Category: Geopolitics

National oil companies | Oil’s dark secret

National oil companies | Oil’s dark secret | Economist.com
Iran, which has more oil and gas than all other countries save Saudi Arabia and Russia, pumps less today than it did in 1979, when the new Islamic government threw foreigners out. The current expansion of Russia’s NOCs is proving equally ill fated: costs have risen and output has grown more slowly at Yuganskneftegaz, the former production arm of Yukos, a Russian oil company, since its takeover by state-controlled Rosneft, according to Andrei Illarionov, a former adviser to the Russian government. Over the past 20 years, he points out, income per head has grown in countries with private oil industries, but has shrunk in those with nationalised ones.

Saad Rahim, of PFC Energy, argues that weak institutions lie at the root of this disappointing performance. Most countries with national firms used their oil wealth to develop the authority of the state, rather than the other way around. So NOCs sprang up before their countries had institutions strong enough to regulate them, or to manage the money they generate—a recipe for inefficiency and corruption.

Go west, young Chinese!

Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog: Go west, young Chinese!
ARTICLE: “China’s Big Push To Stoke Economy Rattles Rural Tibet: Meatpacking Modernization Threatens Beloved Yaks; New Train Brings Suspicion,” by James T. Areddy, Wall Street Journal, 24 August 2006, p. A1.

I know, I know. I seem to be harping on a theme here. And it’s certainly easy to paint the Chinese as the white man and the Tibetans and other inland peoples as the Indians, but you’re always left with this weird argument that says it’s better to leave populations largely disconnected and largely undeveloped in order to preserve the “purity” of their culture, which to me is a sort of strange, reverse racism–even a proto-fascist sentiment.

I know, I know. It’s an impossible dream to the environmental doom-and-gloomers. I just don’t think you can keep those 2-3 billion in the Gap and the Core’s mini-Gaps off grid from the better life forever, and I have an undying faith in the ingenuity of mankind (Forgive me Father, for I am an optimist).

Plus, I look at the history of economic development and I see that the cleanest states (Yale’s environmental sustainability index, for example) are Core states, while the next dirtiest are the Gap, and the most pollution-creating tend to be those transitioning from Gap to Core (as always–the transition states experience the most change). That tells me that if you want a cleaner planet, you want states to move from Gap to Core. That’s the best way to get a handle on local pollution problems (which decline, historically, everywhere with development) and the best way to force global responses to global pollution issues (which tend to increase with development).

Hezbollah Didn’t Win

WSJ.com – Hezbollah Didn’t Win
By controlling the flow of information from Lebanon throughout the conflict, and help from all those who disagree with U.S. policies for different reasons, Hezbollah may have won the information war in the West. In Lebanon, the Middle East and the broader Muslim space, however, the picture is rather different.

Iran’s Diplomacy

Iran [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
BTW, Michael Rubin’s take on Iran’s response in e-mail conversation last night:

They did not agree to suspend enrichment, but they’ve obfuscated the issue enough that they’ll get away with it.In short, they’ve decided to talk about what rewards we’ll give them, but have refused the conditions under which those rewards were to be granted.

1938 All Over Again

Richard Cohen from Washington Post
When George Bush used the term “Islamic fascists,” he had a point. But it’s futile to use colorful language when, in reality, you’re out of the conversation altogether. This is another baleful consequence of the Iraq War. The U.S. is not only preoccupied, it is loathed. The leadership it once was able to exert — especially in the Middle East — is a thing of the past. If it is going to have its credibility restored, another president will have to do so. In the meantime, as we always learn, Europe without American leadership is a mere tourist destination.

Shi’ite revival roiling Mideast – World

Shi’ite revival roiling Mideast – World – insider.washingtontimes.com
Islam scholars say the Shi’ite-Sunni clash is a complex mix of religion, politics and class issues, and that the schism has never been fixed or permanent in Islam’s 1,400-year history. But the sectarian fighting in Iraq and Hezbollah’s war in Lebanon have forced ordinary Muslims to choose sides.
“Even secular Sunnis and Shia, because they need to be protected in a place like Iraq, or they fear what might happen in Bahrain or eastern Saudi Arabia, tend to draw towards their own,” Mr. Cook said.
“I think that’s an unfortunate scenario that is playing itself out throughout the region.”

