002010-08-11T20:10:43.616-04:00The Borderlands and the U.S. - Mexico WarBy George Friedman<br /><br />Arizona’s new law on illegal immigration went into effect last week, albeit severely limited by a federal court ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court undoubtedly will settle the matter, which may also trigger federal regulations. However that turns out, the entire issue cannot simply be seen as an internal American legal matter. More broadly, it forms part of the relations between the United States and Mexico, two sovereign nation-states whose internal dynamics and interests are leading them into an era of increasing tension. Arizona and the entire immigration issue have to be viewed in this broader context.<br /><br />Until the Mexican-American War, it was not clear whether the dominant power in North America would have its capital in Washington or Mexico City. Mexico was the older society with a substantially larger military. The United States, having been founded east of the Appalachian Mountains, had been a weak and vulnerable country. At its founding, it lacked strategic depth and adequate north-south transportation routes. The ability of one colony to support another in the event of war was limited. More important, the United States had the most vulnerable of economies: It was heavily dependent on maritime exports and lacked a navy able to protect its sea-lanes against more powerful European powers like England and Spain. The War of 1812 showed the deep weakness of the United States. By contrast, Mexico had greater strategic depth and less dependence on exports.<br /><br /><b>The Centrality of New Orleans</b><br /><br />The American solution to this strategic weakness was to expand the United States west of the Appalachians, first into the Northwest Territory ceded to the United States by the United Kingdom and then into the Louisiana Purchase, which Thomas Jefferson ordered bought from France. These two territories gave the United States both strategic depth and a new economic foundation. The regions could support agriculture that produced more than the farmers could consume. Using the Ohio-Missouri-Mississippi river system, products could be shipped south to New Orleans. New Orleans was the farthest point south to which flat-bottomed barges from the north could go, and the farthest inland that oceangoing ships could travel. New Orleans became the single most strategic point in North America. Whoever controlled it controlled the agricultural system developing between the Appalachians and the Rockies. During the War of 1812, the British tried to seize New Orleans, but forces led by Andrew Jackson defeated them in a battle fought after the war itself was completed.<br /><br />Jackson understood the importance of New Orleans to the United States. He also understood that the main threat to New Orleans came from Mexico. The U.S.-Mexican border then stood on the Sabine River, which divides today’s Texas from Louisiana. It was about 200 miles from that border to New Orleans and, at its narrowest point, a little more than 100 miles from the Sabine to the Mississippi.<br /><br />Mexico therefore represented a fundamental threat to the United States. In response, Jackson authorized a covert operation under Sam Houston to foment an uprising among American settlers in the Mexican department of Texas with the aim of pushing Mexico farther west. With its larger army, a Mexican thrust to the Mississippi was not impossible — nor something the Mexicans would necessarily avoid, as the rising United States threatened Mexican national security.<br /><br />Mexico’s strategic problem was the geography south of the Rio Grande (known in Mexico as the Rio Bravo). This territory consisted of desert and mountains. Settling this area with large populations was impossible. Moving through it was difficult. As a result, Texas was very lightly settled with Mexicans, prompting Mexico initially to encourage Americans to settle there. Once a rising was fomented among the Americans, it took time and enormous effort to send a Mexican army into Texas. When it arrived, it was weary from the journey and short of supplies. The insurgents were defeated at the Alamo and Goliad, but as the Mexicans pushed their line east toward the Mississippi, they were defeated at San Jacinto, near present-day Houston. <br /><br />The creation of an independent Texas served American interests, relieving the threat to New Orleans and weakening Mexico. The final blow was delivered under President James K. Polk during the Mexican-American War, which (after the Gadsden Purchase) resulted in the modern U.S.-Mexican border. That war severely weakened both the Mexican army and Mexico City, which spent roughly the rest of the century stabilizing Mexico’s original political order. <br /><br /><b>A Temporary Resolution</b><br /><br />The U.S. defeat of Mexico settled the issue of the relative power of Mexico and the United States but did not permanently resolve the region’s status; that remained a matter of national power and will. The United States had the same problem with much of the Southwest (aside from California) that Mexico had: It was a relatively unattractive place economically, given that so much of it was inhospitable. The region experienced chronic labor shortages, relatively minor at first but accelerating over time. The acquisition of relatively low-cost labor became one of the drivers of the region’s economy, and the nearest available labor pool was Mexico. An accelerating population movement out of Mexico and into the territory the United States seized from Mexico paralleled the region’s accelerating economic growth. <br /><br />The United States and Mexico both saw this as mutually beneficial. From the American point of view, there was a perpetual shortage of low-cost, low-end labor in the region. From the Mexican point of view, Mexico had a population surplus that the Mexican economy could not readily metabolize. The inclination of the United States to pull labor north was thus matched by the inclination of Mexico to push that labor north. <br /><br />The Mexican government built its social policy around the idea of exporting surplus labor — and as important, using remittances from immigrants to stabilize the Mexican economy. The U.S. government, however, wanted an outcome that was illegal under U.S. law. At times, the federal government made exceptions to the law. When it lacked the political ability to change the law, the United States put limits on the resources needed to enforce the law. The rest of the country didn’t notice this process while the former Mexican borderlands benefited from it economically. There were costs to the United States in this immigrant movement, in health care, education and other areas, but business interests saw these as minor costs while Washington saw them as costs to be borne by the states.<br /><br />Three fault lines emerged in United States on the topic. One was between the business classes, which benefited directly from the flow of immigrants and could shift the cost of immigration to other social sectors, and those who did not enjoy those benefits. The second lay between the federal government, which saw the costs as trivial, and the states, which saw them as intensifying over time. And third, there were tensions between Mexican-American citizens and other American citizens over the question of illegal migrants. This inherently divisive, potentially explosive mix intensified as the process continued.<br /><br /><b>Borderlands and the Geopolitics of Immigration</b><br /><br />Underlying this political process was a geopolitical one. Immigration in any country is destabilizing. Immigrants have destabilized the United States ever since the Scots-Irish changed American culture, taking political power and frightening prior settlers. The same immigrants were indispensible to economic growth. Social and cultural instability proved a low price to pay for the acquisition of new labor. <br /><br />That equation ultimately also works in the case of Mexican migrants, but there is a fundamental difference. When the Irish or the Poles or the South Asians came to the United States, they were physically isolated from their homelands. The Irish might have wanted Roman Catholic schools, but in the end, they had no choice but to assimilate into the dominant culture. The retention of cultural hangovers did not retard basic cultural assimilation, given that they were far from home and surrounded by other, very different, groups. <br /><br />This is the case for Mexican-Americans in Chicago or Alaska, whether citizens, permanent residents or illegal immigrants. In such locales, they form a substantial but ultimately isolated group, surrounded by other, larger groups and generally integrated into the society and economy. Success requires that subsequent generations follow the path of prior immigrants and integrate. This is not the case, however, for Mexicans moving into the borderlands conquered by the United States just as it is not the case in other borderlands around the world. Immigrant populations in this region are not physically separated from their homeland, but rather can be seen as culturally extending their homeland northward — in this case not into alien territory, but into historically Mexican lands. <br /><br />This is no different from what takes place in borderlands the world over. The political border moves because of war. Members of an alien population suddenly become citizens of a new country. Sometimes, massive waves of immigrants from the group that originally controlled the territory politically move there, undertaking new citizenship or refusing to do so. The cultural status of the borderland shifts between waves of ethnic cleansing and population movement. Politics and economics mix, sometimes peacefully and sometimes explosively.<br /><br />The Mexican-American War established the political boundary between the two countries. Economic forces on both sides of the border have encouraged both legal and illegal immigration north into the borderland — the area occupied by the United States. The cultural character of the borderland is shifting as the economic and demographic process accelerates. The political border stays where it is while the cultural border moves northward. <br /><br />The underlying fear of those opposing this process is not economic (although it is frequently expressed that way), but much deeper: It is the fear that the massive population movement will ultimately reverse the military outcome of the 1830s and 1840s, returning the region to Mexico culturally or even politically. Such borderland conflicts rage throughout the world. The fear is that it will rage here. <br /><br />The problem is that Mexicans are not seen in the traditional context of immigration to the United States. As I have said, some see them as extending their homeland into the United States, rather than as leaving their homeland and coming to the United States. Moreover, by treating illegal immigration as an acceptable mode of immigration, a sense of helplessness is created, a feeling that the prior order of society was being profoundly and illegally changed. And finally, when those who express these concerns are demonized, they become radicalized. The tension between Washington and Arizona — between those who benefit from the migration and those who don’t — and the tension between Mexican-Americans who are legal residents and citizens of the United States and support illegal immigration and non-Mexicans who oppose illegal immigration creates a potentially explosive situation. <br /><br />Centuries ago, Scots moved to Northern Ireland after the English conquered it. The question of Northern Ireland, a borderland, was never quite settled. Similarly, Albanians moved to now-independent Kosovo, where tensions remain high. The world is filled with borderlands where political and cultural borders don’t coincide and where one group wants to change the political border that another group sees as sacred.<br /><br />Migration to the United States is a normal process. Migration into the borderlands from Mexico is not. The land was seized from Mexico by force, territory now experiencing a massive national movement — legal and illegal — changing the cultural character of the region. It should come as no surprise that this is destabilizing the region, as instability naturally flows from such forces.<br /><br />Jewish migration to modern-day Israel represents a worst-case scenario for borderlands. An absence of stable political agreements undergirding this movement characterized this process. One of the characteristics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is mutual demonization. In the case of Arizona, demonization between the two sides also runs deep. The portrayal of supporters of Arizona’s new law as racist and the characterization of critics of that law as un-American is neither new nor promising. It is the way things would sound in a situation likely to get out of hand.<br /><br />Ultimately, this is not about the Arizona question. It is about the relationship between Mexico and the United States on a range of issues, immigration merely being one of them. The problem as I see it is that the immigration issue is being treated as an internal debate among Americans when it is really about reaching an understanding with Mexico. Immigration has been treated as a subnational issue involving individuals. It is in fact a geopolitical issue between two nation-states. Over the past decades, Washington has tried to avoid turning immigration into an international matter, portraying it rather as an American law enforcement issue. In my view, it cannot be contained in that box any longer.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">Copyright 2010 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-8708425257783383741?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-28590499231914271602010-07-03T01:48:00.003-04:002010-07-03T02:14:55.559-04:00The 30 Year War<div style="clear:both;"></div><div style="clear:both;"></div>By George Friedman<br /><br />The Afghan War is the longest war in U.S. history. It began in 1980 and continues to rage. It began under Democrats but has been fought under both Republican and Democratic administrations, making it truly a bipartisan war. The conflict is an odd obsession of U.S. foreign policy, one that never goes away and never seems to end. As the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal reminds us, the Afghan War is now in its fourth phase.<br /><br /><b>The Afghan War’s First Three Phases</b><br /><br />The first phase of the Afghan War began with the Soviet invasion in December 1979, when the United States, along with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, organized and sustained Afghan resistance to the Soviets. This resistance was built around mujahideen, fighters motivated by Islam. Washington’s purpose had little to do with Afghanistan and everything to do with U.S.-Soviet competition. The United States wanted to block the Soviets from using Afghanistan as a base for further expansion and wanted to bog the Soviets down in a debilitating guerrilla war. The United States did not so much fight the war as facilitate it. The strategy worked. The Soviets were blocked and bogged down. This phase lasted until 1989, when Soviet troops were withdrawn.<br /><br />The second phase lasted from 1989 until 2001. The forces the United States and its allies had trained and armed now fought each other in complex coalitions for control of Afghanistan. Though the United States did not take part in this war directly, it did not lose all interest in Afghanistan. Rather, it was prepared to exert its influence through allies, particularly Pakistan. Most important, it was prepared to accept that the Islamic fighters it had organized against the Soviets would govern Afghanistan. There were many factions, but with Pakistani support, a coalition called the Taliban took power in 1996. The Taliban in turn provided sanctuary for a group of international jihadists called al Qaeda, and this led to increased tensions with the Taliban following jihadist attacks on U.S. facilities abroad by al Qaeda.<br /><br />The third phase began on Sept. 11, 2001, when al Qaeda launched attacks on the mainland United States. Given al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan, the United States launched operations designed to destroy or disrupt al Qaeda and dislodge the Taliban. The United States commenced operations barely 30 days after Sept. 11, which was not enough time to mount an invasion using U.S. troops as the primary instrument. Rather, the United States made arrangements with factions that were opposed to the Taliban (and defeated in the Afghan civil war). This included organizations such as the Northern Alliance, which had remained close to the Russians; Shiite groups in the west that were close to the Iranians and India; and other groups or subgroups in other regions. These groups supported the United States out of hostility to the Taliban and/or due to substantial bribes paid by the United States.<br /><br />The overwhelming majority of ground forces opposing the Taliban in 2001 were Afghan. The United States did, however, insert special operations forces teams to work with these groups and to identify targets for U.S. airpower, the primary American contribution to the war. The use of U.S. B-52s against Taliban forces massed around cities in the north caused the Taliban to abandon any thought of resisting the Northern Alliance and others, even though the Taliban had defeated them in the civil war.<br /><br />Unable to hold fixed positions against airstrikes, the Taliban withdrew from the cities and dispersed. The Taliban were not defeated, however; they merely declined to fight on U.S. terms. Instead, they redefined the war, preserving their forces and regrouping. The Taliban understood that the cities were not the key to Afghanistan. Instead, the countryside would ultimately provide control of the cities. From the Taliban point of view, the battle would be waged in the countryside, while the cities increasingly would be isolated.<br /><br />The United States simply did not have sufficient force to identify, engage and destroy the Taliban as a whole. The United States did succeed in damaging and dislodging al Qaeda, with the jihadist group’s command cell becoming isolated in northwestern Pakistan. But as with the Taliban, the United States did not defeat al Qaeda because the United States lacked significant forces on the ground. Even so, al Qaeda prime, the original command cell, was no longer in a position to mount 9/11-style attacks.<br /><br />During the Bush administration, U.S. goals for Afghanistan were modest. First, the Americans intended to keep al Qaeda bottled up and to impose as much damage as possible on the group. Second, they intended to establish an Afghan government, regardless of how ineffective it might be, to serve as a symbolic core. Third, they planned very limited operations against the Taliban, which had regrouped and increasingly controlled the countryside. The Bush administration was basically in a holding operation in Afghanistan. It accepted that U.S. forces were neither going to be able to impose a political solution on Afghanistan nor create a coalition large enough control the country. U.S. strategy was extremely modest under Bush: to harass al Qaeda from bases in Afghanistan, maintain control of cities and logistics routes, and accept the limits of U.S. interests and power.<br /><br />The three phases of American involvement in Afghanistan had a common point: All three were heavily dependent on non-U.S. forces to do the heavy lifting. In the first phase, the mujahideen performed this task. In the second phase, the United States relied on Pakistan to manage Afghanistan’s civil war. In the third phase, especially in the beginning, the United States depended on Afghan forces to fight the Taliban. Later, when greater numbers of American and allied forces arrived, the United States had limited objectives beyond preserving the Afghan government and engaging al Qaeda wherever it might be found (and in any event, by 2003, Iraq had taken priority over Afghanistan). In no case did the Americans use their main force to achieve their goals.<br /><br /><b>The Fourth Phase of the Afghan War</b><br /><br />The fourth phase of the war began in 2009, when U.S. President Barack Obama decided to pursue a more aggressive strategy in Afghanistan. Though the Bush administration had toyed with this idea, it was Obama who implemented it fully. During the 2008 election campaign, Obama asserted that he would pay greater attention to Afghanistan. The Obama administration began with the premise that while the Iraq War was a mistake, the Afghan War had to be prosecuted. It reasoned that unlike Iraq, which had a tenuous connection to al Qaeda at best, Afghanistan was the group’s original base. He argued that Afghanistan therefore should be the focus of U.S. military operations. In doing so, he shifted a strategy that had been in place for 30 years by making U.S. forces the main combatants in the war.<br /><br />Though Obama’s goals were not altogether clear, they might be stated as follows:<br /> <ol><br /><li>Deny al Qaeda a base in Afghanistan.</li><br /><li>Create an exit strategy from Afghanistan similar to the one in Iraq by creating the conditions for negotiating with the Taliban; make denying al Qaeda a base a condition for the resulting ruling coalition.</li><br /><li>Begin withdrawal by 2011.</li><br /></ol>To do this, there would be three steps:<br /><ol><br /><li>Increase the number and aggressiveness of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.</li><br /><li>Create Afghan security forces under the current government to take over from the Americans.</li><br /><li>Increase pressure on the Taliban by driving a wedge between them and the population and creating intra-insurgent rifts via effective counterinsurgency tactics.</li><br /></ol>In analyzing this strategy, there is an obvious issue: While al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan in 2001, Afghanistan is no longer its primary base of operations. The group has shifted to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and other countries. As al Qaeda is thus not dependent on any one country for its operational base, denying it bases in Afghanistan does not address the reality of its dispersion. Securing Afghanistan, in other words, is no longer the solution to al Qaeda.<br /><br />Obviously, Obama’s planners fully understood this. Therefore, sanctuary denial for al Qaeda had to be, at best, a secondary strategic goal. The primary strategic goal was to create an exit strategy for the United States based on a negotiated settlement with the Taliban and a resulting coalition government. The al Qaeda issue depended on this settlement, but could never be guaranteed. In fact, neither the long-term survival of a coalition government nor the Taliban policing al Qaeda could be guaranteed.<br /><br />The exit of U.S. forces represents a bid to reinstate the American strategy of the past 30 years, namely, having Afghan forces reassume the primary burden of fighting. The creation of an Afghan military is not the key to this strategy. Afghans fight for their clans and ethnic groups. The United States is trying to invent a national army where no nation exists, a task that assumes the primary loyalty of Afghans will shift from their clans to a national government, an unlikely proposition.<br /><br /><b>The Real U.S. Strategy</b><br /><br />Rather than trying to strengthen the Karzai government, the real strategy is to return to the historical principles of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan: alliance with indigenous forces. These indigenous forces would pursue strategies in the American interest for their own reasons, or because they are paid, and would be strong enough to stand up to the Taliban in a coalition. As CIA Director Leon Panetta put it this weekend, however, this is proving harder to do than expected.<br /><br />The American strategy is, therefore, to maintain a sufficient force to shape the political evolution on the ground, and to use that force to motivate and intimidate while also using economic incentives to draw together a coalition in the countryside. Operations like those in Helmand province — where even Washington acknowledges that progress has been elusive and slower than anticipated — clearly are designed to try to draw regional forces into regional coalitions that eventually can enter a coalition with the Taliban without immediately being overwhelmed. If this strategy proceeds, the Taliban in theory will be spurred to negotiate out of concern that this process eventually could leave it marginalized.<br /><br />There is an anomaly in this strategy, however. Where the United States previously had devolved operational responsibility to allied groups, or simply hunkered down, this strategy tries to return to devolved responsibilities by first surging U.S. operations. The fourth phase actually increases U.S. operational responsibility in order to reduce it.<br /><br />From the grand strategic point of view, the United States needs to withdraw from Afghanistan, a landlocked country where U.S. forces are dependent on tortuous supply lines. Whatever Afghanistan’s vast mineral riches, mining them in the midst of war is not going to happen. More important, the United States is overcommitted in the region and lacks a strategic reserve of ground forces. Afghanistan ultimately is not strategically essential, and this is why the United States has not historically used its own forces there.