Thursday, January 27, 2011
Will Obama Lose Egypt the Way Carter Lost Iran?
Roubini Warns World Could See Many Uprisings
RUSSIA CALLS ON NATO TO PROBE STUXNET
US: CHINA WANTS TO CONTAIN N. KOREA
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
CHINA PLANS TO CREATE WORLD'S LARGEST CITY, UBER-MEGALOPOLIS WITH 42 MILLION PEOPLE
EGYPTIAN POLICE CRACK DOWN ON PROTESTS
IRAN TAKING LEBANON HOSTAGE
China's Property Bubble Still Expanding
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
NATO's Only Islamizing Member Meddles in Mideast
ISRAEL MILITARY INTELLIGENCE CHIEF: IRAN ONLY 1-2 YEARS FROM NUKE-PRODUCING CAPABILITY
China Denies Ripping Off Stealth Technology
Obama's State of the Union and US Foreign Policy
Medvedev Blames Airport Officials for Lax Security
Monday, January 24, 2011
Attention Focuses on Caucasus Emirate
Obama Speech to Ignore America's Real Wealth
IRAN PROXY PICKS NEXT LEBANESE PM
Scandal: Chinese-Born Pianist Played Well Known Anti-American Song at White House Dinner for Hu
Thursday, 27 January 2011
Will the US Abandon Mubarak in an Attempt to
Jump Aboard Muslim Brotherhood Bandwagon?
Regime Appeals for US Help
as Egypt's Fateful Day Nears
WHAT HAPPENED IN TUNISIA COULD HAPPEN
COMMENT: America's global warming zealots, who yearn for $140-a-barrel oil and $5-a-gallon gasoline in the hope of making inefficient and nonexistent alternative energy sources economical, should consider the nightmare they are helping to bring about by supporting policies aimed at choking off the nation's lifeblood--the real, proven, here-and-now energy supplies without which civilization as we know it would collapse. The supposedly progressive Al Gores of the planet will not be satisfied, one suspects, until the day comes when ordinary Americans will no longer be able to afford to drive their cars, heat their homes (as the world continues to cool from natural, as opposed to manmade, causes) ... and feed their families.
One, two, three many Tunisias could become a rallying cry way beyond the Arab world as the middle classes are impoverished and the poor are crushed in the name of green (as in money, meaning government subsidies and investment schemes and scams) energy.
Related:
Muslim Brotherhood motto: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Koran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."
Click here for the analysis. Though clearly sympathetic to Turkey's crypto-Islamist ruling party--which the Obama administration has embraced as a model for "the Muslim world"--the Reuters piece is worth reading because it serves as a reminder of the stupidity of America's bipartisan, democracy promotion push in the Middle East. What Bush and Obama have accomplished in this regard: creation of (a) an Iranian satellite in Iraq, which was a contained, secular enemy before the unnecessary American invasion and conquest of the country, (b) Iranian client states in Gaza and Lebanon, and (c) an Iranian ally in Ankara, a NATO member--with access to its secrets, strategy, and knowhow. Well done--not!
Related:
IDF GENERAL SAYS SANCTIONS NOT WORKING
COMMENT: Evidently, Stuxnet slowed but didn't stop Iran's march to Armageddon. Barring a miraculous regime change from within, the only way to end the Iranian threat is through a massive air campaign--swift and merciless destruction of the regime's war-marking capabilities. Israel can't accomplish this conventionally. Only the United States (one hopes) has the power to cut the head off the snake without using nuclear weapons. Even so, Iran's Islamist Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, has been allowed to amass an arsenal of some 45,000 missiles capable of striking targets across Israel; Iran's Islamist Palestinian ally, Hamas, has rockets that can reach Tel Aviv; Iran's secular (but also Islamizing) ally, Syria, is bristling with ballistic missiles and chemical warheads; and Iran's new friend, Turkey, in the grip of a crypto-Islamist regime, is a formidable military power. In other words, the situation is not good. Appeasement of Iran is making war with Iran inevitable--on Iran's terms.
By George Friedman
U.S. President Barack Obama will deliver the State of the Union address tonight. The administration has let the media know that the focus of the speech will be on jobs and the economy. Given the strong showing of the Republicans in the last election, and the fact that they have defined domestic issues as the main battleground, Obama’s decision makes political sense. He will likely mention foreign issues and is undoubtedly devoting significant time to them, but the decision not to focus on foreign affairs in his State of the Union address gives the impression that the global situation is under control. Indeed, the Republican focus on domestic matters projects the same sense. Both sides create the danger that the public will be unprepared for some of the international crises that are already quite heated. We have discussed these issues in detail, but it is useful to step back and look at the state of the world for a moment.
