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US resets Middle East compass
The Barack Obama-mediated phone call between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week was historic in being a formal apology for an Israeli sin, even as it was also crude PR. More importantly, Turkish-Israeli reconciliation impacts the overall strategic balance in the Middle East and has profound implications for the Iran question. - M K Bhadrakumar
(Mar 25, '13)
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SPENGLER
Obama converts
to neo-realism
With an Israeli-Palestinian agreement as unlikely as at any time in the past two decades, President Obama went to Israel for one simple reason - where else in the Middle East could he go? With the Passover holiday imminent, it was also a useful place to declare his own personal Exodus from idealism (as in Cairo 2009) to neo-realism and recognition of who is the US's only Mid-East ally.
(Mar 25, '13)
Palestine left with despair
Barack Obama's arrival in Israel last week was accompanied by the quick shattering of illusions. As he was showered with accolades and warm embraces of top Israeli officials, a new reality began to sink in: the American leader was no different than his predecessors. He never had been. Which left the Palestinians (including families of arrested school children) wondering - must we have four more years of this?
- Ramzy Baroud
(Mar 25, '13)
Qatari spoiler role in Syria draws Iranian ire
The resignation of Syrian opposition leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatibi, citing Qatar's attempts to exert control over the movement, damages the prospects of peace talks with Damascus favored by both Iran and the UN. Qatar is showing its complicity in US designs on Syria, and that threatens to strain crucial diplomatic, economic, and energy ties with Iran.
- Kaveh L Afrasiabi
(Mar 25, '13)
 The ever-destructive fantasy of air power
Drone warfare gives a new twist to a story nearly as old as flight itself; the ability of air supremacy to deliver decisive triumph over helpless enemies. Yet as airstrikes on al-Qaeda and its affiliates show, drones are neither surgical nor decisive. The dream of air power remains a capricious and destructive fantasy. - William J Astore
(Mar 25, '13)
Karzai's curious counterblast
Whatever Hamid Karzai's motives for accusing US forces of colluding with the Taliban, then saying he was just trying to improve relations with Washington, the Afghanistan president is clearly exasperated that the Americans don't appear to be taking his requests seriously.
- Hafizullah Gardesh
(Mar 25, '13)
SPEAKING FREELY
North Korea stirs Cuban crisis memory
The cycle of provocation created by North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship and the US refusal to compromise threatens to lead President Barack Obama and Kim Jong-eun into "eyeball to eyeball" confrontation in a repeat of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Kim is, however, a more volatile prospect than Nikita Khruschev ever was. - Hui Zhang
(Mar 25, '13)
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Sri Lankan anti-Muslim bid fuels discord
A hardline Buddhist organization in Sri Lanka is demanding a ban on Muslim dress and the halal food certification process, saying that the former threatens security while the latter is funding militants. Although the discrimination threatens to reawaken conflict of the kind the country suffered with the Tamil minority, the Buddhist-dominated government has stayed silent on the matter. - Munza Mushtaq
(Mar 22, '13)
Obama stirs the Middle East cauldron
President Barack Obama's visit to Israel, Palestine and Jordan is intended to stir a cauldron red-hot with intrigue and tensions. Urgent issues include the Iranian nuclear crisis, the Syrian civil war, and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Egypt is also in turmoil, and facing financial collapse. The entire region is in a state of chaos. An Israeli attack on Iran is the last thing the United States wants right now.
- Victor Kotsev (Mar 22, '13)
Ocalan signals Kurdish road to peace
An offer by Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), to withdraw fighters based beyond Turkey's borders placed the insurgency on a peace footing, yet fell short of the expected call for a ceasefire. Supplying rhetoric and authority is about all Ocalan can do from his prison cell, but he has spoken and the PKK will likely comply. - Caleb Lauer
(Mar 22, '13)
 OBITUARY
Zillur Rahman
Bangladesh's president Mohammad Zillur Rahman, who has died at the age of 84 in a Singapore hospital, will be remembered as one of the country's political immortals, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said, as the South Asian nation mourned a man who led the ruling Awami League for four decades.