<br /><br />Obama’s attempt to return to that track after first increasing U.S. forces to set the stage for the political settlement that will allow a U.S. withdrawal is hampered by the need to begin terminating the operation by 2011 (although there is no fixed termination date). It will be difficult to draw coalition partners into local structures when the foundation — U.S. protection — is withdrawing. Strengthening local forces by 2011 will be difficult. Moreover, the Taliban’s motivation to enter into talks is limited by the early withdrawal. At the same time, with no ground combat strategic reserve, the United States is vulnerable elsewhere in the world, and the longer the Afghan drawdown takes, the more vulnerable it becomes (hence the 2011 deadline in Obama’s war plan).<br /><br />In sum, this is the quandary inherent in the strategy: It is necessary to withdraw as early as possible, but early withdrawal undermines both coalition building and negotiations. The recruitment and use of indigenous Afghan forces must move extremely rapidly to hit the deadline (though officially on track quantitatively, there are serious questions about qualitative measures) — hence, the aggressive operations that have been mounted over recent months. But the correlation of forces is such that the United States probably will not be able to impose an acceptable political reality in the time frame available. Thus, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is said to be opening channels directly to the Taliban, while the Pakistanis are increasing their presence. Where a vacuum is created, regardless of how much activity there is, someone will fill it.<br /><br />Therefore, the problem is to define how important Afghanistan is to American global strategy, bearing in mind that the forces absorbed in Iraq and Afghanistan have left the United States vulnerable elsewhere in the world. The current strategy defines the Islamic world as the focus of all U.S. military attention. But the world has rarely been so considerate as to wait until the United States is finished with one war before starting another. Though unknowns remain unknowable, a principle of warfare is to never commit all of your reserves in a battle — one should always maintain a reserve for the unexpected. Strategically, it is imperative that the United States begin to free up forces and re-establish its ground reserves.<br /><br />Given the time frame the Obama administration’s grand strategy imposes, and given the capabilities of the Taliban, it is difficult to see how it will all work out. But the ultimate question is about the American obsession with Afghanistan. For 30 years, the United States has been involved in a country that is virtually inaccessible for the United States. Washington has allied itself with radical Islamists, fought against radical Islamists or tried to negotiate with radical Islamists. What the United States has never tried to do is impose a political solution through the direct application of American force. This is a new and radically different phase of America’s Afghan obsession. The questions are whether it will work and whether it is even worth it.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">Copyright 2010 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-2859049923191427160?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-72157093745878292602010-05-31T18:25:00.001-04:002010-05-31T18:34:10.533-04:00Flotillas and the Wars of Public Opinion<div style="clear:both;"></div>By George Friedman<br /><br />On Sunday, Israeli naval forces intercepted the ships of a Turkish nongovernmental organization (NGO) delivering humanitarian supplies to Gaza. Israel had demanded that the vessels not go directly to Gaza but instead dock in Israeli ports, where the supplies would be offloaded and delivered to Gaza. The Turkish NGO refused, insisting on going directly to Gaza. Gunfire ensued when Israeli naval personnel boarded one of the vessels, and a significant number of the passengers and crew on the ship were killed or wounded.<br /><br />Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon charged that the mission was simply an attempt to provoke the Israelis. That was certainly the case. The mission was designed to demonstrate that the Israelis were unreasonable and brutal. The hope was that Israel would be provoked to extreme action, further alienating Israel from the global community and possibly driving a wedge between Israel and the United States. The operation’s planners also hoped this would trigger a political crisis in Israel.<br /><br />A logical Israeli response would have been avoiding falling into the provocation trap and suffering the political repercussions the Turkish NGO was trying to trigger. Instead, the Israelis decided to make a show of force. The Israelis appear to have reasoned that backing down would demonstrate weakness and encourage further flotillas to Gaza, unraveling the Israeli position vis-à-vis Hamas. In this thinking, a violent interception was a superior strategy to accommodation regardless of political consequences. Thus, the Israelis accepted the bait and were provoked.<br /><br /><b>The ‘Exodus’ Scenario</b><br /><br />In the 1950s, an author named Leon Uris published a book called “Exodus.” Later made into a major motion picture, Exodus told the story of a Zionist provocation against the British. In the wake of World War II, the British — who controlled Palestine, as it was then known — maintained limits on Jewish immigration there. Would-be immigrants captured trying to run the blockade were detained in camps in Cyprus. In the book and movie, Zionists planned a propaganda exercise involving a breakout of Jews — mostly children — from the camp, who would then board a ship renamed the Exodus. When the Royal Navy intercepted the ship, the passengers would mount a hunger strike. The goal was to portray the British as brutes finishing the work of the Nazis. The image of children potentially dying of hunger would force the British to permit the ship to go to Palestine, to reconsider British policy on immigration, and ultimately to decide to abandon Palestine and turn the matter over to the United Nations.<br /><br />There was in fact a ship called Exodus, but the affair did not play out precisely as portrayed by Uris, who used an amalgam of incidents to display the propaganda war waged by the Jews. Those carrying out this war had two goals. The first was to create sympathy in Britain and throughout the world for Jews who, just a couple of years after German concentration camps, were now being held in British camps. Second, they sought to portray their struggle as being against the British. The British were portrayed as continuing Nazi policies toward the Jews in order to maintain their empire. The Jews were portrayed as anti-imperialists, fighting the British much as the Americans had.<br /><br />It was a brilliant strategy. By focusing on Jewish victimhood and on the British, the Zionists defined the battle as being against the British, with the Arabs playing the role of people trying to create the second phase of the Holocaust. The British were portrayed as pro-Arab for economic and imperial reasons, indifferent at best to the survivors of the Holocaust. Rather than restraining the Arabs, the British were arming them. The goal was not to vilify the Arabs but to villify the British, and to position the Jews with other nationalist groups whether in India or Egypt rising against the British.<br /><br />The precise truth or falsehood of this portrayal didn’t particularly matter. For most of the world, the Palestine issue was poorly understood and not a matter of immediate concern. The Zionists intended to shape the perceptions of a global public with limited interest in or understanding of the issues, filling in the blanks with their own narrative. And they succeeded.<br /><br />The success was rooted in a political reality. Where knowledge is limited, and the desire to learn the complex reality doesn’t exist, public opinion can be shaped by whoever generates the most powerful symbols. And on a matter of only tangential interest, governments tend to follow their publics’ wishes, however they originate. There is little to be gained for governments in resisting public opinion and much to be gained by giving in. By shaping the battlefield of public perception, it is thus possible to get governments to change positions.<br /><br />In this way, the Zionists’ ability to shape global public perceptions of what was happening in Palestine — to demonize the British and turn the question of Palestine into a Jewish-British issue — shaped the political decisions of a range of governments. It was not the truth or falsehood of the narrative that mattered. What mattered was the ability to identify the victim and victimizer such that global opinion caused both London and governments not directly involved in the issue to adopt political stances advantageous to the Zionists. It is in this context that we need to view the Turkish flotilla.<br /><br /><b>The Turkish Flotilla to Gaza</b><br /><br />The Palestinians have long argued that they are the victims of Israel, an invention of British and American imperialism. Since 1967, they have focused not so much on the existence of the state of Israel (at least in messages geared toward the West) as on the oppression of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Since the split between Hamas and Fatah and the Gaza War, the focus has been on the plight of the citizens of Gaza, who have been portrayed as the dispossessed victims of Israeli violence.<br /><br />The bid to shape global perceptions by portraying the Palestinians as victims of Israel was the first prong of a longtime two-part campaign. The second part of this campaign involved armed resistance against the Israelis. The way this resistance was carried out, from airplane hijackings to stone-throwing children to suicide bombers, interfered with the first part of the campaign, however. The Israelis could point to suicide bombings or the use of children against soldiers as symbols of Palestinian inhumanity. This in turn was used to justify conditions in Gaza. While the Palestinians had made significant inroads in placing Israel on the defensive in global public opinion, they thus consistently gave the Israelis the opportunity to turn the tables. And this is where the flotilla comes in.<br /><br />The Turkish flotilla aimed to replicate the Exodus story or, more precisely, to define the global image of Israel in the same way the Zionists defined the image that they wanted to project. As with the Zionist portrayal of the situation in 1947, the Gaza situation is far more complicated than as portrayed by the Palestinians. The moral question is also far more ambiguous. But as in 1947, when the Zionist portrayal was not intended to be a scholarly analysis of the situation but a political weapon designed to define perceptions, the Turkish flotilla was not designed to carry out a moral inquest.<br /><br />Instead, the flotilla was designed to achieve two ends. The first is to divide Israel and Western governments by shifting public opinion against Israel. The second is to create a political crisis inside Israel between those who feel that Israel’s increasing isolation over the Gaza issue is dangerous versus those who think any weakening of resolve is dangerous.<br /><br /><b>The Geopolitical Fallout for Israel</b><br /><br />It is vital that the Israelis succeed in portraying the flotilla as an extremist plot. Whether extremist or not, the plot has generated an image of Israel quite damaging to Israeli political interests. Israel is increasingly isolated internationally, with heavy pressure on its relationship with Europe and the United States.<br /><br />In all of these countries, politicians are extremely sensitive to public opinion. It is difficult to imagine circumstances under which public opinion will see Israel as the victim. The general response in the Western public is likely to be that the Israelis probably should have allowed the ships to go to Gaza and offload rather than to precipitate bloodshed. Israel’s enemies will fan these flames by arguing that the Israelis prefer bloodshed to reasonable accommodation. And as Western public opinion shifts against Israel, Western political leaders will track with this shift.<br /><br />The incident also wrecks Israeli relations with Turkey, historically an Israeli ally in the Muslim world with longstanding military cooperation with Israel. The Turkish government undoubtedly has wanted to move away from this relationship, but it faced resistance within the Turkish military and among secularists. The new Israeli action makes a break with Israel easy, and indeed almost necessary for Ankara.<br /><br />With roughly the population of Houston, Texas, Israel is just not large enough to withstand extended isolation, meaning this event has profound geopolitical implications.<br /><br />Public opinion matters where issues are not of fundamental interest to a nation. Israel is not a fundamental interest to other nations. The ability to generate public antipathy to Israel can therefore reshape Israeli relations with countries critical to Israel. For example, a redefinition of U.S.-Israeli relations will have much less effect on the United States than on Israel. The Obama administration, already irritated by the Israelis, might now see a shift in U.S. public opinion that will open the way to a new U.S.-Israeli relationship disadvantageous to Israel.<br /><br />The Israelis will argue that this is all unfair, as they were provoked. Like the British, they seem to think that the issue is whose logic is correct. But the issue actually is, whose logic will be heard? As with a tank battle or an airstrike, this sort of warfare has nothing to do with fairness. It has to do with controlling public perception and using that public perception to shape foreign policy around the world. In this case, the issue will be whether the deaths were necessary. The Israeli argument of provocation will have limited traction.<br /><br />Internationally, there is little doubt that the incident will generate a firestorm. Certainly, Turkey will break cooperation with Israel. Opinion in Europe will likely harden. And public opinion in the United States — by far the most important in the equation — might shift to a “plague-on-both-your-houses” position.<br /><br />While the international reaction is predictable, the interesting question is whether this evolution will cause a political crisis in Israel. Those in Israel who feel that international isolation is preferable to accommodation with the Palestinians are in control now. Many in the opposition see Israel’s isolation as a strategic threat. Economically and militarily, they argue, Israel cannot survive in isolation. The current regime will respond that there will be no isolation. The flotilla aimed to generate what the government has said would not happen.<br /><br />The tougher Israel is, the more the flotilla’s narrative takes hold. As the Zionists knew in 1947 and the Palestinians are learning, controlling public opinion requires subtlety, a selective narrative and cynicism. As they also knew, losing the battle can be catastrophic. It cost Britain the Mandate and allowed Israel to survive. Israel’s enemies are now turning the tables. This maneuver was far more effective than suicide bombings or the Intifada in challenging Israel’s public perception and therefore its geopolitical position (though if the Palestinians return to some of their more distasteful tactics like suicide bombing, the Turkish strategy of portraying Israel as the instigator of violence will be undermined).<br /><br />Israel is now in uncharted waters. It does not know how to respond. It is not clear that the Palestinians know how to take full advantage of the situation, either. But even so, this places the battle on a new field, far more fluid and uncontrollable than what went before. The next steps will involve calls for sanctions against Israel. The Israeli threats against Iran will be seen in a different context, and Israeli portrayal of Iran will hold less sway over the world.<br /><br />And this will cause a political crisis in Israel. If this government survives, then Israel is locked into a course that gives it freedom of action but international isolation. If the government falls, then Israel enters a period of domestic uncertainty. In either case, the flotilla achieved its strategic mission. It got Israel to take violent action against it. In doing so, Israel ran into its own fist.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">Copyright 2010 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-7215709374587829260?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-91287129779354544452010-02-16T21:26:00.004-05:002010-02-16T21:39:22.824-05:00LostThe TV show "Lost" -- the phenomena, the most successful TV show of this generation -- is all about Lost moments, Lost opportunities, Lost love, Lost life.<br /><br />It painstakingly catalogs the exploration of the subconscious mind which fully understands and acknowledges these losses. What they're going to tell us in the end is --- don't let this keep happening. Don't keep losing. Live. Love.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-9128712977935454445?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-34051897967448788912009-11-16T18:29:00.002-05:002009-11-16T18:36:17.848-05:00Dechiphering the Mohammed TrialBy George Friedman<br /><br />U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has decided that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be tried in federal court in New York. Holder’s decision was driven by the need for the U.S. government to decide how to dispose of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, a U.S. Naval base outside the boundaries of the United States selected as the camp in which to hold suspected al Qaeda members.<br /><br />We very carefully use the word “camp” rather than prison or prisoner of war camp. This is because of an ongoing and profound ambiguity not only in U.S. government perceptions of how to define those held there, but also due to uncertainties in international law, particularly with regard to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Were the U.S. facility at Guantanamo a prison, then its residents would be criminals. If it were a POW camp, then they would be enemy soldiers being held under the rules of war. It has never really been decided which these men are, and therefore their legal standing has remained unclear.<br /><br /><b>War vs. Criminal Justice</b><br /><br />The ambiguity began shortly after 9/11, when then-U.S. President George W. Bush defined two missions: waging a war on terror, and bringing Osama bin Laden and his followers to justice. Both made for good rhetoric. But they also were fundamentally contradictory. A war is not a judicial inquiry, and a criminal investigation is not part of war.<br /><br />An analogy might be drawn from Pearl Harbor. Imagine that in addition to stating that the United States was at war with Japan, Franklin Roosevelt also called for bringing the individual Japanese pilots who struck Hawaii to justice under American law. This would make no sense. As an act of war, the Japanese action fell under the rules of war as provided for in international law, the U.S. Constitution and the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Japanese pilots could not be held individually responsible for the lawful order they received. In the same sense, trying to bring soldiers to trial in a civilian court in the United States would make no sense. Creating a mission in which individual Japanese airmen would be hunted down and tried under the rules of evidence not only would make no sense, it would be impossible. Building a case against them individually also would be impossible. Judges would rule on evidence, on whether an unprejudiced jury could be found, and so on. None of this happened, of course — World War II was a war, not a judicial inquiry.<br /><br />It is important to consider how wars are conducted. Enemy soldiers are not shot or captured because of what they have done; they are shot and captured because of who they are — members of an enemy military force. War, once launched, is pre-emptive. Soldiers are killed or captured in the course of fighting enemy forces, or even before they have carried out hostile acts. Soldiers are not held responsible for their actions, but neither are they immune to attack just because they have not done anything. Guilt and innocence do not enter into the equation. Certainly, if war crimes are in question, charges may be brought; the UCMJ determines how they will be tried by U.S. forces. Soldiers are tried by courts-martial, not by civilian courts, because of their status as soldiers. Soldiers are tried by a jury of their peers, and their peers are held to be other soldiers.<br /><br />International law is actually not particularly ambiguous about the status of the members of al Qaeda. The Geneva Conventions do not apply to them because they have not adhered to a fundamental requirement of the Geneva Conventions, namely, identifying themselves as soldiers of an army. Doing so does not mean they must wear a uniform. The postwar Geneva Conventions make room for partisans, something older versions of the conventions did not. A partisan is not a uniformed fighter, but he must wear some form of insignia identifying himself as a soldier to enjoy the conventions’ protections. As Article 4.1.6 puts it, prisoners of war include “Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.” The Geneva Conventions of 1949 does not mention, nor provide protection to, civilians attacking foreign countries without openly carrying arms.<br /><br />The reasoning behind this is important. During the Franco-Prussian war, French franc-tireurs fired on Prussian soldiers. Ununiformed and without insignia, they melded into the crowd. It was impossible for the Prussians to distinguish between civilians and soldiers, so they fired on both, and civilian casualties resulted. The framers of the Geneva Conventions held the franc-tireurs, not the Prussian soldiers, responsible for the casualties. Their failure to be in uniform forced the Prussians to defend themselves at the cost of civilian lives. The franc-tireurs were seen as using civilians as camouflage. This was regarded as outside the rules of war, and those who carried out such acts were seen as not protected by the conventions. They were not soldiers, and were not to be treated as such.<br /><br /><b>An Ambiguous Status</b><br /><br />Extending protections to partisans following World War II was seen as a major concession. It was done with concerns that it not be extended so far that combatants of irregular forces could legally operate using their ability to blend in with surrounding civilians, and hence a requirement of wearing armbands. The status of purely covert operatives remained unchanged: They were not protected under the Geneva Conventions. Their status remained ambiguous.<br /><br />During World War II, it was U.S. Army practice to hold perfunctory trials followed by executions. During the Battle of the Bulge, German commandos captured wearing U.S. uniforms — in violation of the Geneva Conventions — were summarily tried in field courts-martial and executed. The idea that such individuals were to be handed over to civilian courts was never considered. The actions of al Qaeda simply were not anticipated in the Geneva Conventions. And to the extent they were expected, they violated the conventions.<br /><br />Holder’s decision to transfer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to federal court makes it clear that Mohammed was not a soldier acting in time of war, but a criminal. While during times of war spies are tried as criminals, their status is precarious, particularly if they are members of an enemy army. Enemy soldiers out of uniform carrying out reconnaissance or espionage are subject to military, not civilian, justice, and frequently are executed. A spy captured in the course of collecting information is a civilian, particularly in peacetime, and normally is tried as a criminal with rules of evidence.<br /><br />Which was Mohammed? Under the Geneva Conventions, his actions in organizing the Sept. 11 attacks, which were carried out without uniforms or other badges of a combatant, denies him status and protection as a POW. Logically, he is therefore a criminal, but if he is, consider the consequences.<br /><br />Criminal law is focused on punishments meted out after the fact. They rarely have been preventive measures. In either case, they follow strict rules of evidence, require certain treatments of prisoners and so on. For example, prisoners have to be read the Miranda warning. Soldiers are not policeman. They are not trained or expected to protect the legal rights of captives save as POWs under the UCMJ, nor protect the chain of custody of evidence nor countless other things that are required in a civilian court. In criminal law, it is assumed that law enforcement has captured the prisoner and is well-versed in these rules. In this case, the capture was made without any consideration of these matters, nor would one expect such consideration.<br /><br />Consider further the role of U.S. covert operations in these captures. The United States conducts covert operations in which operatives work out of uniform and are generally not members of the military. Operating outside the United States, they are not protected by U.S. law although they do operate under the laws and regulations promulgated by the U.S. government. Much of their operations run counter to international and national law. At the same time, their operations are accepted as best practices by the international system. Some operate under cover of diplomatic immunity but carry out operations incompatible with their status as diplomats. Others operate without official cover. Should those under unofficial cover be captured, their treatment falls under local law, if such exists. The Geneva Conventions do not apply to them, nor was it intended to.