Afghanistan
The United States remains the most powerful nation in the world, both in the size of its economy and the size of its military. Nevertheless, it continues to have a singular focus on the region from Iraq to Pakistan. Obama argued during his campaign that President George W. Bush had committed the United States to the wrong war in Iraq and had neglected the important war in Afghanistan. After being elected, Obama continued the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq that began under the Bush administration while increasing troop levels in Afghanistan. He has also committed himself to concluding the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of this year. Now, it may be that the withdrawal will not be completed on that schedule, but the United States already has insufficient forces in Iraq to shape events very much, and a further drawdown will further degrade this ability. In war, force is not symbolic.
This poses a series of serious problems for the United States. First, the strategic goal of the United States in Afghanistan is to build an Afghan military and security force that can take over from the United States in the coming years, allowing the United States to withdraw from the country. In other words, as in Vietnam, the United States wants to create a pro-American regime with a loyal army to protect American interests in Afghanistan without the presence of U.S. forces. I mention Vietnam because, in essence, this is Richard Nixon’s Vietnamization program applied to Afghanistan. The task is to win the hearts and minds of the people, isolate the guerrillas and use the pro-American segments of the population to buttress the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and provide recruits for the military and security forces.
The essential problem with this strategy is that it wants to control the outcome of the war while simultaneously withdrawing from it. For that to happen, the United States must persuade the Afghan people (who are hardly a single, united entity) that committing to the United States is a rational choice when the U.S. goal is to leave. The Afghans must first find the Americans more attractive than the Taliban. Second, they must be prepared to shoulder the substantial risks and burdens the Americans want to abandon. And third, the Afghans must be prepared to engage the Taliban and defeat them or endure the consequences of their own defeat.
Given that there is minimal evidence that the United States is winning hearts and minds in meaningful numbers, the rest of the analysis becomes relatively unimportant. But the point is that NATO has nearly 150,000 troops fighting in Afghanistan, the U.S. president has pledged to begin withdrawals this year, beginning in July, and all the Taliban have to do is not lose in order to win. There does not have to be a defining, critical moment for the United States to face defeat. Rather, the defeat lurks in the extended inability to force the Taliban to halt operations and in the limits on the amount of force available to the United States to throw into the war. The United States can fight as long as it chooses. It has that much power. What it seems to lack is the power to force the enemy to capitulate.
Iraq
In the meantime, the wrong war, Iraq, shows signs of crisis or, more precisely, crisis in the context of Iran. The United States is committed to withdrawing its forces from Iraq by the end of 2011. This has two immediate consequences. First, it increases Iranian influence in Iraq simply by creating a vacuum the Iraqis themselves cannot fill. Second, it escalates Iranian regional power. The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq without a strong Iraqi government and military will create a crisis of confidence on the Arabian Peninsula. The Saudis, in particular, unable to match Iranian power and doubtful of American will to resist Iran, will be increasingly pressured, out of necessity, to find a political accommodation with Iran. The Iranians do not have to invade anyone to change the regional balance of power decisively.
In the extreme, but not unimaginable, case that Iran turns Iraq into a satellite, Iranian power would be brought to the borders of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria and would extend Iran’s border with Turkey. Certainly, the United States could deal with Iran, but having completed its withdrawal from Iraq, it is difficult to imagine the United States rushing forces back in. Given the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan, it is difficult to see what ground forces would be available.
The withdrawal from Iraq creates a major crisis in 2011. If it is completed, Iran’s power will be enhanced. If it is aborted, the United States will have roughly 50,000 troops, most in training and support modes and few deployed in a combat mode, and the decision of whether to resume combat will be in the hands of the Iranians and their Iraqi surrogates. Since 170,000 troops were insufficient to pacify Iraq in the first place, sending in more troops makes little sense. As in Afghanistan, the U.S. has limited ground forces in reserve. It can build a force that blocks Iran militarily, but it will also be a force vulnerable to insurgent tactics — a force deployed without a terminal date, possibly absorbing casualties from Iranian-backed forces.
Iran
If the United States is prepared to complete the withdrawal of troops from Iraq in 2011, it must deal with Iran prior to the withdrawal. The two choices are a massive air campaign to attempt to cripple Iran or a negotiated understanding with Iran. The former involves profound intelligence uncertainties and might fail, while the latter might not be attractive to the Iranians. They are quite content seeing the United States leave. The reason the Iranians are so intransigent is not that they are crazy. It is that they think they hold all the cards and that time is on their side. The nuclear issue is hardly what concerns them.
