Tag: Geopolitics

Raul Prepares Cuba For Casto’s Death

”I think this is Raúl definitely trying to put his own stamp on the government,” said Sandy Acosta Cox, a political analyst at ECHO-Cuba, a Miami nonprofit that offers aid to evangelical churches on the island. ‘I think this demonstrates that there were factions within the government: Fidelistas and Raúlistas. . . . Positioning key `Raúlistas’ in place, especially before the major announcement everyone is anticipating — Fidel’s death — ensures that there won’t be a power struggle between the two factions.”

Raúl Castro took over from his brother in the summer of 2006 but was not officially named president until a year ago. He took office under the pledge of efficiency, and often used his rare moments on the public stage to blast the Cuban government’s notorious wastefulness.

”This is Raúlismo at its best,” Mora said. “I don’t see ideology. I don’t see power politics. I see Raúl being Raúl.”

via Cuban government undergoes massive restructuring – This Week in the Americas (stories) – MiamiHerald.com.

Why The US Won’t Become France

Travel from America to Europe, try a bit of shopping or dinner in a restaurant, and the first thing that strikes you is the chronically lackadasical attitude to service. It’s what Brits call a “job’s worth”—as in that’s more than my job’s worth so I’m not going to lift a finger to help you—attitude. It could not be more different from the business culture here.

It is commonly reported, though never actually confirmed, that George W. Bush complained to Tony Blair that the problem with the French is that they didn’t have a word for entrepreneurial. (If it’s true, don’t we miss him for it?) Myth or not, there is substance in Bush’s critique. This nation of immigrants is more go-getting and individualist than their European counterparts. Many had to have the independence of spirit to get here in the first place and that drive has dictated their attitude to business.

From a policy point of view, America is far more likely to follow Sweden, which nationalized troubled banks in the early 1990s, cleaned up their balance sheets, and then auctioned them off again.

via America Will Never Be Europe – The Daily Beast.

A reality check on Iran and the ‘bomb’

Much attention is paid, and rightly so, to the security of Israel and to the interests of the United States, but little attention has been given to Iran’s security needs – the regional problems facing Iran are indeed serious.

Not only does Iran have an ongoing Kurdish (Party For a Free Life in Kurdistan – PJAK) insurgency in its northwestern provinces and a growing Baloch insurgency in the southeastern border areas with Pakistan, the government in Tehran is also deeply concerned at being surrounded by countries that are in various states of collapse or conflict – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and the former Soviet Central Asian countries and by potentially hostile forces such as Saudi Arabia, Israel and the massive US military presence in the Gulf.

There can be little doubt that Iran is a potentially major destabilizing factor in the Middle East, it has a more than irrational foreign policy and quite openly supports groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas in Palestine, and it may indeed eventually become a nuclear threat.

But in the long run possession of nuclear weapons is unlikely to be of any tangible benefit to the mullahs, while their actual use would bring the quick and completely justified destruction of the state of Iran.

via Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs.

A Pandemic of Economic Violence

Combine these two World Bank findings — zero economic growth in the developing world and rising food prices — and you have a perfect recipe for unrelenting civil unrest and violence. The eruptions seen in 2008 and early 2009 will then be mere harbingers of a grim future in which, in a given week, any number of cities reel from riots and civil disturbances which could spread like multiple brushfires in a drought.

The Great Depression ended in a World War.

via Tomgram: Michael Klare, A Pandemic of Economic Violence.

Why Burma Matters

Burma’s hill tribes form part of a new and larger geopolitical canvas. Burma fronts on the Indian Ocean, by way of the Bay of Bengal. Its neighbors India and China (not to mention Thailand) covet its abundant oil, natural gas, uranium, coal, zinc, copper, precious stones, timber, and hydropower. China especially needs a cooperative, if not supine, Burma for the construction of deepwater ports, highways, and energy pipelines that can open China’s landlocked south and west to the sea, enabling its ever-burgeoning middle class to receive speedier deliveries of oil from the Persian Gulf. These routes must pass north from the Indian Ocean through the very territories wracked by Burma’s ethnic insurrections.

via Lifting the Bamboo Curtain – The Atlantic (September 2008).

The War on Drugs Is a Failure

The revision of U.S.-inspired drug policies is urgent in light of the rising levels of violence and corruption associated with narcotics. The alarming power of the drug cartels is leading to a criminalization of politics and a politicization of crime. And the corruption of the judicial and political system is undermining the foundations of democracy in several Latin American countries.

Mr. Cardoso is the former president of Brazil. Mr. Gaviria is a former president of Colombia. Mr. Zedillo is a former president of Mexico.

via The War on Drugs Is a Failure – WSJ.com.

No Jobs = No Peace

Just last week, the new United States director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, told Congress that instability caused by the global economic crisis had become the biggest security threat facing the United States, outpacing terrorism.

High unemployment rates, especially among young workers, have led to protests in countries as varied as Latvia, Chile, Greece, Bulgaria and Iceland and contributed to strikes in Britain and France.

Worldwide job losses from the recession that started in the United States in December 2007 could hit a staggering 50 million by the end of 2009, according to the International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency. The slowdown has already claimed 3.6 million American jobs.

via Rise in Jobless Poses Threat to Stability Worldwide – NYTimes.com.

How The West Lost Turkey As An Ally

Seven years after the AKP came to power, Turkey’s Islamists have returned to their roots. The AKP experience demonstrates that when Islamist parties moderate, it reflects not a strategic change but a tactical response to strong domestic and foreign opposition. Once these firewalls weaken, Islamist parties regress, driven by popular sentiment. A recent survey shows that the AKP’s popularity jumped 10 percent after the Davos incident, suggesting the party could pass the game-changing 50 percent threshold in the upcoming March 29 local elections. The AKP’s renewed Islamism may play well at the polls. But Turkey, and its allies, will be left worse off for it.

Turkey’s Leaders Show Their Islamist Roots | Newsweek International Edition | Newsweek.com.

We posted  a warning sign back in April of 07 when “Balconies were banned” so “So the traditional women kept inside cannot be seen by the world.””

Who Started The Russia/Georgia War? – New Evidence

TBILISI, Georgia — Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.

via Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question – NYTimes.com