<br /><br />Spies, saboteurs and terrorists fall outside the realm of international law. This class of actors falls under the category of national law, leaving open the question of their liability if they conduct acts inimical to a third country. Who has jurisdiction? The United States is claiming that Mohammed is to be tried under the criminal code of the United States for actions planned in Afghanistan but carried out by others in the United States. It is a defensible position, but where does this leave American intelligence planners working at CIA headquarters for actions carried out by others in a third country? Are they subject to prosecution in the third country? Those captured in the third country clearly are, but the claim here is that Mohammed is subject to prosecution under U.S. laws for actions carried out by others in the United States. And that creates an interesting reciprocal liability.<br /><br /><b>A Failure to Evolve</b><br /><br />The fact is that international law has not evolved to deal with persons like Mohammed. Or more precisely, most legal discussion under international law is moving counter to the Geneva Conventions’ intent, which was to treat the franc-tireurs as unworthy of legal protection because they were not soldiers and were violating the rules of war. International law wants to push Mohammed into a category where he doesn’t fit, providing protections that are not apparent under the Geneva Conventions. The United States has shoved him into U.S. criminal law, where he doesn’t fit either, unless the United States is prepared to accept reciprocal liability for CIA personnel based in the United States planning and supporting operations in third countries. The United States has never claimed, for example, that the KGB planners who operated agents in the United States on behalf of the Soviet Union were themselves subject to criminal prosecution.<br /><br />A new variety of warfare has emerged in which treatment as a traditional POW doesn’t apply and criminal law doesn’t work. Criminal law creates liabilities the United States doesn’t want to incur, and it is not geared to deal with a terrorist like Mohammed. U.S. criminal law assumes that capture is in the hands of law enforcement officials. Rights are prescribed and demanded, including having lawyers present and so forth. Such protections are practically and theoretically absurd in this case: Mohammed is not a soldier and he is not a suspected criminal presumed innocent until proven guilty. Law enforcement is not a practical counter to al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. A nation cannot move from the rules of counterterrorism to an American courtroom; they are incompatible modes of operation. Nor can a nation use the code of criminal procedures against a terrorist organization operating transnationally. Instead, they must be stopped before they commit their action, and issuing search warrants and allowing attorneys present at questioning is not an option.<br /><br />Therefore — and now we move to the political reality — it is difficult to imagine how the evidence accumulated against Mohammed could enter a courtroom. Ignoring the methods of questioning, which is a separate issue, how can one prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt without compromising sources and methods, and why should one? Mohammed was on a battlefield but not operating as a soldier. Imagine doing criminal forensics on a battlefield to prove the criminal liability of German commandos wearing American uniforms.<br /><br />In our mind, there is a very real possibility that Mohammed could be found not guilty in a courtroom. The cases of O.J. Simpson and of Jewish Defense League head Rabbi Meir Kahane’s killer, El Sayyid Nosair — both found not guilty despite overwhelming evidence — come to mind. Juries do strange things, particularly amid what will be the greatest media circus imaginable in the media capital of the world.<br /><br />But it may not be the jury that is the problem. A federal judge will have to ask the question of whether prejudicial publicity of such magnitude has occurred that Mohammed can’t receive a fair trial. (This is probably true.) Questions will be raised about whether he has received proper legal counsel, which undoubtedly he hasn’t. Issues about the chain of custody of evidence will be raised; given that he was held by troops and agents, and not by law enforcement, the chances of compromised evidence is likely. The issue of torture will, of course, also be raised but that really isn’t the main problem. How do you try a man under U.S. legal procedures who was captured in a third country by non-law enforcement personnel, and who has been in military custody for seven years?<br /><br />There is a nontrivial possibility that he will be acquitted or have his case thrown out of court, which would be a foreign policy disaster for the United States. Some might view it as a sign of American adherence to the rule of law and be impressed, others might be convinced that Mohammed was not guilty in more than a legal sense and was held unjustly, and others might think the United States has bungled another matter.<br /><br />The real problem here is international law, which does not address acts of war committed by non-state actors out of uniform. Or more precisely, it does, but leaves them deliberately in a state of legal limbo, with captors left free to deal with them as they wish. If the international legal community does not like the latter, it is time they did the hard work of defining precisely how a nation deals with an act of war carried out under these circumstances.<br /><br />The international legal community has been quite vocal in condemning American treatment of POWs after 9/11, but it hasn’t evolved international law, even theoretically, to cope with this. Sept. 11 is not a crime in the proper sense of the term, and prosecuting the guilty is not the goal. Instead, it was an act of war carried out outside the confines of the Geneva Conventions. The U.S. goal is destroying al Qaeda so that it can no longer function, not punishing those who have acted. Similarly the goal in 1941 was not punishing the Japanese pilots at Pearl Harbor but destroying the Japanese Empire, and any Japanese soldier was a target who could be killed without trial in the course of combat. If it wishes to solve this problem, international law will have to recognize that al Qaeda committed an act of war, and its destruction has legal sanction without judicial review. And if some sort of protection is to be provided al Qaeda operatives out of uniform, then the Geneva Conventions must be changed, and with it the status of spies and saboteurs of all countries.<br /><br />Holder has opened up an extraordinarily complex can of worms with this decision. As U.S. attorney general, he has committed himself to proving Mohammed’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt while guaranteeing that his constitutional rights (for a non-U.S. citizen captured and held outside the United States under extraordinary circumstances by individuals not trained as law enforcement personnel, no less) are protected. It is Holder’s duty to ensure Mohammed’s prosecution, conviction and fair treatment under the law. It is hard to see how he can.<br /><br />Whatever the politics of this decision — and all such decisions have political dimensions — the real problem faced by both the Obama and Bush administrations has been the failure of international law to evolve to provide guidance on dealing with combatants such as al Qaeda. International law has clung to a model of law governing a very different type of warfare despite new realities. International law must therefore either reaffirm the doctrine that combatants who do not distinguish themselves from noncombatants are not due the protections of international law, or it must clearly define what those protections are. Otherwise, international law discredits itself.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">Copyright 2009 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-3405189796744878891?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-76459822347626253372009-11-02T18:35:00.002-05:002009-11-02T18:41:46.350-05:00Obama and the U.S. Strategy of Buying TimeBy George Friedman<br /><br />Making sense of U.S. President Barack Obama's strategy at this moment is difficult. Not only is it a work in progress, but the pending decisions he has to make -- on Iran, Afghanistan and Russia -- tend to obscure underlying strategy. It is easy to confuse inaction with a lack of strategy. Of course, there may well be a lack of strategic thinking, but that does not mean there is a lack of strategy.<br /><br />Strategy, as we have argued, is less a matter of choice than a matter of reality imposing itself on presidents. Former U.S. President George W. Bush, for example, rarely had a chance to make strategy. He was caught in a whirlwind after only nine months in office and spent the rest of his presidency responding to events, making choices from a menu of very bad options. Similarly, Obama came into office with a preset menu of limited choices. He seems to be fighting to create new choices, not liking what is on the menu. He may succeed. But it is important to understand the overwhelming forces that shape his choices and to understand the degree to which whatever he chooses is embedded in U.S. grand strategy, a strategy imposed by geopolitical reality.<br /><br /><b>Empires and Grand Strategy</b><br /><br />American grand strategy, as we have argued, is essentially that of the British Empire, save at a global rather than a regional level. The British sought to protect their national security by encouraging Continental powers to engage in land-based conflict, thereby reducing resources available for building a navy. That guaranteed that Britain's core interest, the security of the homeland and sea-lane control, remained intact. Achieving this made the United Kingdom an economic power in the 19th century by sparing it the destruction of war and allowing it to control the patterns of international maritime trade.<br /><br />On occasion, when the balance of power in Europe tilted toward one side or another, Britain intervened on the Continent with political influence where possible, direct aid when necessary or -- when all else failed -- the smallest possible direct military intervention. The United Kingdom's preferred strategy consisted of imposing a blockade -- e.g., economic sanctions -- allowing it to cause pain without incurring costs.<br /><br />At the same time that it pursued this European policy, London was building a global empire. Here again, the British employed a balance-of-power strategy. In looking at the history of India or Africa during the 19th century, there is a consistent pattern of the United Kingdom forming alliances with factions, whether religious or ethnic groups, to create opportunities for domination. In the end, this was not substantially different from ancient Rome's grand strategy. Rome also ruled indirectly through much of its empire, controlling Mediterranean sea-lanes, but allying with local forces to govern; observing Roman strategy in Egypt is quite instructive in this regard.<br /><br />Empires are not created by someone deciding one day to build one, or more precisely, lasting empires are not. They emerge over time through a series of decisions having nothing to do with empire building, and frequently at the hands of people far more concerned with domestic issues than foreign policy. Paradoxically, leaders who consciously set out to build empires usually fail. Hitler is a prime example. His failure was that rather than ally with forces in the Soviet Union, he wished to govern directly, something that flowed from his ambitions for direct rule. Particularly at the beginning, the Roman and British empires were far less ambitious and far less conscious of where they were headed. They were primarily taking care of domestic affairs. They became involved in foreign policy as needed, following a strategy of controlling the seas while maintaining substantial ground forces able to prevail anywhere -- but not everywhere at once -- and a powerful alliance system based on supporting the ambitions of local powers against other local powers.<br /><br />On the whole, the United States has no interest in empire, and indeed is averse to imperial adventures. Those who might have had explicit inclinations in this direction are mostly out of government, crushed by experience in Iraq. Iraq came in two parts. In the first part, from 2003 to 2007, the U.S. vision was one of direct rule relying on American sea-lane control and overwhelming Iraq with well-supplied American troops.<br /><br />The results were unsatisfactory. The United States found itself arrayed against all Iraqi factions and wound up in a multipart war in which its forces were merely one faction arrayed against others. The Petraeus strategy to escape this trap was less an innovation in counterinsurgency than a classic British-Roman approach. Rather than attempting direct control of Iraq, Petraeus sought to manipulate the internal balance of power, aligning with Sunni forces against Shiite forces, i.e., allying with the weaker party at that moment against the stronger. The strategy did not yield the outcome that some Bush strategists dreamed of, but it might (with an emphasis on might) yield a useful outcome: a precariously balanced Iraq dependent on the United States to preserve its internal balance of power and national sovereignty against Iran.<br /><br />Many Americans, perhaps even most, regret the U.S. intervention in Iraq. And there are many, again perhaps most, who view broader U.S. entanglement in the world as harmful to American interests. Similar views were expressed by Roman republicans and English nationalists who felt that protecting the homeland by controlling the sea was the best policy, while letting the rest of the world go its own way. But the Romans and the British lost that option when they achieved the key to their own national security: enough power to protect the homeland. Outsiders inevitably came to see that power as offensive, even though originally its possessors intended it as defensive. Indeed, intent aside, the capability for offensive power was there. So frequently, Rome and Britain threatened the interests of foreign powers simply by being there. Inevitably, both Rome and Britain became the targets of Hannibals and Napoleons, and they were both drawn into the world regardless of their original desires. In short, enough power to be secure is enough power to threaten others. Therefore, that perfect moment of national security always turns offensive, as the power to protect the homeland threatens the security of other countries.<br /><br /><b>A Question of Size</b><br /><br />There are Obama supporters and opponents who also dream of the perfect balance: security for the United States achieved by not interfering in the affairs of others. They see foreign entanglements not as providing homeland security, but as generating threats to it. They do not understand that what they want, American prosperity without international risks, is by definition impossible. The U.S. economy is roughly 25 percent of the world's economy. The American military controls the seas, not all at the same time, but anywhere it wishes at any given time. The United States also controls outer space. It is impossible for the United States not to intrude on the affairs of most countries in the world simply by virtue of its daily operations. The United States is an elephant that affects the world simply by being in the same room with it. The only way to not be an elephant is to shrink in size, and whether the United States would ever want this aside, decreasing power is harder to do than it might appear -- and much more painful.<br /><br />Obama's challenge is managing U.S. power without decreasing its size and without imposing undue costs on it. This sounds like an attractive idea, but it ultimately won't work: The United States cannot be what it is without attracting hostile attention. For some of Obama's supporters, it is American behavior that generates hostility. Actually, it is America's presence -- its very size -- that intrudes on the world and generates hostility.<br /><br />On the domestic front, the isolationist-internationalist divide in the United States has always been specious. Isolationists before World War II simply wanted to let the European balance of power manage itself. They wanted to buy time, but had no problem with intervening in China against Japan. The internationalists simply wanted to move from the first to the second stage, arguing that the first stage had failed. There was thus no argument in principle between them; there was simply a debate over how much time to give the process to see if it worked out. Both sides had the same strategy, but simply a different read of the moment. In retrospect, Franklin Roosevelt was right, but only because France collapsed in the face of the Nazi onslaught in a matter of weeks. That aside, the isolationist argument was quite rational.<br /><br />Like that of Britain or Rome, U.S. grand strategy is driven by the sheer size of the national enterprise, a size achieved less through planning than by geography and history. Having arrived where it has, the United States has three layers to its strategy.<br /><br />First, the United States must maintain the balance of power in various regions in the world. It does this by supporting a range of powers, usually the weaker against the stronger. Ideally, this balance of power maintains itself without American effort and yields relative stability. But stability is secondary to keeping local powers focused on each other rather than on the United States: Stability is a rhetorical device, not a goal. The real U.S. interest lies in weakening and undermining emergent powers so they don't ultimately rise to challenge American power. This is a strategy of nipping things in the bud.<br /><br />Second, where emergent powers cannot be maintained through the regional balance of power, the United States has an interest in sharing the burden of containing it with other major powers. The United States will seek to use such coalitions either to intimidate the emerging power via economic power or, in extremis, via military power.<br /><br />Third, where it is impossible to build a coalition to coerce emerging powers, the United States must decide either to live with the emerging power, forge an alliance with it, or attack it unilaterally.<br /><br />Obama, as with any president, will first pursue the first layer of the strategy, using as little American power as possible and waiting as long as possible to see whether this works. The key here lies in not taking premature action that could prove more dangerous or costly than necessary. If that fails, his strategy is to create a coalition of powers to share the cost and risk. And only when that fails -- which is a function of time and politics -- will Obama turn to the third layer, which can range from simply living with the emerging power and making a suitable deal or crushing it militarily.<br /><br />When al Qaeda attacked what it saw as the leading Christian power on Sept. 11, Bush found himself thrown into the third stage very rapidly. The second phase was illusory; sympathy aside, the quantity of military force allies could and would bring to bear was minimal. Even active allies like Britain and Australia couldn't bring decisive force to bear. Bush was forced into unilateralism not so much by the lack of will among allies as by their lack of power. His choice lay in creating chaos in the Islamic world and then forming alliances out of the debris, or trying to impose a direct solution through military force. He began with the second and shifted to the first.<br /><br /><b>Obama's Choices</b><br /><br />Obama has more room to maneuver than Bush had. In the case of Iran, no regional solution is possible. Israel can only barely reach into the region, and while its air force might suffice to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, and air attacks might be sufficient to destroy them, Israel could not deal with the Iranian response of mining the Strait of Hormuz and/or destabilizing Iraq. The United States must absorb these blows.<br /><br />Therefore, Obama has tried to build an anti-Iranian coalition to intimidate Tehran. Given the Russian and Chinese positions, this seems to have failed, and Iran has not been intimidated. That leaves Obama with two possible paths. One is the path followed by Nixon in China: ally with Iran against Russian influence, accepting it as a nuclear power and dealing with it through a combination of political alignment and deterrence. The second option is dealing with Iran militarily.<br /><br />His choice thus lies between entente or war. He is bluffing war in hopes of getting what he wants, in the meantime hoping that internal events in Iran may evolve in a way suitable to U.S. interests or that Russian economic hardship evolves into increased Russian dependence on the United States such that Washington can extract Russian concessions on Iran. Given the state of Iran's nuclear development, which is still not near a weapon, Obama is using time to try to head off the third stage.<br /><br />In Afghanistan, where Obama is already in the third stage and where he is being urged to go deeper in, he is searching for a way to return to the first stage, wherein an indigenous coalition emerges that neutralizes Afghanistan through its own internal dynamic. Hence, Washington is negotiating with the Taliban, trying to strengthen various factions in Afghanistan and not quite committing to more force. Winter is coming in Afghanistan, and that is the quiet time in that conflict. Obama is clearly buying time.<br /><br />In that sense, Obama's foreign policy is neither as alien as his critics would argue nor as original as his supporters argue. He is adhering to the basic logic of American grand strategy, minimizing risks over time while seeking ways to impose low-cost solutions. It differs from Bush's policies primarily in that Bush had events forced on him and spent his presidency trying to regain the initiative.<br /><br />The interesting point from where we sit is not only how deeply embedded Obama is in U.S. grand strategy, but how deeply drawn he is into the unintended imperial enterprise that has dominated American foreign policy since the 1930s -- an enterprise neither welcomed nor acknowledged by most Americans. Empires aren't planned, at least not successful empires, as Hitler and Napoleon learned to their regret. Empires happen as the result of the sheer reality of power. The elephant in the room cannot stop being an elephant, nor can the smaller animals ignore him. No matter how courteous the elephant, it is his power -- his capabilities -- not his intentions that matter.<br /><br />Obama is now the elephant in the room. He has bought as much time as possible to make decisions, and he is being as amiable as possible to try to build as large a coalition as possible. But the coalition has neither the power nor appetite for the risks involved, so Obama will have to decide whether to live with Iran, form an alliance with Iran or go to war with Iran. In Afghanistan, he must decide whether he can recreate the balance of power by staying longer and whether this will be more effective by sending more troops, or whether it is time to begin withdrawal. In both cases, he can use the art of the bluff to shape the behavior of others, maybe.<br /><br />He came into the presidency promising to be more amiable than Bush, something not difficult given the circumstances. He is now trying to convert amiability into a coalition, a much harder thing to do. In the end, he will have to make hard decisions. In American foreign policy, however, the ideal strategy is always to buy time so as to let the bribes, bluffs and threats do their work. Obama himself probably doesn't know what he will do; that will depend on circumstances. Letting events flow until they can no longer be tolerated is the essence of American grand strategy, a path Obama is following faithfully.<br /><br />It should always be remembered that this long-standing American policy has frequently culminated in war, as with Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson and Bush. It was Clinton's watchful waiting to see how things played out, after all, that allowed al Qaeda the time to build and strike. But this is not a criticism of Clinton -- U.S. strategy is to trade time for risk. Over time, the risk might lead to war anyway, but then again, it might not. If war does come, American power is still decisive, if not in creating peace, then certainly in wreaking havoc upon rising powers. And that is the foundation of empire.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">Copyright 2009 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-7645982234762625337?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-49247337617668793882009-10-12T18:57:00.002-04:002009-10-12T19:03:43.897-04:00Nobel GeopoliticsBy George Friedman<br /><br />U.S. President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize last week. Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prize, which was to be awarded to the person who has accomplished “the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the promotion of peace congresses.” The mechanism for awarding the peace prize is very different from the other Nobel categories. Academic bodies, such as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, decide who wins the other prizes. Alfred Nobel’s will stated, however, that a committee of five selected by the Norwegian legislature, or Storting, should award the peace prize.