Are We Fighting ‘Islamic Fascists’?

RealClearPolitics – Articles – Are We Fighting ‘Islamic Fascists’?
Fascism, Nolte said, is “resistance to transcendence.” By that, he meant that fascism was a rebellion against the liberating but destabilizing transformations of modern society.

I do see many of these same factors in the growing popularity of radical Islam in the Middle East. The baseline for this movement remains the Iranian revolution of 1979, which exploded in the region’s most modern and, if you will, “transcendent” state. The Shah’s Iran was rushing to embrace the global economy. Its elite was liberal, secular, international — and also wretchedly corrupt. Ordinary Muslims felt, with some justice, that they were being left out of the spoils of this new Iran — that their hard work was being used to buy mansions on the Cote d’Azur. That radical populism lives on in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, dressed in his ostentatiously humble golf jacket.

Getting the word out (even without the bread)

Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog: Getting the word out (even without the bread)

My favorite strategic thinker in one of his better rambles – about why Africa is next…

Fight heads south because Shiia empowered in ME, so Yalta-like split emerging (west and friends get Sunni Egypt, Saudi and Jordan). East increasingly favors Shiia out of desire for energy and need to plus up on non-West-heavy providers. Watch this play out in competing rebuilds in Lebanon, as Sunni govs support Lebanese gov and Shiia states support Hezbollah (quietly).

Thus Iran safe from isolation and sanctions. By proxy (esp. after Lebanon), so too largely is Syria, but neocon mindset will push hard to target them next as revenge for Israel’s poor showing (Iran will be okay with this diversion too).

In a Sunni-Shiia split ME, Al Qaeda does less well, as neither side approves, and to extent Israeli issues dominate, AQ is effective non-player in a very crowded field.

In the end, Iran’s pre-emptive war is a brilliant move…

So the fight heads south into Africa.

We must stand up to Islamo-fascism

Comment is free: We must stand up to Islamo-fascism
British reaction to IslamoFacism is heating-up. This Post is from the “Gaurdian” Newspaper.
We are facing an irrationalist movement immune to compromise and dedicated to achieve its ends of controlling every aspect of daily life, every process of the mind, through indiscriminate mass slaughter. It is a culture obsessed with death, a culture that despises women, a culture devoted to mad hatreds not just of Americans and Jews everywhere, but of Muslims anywhere who embrace a less totalitarian, less radical, more humane view of Islam.
The Salafist movement was under-rated and misunderstood and the reaction to it has been confused. As always, the right is triggerhappy and hostile to free expression; as always, the left never wants to do anything that would hazard its self-righteous sense of moral purity.

These are historic fault lines. The right tolerated fascism in the thirties, the left Soviet Communism in the fifties. Of course these two earlier totalitarian movements were different in nature and our response when it came was not always well judged – the tendency is to think first of the excesses of the right typified by the witch hunts of the odious McCarthy, but we should remember, too, that the Democratic party in the immediate postwar years of Henry Wallace would have abandoned Europe just as the left in the eighties would have left Europe at the mercy of the new Soviet missiles.

The apologists for the Islamo-fascists – an accurate term – leave millions around the world exposed to a less obvious but more insidious barbarism.

Nearly Three Million Migrate A Year to Developed Nations

PRB
Each year, nearly 3 million migrants move from poor countries to wealthier ones. Increasingly, however, more of this migration will occur between developing countries, such as that occurring from Bangladesh to India, or from India, Egypt, and Yemen to the Persian Gulf States.

Almost half — 1.4 million — move to Europe, which is nevertheless facing unprecedented population losses from low birth rates. The U.S. attracts more immigrants than any other country, fueling a national debate on immigration policy. Other destinations include Canada, Australia and the United Arab Emirates, which has a better economy than much of the Middle East. The biggest suppliers of immigrants are China, India and Mexico. Continue reading “Nearly Three Million Migrate A Year to Developed Nations”