- Syed Tashfin Chowdhury
(Mar 22, '13) |
Bangladesh protests evoke liberation
The university students coming out in droves to call for a secular democracy in Bangladesh and a ban on religious fundamentalist groups did not live through the 1971 war for independence, but their protest evokes memories of the past when the people of what was then East Pakistan overthrew an occupying military junta.
- Naimul Haq
(Mar 22, '13)
US disc jockey makes waves in China
American radio host Rick O'Shea has spent two decades in Taipei, Shanghai and Beijing learning that his interactions with his audience prove that when blended, US and Chinese creative energy can lead to something special. As the last lover of San Mao, one of China's most beloved and tragic modern novelists, his insights into today's China make for compelling listening.
- Tamara Treichel
(Mar 22, '13)
BOOK REVIEW
Searching the globe for China Inc
China's Silent Army: The Pioneers, Traders, Fixers and Workers Who Are Remaking the World in Beijing's Image
by Juan Pablo Cardenal and Heriberto Araujo
As Chinese business expands overseas, it is increasingly important to understand how mainland companies and Beijing interact. This book unravels some aspects of how Chinese diplomacy and business cooperate to serve geopolitical goals, but it mistakenly implicates Chinese immigrants in search of a better life in the economic exploitation being orchestrated by their leaders.
- Muhammad Cohen
(Mar 22, '13)
The Battle of Cyprus
The rejection by Cypriot legislators of a proposed levy on bank deposits is a victory for democracy over a confiscation plan that was long in the making by bureaucrats whose concerns range far wider than a small island in the Mediterranean. The push to confiscate savings is a wake-up call to how tiny cadres of elites call the shots and the rest of us pay the price. - Ellen Brown
(Mar 22, '13)
THE ROVING EYE
Real liars go to Tehran
It was a Back to Future moment, 10 years after the invasion of Iraq on trumped up WMD charges, as Bibi stressed Iran's (non-existent) nuclear weapons posed an existential threat to Israel and Barack Obama was adamant that Bibi was entitled to do anything to defend Israel. Willful ignorance of the facts made their meeting less reality, more trashy reality show.
- Pepe Escobar
(Mar 21, '13)
Palestinians prepare bitter welcome
Many Palestinians seem hostile to the visit to President Barack Obama's visit to the West Bank, with posters of Obama torched and vandalized and shoes thrown at a US diplomatic vehicle during an anti-Obama demonstration. Apparent US blindness to Israel's creeping settlements agenda, backed by personal involvement by government ministers, is a key factor. - Mel Frykberg
(Mar 21, '13)
Neo-cons shocked by loss of awe
Divides in the Republican Party between defense hawks and those who believe the Pentagon shouldn't be exempt from budget cuts underline growing resistance to the neo-conservative vision of a benevolent US hegemony as favored by the group who sought "regime change" in Iraq a decade ago. That debacle isn't the sole source of the split. - Jim Lobe
(Mar 20, '13) |
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Kazakhstan-Korea trade changes shape
Kazakhstan's land-locked state inhibits business with far-off countries, yet its bilateral trade with South Korea now surpasses an annual US$1 billion. The quid pro quo of natural resources for high-end goods is also changing.
- Richard Weitz
CREDIT
BUBBLE BULLETIN
Cyprus and money
Market participants have appeared confident that the German government will talk tough before caving and bit-by-bit backstopping the entire euro zone. Last week's high-stakes drama over Cyprus may have market players rethinking a few things.
Doug Noland looks at the previous week's events each Monday.
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The Italian Marines
are coming back!
On a day when our political class tripped our highly professional diplomats and India in turn fell between the two stools - Chennai and Colombo - over the Sri Lankan Tamil problem, the gloominess and pessimism in the mind that has been accruing over time as to where the country is heading has been somewhat made up…
- M K Bhadrakumar
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