<br /><br />The committee that awarded the peace prize to Obama consists of chairman Thorbjorn Jagland, president of the Storting and former Labor Party prime minister and foreign minister of Norway; Kaci Kullmann Five, a former member of the Storting and president of the Conservative Party; Sissel Marie Ronbeck, a former Social Democratic member of the Storting; Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, a former member of the Storting and current senior adviser to the Progress Party; and Agot Valle, a current member of the Storting and spokeswoman on foreign affairs for the Socialist Left Party.<br /><br />The peace prize committee is therefore a committee of politicians, some present members of parliament, some former members of parliament. Three come from the left (Jagland, Ronbeck and Valle). Two come from the right (Kullman and Ytterhorn). It is reasonable to say that the peace prize committee faithfully reproduces the full spectrum of Norwegian politics.<br /><br /><b>A Frequently Startling Prize</b><br /><br />Prize recipients frequently have proved startling. For example, the first U.S. president to receive the prize was Theodore Roosevelt, who received it in 1906 for helping negotiate peace between Japan and Russia. Roosevelt genuinely sought peace, but ultimately because of American fears that an unbridled Japan would threaten U.S. interests in the Pacific. He sought peace to ensure that Japan would not eliminate Russian power in the Pacific and not hold Port Arthur or any of the other prizes of the Russo-Japanese War. To achieve this peace, he implied that the United States might intervene against Japan.<br /><br />In brokering negotiations to try to block Japan from exploiting its victory over the Russians, Roosevelt was engaged in pure power politics. The Japanese were in fact quite bitter at the American intervention. (For their part, the Russians were preoccupied with domestic unrest.) But a treaty emerged from the talks, and peace prevailed. Though preserving a balance of power in the Pacific motivated Roosevelt, the Nobel committee didn’t seem to care. And given that Alfred Nobel didn’t provide much guidance about his intentions for the prize, choosing Roosevelt was as reasonable as the choices for most Nobel Peace Prizes.<br /><br />In recent years, the awards have gone to political dissidents the committee approved of, such as the Dalai Lama and Lech Walesa, or people supporting causes it agreed with, such as Al Gore. Others were peacemakers in the Theodore Roosevelt mode, such as Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger for working toward peace in Vietnam and Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin for moving toward peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.<br /><br />Two things must be remembered about the Nobel Peace Prize. The first is that Nobel was never clear about his intentions for it. The second is his decision to have it awarded by politicians from — and we hope the Norwegians will accept our advance apologies — a marginal country relative to the international system. This is not meant as a criticism of Norway, a country we have enjoyed in the past, but the Norwegians sometimes have an idiosyncratic way of viewing the world.<br /><br />Therefore, the award to Obama was neither more or less odd than some of the previous awards made by five Norwegian politicians no one outside of Norway had ever heard of. But his win does give us an opportunity to consider an important question, namely, why Europeans generally think so highly of Obama.<br /><br /><b>Obama and the Europeans</b><br /><br />Let’s begin by being careful with the term European. Eastern Europeans and Russians — all Europeans — do not think very highly of him. The British are reserved on the subject. But on the whole, other Europeans west of the former Soviet satellites and south and east of the English Channel think extremely well of him, and the Norwegians are reflecting this admiration. It is important to understand why they do.<br /><br />The Europeans experienced catastrophes during the 20th century. Two world wars slaughtered generations of Europeans and shattered Europe’s economy. Just after the war, much of Europe maintained standards of living not far above that of the Third World. In a sense, Europe lost everything — millions of lives, empires, even sovereignty as the United States and the Soviet Union occupied and competed in Europe. The catastrophe of the 20th century defines Europe, and what the Europeans want to get away from.<br /><br />The Cold War gave Europe the opportunity to recover economically, but only in the context of occupation and the threat of war between the Soviets and Americans. A half century of Soviet occupation seared Eastern European souls. During that time, the rest of Europe lived in a paradox of growing prosperity and the apparent imminence of another war. The Europeans were not in control of whether the war would come, or where or how it would be fought. There are therefore two Europes. One, the Europe that was first occupied by Nazi Germany and then by the Soviet Union still lives in the shadow of the dual catastrophes. The other, larger Europe, lives in the shadow of the United States.<br /><br />Between 1945 and 1991, Western Europe lived in a confrontation with the Soviets. The Europeans lived in dread of Soviet occupation, and though tempted, never capitulated to the Soviets. That meant that the Europeans were forced to depend on the United States for their defense and economic stability, and were therefore subject to America’s will. How the Americans and Russians viewed each other would determine whether war would break out, not what the Europeans thought.<br /><br />Every aggressive action by the United States, however trivial, was magnified a hundredfold in European minds, as they considered fearfully how the Soviets would respond. In fact, the Americans were much more restrained during the Cold War than Europeans at the time thought. Looking back, the U.S. position in Europe itself was quite passive. But the European terror was that some action in the rest of the world — Cuba, the Middle East, Vietnam — would cause the Soviets to respond in Europe, costing them everything they had built up.<br /><br />In the European mind, the Americans prior to 1945 were liberators. After 1945 they were protectors, but protectors who could not be trusted to avoid triggering another war through recklessness or carelessness. The theme dominating European thinking about the United States was that the Americans were too immature, too mercurial and too powerful to really be trusted. From an American point of view, these were the same Europeans who engaged in unparalleled savagery between 1914 and 1945 all on their own, and the period after 1945 — when the Americans dominated Europe — was far more peaceful and prosperous than the previous period. But the European conviction that the Europeans were the sophisticated statesmen and prudent calculators while the Americans were unsophisticated and imprudent did not require an empirical basis. It was built on another reality, which was that Europe had lost everything, including real control over its fate, and that trusting its protector to be cautious was difficult.<br /><br />The Europeans loathed many presidents, e.g., Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan. Jimmy Carter was not respected. Two were liked: John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton. Kennedy relieved them of the burden of Dwight D. Eisenhower and his dour Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who was deeply distrusted. Clinton was liked for interesting reasons, and understanding this requires examining the post-Cold War era.<br /><br /><b>The United States and Europe After the Cold War</b><br /><br />The year 1991 marked the end of the Cold War. For the first time since 1914, Europeans were prosperous, secure and recovering their sovereignty. The United States wanted little from the Europeans, something that delighted the Europeans. It was a rare historical moment in which the alliance existed in some institutional sense, but not in any major active form. The Balkans had to be dealt with, but those were the Balkans — not an area of major concern.<br /><br />Europe could finally relax. Another world war would not erase its prosperity, and they were free from active American domination. They could shape their institutions, and they would. It was the perfect time for them, one they thought would last forever.<br /><br />For the United States, 9/11 changed all that. The Europeans had deep sympathy for the United States post-Sept. 11, sympathy that was on the whole genuine. But the Europeans also believed that former U.S. President George W. Bush had overreacted to the attacks, threatening to unleash a reign of terror on them, engaging in unnecessary wars and above all not consulting them. The last claim was not altogether true: Bush frequently consulted the Europeans, but they frequently said no to his administration’s requests. The Europeans were appalled that Bush continued his policies in spite of their objections; they felt they were being dragged back into a Cold War-type situation for trivial reasons.<br /><br />The Cold War revolved around Soviet domination of Europe. In the end, whatever the risks, the Cold War was worth the risk and the pain of U.S. domination. But to Europeans, the jihadist threat simply didn’t require the effort the United States was prepared to put into it. The United States seemed unsophisticated and reckless, like cowboys.<br /><br />The older European view of the United States re-emerged, as did the old fear. Throughout the Cold War, the European fear was that a U.S. miscalculation would drag the Europeans into another catastrophic war. Bush’s approach to the jihadist war terrified them and deepened their resentment. Their hard-earned prosperity was in jeopardy again because of the Americans, this time for what the Europeans saw as an insufficient reason. The Americans were once again seen as overreacting, Europe’s greatest Cold War-era dread.<br /><br />For Europe, prosperity had become an end in itself. It is ironic that the Europeans regard the Americans as obsessed with money when it is the Europeans who put economic considerations over all other things. But the Europeans mean something different when they talk about money. For the Europeans, money isn’t about piling it higher and higher. Instead, money is about security. Their economic goal is not to become wealthy but to be comfortable. Today’s Europeans value economic comfort above all other considerations. After Sept. 11, the United States seemed willing to take chances with the Europeans’ comfortable economic condition that the Europeans themselves didn’t want to take. They loathed George W. Bush for doing so.<br /><br />Conversely, they love Obama because he took office promising to consult with them. They understood this promise in two ways. One was that in consulting the Europeans, Obama would give them veto power. Second, they understood him as being a president like Kennedy, namely, as one unwilling to take imprudent risks. How they remember Kennedy that way given the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the coup against Diem in Vietnam is hard to fathom, but of course, many Americans remember him the same way. The Europeans compare Obama to an imaginary Kennedy, but what they really think is that he is another Clinton.<br /><br />Clinton was Clinton because of the times he lived in and not because of his nature: The collapse of the Soviet Union created a peaceful interregnum in which Clinton didn’t need to make demands on Europe’s comfortable prosperity. George W. Bush lived in a different world, and that caused him to resume taking risks and making demands.<br /><br />Obama does not live in the 1990s. He is facing Afghanistan, Iran and a range of other crisis up to and including a rising Russia that looks uncannily similar to the old Soviet Union. It is difficult to imagine how he can face these risks without taking actions that will be counter to the European wish to be allowed to remain comfortable, and worse, without ignoring the European desire to avoid what they will see as unreasonable U.S. demands. In fact, U.S.-German relations already are not particularly good on Obama’s watch. Obama has asked for troops in Afghanistan and been turned down, and has continued to call for NATO expansion, which the Germans don’t want.<br /><br />The Norwegian politicians gave their prize to Obama because they believed that he would leave Europeans in their comfortable prosperity without making unreasonable demands. That is their definition of peace, and Obama seemed to promise that. The Norwegians on the prize committee seem unaware of the course U.S.-German relations have taken, or of Afghanistan and Iran. Alternatively, perhaps they believe Obama can navigate those waters without resorting to war. In that case, it is difficult to imagine what they make of the recent talks with Iran or planning on Afghanistan.<br /><br />The Norwegians awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the president of their dreams, not the president who is dealing with Iran and Afghanistan. Obama is not a free actor. He is trapped by the reality he has found himself in, and that reality will push him far away from the Norwegian fantasy. In the end, the United States is the United States — and that is Europe’s nightmare, because the United States is not obsessed with maintaining Europe’s comfortable prosperity. The United States cannot afford to be, and in the end, neither can President Obama, Nobel Peace Prize or not.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">Copyright 2009 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-4924733761766879388?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-19323091363392698862009-08-24T19:58:00.002-04:002009-08-24T20:07:50.972-04:00Obama's Foreign Policy: The End of the Beginning<div style="clear:both;"></div>By George Friedman<br /><br />As August draws to a close, so does the first phase of the Obama presidency. The first months of any U.S. presidency are spent filling key positions and learning the levers of foreign and national security policy. There are also the first rounds of visits with foreign leaders and the first tentative forays into foreign policy. The first summer sees the leaders of the Northern Hemisphere take their annual vacations, and barring a crisis or war, little happens in the foreign policy arena. Then September comes and the world gets back in motion, and the first phase of the president’s foreign policy ends. The president is no longer thinking about what sort of foreign policy he will have; he now has a foreign policy that he is carrying out.<br /><br />We therefore are at a good point to stop and consider not what U.S. President Barack Obama will do in the realm of foreign policy, but what he has done and is doing. As we have mentioned before, the single most remarkable thing about Obama’s foreign policy is how consistent it is with the policies of former President George W. Bush. This is not surprising. Presidents operate in the world of constraints; their options are limited. Still, it is worth pausing to note how little Obama has deviated from the Bush foreign policy.<br /><br />During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, particularly in its early stages, Obama ran against the Iraq war. The centerpiece of his early position was that the war was a mistake, and that he would end it. Obama argued that Bush’s policies — and more important, his style — alienated U.S. allies. He charged Bush with pursuing a unilateral foreign policy, alienating allies by failing to act in concert with them. In doing so, he maintained that the war in Iraq destroyed the international coalition the United States needs to execute any war successfully. Obama further argued that Iraq was a distraction and that the major effort should be in Afghanistan. He added that the United States would need its NATO allies’ support in Afghanistan. He said an Obama administration would reach out to the Europeans, rebuild U.S. ties there and win greater support from them.<br /><br />Though around 40 countries cooperated with the United States in Iraq, albeit many with only symbolic contributions, the major continental European powers — particularly France and Germany — refused to participate. When Obama spoke of alienating allies, he clearly meant these two countries, as well as smaller European powers that had belonged to the U.S. Cold War coalition but were unwilling to participate in Iraq and were now actively hostile to U.S. policy.<br /><br /><b>A European Rebuff</b><br /><br />Early in his administration, Obama made two strategic decisions. First, instead of ordering an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, he adopted the Bush administration’s policy of a staged withdrawal keyed to political stabilization and the development of Iraqi security forces. While he tweaked the timeline on the withdrawal, the basic strategy remained intact. Indeed, he retained Bush’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, to oversee the withdrawal.<br /><br />Second, he increased the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The Bush administration had committed itself to Afghanistan from 9/11 onward. But it had remained in a defensive posture in the belief that given the forces available, enemy capabilities and the historic record, that was the best that could be done, especially as the Pentagon was almost immediately reoriented and refocused on the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. Toward the end, the Bush administration began exploring — under the influence of Gen. David Petraeus, who designed the strategy in Iraq — the possibility of some sort of political accommodation in Afghanistan.<br /><br />Obama has shifted his strategy in Afghanistan to this extent: He has moved from a purely defensive posture to a mixed posture of selective offense and defense, and has placed more forces into Afghanistan (although the United States still has nowhere near the number of troops the Soviets had when they lost their Afghan war). Therefore, the core structure of Obama’s policy remains the same as Bush’s except for the introduction of limited offensives. In a major shift since Obama took office, the Pakistanis have taken a more aggressive stance (or at least want to appear more aggressive) toward the Taliban and al Qaeda, at least within their own borders. But even so, Obama’s basic strategy remains the same as Bush’s: hold in Afghanistan until the political situation evolves to the point that a political settlement is possible.<br /><br />Most interesting is how little success Obama has had with the French and the Germans. Bush had given up asking for assistance in Afghanistan, but Obama tried again. He received the same answer Bush did: no. Except for some minor, short-term assistance, the French and Germans were unwilling to commit forces to Obama’s major foreign policy effort, something that stands out.<br /><br />Given the degree to which the Europeans disliked Bush and were eager to have a president who would revert the U.S.-European relationship to what it once was (at least in their view), one would have thought the French and Germans would be eager to make some substantial gesture rewarding the United States for selecting a pro-European president. Certainly, it was in their interest to strengthen Obama. That they proved unwilling to make that gesture suggests that the French and German relationship with the United States is much less important to Paris and Berlin than it would appear. Obama, a pro-European president, was emphasizing a war France and Germany approved of over a war they disapproved of and asked for their help, but virtually none was forthcoming.<br /><br /><b>The Russian Non-Reset</b><br /><br />Obama’s desire to reset European relations was matched by his desire to reset U.S.-Russian relations. Ever since the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine in late 2004 and early 2005, U.S.-Russian relations had deteriorated dramatically, with Moscow charging Washington with interfering in the internal affairs of former Soviet republics with the aim of weakening Russia. This culminated in the Russo-Georgian war last August. The Obama administration has since suggested a “reset” in relations, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton actually carrying a box labeled “reset button” to her spring meeting with the Russians.<br /><br />The problem, of course, was that the last thing the Russians wanted was to reset relations with the United States. They did not want to go back to the period after the Orange Revolution, nor did they want to go back to the period between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Orange Revolution. The Obama administration’s call for a reset showed the distance between the Russians and the Americans: The Russians regard the latter period as an economic and geopolitical disaster, while the Americans regard it as quite satisfactory. Both views are completely understandable.<br /><br />The Obama administration was signaling that it intends to continue the Bush administration’s Russia policy. That policy was that Russia had no legitimate right to claim priority in the former Soviet Union, and that the United States had the right to develop bilateral relations with any country and expand NATO as it wished. But the Bush administration saw the Russian leadership as unwilling to follow the basic architecture of relations that had developed after 1991, and as unreasonably redefining what the Americans thought of as a stable and desirable relationship. The Russian response was that an entirely new relationship was needed between the two countries, or the Russians would pursue an independent foreign policy matching U.S. hostility with Russian hostility. Highlighting the continuity in U.S.-Russian relations, plans for the prospective ballistic missile defense installation in Poland, a symbol of antagonistic U.S.-Russian relations, remain unchanged.<br /><br />The underlying problem is that the Cold War generation of U.S. Russian experts has been supplanted by the post-Cold War generation, now grown to maturity and authority. If the Cold warriors were forged in the 1960s, the post-Cold warriors are forever caught in the 1990s. They believed that the 1990s represented a stable platform from which to reform Russia, and that the grumbling of Russians plunged into poverty and international irrelevancy at that time is simply part of the post-Cold War order. They believe that without economic power, Russia cannot hope to be an important player on the international stage. That Russia has never been an economic power even at the height of its influence but has frequently been a military power doesn’t register. Therefore, they are constantly expecting Russia to revert to its 1990s patterns, and believe that if Moscow doesn’t, it will collapse — which explains U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s interview in The Wall Street Journal where he discussed Russia’s decline in terms of its economic and demographic challenges. Obama’s key advisers come from the Clinton administration, and their view of Russia — like that of the Bush administration — was forged in the 1990s.<br /><br /><b>Foreign Policy Continuity Elsewhere</b><br /><br />When we look at U.S.-China policy, we see very similar patterns with the Bush administration. The United States under Obama has the same interest in maintaining economic ties and avoiding political complications as the Bush administration did. Indeed, Hillary Clinton explicitly refused to involve herself in human rights issues during her visit to China. Campaign talk of engaging China on human rights issues is gone. Given the interests of both countries, this makes sense, but it is also noteworthy given the ample opportunity to speak to China on this front (and fulfill campaign promises) that has arisen since Obama took office (such as the Uighur riots).<br /><br />Of great interest, of course, were the three great openings of the early Obama administration, to Cuba, to Iran, and to the Islamic world in general through his Cairo speech. The Cubans and Iranians rebuffed his opening, whereas the net result of the speech to the Islamic world remains unclear. With Iran we see the most important continuity. Obama continues to demand an end to Tehran’s nuclear program, and has promised further sanctions unless Iran agrees to enter into serious talks by late September.<br /><br />On Israel, the United States has merely shifted the atmospherics. Both the Bush and Obama administrations demanded that the Israelis halt settlements, as have many other administrations. The Israelis have usually responded by agreeing to something small while ignoring the larger issue. The Obama administration seemed ready to make a major issue of this, but instead continued to maintain security collaboration with the Israelis on Iran and Lebanon (and we assume intelligence collaboration). Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has not allowed the settlements to get in the way of fundamental strategic interests.<br /><br />This is not a criticism of Obama. Presidents — all presidents — run on a platform that will win. If they are good presidents, they will leave behind these promises to govern as they must. This is what Obama has done. He ran for president as the antithesis of Bush. He has conducted his foreign policy as if he were Bush. This is because Bush’s foreign policy was shaped by necessity, and Obama’s foreign policy is shaped by the same necessity. Presidents who believe they can govern independent of reality are failures. Obama doesn’t intend to fail.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">Copyright 2009 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-1932309136339269886?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-67811427703225521942009-07-07T18:18:00.001-04:002009-07-07T18:25:12.106-04:00The U.S.