Category: Geopolitics

Iran’s Secular Dictatorship

The latest salvo, via a Web site called Mashanews run by Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, didn’t mince words. “Iran needs to remove the mullahs from power once for all,” it read, “and return to a great civilization without the Arab-style clerics who have tainted and destroyed the country for the past 31 years.” The executive branch’s current stance on the Shiite clergymen who have shaped Iranian politics since 1979 is summed up as, “din (religion) should be distinct from dowla (state).” Indeed, Ahmadinejad’s supporters have begun comparing him to King Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire who kept those two institutions separate.

The shift is based on the political realities in Tehran. Having survived the last election thanks to his allies in the civil bureaucracy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and the Basij paramilitary, Ahmadinejad now has little to fear from the mullahs and their supporters. So he has begun to insist that “the executive is the most important branch of government,” thereby challenging oversight by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Islamic political institutions.

WPR Article | Ahmadinejad’s Nationalist Attack on the Islamic Republic.

Here Comes The China Navy

China has the world’s second-largest naval service, after only the United States. Rather than purchase warships across the board, it is developing niche capacities in sub-surface warfare and missile technology designed to hit moving targets at sea. At some point, the U.S. Navy is likely to be denied unimpeded access to the waters off East Asia. China’s 66 submarines constitute roughly twice as many warships as the entire British Royal Navy. If China expands its submarine fleet to 78 by 2020 as planned, it would be on par with the U.S. Navy’s undersea fleet in quantity, if not in quality. If our economy remains wobbly while China’s continues to rise — China’s defense budget is growing nearly 10 percent annually — this will have repercussions for each nation’s sea power. And with 90 percent of commercial goods worldwide still transported by ship, sea control is critical.

The geographical heart of America’s hard-power competition with China will be the South China Sea, through which passes a third of all commercial maritime traffic worldwide and half of the hydrocarbons destined for Japan, the Korean Peninsula and northeastern China. The United States and others consider the South China Sea an international waterway; China considers it a “core interest.” Much like when the Panama Canal was being dug, and the United States sought domination of the Caribbean to be the preeminent power in the Western Hemisphere, China seeks domination of the South China Sea to be the dominant power in much of the Eastern Hemisphere.

via Robert D. Kaplan – While U.S. is distracted, China develops sea power.

We Didn’t Start the Fire

Whether you are a Billy  Joel fan or not, you probably remember his great song, ‘We Didn’t Start  the Fire..’
Here it is, set to pictures… . It’s a neat flashback  through the past half century. I never did know all the words. Turn up  volume, sit back and enjoy a review of 50 years of history in  less  than 3 minutes! Thanks to Billy Joel and some guy from the   University of  Chicago  with a lot of spare  time and  Google. Top left gives you full screen….top right lets you pause.   Bottom left shows the year.  The  older you are, the more  pictures you will recognize.  Anyone over age 65 should remember over  90% of what they see. But it’s great at any age.

click  below:

Click here: We Didn’t Start The Fire

The Balfour Declaration: The Origin of the Arab Israeli Conflict

According to Schneer (London 1900), an expert in modern British history at Georgia Tech, intrigue and British doubledealing defined the 1917 Balfour Declaration of British support for a Jewish “national home” in Palestine as much as bravery and vision, leading to the disillusionment, distrust, and resentment that still dominate the region today. British Jewish chemist and Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann orchestrated the campaign to persuade powerful men that support for Zionism would benefit Britain’s wartime cause and the ensuing peace. Perhaps most shrewdly, Weizmann lobbied former prime minister Arthur James Balfour, then a member of Britain’s War Council. Meanwhile, Grand Sharif Hussein and his sons had won British backing for an Arab kingdom, which would presumably include Palestine, and with British encouragement rebelled against the Ottomans in 1916. Through British duplicity, the French also believed they had a interest in Palestine. And three months after the Balfour Declaration, British prime minister Lloyd George proposed a separate peace with Turkey, with the Ottomans remaining in Palestine.

via Amazon.com: The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the….

Cuban Communism Faces the Unthinkable

The global financial crisis, and the $10 billion in damage inflicted by three hurricanes in 2008, have forced authorities to run a deficit of 5 percent of GDP, leaving them unable to pay back credits received from China and elsewhere. Cuba slashed spending on importing food and other basics by 34 percent to $9.6 billion in 2009, from $12.7 billion the previous year. But so far, the moves have not been enough to rein in the deficit.

President Raul Castro has startled the nation lately by saying about one in five Cuban workers may be redundant. Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a Cuba economics expert and professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, said Cuban officials have spent months debating cuts in the labor force and economic reforms. He said they know what’s needed, but face “a problem of political viability.”

Various government perks like cars, gas, uniforms and office supplies have become incentives to bloat the payroll, since they are based on the size of a company’s work force.