The difference between Afghanistan and Iraq is that a wrenching crisis can be averted in Afghanistan simply by continuing to do what the United States is already doing. By continuing to do what it is doing in Iraq, the United States inevitably heads into a crisis as the troop level is drawn down.
Obama’s strategy appears to be to continue to carry out operations in Afghanistan, continue to withdraw from Iraq and attempt to deal with Iran through sanctions. This is an attractive strategy if it works. But the argument I am making is that the Afghan strategy can avoid collapse but not with a high probability of success. I am also extremely dubious that sanctions will force a change of course in Iran. For one thing, their effectiveness depends on the actual cooperation of Russia and China (as well as the Europeans). Sufficient exceptions have been given by the Obama administration to American companies doing business with Iran that others will feel free to act in their own self-interest.
But more than that, sanctions can unify a country. The expectations that some had about the Green Revolution of 2009 have been smashed, or at least should have been. We doubt that there is massive unhappiness with the regime waiting to explode, and we see no signs that the regime can’t cope with existing threats. The sanctions even provide Iran with cover for economic austerity while labeling resistance unpatriotic. As I have argued before, sanctions are an alternative to a solution, making it appear that something is being done when in fact nothing is happening.
There are numerous other issues Obama could address, ranging from Israel to Mexico to Russia. But, in a way, there is no point. Until the United States frees up forces and bandwidth and reduces the dangers in the war zones, it will lack the resources — intellectual and material — to deal with these other countries. It is impossible to be the single global power and focus only on one region, yet it is also impossible to focus on the world while most of the fires are burning in a single region. This, more than any other reason, is why Obama must conclude these conflicts, or at least create a situation where these conflicts exist in the broader context of American interests. There are multiple solutions, all with significant risks. Standing pat is the riskiest.
Domestic Issues
There is a parallel between Obama’s foreign policy problems and his domestic policy problems. Domestically, Obama is trapped by the financial crisis and the resulting economic problems, particularly unemployment. He cannot deal with other issues until he deals with that one. There are a host of foreign policy issues, including the broader question of the general approach Obama wants to take toward the world. The United States is involved in two wars with an incipient crisis in Iran. Nothing else can be addressed until those wars are dealt with.
The decision to focus on domestic issues makes political sense. It also makes sense in a broader way. Obama does not yet have a coherent strategy stretching from Iraq to Afghanistan. Certainly, he inherited the wars, but they are now his. The Afghan war has no clear endpoint, while the Iraq war does have a clear endpoint — but it is one that is enormously dangerous.
It is unlikely that he will be able to avoid some major foreign policy decisions in the coming year. It is also unlikely that he has a clear path. There are no clear paths, and he is going to have to hack his way to solutions. But the current situation does not easily extend past this year, particularly in Iraq and Iran, and they both require decisions. Presidents prefer not making decisions, and Obama has followed that tradition. Presidents understand that most problems in foreign affairs take care of themselves. But some of the most important ones don’t. The Iraq-Iran issue is, I think, one of those, and given the reduction of U.S. troops in 2011, this is the year decisions will have to be made.
Russia's President Dmitri A. Medvedev says he will hold airport officials responsible for security lapses that made Monday's suicide bombing possible. The Times story includes the following key paragraphs:
Mr. Medvedev did not specify which security arrangements at the airport he believed were lacking. The bomb went off in the international arrivals area, where people wait to pick up passengers — a location that is often unsecured in many major airports around the world.
Security experts consider arrivals areas to be so-called soft targets because they are less heavily policed.
In the past, people entering such zones in Russian airports have occasionally had to pass through metal detectors but such checks have generally been sporadic. After the attack on Monday, the authorities immediately set up new inspections.
STATE OF THE UNION CERTAIN TO NOT ADDRESS
OIL AND GAS, COAL AND SHALE, GOLD AND SILVER,
URANIUM AND RARE EARTH MINERALS, ETC., ETC.
Related:
Also Related:
COMMENT: Given (a) that more than 36,000 American lives were lost in the Korean War, (b) that North Korea, the world's worst dictatorship, is a Chinese vassal that has repeatedly threatened to attack the United States and South Korea with nuclear weapons, and (c) that the U.S. needs China's help to stop the North from continuing to aid Iran's menacing nuclear and missile programs, playing an anti-American propaganda tune from a Chinese-made movie about the Korean war at a White House state dinner for China's President is worse than scandalous.
After the bowing and the apologizing, the awkward anthem and flag moments, the quoting from "the Holy Koran" ... "My Motherland" ... is performed at the White House. No wonder some conservative critics of the Obama administration have referred to it as the first post-American Presidency.
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