-Russian Summit Turns RoutineBy George Friedman<br /><br />The Moscow summit between U.S. President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has ended. As is almost always the case, the atmospherics were good, with the proper things said on all sides and statements and gestures of deep sincerity made. And as with all summits, those atmospherics are like the air: insubstantial and ultimately invisible. While there were indications of substantial movement, you would have needed a microscope to see them.<br /><br />An agreement was reached on what an agreement on nuclear arms reduction might look like, but we do not regard this as a strategic matter. The number of strategic warheads and delivery vehicles is a Cold War issue that concerned the security of each side’s nuclear deterrent. We do not mean to argue that removing a thousand or so nuclear weapons is unimportant, but instead that no one is deterring anyone these days, and the risk of accidental launch is as large or as small whether there are 500 or 5,000 launchers or warheads. Either way, nuclear arms’ strategic significance remains unchanged. The summit perhaps has created a process that could lead to some degree of confidence. It is not lack of confidence dividing the two countries, however, but rather divisions on fundamental geopolitical issues that don’t intersect with the missile question.<br /><br /><b>The Fundamental Issues</b><br /><br />There are dozens of contentious issues between the United States and Russia, but in our mind three issues are fundamental.<br /><br />First, there is the question of whether Poland will become a base from which the United States can contain Russian power, or from the Russian point of view, threaten the former Soviet Union. The ballistic missile defense (BMD) system that the United States has slated for Poland does not directly affect that issue, though it symbolizes it. It represents the U.S. use of Polish territory for strategic purposes, and it is something the Russians oppose not so much for the system’s direct or specific threat — which is minimal — but for what it symbolizes about the Americans’ status in Poland. The Russians hoped to get Obama to follow the policy at the summit that he alluded to during his campaign for the U.S. presidency: namely, removing the BMD program from Poland to reduce tensions with Russia.<br /><br />Second, there is the question of Iran. This is a strategic matter for the United States, perhaps even more pressing since the recent Iranian election. The United States badly needs to isolate Iran effectively, something impossible without Russian cooperation. Moscow has refused to join Washington on this issue, in part because it is so important to the United States. Given its importance to the Americans, the Russians see Iran as a lever with which they can try to control U.S. actions elsewhere. The Americans do not want to see Russian support, and particularly arms sales, to Iran. Given that, the Russians don’t want to close off the possibility of supporting Iran. The United States wanted to see some Russian commitments on Iran at the summit.<br /><br />And third, there is the question of U.S. relations with former Soviet countries other than Russia, and the expressed U.S. desire to see NATO expand to include Ukraine and Georgia. The Russians insist that any such expansion threatens Russian national security and understandings with previous U.S. administrations. The United States insists that no such understandings exist, that NATO expansion doesn’t threaten Russia, and that the expansion will continue. The Russians were hoping the Americans would back off on this issue at the summit.<br /><br />Of some importance, but not as fundamental as the previous issues, was the question of whether Russia will allow U.S. arms shipments to Afghanistan through Russian territory. This issue became important last winter when Taliban attacks on U.S. supply routes through Pakistan intensified, putting the viability of those routes in question. In recent months the Russians have accepted the transit of nonlethal materiel through Russia, but not arms.<br /><br />Even before the summit, the Russians made a concession on this point, giving the United States the right to transit military equipment via Russian airspace. This was a significant policy change designed to demonstrate Russia’s flexibility. At the same time, the step is not as significant as it appeared. The move cost the Russians little under the circumstances, and is easily revoked. And while the United States might use the route, the route is always subject to Russian pressure, meaning the United States is not going to allow a strategic dependence to develop. Moreover, the U.S. need is not as apparent now as it was a few months ago. And finally, a Talibanized Afghanistan is not in the Russian interest. That Russia did not grant the U.S. request last February merely reveals how bad U.S.-Russian relations were at the time. Conversely, the Russian concession on the issue signals that U.S.-Russian relations have improved. The concession was all the more significant in that it came after Obama praised Medvedev for his openness and criticized Putin as having one foot in the Cold War, clearly an attempt to play the two Russian leaders off each other.<br /><br /><b>What the Summit Produced</b><br /><br />Much more significantly, the United States did not agree to withdraw the BMD system from Poland at the summit. Washington did not say that removal is impossible, but instead delayed that discussion until at least September, when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Moscow. A joint review of all of the world’s missile capabilities was established at the summit, and this joint review will consider Iranian — and North Korean — missiles. The Polish BMD system will be addressed in that context. In other words, Washington did not concede on the point, but it did not close off discussions. The Russians accordingly did not get what they wanted on the missiles at the summit; they got even less of what they wanted in the broader strategic sense of a neutralized Poland.<br /><br />The Russians in turn made no visible concessions on Iran. Apart from studying the Iranians’ missile systems, the Russians made no pledge to join in sanctions on Iran, nor did they join in any criticism of the current crackdown in Iran. The United States had once offered to trade Polish BMDs for Russian cooperation on Iran, an idea rejected by the Russians since the BMD system in Poland wasn’t worth the leverage Moscow has with Iran. Certainly without the Polish BMD withdrawal, there was going to be no movement on Iran.<br /><br />NATO expansion is where some U.S. concession might have emerged. In his speech on Tuesday, Obama said, “State sovereignty must be a cornerstone of international order. Just as all states should have the right to choose their leaders, states must have the right to borders that are secure, and to their own foreign policies. That is why this principle must apply to all nations – including Georgia and Ukraine. America will never impose a security arrangement on another country. For either country to become a member of NATO, a majority of its people must choose to; they must undertake reforms; and they must be able to contribute to the alliance’s mission. And let me be clear: NATO seeks collaboration with Russia, not confrontation.”<br /><br />On the surface, this reiterated the old U.S. position, which was that NATO expansion was between NATO and individual nations of the former Soviet Union, and did not — and should not — concern Moscow. The terms of expanding, reforming and contributing to NATO remained the same. But immediately after the Obama-Putin meeting, Russian sources began claiming that an understanding on NATO expansion was reached, and that the Americans conceded the point. We see some evidence for this in the speech — the U.S. public position almost never has included mention of public support or reforms.<br /><br />In many ways, however, this is splitting hairs. The French and Germans have long insisted that any NATO expansion should be limited to countries with strong public support for expansion, and which meet certain military thresholds that Georgia and Ukraine clearly do not meet (and could not meet even with a decade of hard work). Since NATO expansion requires unanimous support from all members, Russia was more interested in having the United States freeze its relations with other former Soviet states at their current level. Russian sources indicate that they did indeed get reassurances of such a freeze, but it takes an eager imagination to glean that from Obama’s public statement.<br /><br />Therefore, we come away with the sense that the summit changed little, but that it certainly didn’t cause any deterioration, which could have happened. Having a summit that causes no damage is an achievement in itself.<br /><br /><b>The Kennedy Trap</b><br /><br />Perhaps the most important part of the summit was that Obama does not seem to have fallen into the Kennedy trap. Part of the lack of serious resolutions at the summit undoubtedly resulted from Obama’s unwillingness to be excessively accommodating to the Russians. With all of the comparisons to the 1961 Kennedy-Khrushchev summit being bruited about, Obama clearly had at least one overriding goal in Moscow: to not be weak. Obama tried to show his skills even before the summit, playing Medvedev and Putin against each other. No matter how obvious and clumsy that might have been, it served a public purpose by making it clear that Obama was not in awe of either of them. Creating processes rather than solutions also was part of that strategy.<br /><br />It appears, however, that the Russians did fall into the Kennedy trap a bit. The eagerness of Putin’s advisers to tout U.S. concession on Ukraine and Georgia after their meeting in spite of scant public evidence of such concessions gives us the sense that Putin wanted to show that he achieved something Medvedev couldn’t. There may well be a growing rivalry between Medvedev and Putin, and Obama might well have played off it.<br /><br />But that is for the gossip columns. The important news from the summit was as follows: First, no one screwed up, and second, U.S.-Russian relations did not get worse — and might actually have improved.<br /><br />No far-reaching strategic agreements were attained, but strategic improvements in the future were not excluded. Obama played his role without faltering, and there may be some smidgen of tension between the two personalities running Russia. As far as summits go, we have seen far worse and much better. But given the vitriol of past U.S.-Soviet/Russian relations, routine is hardly a negative outcome.<br /><br />In the meantime, BMD remains under development in Poland, there is no U.S.-Russian agreement on Iran and, as far as we can confirm at present, no major shift in U.S. policy on Ukraine and Georgia has occurred. This summit will not be long remembered, but then Obama did not want the word “disastrous” attached to this summit as it had been to Kennedy’s first Soviet summit.<br /><br />We wish there were more exciting things to report about the summit, but sometimes there simply aren’t. And sometimes the routine might turn out significant, but we doubt that in this case. The geopolitical divide between the United States and Russia is as deep as ever, even if some of the sharper edges have been rounded. Ultimately, little progress was made in finding ways to bridge the two countries’ divergent interests. And the burning issues — particularly Poland and Iran — continue to burn.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">Copyright 2009 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-6781142770322552194?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-68408605786463718042009-06-22T19:46:00.002-04:002009-06-22T19:53:55.816-04:00The Iranian Election and the Revolution TestBy George Friedman<br /><br />Successful revolutions have three phases. First, a strategically located single or limited segment of society begins vocally to express resentment, asserting itself in the streets of a major city, usually the capital. This segment is joined by other segments in the city and by segments elsewhere as the demonstration spreads to other cities and becomes more assertive, disruptive and potentially violent. As resistance to the regime spreads, the regime deploys its military and security forces. These forces, drawn from resisting social segments and isolated from the rest of society, turn on the regime, and stop following the regime’s orders. This is what happened to the Shah of Iran in 1979; it is also what happened in Russia in 1917 or in Romania in 1989.<br /><br />Revolutions fail when no one joins the initial segment, meaning the initial demonstrators are the ones who find themselves socially isolated. When the demonstrations do not spread to other cities, the demonstrations either peter out or the regime brings in the security and military forces — who remain loyal to the regime and frequently personally hostile to the demonstrators — and use force to suppress the rising to the extent necessary. This is what happened in Tiananmen Square in China: The students who rose up were not joined by others. Military forces who were not only loyal to the regime but hostile to the students were brought in, and the students were crushed.<br /><br /><b>A Question of Support</b><br /><br />This is also what happened in Iran this week. The global media, obsessively focused on the initial demonstrators — who were supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s opponents — failed to notice that while large, the demonstrations primarily consisted of the same type of people demonstrating. Amid the breathless reporting on the demonstrations, reporters failed to notice that the uprising was not spreading to other classes and to other areas. In constantly interviewing English-speaking demonstrators, they failed to note just how many of the demonstrators spoke English and had smartphones. The media thus did not recognize these as the signs of a failing revolution.<br /><br />Later, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke Friday and called out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, they failed to understand that the troops — definitely not drawn from what we might call the “Twittering classes,” would remain loyal to the regime for ideological and social reasons. The troops had about as much sympathy for the demonstrators as a small-town boy from Alabama might have for a Harvard postdoc. Failing to understand the social tensions in Iran, the reporters deluded themselves into thinking they were witnessing a general uprising. But this was not St. Petersburg in 1917 or Bucharest in 1989 — it was Tiananmen Square.<br /><br />In the global discussion last week outside Iran, there was a great deal of confusion about basic facts. For example, it is said that the urban-rural distinction in Iran is not critical any longer because according to the United Nations, 68 percent of Iranians are urbanized. This is an important point because it implies Iran is homogeneous and the demonstrators representative of the country. The problem is the Iranian definition of urban — and this is quite common around the world — includes very small communities (some with only a few thousand people) as “urban.” But the social difference between someone living in a town with 10,000 people and someone living in Tehran is the difference between someone living in Bastrop, Texas and someone living in New York. We can assure you that that difference is not only vast, but that most of the good people of Bastrop and the fine people of New York would probably not see the world the same way. The failure to understand the dramatic diversity of Iranian society led observers to assume that students at Iran’s elite university somehow spoke for the rest of the country.<br /><br />Tehran proper has about 8 million inhabitants; its suburbs bring it to about 13 million people out of Iran’s total population of 70.5 million. Tehran accounts for about 20 percent of Iran, but as we know, the cab driver and the construction worker are not socially linked to students at elite universities. There are six cities with populations between 1 million and 2.4 million people and 11 with populations of about 500,000. Including Tehran proper, 15.5 million people live in cities with more than 1 million and 19.7 million in cities greater than 500,000. Iran has 80 cities with more than 100,000. But given that Waco, Texas, has more than 100,000 people, inferences of social similarities between cities with 100,000 and 5 million are tenuous. And with metro Oklahoma City having more than a million people, it becomes plain that urbanization has many faces.<br /><br /><b>Winning the Election With or Without Fraud</b><br /><br />We continue to believe two things: that vote fraud occurred, and that Ahmadinejad likely would have won without it. Very little direct evidence has emerged to establish vote fraud, but several things seem suspect.<br /><br />For example, the speed of the vote count has been taken as a sign of fraud, as it should have been impossible to count votes that fast. The polls originally were to have closed at 7 p.m. local time, but voting hours were extended until 10 p.m. because of the number of voters in line. By 11:45 p.m. about 20 percent of the vote had been counted. By 5:20 a.m. the next day, with almost all votes counted, the election commission declared Ahmadinejad the winner. The vote count thus took about seven hours. (Remember there were no senators, congressmen, city council members or school board members being counted — just the presidential race.) Intriguingly, this is about the same time in took in 2005, though reformists that claimed fraud back then did not stress the counting time in their allegations.<br /><br />The counting mechanism is simple: Iran has 47,000 voting stations, plus 14,000 roaming stations that travel from tiny village to tiny village, staying there for a short time before moving on. That creates 61,000 ballot boxes designed to receive roughly the same number of votes. That would mean that each station would have been counting about 500 ballots, or about 70 votes per hour. With counting beginning at 10 p.m., concluding seven hours later does not necessarily indicate fraud or anything else. The Iranian presidential election system is designed for simplicity: one race to count in one time zone, and all counting beginning at the same time in all regions, we would expect the numbers to come in a somewhat linear fashion as rural and urban voting patterns would balance each other out — explaining why voting percentages didn’t change much during the night.<br /><br />It has been pointed out that some of the candidates didn’t even carry their own provinces or districts. We remember that Al Gore didn’t carry Tennessee in 2000. We also remember Ralph Nader, who also didn’t carry his home precinct in part because people didn’t want to spend their vote on someone unlikely to win — an effect probably felt by the two smaller candidates in the Iranian election.<br /><br />That Mousavi didn’t carry his own province is more interesting. Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett writing in Politico make some interesting points on this. As an ethnic Azeri, it was assumed that Mousavi would carry his Azeri-named and -dominated home province. But they also point out that Ahmadinejad also speaks Azeri, and made multiple campaign appearances in the district. They also point out that Khamenei is Azeri. In sum, winning that district was by no means certain for Mousavi, so losing it does not automatically signal fraud. It raised suspicions, but by no means was a smoking gun.<br /><br />We do not doubt that fraud occurred during Iranian election. For example, 99.4 percent of potential voters voted in Mazandaran province, a mostly secular area home to the shah’s family. Ahmadinejad carried the province by a 2.2 to 1 ratio. That is one heck of a turnout and level of support for a province that lost everything when the mullahs took over 30 years ago. But even if you take all of the suspect cases and added them together, it would not have changed the outcome. The fact is that Ahmadinejad’s vote in 2009 was extremely close to his victory percentage in 2005. And while the Western media portrayed Ahmadinejad’s performance in the presidential debates ahead of the election as dismal, embarrassing and indicative of an imminent electoral defeat, many Iranians who viewed those debates — including some of the most hardcore Mousavi supporters — acknowledge that Ahmadinejad outperformed his opponents by a landslide.<br /><br />Mousavi persuasively detailed his fraud claims Sunday, and they have yet to be rebutted. But if his claims of the extent of fraud were true, the protests should have spread rapidly by social segment and geography to the millions of people who even the central government asserts voted for him. Certainly, Mousavi supporters believed they would win the election based in part on highly flawed polls, and when they didn’t, they assumed they were robbed and took to the streets.<br /><br />But critically, the protesters were not joined by any of the millions whose votes the protesters alleged were stolen. In a complete hijacking of the election by some 13 million votes by an extremely unpopular candidate, we would have expected to see the core of Mousavi’s supporters joined by others who had been disenfranchised. On last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, when the demonstrations were at their height, the millions of Mousavi voters should have made their appearance. They didn’t. We might assume that the security apparatus intimidated some, but surely more than just the Tehran professional and student classes posses civic courage. While appearing large, the demonstrations actually comprised a small fraction of society.<br /><br /><b>Tensions Among the Political Elite</b><br /><br />All of this not to say there are not tremendous tensions within the Iranian political elite. That no revolution broke out does not mean there isn’t a crisis in the political elite, particularly among the clerics. But that crisis does not cut the way Western common sense would have it. Many of Iran’s religious leaders see Ahmadinejad as hostile to their interests, as threatening their financial prerogatives, and as taking international risks they don’t want to take. Ahmadinejad’s political popularity in fact rests on his populist hostility to what he sees as the corruption of the clerics and their families and his strong stand on Iranian national security issues.<br /><br />The clerics are divided among themselves, but many wanted to see Ahmadinejad lose to protect their own interests. Khamenei, the supreme leader, faced a difficult choice last Friday. He could demand a major recount or even new elections, or he could validate what happened. Khamenei speaks for a sizable chunk of the ruling elite, but also has had to rule by consensus among both clerical and non-clerical forces. Many powerful clerics like Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani wanted Khamenei to reverse the election, and we suspect Khamenei wished he could have found a way to do it. But as the defender of the regime, he was afraid to. Mousavi supporters’ demonstrations would have been nothing compared to the firestorm among Ahmadinejad supporters — both voters and the security forces — had their candidate been denied. Khamenei wasn’t going to flirt with disaster, so he endorsed the outcome.<br /><br />The Western media misunderstood this because they didn’t understand that Ahmadinejad does not speak for the clerics but against them, that many of the clerics were working for his defeat, and that Ahmadinejad has enormous pull in the country’s security apparatus. The reason Western media missed this is because they bought into the concept of the stolen election, therefore failing to see Ahmadinejad’s support and the widespread dissatisfaction with the old clerical elite. The Western media simply didn’t understand that the most traditional and pious segments of Iranian society support Ahmadinejad because he opposes the old ruling elite. Instead, they assumed this was like Prague or Budapest in 1989, with a broad-based uprising in favor of liberalism against an unpopular regime.<br /><br />Tehran in 2009, however, was a struggle between two main factions, both of which supported the Islamic republic as it was. There were the clerics, who have dominated the regime since 1979 and had grown wealthy in the process. And there was Ahmadinejad, who felt the ruling clerical elite had betrayed the revolution with their personal excesses. And there also was the small faction the BBC and CNN kept focusing on — the demonstrators in the streets who want to dramatically liberalize the Islamic republic. This faction never stood a chance of taking power, whether by election or revolution. The two main factions used the third smaller faction in various ways, however. Ahmadinejad used it to make his case that the clerics who supported them, like Rafsanjani, would risk the revolution and play into the hands of the Americans and British to protect their own wealth. Meanwhile, Rafsanjani argued behind the scenes that the unrest was the tip of the iceberg, and that Ahmadinejad had to be replaced. Khamenei, an astute politician, examined the data and supported Ahmadinejad.<br /><br />Now, as we saw after Tiananmen Square, we will see a reshuffling among the elite. Those who backed Mousavi will be on the defensive. By contrast, those who supported Ahmadinejad are in a powerful position. There is a massive crisis in the elite, but this crisis has nothing to do with liberalization: It has to do with power and prerogatives among the elite. Having been forced by the election and Khamenei to live with Ahmadinejad, some will make deals while some will fight — but Ahmadinejad is well-positioned to win this battle.