But low pay means low productivity. On Obispo street, a state-run cafeteria sells heavily subsidized soft ice cream and pork sandwiches for the equivalent of a few American pennies — meaning wages and tips are so tiny that the staff is complete indifferent toward customers. Three waiters sit at the counter cracking jokes. A fourth is the only one working, making coffee for three tables. Nearby, a cashier stares into space, a cook flirts with a scantily clad teen and a supervisor sits idly by.

Here, nearly everyone works for the state and official unemployment is minuscule, but pay is so low that Cubans like to joke that “the state pretends to pay us and we pretend to work.” –  monthly salaries worth only $20 a month on average.

via Jobless in Cuba? Communism faces the unthinkable – Yahoo! News.

China Grows Protectionist Alienating Business Supporters

In some ways, I do think the Chinese government has been pretty stupid over the past year in executing its “Pissing Off As Many Countries As Possible” strategy. China rankled the Europeans over its climate change diplomacy at Copenhagen. For all of Beijing’s bluster, it failed to alter U.S. policies on Tibet and Taiwan. It backed down on the Google controversy. It overestimated the power that comes with holding U.S. debt. It alienated South Korea and Japan over its handling of the Cheonan incident, leading to joint naval exercises with the United States — exactly what China didn’t want. It’s growing more isolated within the G-20. And, increasingly, no one trusts its economic data.

This doesn’t sound like a government that has executed a brilliant grand strategy. It sounds like a country that’s benefiting from important structural trends, while frittering away its geopolitical advantages. Alienating key supporters in the country’s primary export markets — and even if Chinese consumption is rising, exports still matter an awful lot to the Chinese economy — seems counterproductive to China’s long-term strategic and economic interests.

via Beijing has alienated the most pro-China interest groups in the United States and Europe | Daniel W. Drezner.

751 Places in France that Non-Muslims Shouldn’t Go.

What other country in the world has a government-sponsored website dedicated to 751 areas that non-Muslims should not go?

These areas are occupied by about 8 % of the population, or 5 million people.

They are called Zones Urbaines Sensibles in French, meaning Sensitive Urban Zones. The list in French, with both street addresses and maps, all in PDF, can be found here:

List of 751 No-Go Areas for non-Muslims in France

The boundaries in red are the places where non-Muslims musn’t go, as they are so dangerous that even the French police, fire, ambulance, and rescue services are reluctant, unwilling, or incapable of going.

via Crazy Islam: Europe No More.

Afghanistan’s Potential Endgame

There was a buzz last week because of a U.S. estimate that Afghanistan could possess $1 trillion in mineral wealth. That’s a pipe dream for now, but what’s real is a Chinese project to invest $3 billion in the Aynak copper mine, south of Kabul. To transport the copper, China has pledged to build a new railway route north, through Tajikistan, and the Chinese want to extend this rail link to the Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea.

Then there’s the energy trade: The authors of the report, Frederick Starr and Andrew C. Kuchins, note that the Asian Development Bank is considering funding a $7.6 billion pipeline that would link natural gas reserves in Turkmenistan with energy-poor Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

More to the point, it explains why it would be in the interest of all the regional powers — especially Pakistan — to encourage a political settlement of the war that would open Afghanistan and other Central Asian markets to Pakistani merchants.

via David Ignatius – Afghanistan’s future lies in trade partnerships.

Flights, girls and cash buy Japan whaling votes

A SUNDAY TIMES investigation has exposed Japan for bribing small nations with cash and prostitutes to gain their support for the mass slaughter of whales.

The undercover investigation found officials from six countries were willing to consider selling their votes on the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

The revelations come as Japan seeks to break the 24-year moratorium on commercial whaling. An IWC meeting that will decide the fate of thousands of whales, including endangered species, begins this month in Morocco.Thanks Michelle Hester.

Flights, girls and cash buy Japan whaling votes – Times Online.

In Europe “It’s the End of the World As We Know It”.

Europeans have boasted about their social model, with its generous vacations and early retirements, its national health care systems and extensive welfare benefits, contrasting it with the comparative harshness of American capitalism.

Europeans have benefited from low military spending, protected by NATO and the American nuclear umbrella. They have also translated higher taxes into a cradle-to-grave safety net. “The Europe that protects” is a slogan of the European Union. But all over Europe governments with big budgets, falling tax revenues and aging populations are experiencing rising deficits, with more bad news ahead.

With low growth, low birthrates and longer life expectancies, Europe can no longer afford its comfortable lifestyle, at least not without a period of austerity and significant changes. The countries are trying to reassure investors by cutting salaries, raising legal retirement ages, increasing work hours and reducing health benefits and pensions.

via Payback Time – Deficit Crisis Threatens Ample Benefits of European Life – NYTimes.com.