Monday, 1 August 2011
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NEWNATIONS BULLETIN 1ST AUGUST 2011
PLANET EARTH: NOT WAR... BUT NOT PEACE
August reports include: North Korea, Afghanistan; Pakistan; Iraq; Libya; Syria; Egypt; Iran; Morocco; Saudi Arabia; Turkey; Taiwan; Philippines; Vietnam; Ukraine; Belarus; Tajikistan; Uzbekistan; Kazakhstan; Greece; Bosnia; Albania.
America’s wars are winding down
The Iraq ‘adventure’ is seemingly coming to a close. Bush, Blair, Cheney and the neocons were quite wrong in saying that Iraq would be a first for democracy in the middle-east. Unfortunately it’s a shambles as we describe.
For Afghanistan, we recommend urgent new thinking and offer our reasons for saying ISAF should close down soon, and not get sucked into an endless democratising mission. We say why they should look to the former Northern Alliance as a buffer against the Taleban.
Followers of the Afghan story are recommended to also read this issue of Pakistan; and also Tajikistan, where ‘Islamic mission creep’ has emerged. Bad news for the Russian federation, whose republics lie behind these sparsely populated Central Asians.
We introduce Morocco in the context of ‘the Arab Spring’, in addition to seven of the other key players in the Middle-East-North-Africa. Libya is in stalemate; we describe how Syria is much more complex; Egypt: fears of religious parties are now widespread; Saudi Arabia is getting more muscular in its opposition to what it sees as Iranian inspired Shi’ite disturbances; Iran itself is in a political tangle with Ahmadinejad not as secure as he seemed to think. Turkey always ready to intercede in the N.African disputes, is looking at a very convincing election win for the incumbent Erdogan. We look at Turkey’s rapprochement with Russia.
Vietnam is back after having been shutdown by the authorities there. It is an important player in Asia being a member of ASEAN and not about to roll over to pressure from China. Three other regular Asians are included: North Korea; Philippines & Taiwan – each with a tale to tell about the regional giant.
In addition to Tajikistan recommended above, other FSU reports include Ukraine and Belarus, neither of which are doing well, indeed Belarus, Europe’s last dictatorship, is in an all round serious position. Also we report Central Asia’s Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, both of whose ‘absolute’ rulers have passed retirement age, with succession unclear – fodder for palace revolutions!
In the Balkans we look at the nightmare problems of Bosnia which has reached a serious point of departure from the Dayton agreement. The great powers are ignoring Bosnia, which having just passed the 16th anniversary of the massacre of Srebrenica can be seen to be far too dangerous to ignore!
Greece is also reported in this issue because of its economic woes for themselves, and Europe as a whole.
Albania seems to have lost its momentum towards qualifying as a suitable candidate for the EU. We describe it as it is today.
We close the Geopolitical Overview with arguments on how to proceed with terminating the war in:-
Afghanistan: New Thinking on CLOSURE and the ‘nation building’ plan.
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