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">Copyright 2009 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-6840860578646371804?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-84174505284438007252009-06-15T21:39:00.004-04:002009-06-15T21:51:06.384-04:00Western Misconceptions Meet Iranian RealityBy George Friedman<br /><br />In 1979, when we were still young and starry-eyed, a revolution took place in Iran. When I asked experts what would happen, they divided into two camps.<br /><br />The first group of Iran experts argued that the Shah of Iran would certainly survive, that the unrest was simply a cyclical event readily manageable by his security, and that the Iranian people were united behind the Iranian monarch’s modernization program. These experts developed this view by talking to the same Iranian officials and businessmen they had been talking to for years — Iranians who had grown wealthy and powerful under the shah and who spoke English, since Iran experts frequently didn’t speak Farsi all that well.<br /><br />The second group of Iran experts regarded the shah as a repressive brute, and saw the revolution as aimed at liberalizing the country. Their sources were the professionals and academics who supported the uprising — Iranians who knew what former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini believed, but didn’t think he had much popular support. They thought the revolution would result in an increase in human rights and liberty. The experts in this group spoke even less Farsi than the those in the first group.<br /><br /><b>Misreading Sentiment in Iran</b><br /><br />Limited to information on Iran from English-speaking opponents of the regime, both groups of Iran experts got a very misleading vision of where the revolution was heading — because the Iranian revolution was not brought about by the people who spoke English. It was made by merchants in city bazaars, by rural peasants, by the clergy — people Americans didn’t speak to because they couldn’t. This demographic was unsure of the virtues of modernization and not at all clear on the virtues of liberalism. From the time they were born, its members knew the virtue of Islam, and that the Iranian state must be an Islamic state.<br /><br />Americans and Europeans have been misreading Iran for 30 years. Even after the shah fell, the myth has survived that a mass movement of people exists demanding liberalization — a movement that if encouraged by the West eventually would form a majority and rule the country. We call this outlook “iPod liberalism,” the idea that anyone who listens to rock ‘n’ roll on an iPod, writes blogs and knows what it means to Twitter must be an enthusiastic supporter of Western liberalism. Even more significantly, this outlook fails to recognize that iPod owners represent a small minority in Iran — a country that is poor, pious and content on the whole with the revolution forged 30 years ago.<br /><br />There are undoubtedly people who want to liberalize the Iranian regime. They are to be found among the professional classes in Tehran, as well as among students. Many speak English, making them accessible to the touring journalists, diplomats and intelligence people who pass through. They are the ones who can speak to Westerners, and they are the ones willing to speak to Westerners. And these people give Westerners a wildly distorted view of Iran. They can create the impression that a fantastic liberalization is at hand — but not when you realize that iPod-owning Anglophones are not exactly the majority in Iran.<br /><br />Last Friday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with about two-thirds of the vote. Supporters of his opponent, both inside and outside Iran, were stunned. A poll revealed that former Iranian Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi was beating Ahmadinejad. It is, of course, interesting to meditate on how you could conduct a poll in a country where phones are not universal, and making a call once you have found a phone can be a trial. A poll therefore would probably reach people who had phones and lived in Tehran and other urban areas. Among those, Mousavi probably did win. But outside Tehran, and beyond persons easy to poll, the numbers turned out quite different.<br /><br />Some still charge that Ahmadinejad cheated. That is certainly a possibility, but it is difficult to see how he could have stolen the election by such a large margin. Doing so would have required the involvement of an incredible number of people, and would have risked creating numbers that quite plainly did not jibe with sentiment in each precinct. Widespread fraud would mean that Ahmadinejad manufactured numbers in Tehran without any regard for the vote. But he has many powerful enemies who would quickly have spotted this and would have called him on it. Mousavi still insists he was robbed, and we must remain open to the possibility that he was, although it is hard to see the mechanics of this.<br /><br /><b>Ahmadinejad’s Popularity</b><br /><br />It also misses a crucial point: Ahmadinejad enjoys widespread popularity. He doesn’t speak to the issues that matter to the urban professionals, namely, the economy and liberalization. But Ahmadinejad speaks to three fundamental issues that accord with the rest of the country.<br /><br />First, Ahmadinejad speaks of piety. Among vast swathes of Iranian society, the willingness to speak unaffectedly about religion is crucial. Though it may be difficult for Americans and Europeans to believe, there are people in the world to whom economic progress is not of the essence; people who want to maintain their communities as they are and live the way their grandparents lived. These are people who see modernization — whether from the shah or Mousavi — as unattractive. They forgive Ahmadinejad his economic failures.<br /><br />Second, Ahmadinejad speaks of corruption. There is a sense in the countryside that the ayatollahs — who enjoy enormous wealth and power, and often have lifestyles that reflect this — have corrupted the Islamic Revolution. Ahmadinejad is disliked by many of the religious elite precisely because he has systematically raised the corruption issue, which resonates in the countryside.<br /><br />Third, Ahmadinejad is a spokesman for Iranian national security, a tremendously popular stance. It must always be remembered that Iran fought a war with Iraq in the 1980s that lasted eight years, cost untold lives and suffering, and effectively ended in its defeat. Iranians, particularly the poor, experienced this war on an intimate level. They fought in the war, and lost husbands and sons in it. As in other countries, memories of a lost war don’t necessarily delegitimize the regime. Rather, they can generate hopes for a resurgent Iran, thus validating the sacrifices made in that war — something Ahmadinejad taps into. By arguing that Iran should not back down but become a major power, he speaks to the veterans and their families, who want something positive to emerge from all their sacrifices in the war.<br /><br />Perhaps the greatest factor in Ahmadinejad’s favor is that Mousavi spoke for the better districts of Tehran — something akin to running a U.S. presidential election as a spokesman for Georgetown and the Lower East Side. Such a base will get you hammered, and Mousavi got hammered. Fraud or not, Ahmadinejad won and he won significantly. That he won is not the mystery; the mystery is why others thought he wouldn’t win.<br /><br />For a time on Friday, it seemed that Mousavi might be able to call for an uprising in Tehran. But the moment passed when Ahmadinejad’s security forces on motorcycles intervened. And that leaves the West with its worst-case scenario: a democratically elected anti-liberal.<br /><br />Western democracies assume that publics will elect liberals who will protect their rights. In reality, it’s a more complicated world. Hitler is the classic example of someone who came to power constitutionally, and then preceded to gut the constitution. Similarly, Ahmadinejad’s victory is a triumph of both democracy and repression.<br /><br /><b>The Road Ahead: More of the Same</b><br /><br />The question now is what will happen next. Internally, we can expect Ahmadinejad to consolidate his position under the cover of anti-corruption. He wants to clean up the ayatollahs, many of whom are his enemies. He will need the support of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This election has made Ahmadinejad a powerful president, perhaps the most powerful in Iran since the revolution. Ahmadinejad does not want to challenge Khamenei, and we suspect that Khamenei will not want to challenge Ahmadinejad. A forced marriage is emerging, one which may place many other religious leaders in a difficult position.<br /><br />Certainly, hopes that a new political leadership would cut back on Iran’s nuclear program have been dashed. The champion of that program has won, in part because he championed the program. We still see Iran as far from developing a deliverable nuclear weapon, but certainly the Obama administration’s hopes that Ahmadinejad would either be replaced — or at least weakened and forced to be more conciliatory — have been crushed. Interestingly, Ahmadinejad sent congratulations to U.S. President Barack Obama on his inauguration. We would expect Obama to reciprocate under his opening policy, which U.S. Vice President Joe Biden appears to have affirmed, assuming he was speaking for Obama. Once the vote fraud issue settles, we will have a better idea of whether Obama’s policies will continue. (We expect they will.)<br /><br />What we have now are two presidents in a politically secure position, something that normally forms a basis for negotiations. The problem is that it is not clear what the Iranians are prepared to negotiate on, nor is it clear what the Americans are prepared to give the Iranians to induce them to negotiate. Iran wants greater influence in Iraq and its role as a regional leader acknowledged, something the United States doesn’t want to give them. The United States wants an end to the Iranian nuclear program, which Iran doesn’t want to give.<br /><br />On the surface, this would seem to open the door for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Former U.S. President George W. Bush did not — and Obama does not — have any appetite for such an attack. Both presidents blocked the Israelis from attacking, assuming the Israelis ever actually wanted to attack.<br /><br />For the moment, the election appears to have frozen the status quo in place. Neither the United States nor Iran seem prepared to move significantly, and there are no third parties that want to get involved in the issue beyond the occasional European diplomatic mission or Russian threat to sell something to Iran. In the end, this shows what we have long known: This game is locked in place, and goes on.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">Copyright 2009 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-8417450528443800725?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-77201343800251444692009-05-18T18:59:00.005-04:002009-05-18T19:20:38.299-04:00An Israeli Prime Minister in Washington AgainBy George Friedman<br /><br />Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting Washington for his first official visit with U.S. President Barack Obama. A range of issues — including the future of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Israeli-Syrian talks and Iran policy — are on the table. This is one of an endless series of meetings between U.S. presidents and Israeli prime ministers over the years, many of which concerned these same issues. Yet little has changed.<br /><br />That Israel has a new prime minister and the United States a new president might appear to make this meeting significant. But this is Netanyahu’s second time as prime minister, and his government is as diverse and fractious as most recent Israeli governments. Israeli politics are in gridlock, with deep divisions along multiple fault lines and an electoral system designed to magnify disagreements.<br /><br />Obama is much stronger politically, but he has consistently acted with caution, particularly in the foreign policy arena. Much of his foreign policy follows from the Bush administration. He has made no major breaks in foreign policy beyond rhetoric; his policies on Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia and Europe are essentially extensions of pre-existing policy. Obama faces major economic problems in the United States and clearly is not looking for major changes in foreign policy. He understands how quickly public sentiment can change, and he does not plan to take risks he does not have to take right now.<br /><br />This, then, is the problem: Netanyahu is coming to Washington hoping to get Obama to agree to fundamental redefinitions of the regional dynamic. For example, he wants Obama to re-examine the commitment to a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. (Netanyahu’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has said Israel is no longer bound by prior commitments to that concept.) Netanyahu also wants the United States to commit itself to a finite time frame for talks with Iran, after which unspecified but ominous-sounding actions are to be taken.<br /><br />Facing a major test in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Obama has more than enough to deal with at the moment. Moreover, U.S. presidents who get involved in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations frequently get sucked into a morass from which they do not return. For Netanyahu to even request that the White House devote attention to the Israeli-Palestinian problem at present is asking a lot. Asking for a complete review of the peace process is even less realistic.<br /><br /><b>Obstacles to the Two-State Solution</b><br /><br />The foundation of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for years has been the assumption that there would be a two-state solution. Such a solution has not materialized for a host of reasons. First, at present there are two Palestinian entities, Gaza and the West Bank, which are hostile to each other. Second, the geography and economy of any Palestinian state would be so reliant on Israel that independence would be meaningless; geography simply makes the two-state proposal almost impossible to implement. Third, no Palestinian government would have the power to guarantee that rogue elements would not launch rockets at Israel, potentially striking at the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor, Israel’s heartland. And fourth, neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis have the domestic political coherence to allow any negotiator to operate from a position of confidence. Whatever the two sides negotiated would be revised and destroyed by their political opponents, and even their friends.<br /><br />For this reason, the entire peace process — including the two-state solution — is a chimera. Neither side can live with what the other can offer. But if it is a fiction, it is a fiction that serves U.S. purposes. The United States has interests that go well beyond Israeli interests and sometimes go in a different direction altogether. Like Israel, the United States understands that one of the major obstacles to any serious evolution toward a two-state solution is Arab hostility to such an outcome.<br /><br />The Jordanians have feared and loathed Fatah in the West Bank ever since the Black September uprisings of 1970. The ruling Hashemites are ethnically different from the Palestinians (who constitute an overwhelming majority of the Jordanian population), and they fear that a Palestinian state under Fatah would threaten the Jordanian monarchy. For their part, the Egyptians see Hamas as a descendent of the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks the Mubarak government’s ouster — meaning Cairo would hate to see a Hamas-led state. Meanwhile, the Saudis and the other Arab states do not wish to see a radical altering of the status quo, which would likely come about with the rise of a Palestinian polity.<br /><br />At the same time, whatever the basic strategic interests of the Arab regimes, all pay lip service to the principle of Palestinian statehood. This is hardly a unique situation. States frequently claim to favor various things they actually are either indifferent to or have no intention of doing anything about. Complicating matters for the Arab states is the fact that they have substantial populations that do care about the fate of the Palestinians. These states thus are caught between public passion on behalf of Palestinians and the regimes’ interests that are threatened by the Palestinian cause. The states’ challenge, accordingly, is to appear to be doing something on behalf of the Palestinians while in fact doing nothing.<br /><br />The United States has a vested interest in the preservation of these states. The futures of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are of vital importance to Washington. The United States must therefore simultaneously publicly demonstrate its sensitivity to pressures from these nations over the Palestinian question while being careful to achieve nothing — an easy enough goal to achieve.<br /><br />The various Israeli-Palestinian peace processes have thus served U.S. and Arab interests quite well. They provide the illusion of activity, with high-level visits breathlessly reported in the media, succeeded by talks and concessions — all followed by stalemate and new rounds of violence, thus beginning the cycle all over again.<br /><br /><b>The Palestinian Peace Process as Political Theater</b><br /><br />One of the most important proposals Netanyahu is bringing to Obama calls for reshaping the peace process. If Israeli President Shimon Peres is to be believed, Netanyahu will not back away from the two-state formula. Instead, the Israeli prime minister is asking that the various Arab state stakeholders become directly involved in the negotiations. In other words, Netanyahu is proposing that Arab states with very different public and private positions on Palestinian statehood be asked to participate — thereby forcing them to reveal publicly their true positions, ultimately creating internal political crises in the Arab states.<br /><br />The clever thing about this position is that Netanyahu not only knows his request will not become a reality, but he also does not want it to become a reality. The political stability of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt is as much an Israeli interest as an American one. Indeed, Israel even wants a stable Syria, since whatever would come after the Alawite regime in Damascus would be much more dangerous to Israeli security than the current Syrian regime.<br /><br />Overall, Israel is a conservative power. In terms of nation-states, it does not want upheaval; it is quite content with the current regimes in the Arab world. But Netanyahu would love to see an international conference with the Arab states roundly condemning Israel publicly. This would shore up the justification for Netanyahu’s policies domestically while simultaneously creating a framework for reshaping world opinion by showing an Israel isolated among hostile states.<br /><br />Obama is likely hearing through diplomatic channels from the Arab countries that they do not want to participate directly in the Palestinian peace process. And the United States really does not want them there, either. The peace process normally ends in a train wreck anyway, and Obama is in no hurry to see the wreckage. He will want to insulate other allies from the fallout, putting off the denouement of the peace process as long as possible. Obama has sent George Mitchell as his Middle East special envoy to deal with the issue, and from the U.S. president’s point of view, that is quite enough attention to the problem.<br /><br />Netanyahu, of course, knows all this. Part of his mission is simply convincing his ruling coalition — and particularly Lieberman, whom Netanyahu needs to survive, and who is by far Israel’s most aggressive foreign minister ever — that he is committed to redefining the entire Israeli-Palestinian relationship. But in a broader context, Netanyahu is looking for greater freedom of action. By posing a demand the United States will not grant, Israel is positioning itself to ask for something that appears smaller.<br /><br /><b>Israel and the Appearance of Freedom of Action</b><br /><br />What Israel actually would do with greater freedom of action is far less important than simply creating the appearance that the United States has endorsed Israel’s ability to act in a new and unpredictable manner. From Israel’s point of view, the problem with Israeli-Palestinian relations is that Israel is under severe constraints from the United States, and the Palestinians know it. This means that the Palestinians can even anticipate the application of force by Israel, meaning they can prepare for it and endure it. From Netanyahu’s point of view, Israel’s primary problem is that the Palestinians are confident they know what the Israelis will do. If Netanyahu can get Obama to introduce a degree of ambiguity into the situation, Israel could regain the advantage of uncertainty.<br /><br />The problem for Netanyahu is that Washington is not interested in having anything unpredictable happen in Israeli-Palestinian relations. The United States is quite content with the current situation, particularly while Iraq becomes more stable and the Afghan situation remains unstable. Obama does not want a crisis from the Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush. The fact that Netanyahu has a political coalition to satisfy will not interest the United States, and while Washington at some unspecified point might endorse a peace conference, it will not be until Israel and its foreign minister endorse the two-state formula.<br /><br />Netanyahu will then shift to another area where freedom of action is relevant — namely, Iran. The Israelis have leaked to the Israeli media that the Obama administration has told them that Israel may not attack Iran without U.S. permission, and that Israel agreed to this requirement. (U.S. President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert went through the same routine not too long ago, using a good cop/bad cop act in a bid to kick-start negotiations with Iran.)<br /><br />In reality, Israel would have a great deal of difficulty attacking Iranian facilities with non-nuclear forces. A multitarget campaign 1,000 miles away against an enemy with some air defenses could be a long and complex operation. Such a raid would require a long trip through U.S.-controlled airspace for the fairly small Israeli air force. Israel could use cruise missiles, but the tonnage of high explosive delivered by a cruise missile cannot penetrate even moderately hardened structures; the same is true for ICBMs carrying conventional warheads. Israel would have to notify the United States of its intentions because it would be passing through Iraqi airspace — and because U.S. technical intelligence would know what it was up to before Israeli aircraft even took off. The idea that Israel might consider attacking Iran without informing Washington is therefore absurd on the surface. Even so, the story has surfaced yet again in an Israeli newspaper in a virtual carbon copy of stories published more than a year ago.<br /><br />Netanyahu has promised that the endless stalemate with the Palestinians will not be allowed to continue. He also knows that whatever happens, Israel cannot threaten the stability of Arab states that are by and large uninterested in the Palestinians. He also understands that in the long run, Israel’s freedom of action is defined by the United States, not by Israel. His electoral platform and his strategic realities have never aligned. Arguably, it might be in the Israeli interest that the status quo be disrupted, but it is not in the American interest. Netanyahu therefore will get to redefine neither the Palestinian situation nor the Iranian situation. Israel simply lacks the power to impose the reality it wants, the current constellation of Arab regimes it needs, and the strategic relationship with the United States on which Israeli national security rests.<br /><br />In the end, this is a classic study in the limits of power. Israel can have its freedom of action anytime it is willing to pay the price for it. But Israel can’t pay the price. Netanyahu is coming to Washington to see if he can get what he wants without paying the price, and we suspect strongly he knows he won’t get it. His problem is the same as that of the Arab states. There are many in Israel, particularly among Netanyahu’s supporters, who believe Israel is a great power. It isn’t. It is a nation that is strong partly because it lives in a pretty weak neighborhood, and partly because it has very strong friends. Many Israelis don’t want to be told that, and Netanyahu came to office playing on the sense of Israeli national power.<br /><br />So the peace process will continue, no one will expect anything from it, the Palestinians will remain isolated and wars regularly will break out. The only advantage of this situation from the U.S. point of view it is that it is preferable to all other available realities.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">Copyright 2009 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-7720134380025144469?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-42394341273462662362009-04-07T15:51:00.004-04:002009-04-09T14:10:41.885-04:00Obama's Strategy and the Summits<div style="clear:both;"></div>By George Friedman<br /><br />The weeklong extravaganza of G-20, NATO, EU, U.S. and Turkey meetings has almost ended. The spin emerging from the meetings, echoed in most of the media, sought to portray the meetings as a success and as reflecting a re-emergence of trans-Atlantic unity.<br /><br />The reality, however, is that the meetings ended in apparent unity because the United States accepted European unwillingness to compromise on key issues. U.S. President Barack Obama wanted the week to appear successful, and therefore backed off on key issues; the Europeans did the same. Moreover, Obama appears to have set a process in motion that bypasses Europe to focus on his last stop: Turkey.<br /><br /><b>Berlin, Washington and the G-20</b><br /><br />Let’s begin with the G-20 meeting, which focused on the global financial crisis. As we said last year, there were many European positions, but the United States was reacting to Germany’s. Not only is Germany the largest economy in Europe, it is the largest exporter in the world. Any agreement that did not include Germany would be useless, whereas an agreement excluding the rest of Europe but including Germany would still be useful.<br /><br />Two fundamental issues divided the United States and Germany. The first was whether Germany would match or come close to the U.S. stimulus package. The United States wanted Germany to stimulate its own domestic demand. Obama feared that if the United States put a stimulus plan into place, Germany would use increased demand in the U.S. market to expand its exports. The United States would wind up with massive deficits while the Germans took advantage of U.S. spending, thus letting Berlin enjoy the best of both worlds. Washington felt it had to stimulate its economy, and that this would inevitably benefit the rest of the world. But Washington wanted burden sharing. Berlin, quite rationally, did not. Even before the meetings, the United States dropped the demand — Germany was not going to cooperate.<br /><br />The second issue was the financing of the bailout of the Central European banking system, heavily controlled by eurozone banks and part of the EU financial system. The Germans did not want an EU effort to bail out the banks. They wanted the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bail out a substantial part of the EU financial system instead. The reason was simple: The IMF receives loans from the United States, as well as China and Japan, meaning the Europeans would be joined by others in underwriting the bailout. The United States has signaled it would be willing to contribute $100 billion to the IMF, of which a substantial portion would go to Central Europe. (Of the current loans given by the IMF, roughly 80 percent have gone to the struggling economies in Central Europe.) The United States therefore essentially has agreed to the German position.<br /><br />Later at the NATO meeting, the Europeans — including Germany — declined to send substantial forces to Afghanistan. Instead, they designated a token force of 5,000, most of whom are scheduled to be in Afghanistan only until the August elections there, and few of whom actually would be engaged in combat operations. This is far below what Obama had been hoping for when he began his presidency.<br /><br />Agreement was reached on collaboration in detecting international tax fraud and on further collaboration in managing the international crisis, however. But what that means remains extremely vague — as it was meant to be, since there was no consensus on what was to be done. In fact, the actual guidelines will still have to be hashed out at the G-20 finance ministers’ meeting in Scotland in November. Intriguingly, after insisting on the creation of a global regulatory regime — and with the vague U.S. assent — the European Union failed to agree on European regulations. In a meeting in Prague on April 4, the United Kingdom rejected the regulatory regime being proposed by Germany and France, saying it would leave the British banking system at a disadvantage.<br /><br />Overall, the G-20 and the NATO meetings did not produce significant breakthroughs. Rather than pushing hard on issues or trading concessions — such as accepting Germany’s unwillingness to increase its stimulus package in return for more troops in Afghanistan — the United States failed to press or bargain. It preferred to appear as part of a consensus rather than appear isolated. The United States systematically avoided any appearance of disagreement.<br /><br />The reason there was no bargaining was fairly simple: The Germans were not prepared to bargain. They came to the meetings with prepared positions, and the United States had no levers with which to move them. The only option was to withhold funding for the IMF, and that would have been a political disaster (not to mention economically rather unwise). The United States would have been seen as unwilling to participate in multilateral solutions rather than Germany being seen as trying to foist its economic problems on others. Obama has positioned himself as a multilateralist and can’t afford the political consequences of deviating from this perception. Contributing to the IMF, in these days of trillion-dollar bailouts, was the lower-cost alternative. Thus, the Germans have the U.S. boxed in.<br /><br />The political aspect of this should not be underestimated. George W. Bush had extremely bad relations with the Europeans (in large part because he was prepared to confront them). This was Obama’s first major international foray, and he could not let it end in acrimony or wind up being seen as unable to move the Europeans after running a campaign based on his ability to manage the Western coalition. It was important that he come home having reached consensus with the Europeans. Backing off on key economic and military demands gave him that “consensus.”<br /><br /><b>Turkey and Obama’s Deeper Game</b><br /><br />But it was not simply a matter of domestic politics. It is becoming clear that Obama is playing a deeper game. A couple of weeks before the meetings, when it had become obvious that the Europeans were not going to bend on the issues that concerned the United States, Obama scheduled a trip to Turkey. During the EU meetings in Prague, Obama vigorously supported the Turkish application for EU membership, which several members are blocking on grounds of concerns over human rights and the role of the military in Turkey. But the real reason is that full membership would open European borders to Turkish migration, and the Europeans do not want free Turkish migration. The United States directly confronted the Europeans on this matter.<br /><br />During the NATO meeting, a key item on the agenda was the selection of a new alliance secretary-general. The favorite was former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Turkey opposed his candidacy because of his defense on grounds of free speech of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed published in a Danish magazine. NATO operates on consensus, so any one member can block just about anything. The Turks backed off the veto, but won two key positions in NATO, including that of deputy secretary-general.<br /><br />So while the Germans won their way at the meetings, it was the Turks who came back with the most. Not only did they boost their standing in NATO, they got Obama to come to a vigorous defense of the Turkish application for membership in the European Union, which of course the United States does not belong to. Obama then flew to Turkey for meetings and to attend a key international meeting that will allow him to further position the United States in relation to Islam.<br /><br /><b>The Russian Dimension</b><br /><br />Let’s diverge to another dimension of these talks, which still concerns Turkey, but also concerns the Russians. While atmospherics after the last week’s meetings might have improved, there was certainly no fundamental shift in U.S.-Russian relations. The Russians have rejected the idea of pressuring Iran over its nuclear program in return for the United States abandoning its planned ballistic missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The United States simultaneously downplayed the importance of a Russian route to Afghanistan. Washington said there were sufficient supplies in Afghanistan and enough security on the Pakistani route such that the Russians weren’t essential for supplying Western operations in Afghanistan. At the same time, the United States reached an agreement with Ukraine for the transshipment of supplies — a mostly symbolic gesture, but one guaranteed to infuriate the Russians at both the United States and Ukraine. Moreover, the NATO communique did not abandon the idea of Ukraine and Georgia being admitted to NATO, although the German position on unspecified delays to such membership was there as well. When Obama looks at the chessboard, the key emerging challenge remains Russia.<br /><br />The Germans are not going to be joining the United States in blocking Russia. Between dependence on Russia for energy supplies and little appetite for confronting a Russia that Berlin sees as no real immediate threat to Germany, the Germans are not going to address the Russian question. At the same time, the United States does not want to push the Germans toward Russia, particularly in confrontations ultimately of secondary importance and on which Germany has no give anyway. Obama is aware that the German left is viscerally anti-American, while Merkel is only pragmatically anti-American — a small distinction, but significant enough for Washington not to press Berlin.<br /><br />At the same time, an extremely important event between Turkey and Armenia looks to be on the horizon. Armenians had long held Turkey responsible for the mass murder of Armenians during and after World War I, a charge the Turks have denied. The U.S. Congress for several years has threatened to pass a resolution condemning Turkish genocide against Armenians. The Turks are extraordinarily sensitive to this charge, and passage would have meant a break with the United States. Last week, they publicly began to discuss an agreement with the Armenians, including diplomatic recognition, which essentially disarms the danger from any U.S. resolution on genocide. Although an actual agreement hasn’t been signed just yet, anticipation is building on all sides.<br /><br />The Turkish opening to Armenia has potentially significant implications for the balance of power in the Caucasus. The August 2008 Russo-Georgian war created an unstable situation in an area of vital importance to Russia. Russian troops remain deployed, and NATO has called for their withdrawal from the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. There are Russian troops in Armenia, meaning Russia has Georgia surrounded. In addition, there is talk of an alternative natural gas pipeline network from Azerbaijan to Europe.<br /><br />Turkey is the key to all of this. If Ankara collaborates with Russia, Georgia’s position is precarious and Azerbaijan’s route to Europe is blocked. If it cooperates with the United States and also manages to reach a stable treaty with Armenia under U.S. auspices, the Russian position in the Caucasus is weakened and an alternative route for natural gas to Europe opens up, decreasing Russian leverage against Europe.<br /><br />From the American point of view, Europe is a lost cause since internally it cannot find a common position and its heavyweights are bound by their relationship with Russia. It cannot agree on economic policy, nor do its economic interests coincide with those of the United States, at least insofar as Germany is concerned. As far as Russia is concerned, Germany and Europe are locked in by their dependence on Russian natural gas. The U.S.-European relationship thus is torn apart not by personalities, but by fundamental economic and military realities. No amount of talking will solve that problem.<br /><br />The key to sustaining the U.S.-German alliance is reducing Germany’s dependence on Russian natural gas and putting Russia on the defensive rather than the offensive. The key to that now is Turkey, since it is one of the only routes energy from new sources can cross to get to Europe from the Middle East, Central Asia or the Caucasus. If Turkey — which has deep influence in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Ukraine, the Middle East and the Balkans — is prepared to ally with the United States, Russia is on the defensive and a long-term solution to Germany’s energy problem can be found. On the other hand, if Turkey decides to take a defensive position and moves to cooperate with Russia instead, Russia retains the initiative and Germany is locked into Russian-controlled energy for a generation.<br /><br />Therefore, having sat through fruitless meetings with the Europeans, Obama chose not to cause a pointless confrontation with a Europe that is out of options. Instead, Obama completed his trip by going to Turkey to discuss what the treaty with Armenia means and to try to convince the Turks to play for high stakes by challenging Russia in the Caucasus, rather than playing Russia’s junior partner.<br /><br />This is why Obama’s most important speech in Europe was his last one, following Turkey’s emergence as a major player in NATO’s political structure. In that speech, he sided with the Turks against Europe, and extracted some minor concessions from the Europeans on the process for considering Turkey’s accession to the European Union. Why Turkey wants to be an EU member is not always obvious to us, but they do want membership. Obama is trying to show the Turks that he can deliver for them. He reiterated — if not laid it on even more heavily — all of this in his speech in Ankara. Obama laid out the U.S. position as one that recognized the tough geopolitical position Turkey is in and the leader that Turkey is becoming, and also recognized the commonalities between Washington and Ankara. This was exactly what Turkey wanted to hear.<br /><br />The Caucasus is far from the only area to discuss. Talks will be held about blocking Iran in Iraq, U.S. relations with Syria and Syrian talks with Israel, and Central Asia, where both countries have interests. But the most important message to the Europeans will be that Europe is where you go for photo opportunities, but Turkey is where you go to do the business of geopolitics. It is unlikely that the Germans and French will get it. Their sense of what is happening in the world is utterly Eurocentric. But the Central Europeans, on the frontier with Russia and feeling quite put out by the German position on their banks, certainly do get it.<br /><br />Obama gave the Europeans a pass for political reasons, and because arguing with the Europeans simply won’t yield benefits. But the key to the trip is what he gets out of Turkey — and whether in his speech to the civilizations, he can draw some of the venom out of the Islamic world by showing alignment with the largest economy among Muslim states, Turkey.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">Copyright 2009 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-4239434127346266236?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-73951178441882124812009-01-07T18:30:00.002-05:002009-01-07T18:35:40.548-05:00Hamas and the Arab StatesIsrael is now in the 12th day of carrying out Operation Cast Lead against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas has been the de facto ruler ever since it seized control of the territory in a June 2007 coup. The Israeli campaign, whose primary military aim is to neutralize Hamas’ ability to carry out rocket attacks against Israel, has led to the reported deaths of more than 560 Palestinians; the number of wounded is approaching the 3,000 mark.<br /><br />The reaction from the Arab world has been mixed. On the one hand, a look at the so-called Arab street will reveal an angry scene of chanting protesters, burning flags and embassy attacks in protest of Israel’s actions. The principal Arab regimes, however, have either kept quiet or publicly condemned Hamas for the crisis — while privately often expressing their support for Israel’s bid to weaken the radical Palestinian group.<br /><br />Despite the much-hyped Arab nationalist solidarity often cited in the name of Palestine, most Arab regimes actually have little love for the Palestinians. While these countries like keeping the Palestinian issue alive for domestic consumption and as a tool to pressure Israel and the West when the need arises, in actuality, they tend to view Palestinian refugees — and more Palestinian radical groups like Hamas — as a threat to the stability of their regimes.<br /><br />One such Arab country is Saudi Arabia. Given its financial power and its shared religious underpinnings with Hamas, Riyadh traditionally has backed the radical Palestinian group. The kingdom backed a variety of Islamist political forces during the 1960s and 1970s in a bid to undercut secular Nasserite Arab nationalist forces, which threatened Saudi Arabia’s regional status. But 9/11, which stemmed in part from Saudi support for the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, opened Riyadh’s eyes to the danger of supporting militant Islamism.<br /><br />Thus, while Saudi Arabia continued to support many of the same Palestinian groups, it also started whistling a more moderate tune in its domestic and foreign policies. As part of this moderate drive, in 2002 King Abdullah offered Israel a comprehensive peace treaty whereby Arab states would normalize ties with the Jewish state in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal to its 1967 borders. Though Israel rejected the offer, the proposal itself clearly conflicted with Hamas’ manifesto, which calls for Israel’s destruction. The post-9/11 world also created new problems for one of Hamas’ sources of regular funding — wealthy Gulf Arabs — who grew increasingly wary of turning up on the radars of Western security and intelligence agencies as fund transfers from the Gulf came under closer scrutiny.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Egypt, which regularly mediates Hamas-Israel and Hamas-Fatah matters, thus far has been the most vocal in its opposition to Hamas during the latest Israeli military offensive. Cairo has even gone as far as blaming Hamas for provoking the conflict. Though Egypt’s stance has earned it a number of attacks on its embassies in the Arab world and condemnations in major Arab editorial pages, Cairo has a core strategic interest in ensuring that Hamas remains boxed in. The secular government of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is already preparing for a shaky leadership transition, which is bound to be exploited by the country’s largest opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB).<br /><br />The MB, from which Hamas emerged, maintains links with the Hamas leadership. Egypt’s powerful security apparatus has kept the MB in check, but the Egyptian group has steadily built up support among Egypt’s lower and middle classes, which have grown disillusioned with the soaring rate of unemployment and lack of economic prospects in Egypt. The sight of Muslim Brotherhood activists leading protests in Egypt in the name of Hamas is thus quite disconcerting for the Mubarak regime. The Egyptians also are fearful that Gaza could become a haven for Salafist jihadist groups that could collaborate with Egypt’s own jihadist node the longer Gaza remains in disarray under Hamas rule.<br /><br />Of the Arab states, Jordan has the most to lose from a group like Hamas. More than three-fourths of the Hashemite monarchy’s people claim Palestinian origins. The kingdom itself is a weak, poor state that historically has relied on the United Kingdom, Israel and the United States for its survival. Among all Arab governments, Amman has had the longest and closest relationship with Israel — even before it concluded a formal peace treaty with Israel in 1994. In 1970, Jordan waged war against Fatah when the group posed a threat to the kingdom’s security; it also threw out Hamas in 1999 after fears that the group posed a similar threat to the stability of the kingdom. Like Egypt, Jordan also has a vibrant MB, which has closer ties to Hamas than its Egyptian counterpart. As far as Amman is concerned, therefore, the harder Israel hits Hamas, the better.<br /><br />Finally, Syria is in a more complex position than these other four Arab states. The Alawite-Baathist regime in Syria has long been a pariah in the Arab world because of its support for Shiite Iran and for their mutual militant proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah. But ever since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Syrians have been charting a different course, looking for ways to break free from diplomatic isolation and to reach some sort of understanding with the Israelis.<br /><br />For the Syrians, support for Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and several other radical Palestinian outfits provides tools of leverage to use in negotiating a settlement with Israel. Any deal between the Syrians and the Israelis would thus involve Damascus sacrificing militant proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas in return for key concessions in Lebanon — where Syria’s core geopolitical interests lie — and in the disputed Golan Heights. While the Israeli-Syrian peace talks remain in flux, Syria’s lukewarm reaction to the Israeli offensive and restraint (thus far) from criticizing the more moderate Arab regimes’ lack of response suggests Damascus may be looking to exploit the Gaza offensive to improve its relations in the Arab world and reinvigorate its talks with Israel. And the more da mage Israel does to Hamas now, the easier it will be for Damascus to crack down on Hamas should the need arise.<br /><br />With Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Syria taking into account their own interests when dealing with the Palestinians, ironically, the most reliable patron Sunni Hamas has had in recent years is Iran, the Sunni Arab world’s principal Shiite rival. Several key developments have made Hamas’ gradual shift toward Iran possible:<br /><blockquote><br /> 1. Saudi Arabia’s post-9/11 move into the moderate camp — previously dominated by Egypt and Jordan, two states that have diplomatic relations with Israel.<br /><br /> 2. The collapse of Baathist Iraq and the resulting rise of Shiite power in the region.<br /><br /> 3. The 2004 Iranian parliamentary elections that put Iran’s ultraconservatives in power and the 2005 election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose public anti-Israeli views resonated with Hamas at a time when other Arab states had grown more moderate.<br /><br /> 4. The 2006 Palestinian elections, in which Hamas defeated its secular rival, Fatah, by a landslide. When endowed with the responsibility of running an unrecognized government, Hamas floundered between its goals of dominating the Palestinian political landscape and continuing to call for the destruction of Israel and the creation of an Islamist state. The Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia and Egypt, had hoped that the electoral victory would lead Hamas to moderate its stance, but Iran encouraged Hamas to adhere to its radical agenda. As the West increasingly isolated the Hamas-led government, the group shifted more toward the Iranian position, which more closely meshed with its original mandate.<br /><br /> 5. The 2006 summer military confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel, in which Iranian-backed Hezbollah symbolically defeated the Jewish state. Hezbollah’s ability to withstand the Israeli military onslaught gave confidence to Hamas that it could emulate the Lebanese Shiite movement — which, like Hamas, was both a political party and an armed paramilitary organization. Similar to their reaction to the current Gaza offensive, the principal Arab states condemned Hezbollah for provoking Israel and grew terrified at the outpouring of support for the Shiite militant group from their own populations. Hezbollah-Hamas collaboration in training, arms-procurement and funding intensified, and almost certainly has played a decisive role in equipping Hamas with 122mm BM-21 Grad artillery rockets and larger Iranian-made 240mm Fajr-3 rockets — and potentially even a modest anti-armor capability.<br /><br /> 6. The June 2007 Hamas coup against Fatah in the Gaza Strip, which caused a serious strain in relations between Egypt and Hamas. The resulting blockade on Gaza put Egypt in an extremely uncomfortable position, in which it had to crack down on the Gaza border, thus giving the MB an excuse to rally opposition against Cairo. Egypt was already uncomfortable with Hamas’ electoral victory, but it could not tolerate the group’s emergence as the unchallenged power in Gaza.<br /><br /> 7. Syria’s decision to go public with peace talks with Israel. As soon as it became clear that Syria was getting serious about such negotiations, alarm bells went off within groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, which now had to deal with the fear that Damascus could sell them out at any time as part of a deal with the Israelis.<br /></blockquote><br />Hamas’ relations with the Arab states already were souring; its warming relationship with Iran has proved the coup de grace. Mubarak said it best when he recently remarked that the situation in the Gaza Strip “has led to Egypt, in practice, having a border with Iran.” In other words, Hamas has allowed Iranian influence to come far too close for the Arab states’ comfort.<br /><br />In many ways, the falling-out between Hamas and the Arab regimes is not surprising. The decline of Nasserism in the late 1960s essentially meant the death of Arab nationalism. Even before then, the Arab states put their respective national interests ahead of any devotion to pan-Arab nationalism that would have translated into support for the Palestinian cause. As Islamism gradually came to replace Arab nationalism as a political force throughout the region, the Arab regimes became even more concerned about stability at home, given the very real threat of a religious challenge to their rule. While these states worked to suppress radical Islamist elements that had taken root in their countries, the Arab governments caught wind of Tehran’s attempts to adopt the region’s radical Islamist trend to create a geopolitical space for Iran in the Arab Middle East. As a result, the Arab-Persian struggle became one of the key drivers that has turned the Arab states against Hamas.<br /><br />For each of these Arab states, Hamas represents a force that could stir the social pot at home — either by creating a backlash against the regimes for their ties to Israel and their perceived failure to aid the Palestinians, or by emboldening democratic Islamist movements in the region that could threaten the stability of both republican regimes and monarchies. With somewhat limited options to contain Iranian expansion in the region, the Arab states ironically are looking to Israel to ensure that Hamas remains boxed in. So, while on the surface it may seem that the entire Arab world is convulsing with anger at Israel’s offensive against Hamas, a closer look reveals that the view from the Arab palace is quite different from the view on the Arab street.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">Copyright 2008 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-7395117844188212481?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-4447968362228800732008-11-26T23:15:00.003-05:002008-11-26T23:26:11.686-05:00Obama: First MovesBy George Friedman<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_G2I_mOU2-mQ/SS4g3frBOVI/AAAAAAAAAHk/q1TMkaESPTk/s1600-h/spectacles.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 157px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_G2I_mOU2-mQ/SS4g3frBOVI/AAAAAAAAAHk/q1TMkaESPTk/s200/spectacles.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273188351464257874" /></a>Three weeks after the U.S. presidential election, we are getting the first signs of how President-elect Barack Obama will govern. That now goes well beyond the question of what is conventionally considered U.S. foreign policy — and thus beyond Stratfor’s domain. At this moment in history, however, in the face of the global financial crisis, U.S. domestic policy is intimately bound to foreign policy. How the United States deals with its own internal financial and economic problems will directly affect the rest of the world.<br /><br />One thing the financial crisis has demonstrated is that the world is very much America-centric, in fact and not just in theory. When the United States runs into trouble, so does the rest of the globe. It follows then that the U.S. response to the problem affects the rest of the world as well. Therefore, Obama’s plans are in many ways more important to countries around the world than whatever their own governments might be planning.<br /><br />Over the past two weeks, Obama has begun to reveal his appointments. It will be Hillary Clinton at State and Timothy Geithner at Treasury. According to persistent rumors, current Defense Secretary Robert Gates might be asked to stay on. The national security adviser has not been announced, but rumors have the post going to former Clinton administration appointees or to former military people. Interestingly and revealingly, it was made very public that Obama has met with Brent Scowcroft to discuss foreign policy. Scowcroft was national security adviser under President George H.W. Bush, and while a critic of the younger Bush’s policies in Iraq from the beginning, he is very much part of the foreign policy establishment and on the non-neoconservative right. That Obama met with Scowcroft, and that this was deliberately publicized, is a signal — and Obama understands political signals — that he will be conducting foreign policy from the center.<br /><br />Consider Clinton and Geithner. Clinton voted to authorize the Iraq war — a major bone of contention between Obama and her during the primaries. She is also a committed free trade advocate, as was her husband, and strongly supports continuity in U.S. policy toward Israel and Iran. Geithner comes from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he participated in crafting the strategies currently being implemented by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Everything Obama is doing with his appointments is signaling continuity in U.S. policy.<br /><br />This does not surprise us. As we have written previously, when Obama’s precise statements and position papers were examined with care, the distance between his policies and John McCain’s actually was minimal. McCain tacked with the Bush administration’s position on Iraq — which had shifted, by the summer of this year, to withdrawal at the earliest possible moment but without a public guarantee of the date. Obama’s position was a complete withdrawal by the summer of 2010, with the proviso that unexpected changes in the situation on the ground could make that date flexible.<br /><br />Obama supporters believed that Obama’s position on Iraq was profoundly at odds with the Bush administration’s. We could never clearly locate the difference. The brilliance of Obama’s presidential campaign was that he convinced his hard-core supporters that he intended to make a radical shift in policies across the board, without ever specifying what policies he was planning to shift, and never locking out the possibility of a flexible interpretation of his commitments. His supporters heard what they wanted to hear while a careful reading of the language, written and spoken, gave Obama extensive room for maneuver. Obama’s campaign was a master class on mobilizing support in an election without locking oneself into specific policies.<br /><br />As soon as the election results were in, Obama understood that he was in a difficult political situation. Institutionally, the Democrats had won substantial victories, both in Congress and the presidency. Personally, Obama had won two very narrow victories. He had won the Democratic nomination by a very thin margin, and then won the general election by a fairly thin margin in the popular vote, despite a wide victory in the electoral college.<br /><br />Many people have pointed out that Obama won more decisively than any president since George H.W. Bush in 1988. That is certainly true. Bill Clinton always had more people voting against him than for him, because of the presence of Ross Perot on the ballot in 1992 and 1996. George W. Bush actually lost the popular vote by a tiny margin in 2000; he won it in 2004 with nearly 51 percent of the vote but had more than 49 percent of the electorate voting against him. Obama did a little better than that, with about 53 percent of voters supporting him and 47 percent opposing, but he did not change the basic architecture of American politics. He still had won the presidency with a deeply divided electorate, with almost as many people opposed to him as for him.<br /><br />Presidents are not as powerful as they are often imagined to be. Apart from institutional constraints, presidents must constantly deal with public opinion. Congress is watching the polls, as all of the representatives and a third of the senators will be running for re-election in two years. No matter how many Democrats are in Congress, their first loyalty is to their own careers, and collapsing public opinion polls for a Democratic president can destroy them. Knowing this, they have a strong incentive to oppose an unpopular president — even one from their own party — or they might be replaced with others who will oppose him. If Obama wants to be powerful, he must keep Congress on his side, and that means he must keep his numbers up. He is undoubtedly getting the honeymoon bounce now. He needs to hold that.<br /><br />Obama appears to understand this problem clearly. It would take a very small shift in public opinion polls after the election to put him on the defensive, and any substantial mistakes could sink his approval rating into the low 40s. George W. Bush’s basic political mistake in 2004 was not understanding how thin his margin was. He took his election as vindication of his Iraq policy, without understanding how rapidly his mandate could transform itself in a profound reversal of public opinion. Having very little margin in his public opinion polls, Bush doubled down on his Iraq policy. When that failed to pay off, he ended up with a failed presidency.<br /><br />Bush was not expecting that to happen, and Obama does not expect it for himself. Obama, however, has drawn the obvious conclusion that what he expects and what might happen are two different things. Therefore, unlike Bush, he appears to be trying to expand his approval ratings as his first priority, in order to give himself room for maneuver later. Everything we see in his first two weeks of shaping his presidency seems to be designed two do two things: increase his standing in the Democratic Party, and try to bring some of those who voted against him into his coalition.<br /><br />In looking at Obama’s supporters, we can divide them into two blocs. The first and largest comprises those who were won over by his persona; they supported Obama because of who he was, rather than because of any particular policy position or because of his ideology in anything more than a general sense. There was then a smaller group of supporters who backed Obama for ideological reasons, built around specific policies they believed he advocated. Obama seems to think, reasonably in our view, that the first group will remain faithful for an extended period of time so long as he maintains the aura he cultivated during his campaign, regardless of his early policy moves. The second group, as is usually the case with the ideological/policy faction in a party, will stay with Obama because they have nowhere else to go — or if they turn away, they will not be able to form a faction that threatens his position.<br /><br />What Obama needs to do politically, then, is protect and strengthen the right wing of his coalition: independents and republicans who voted for him because they had come to oppose Bush and, by extension, McCain. Second, he needs to persuade at least 5 percent of the electorate who voted for McCain that their fears of an Obama presidency were misplaced. Obama needs to build a positive rating at least into the mid-to-high 50s to give him a firm base for governing, and leave himself room to make the mistakes that all presidents make in due course.<br /><br />With the example of Bush’s failure before him, as well as Bill Clinton’s disastrous experience in the 1994 mid-term election, Obama is under significant constraints in shaping his presidency. His selection of Hillary Clinton is meant to nail down the rightward wing of his supporters in general, and Clinton supporters in particular. His appointment of Geithner at the Treasury and the rumored re-appointment of Gates as secretary of defense are designed to reassure the leftward wing of McCain supporters that he is not going off on a radical tear. Obama’s gamble is that (to select some arbitrary numbers), for every alienated ideological liberal, he will win over two lukewarm McCain supporters.<br /><br />To those who celebrate Obama as a conciliator, these appointments will resonate. For those supporters who saw him as a fellow ideologue, he can point to position papers far more moderate and nuanced than what those supporters believed they were hearing (and were meant to hear). One of the political uses of rhetoric is to persuade followers that you believe what they do without locking yourself down.<br /><br />His appointments match the evolving realities. On the financial bailout, Obama has not at all challenged the general strategy of Paulson and Bernanke, and therefore of the Bush administration. Obama’s position on Iraq has fairly well merged with the pending Status of Forces Agreement in Iraq. On Afghanistan, Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus has suggested negotiations with the Taliban — while, in moves that would not have been made unless they were in accord with Bush administration policies, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has offered to talk with Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and the Saudis reportedly have offered him asylum. Tensions with Iran have declined, and the Israelis have even said they would not object to negotiations with Tehran. What were radical positions in the opening days of Obama’s campaign have become consensus positions. That means he is not entering the White House in a combat posture, facing a disciplined opposition waiting to bring him down. Rather, his most important positions have become, if not noncontroversial, then certainly not as controversial as they once were.<br /><br />Instead, the most important issue facing Obama is one on which he really had no position during his campaign: how to deal with the economic crisis. His solution, which has begun to emerge over the last two weeks, is a massive stimulus package as an addition — not an alternative — to the financial bailout the Bush administration crafted. This new stimulus package is not intended to deal with the financial crisis but with the recession, and it is a classic Democratic strategy designed to generate economic activity through federal programs. What is not clear is where this leaves Obama’s tax policy. We suspect, some recent suggestions by his aides not withstanding, that he will have a tax cut for middle- and lower-income individuals while increasing tax rates on higher income brackets in order to try to limit deficits.<br /><br />What is fascinating to see is how the policies Obama advocated during the campaign have become relatively unimportant, while the issues he will have to deal with as president really were not discussed in the campaign until September, and then without any clear insight as to his intentions. One point we have made repeatedly is that a presidential candidate’s positions during a campaign matter relatively little, because there is only a minimal connection between the issues a president thinks he will face in office and the ones that he actually has to deal with. George W. Bush thought he would be dealing primarily with domestic politics, but his presidency turned out to be all about the U.S.-jihadist war, something he never anticipated. Obama began his campaign by strongly opposing the Iraq war — something that has now be come far less important than the financial crisis, which he didn’t anticipate dealing with at all.<br /><br />So, regardless of what Obama might have thought his presidency would look like, it is being shaped not by his wishes, but by his response to external factors. He must increase his political base — and he will do that by reassuring skeptical Democrats that he can work with Hillary Clinton, and by showing soft McCain supporters that he is not as radical as they thought. Each of Obama’s appointments is designed to increase his base of political support, because he has little choice if he wants to accomplish anything else.<br /><br />As for policies, they come and go. As George W. Bush demonstrated, an inflexible president is a failed president. He can call it principle, but if his principles result in failure, he will be judged by his failure and not by his principles. Obama has clearly learned this lesson. He understands that a president can’t pursue his principles if he has lost the ability to govern. To keep that ability, he must build his coalition. Then he must deal with the unexpected. And later, if he is lucky, he can return to his principles, if there is time for it, and if those principles have any relevance to what is going on around him. History makes presidents. Presidents rarely make history.<br /><br /><center><blockquote><font face="arial" size="-2">Copyright 2008 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. No further republication without copyright owner's permission. Visit Strategic Forecasting at <a href="http://www.stratfor.com">stratfor.com</a></font></blockquote></center><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-444796836222880073?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-38634714829251945052008-11-17T00:16:00.004-05:002008-11-26T23:14:54.730-05:00Proposition and ResponseThis was <a href="http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/11/16/2118678-olmert-calls-for-world-to-stop-iran-nuclear-bomb?commentId=4091862#c4091862">published today</a>:<br /><blockquote><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PP5G6Pu5I/AAAAAAAAACA/OPTrS2L5yyQ/s144/quote.gif">Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Iran is still trying to build nuclear bombs and the world must make a concerted effort to stop the project.<br /><br />"Iran has not terminated its pursuit of nuclear weapons," Olmert told a gathering of North American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. "Iran cannot become nuclear. Israel cannot afford it...the free world must not accept it. We must all do whatever we can to prevent it."<br /><br />Israel considers Iran a strategic threat because of its nuclear program, its development of long-range missiles and repeated threats to destroy the Jewish state.</blockquote>Well, there has never been even one threat to "destroy the Jewish state" as anyone who knows how to read, and does so regularly, surely knows.<br /><br />But in response to the posted article I was compelled <a href="http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/11/16/2118678-olmert-calls-for-world-to-stop-iran-nuclear-bomb?commentId=4091765#c4091765">to respond</a> as follows:<blockquote><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PP5G6Pu5I/AAAAAAAAACA/OPTrS2L5yyQ/s144/quote.gif">Olmert has no clue, no rational whatsoever, for suggesting that Iran is 'trying to build' a nuclear bomb. Neither does anyone else. No one.<br /><br />The fact that Iran, and most other Mideast countries, desperately need nuclear power generation facilities is without question. They are going to run out of oil within the foreseeable future and, so far, they've got nothing else for power. So, they'll either develop another source of power or they will, eventually and inevitably, slow the flow of oil to us. And then stop.<br /><br />Needless to say, we know this. And, we are gradually - ever so slowly - working on the solution to this problem for our own rather obvious reasons.<br /><br />In the meantime, Iran is not a nation composed of fools. What fool would want nuclear weaponry? What could Iran possibly do with a nuclear bomb? What could it do? Blow up another country? Sure. An hour later Iran would be dust. No different than if we were to nuke another country. We would be dust before the sun set.<br /><br />What Iran does not want is to be subservient in any way to a supplier of nuclear fuel. Would you?<br /><br />Iran wants to be able to supply its nuclear plants with fuel that Iran itself has created. Like we do. Like Russia does, China, India, Europe and so on. Duh.<br /><br />Iran is just not willing to be manipulated into the category of customer. They don't want to rely on anyone to supply them with fuel. Not when they can make it themselves. This has nothing to do with a bomb, for Christ's sake.<br /><br />No matter what you hear or read not one shred of evidence exists supporting the hypothesis they want a bomb. Not one shred.<br /><br />Every evidence, every shred of evidence, points to the exact opposite conclusion, including every utterance of the UN people who constantly examine this issue to the core.<br /><br />Never mind that we, the United States, encouraged Iran in every way possible to develop serious nuclear power under our man, the Shah. Never mind that the program was rejected and stopped in its tracks by the 1979 revolution, by the Ayatollah who said this is not for us.<br /><br />Here's a brief on it from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran">Wikipedia</a>:<blockquote><i>The nuclear program of Iran was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States as part of the Atoms for Peace program. The support, encouragement and participation of the United States and Western European governments in Iran's nuclear program continued until the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran.<br /><br /> After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Iranian government temporarily disbanded elements of the program, and then revived it with less Western assistance than during the pre-revolution era. Iran's nuclear program has included several research sites, a uranium mine, a nuclear reactor, and uranium processing facilities that include a uranium enrichment plant.<br /><br /> Iran's first nuclear power plant, Bushehr I, is expected to be operational in 2009. There are no current plans to complete the Bushehr II reactor, although the construction of 19 nuclear power plants is envisaged. Iran has announced that it is working on a new 360 MWe nuclear power plant to be located in Darkhoyen. Iran has also indicated it that it will seek more medium-sized nuclear power plants and uranium mines for the future.</i></blockquote>I know it's hard to take. Iran revolted. The people of Iran in massive numbers revolted against the Shah and against the United States who implanted and empowered him. But that's what happened.<br /><br />The only conceivable justification anyone has ever had for thinking that, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, Iran wants a bomb is due to this: You've been named as a member of the 'Axis of Evil' and the person who named you this has also made it known that 'regime change' is the plan and we will strike first without provocation.<br /><br />Therefor, wouldn't you?<br /><br />If you were Iran, you would have to be senile not to consider this as an existential threat. You would have to make certain that you could at least begin developing weaponry to enable you to present such massive retaliatory action as to discourage attack. I forget the exact term but it boils down to preemptive defense. We invented the term whatever it is.<br /><br />So here's where we are in this argument:<ul><br /> 1.) Iran rejected nuclear development after the revolution. The point of the Shah's nuke program under our guidance was weaponry and the new guys rejected the idea. Hey, it's against our religion.<br /> 2.) It gradually became obvious, though, that they were in dire need of another source of electrical power<br /> 3.) They decided to work on that and right about then they were referred to as evil people by the leader of the powerful United States<br /> 4.) While they were attempting to develop capacity in this regard, completely legally, they are named as an enemy and threatened<br /> 5.) Their decision was to proceed. Their decision was that since we have made ourselves an Islamic country we have frightened others and these others have threatened to destroy us, but we will not bite this dust.<br /> 6.) Accordingly we will proceed. What we've learned, we've learned. We will make it so that it would be best not to try to destroy us.</ul><br />What group of humans would not do the same? Name one human group at any time in history which has not done or would not do exactly the same thing. They'll stand up. They'll say shove it. Shove your moronic threats. We are good people, we have our needs, and we will proceed.<br /><br />End of story.</blockquote>And just to make sure, a few minutes later I added this:<blockquote><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PP5G6Pu5I/AAAAAAAAACA/OPTrS2L5yyQ/s144/quote.gif"><i>It is with the book of history, and not with isolated pages, that the United States will ever wish to be identified. My country wants to be constructive, not destructive. It wants agreement, not wars, among nations. It wants itself to live in freedom, and in the confidence that the people of every other nation enjoy equally the right of choosing their own way of life.<br /><br /> To the making of these fateful decisions, the United States pledges before you--and therefore before the world--its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma--to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.</i><blockquote>Dwight David Eisenhower<br />Our last good Republican</blockquote></blockquote><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/rfbtmail/R6PqfG6Pu9I/AAAAAAAAAC0/oxLrtaxEH3o/s144/btn_find_go.gif" alt="make or read comments"></a><a href="http://www.ultraguest.com/?id=1127957129"><font face="arial" size="1">COMMENTS</font></a> <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://www.newsvine.com/_wine/save?popoff=1&u=http://netgrits.blogspot.com','newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes')"><img src="http://www.newsvine.com/_vine/images/identity/button_seednewsvine.gif" alt="Seed Newsvine" border="0" width="16" height="16" /><font face="arial" size="1">NEWSVINE</font></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13494437-3863471482925194505?l=netgrits.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Netgritshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14173724168681145829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13494437.post-48202270146570664032008-11-11T17:00:00.002-05:002008-11-11T17:07:20.529-05:00Iran Returns to the Global StageBy George Friedman<br /><br />After a three-month hiatus, Iran seems set to re-emerge near the top of the U.S. agenda. Last week, the Iranian government congratulated U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on his Nov. 4 electoral victory. This marks the first time since the Iranian Revolution that such greetings have been sent.<br /><br />While it seems trivial, the gesture is quite significant. It represents a diplomatic way for the Iranians to announce that they regard Obama’s election as offering a potential breakthrough in 30 years of U.S. relations with Iran. At his press conference, Obama said he does not yet have a response to the congratulatory message, and reiterated that he opposes Iran’s nuclear pr