Business Times - 26 Jan 2012
US is back as a global power, says Obama
He also calls on wealthy Americans like Romney to pay more in taxes
By LEON HADAR
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
ON THE same day that leading Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released his tax returns which showed that he paid less in taxes than top wage earners, US President Barack Obama launched his populist re-election campaign during his State of the Union Address.
Among other things, President Obama called on wealthy Americans like Mr Romney to pay more in taxes and pledged to come to the aid of many middle-class Americans who, unlike Mr Romney, live from pay cheque to pay cheque.
Mr Romney's tax returns showed he paid a lower effective tax rate than wage-earners on his US$42.5 million (in combined 2010 and 2011) income from investment profits, dividends, and interest.
President Obama's nationally televised address before Congress that marked the start of his campaign highlighted a vision of government that invests in strengthening the manufacturing base, reforming education, and creating new sources of energy and that places at the centre of its policy the plight of America's workers and middle-classes as it tries to give every American a 'fair shot'.
Indeed, the agenda that President Obama promoted in his speech drew a sharp contrast with the free market policies that are going to be central to the vision of the Republican presidential candidate.
'When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it's not because they envy the rich,' President Obama said. 'It's because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don't need and the country can't afford, it either adds to the deficit or somebody else has to make up the difference.'
Unlike his three previous national addresses before Congress that had placed an emphasis on bipartisanship and cooperation with the Republicans, this time, President Obama tried to dramatise his ideological and policy differences with the Republicans.
The Republicans have used their control of the House of Representatives to sabotage many of the White House's initiatives.
If, as it is still widely expected, former business executive Mr Romney, whose estimated net worth is close to a quarter of a billion US dollars is nominated as the Republican presidential candidate, President Obama would be facing a rival who embodies a pro-business orientation not only in terms of his conservative political ideology but also in his background.
Mr Romney is one of the wealthiest Americans ever to run for the White House. More significantly, some of his wealth is held in the Cayman Islands and other foreign tax havens. Mr Romney, as an executive in the unpopular financial industry, made a fortune restructuring ailing companies and in the process laying off thousands of American workers.
The US tax system favours income from investment over income from wages. That explains why Mr Romney will pay around 15 per cent in taxes on his income. An American top wage earner could pay 35 per cent on his income.
That the US tax code is helping the rich get richer and help widen the social-economic gaps in this country - and that Republicans are championing policies that benefit Wall Street and the wealthiest Americans like Mr Romney - looks to be one of the major themes of President Obama's campaign as he tries to get re-elected for a second term.
Mr Romney and other Republicans have accused President Obama and the Democrats of fomenting 'class warfare'. They argue that the tax rates on business owners should remain low so as to provide incentives for these 'job creators' to create new jobs.
But the rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement has helped draw public attention to the unfairness of the economic system and President Obama is clearly hoping to highlight that by inviting Debbie Bosanek, the secretary of billionaire Warren Buffett to attend his address on Tuesday, sitting next to First Lady Michelle Obama in the chamber of the House of Representatives.
Berkshire Hathaway chairman Mr Buffett noted that his secretary's tax rate was higher than his, leading President Obama to promote the so-called Buffett Rule, requiring a minimum tax rate for Americans making more than US$1 million a year.
President Obama also used his address to pre-empt the economic nationalism of Mr Romney and the other Republican presidential candidates by proposing the establishment of a new 'trade enforcement unit' that would investigate unfair trade practices pursued by China and other economies and introduce measures to counter them.
In a way, President Obama seemed to be continuing to develop the narrative he had sketched earlier this year when he painted himself as the political heir to Teddy Roosevelt, one of the 20th century's most celebrated progressive American presidents who, very much like President Obama, tried to reform an American economy facing major global challenges. He also stood up to an out-of-control Wall Street and built the foundations of a viable welfare state that would protect the interest of the middle-classes.
President Obama hopes to follow in Teddy Roosevelt's footsteps by insisting as he did during his speech that he would oppose any efforts to return to the economic policies pursued by Republican administrations that brought about the 2008 financial crisis and to demolish the foundations of the existing welfare state.
And President Obama also used his address to respond to the accusations by Mr Romney and the other leading Republican presidential candidates that he has weakened US global strategic position. President Obama highlighted several of his foreign-policy achievements, including the mission that killed Osama bin Laden and withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq.
'America is back' as a world power, President Obama said.
Copyright © 2010 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Republican race gets wide open and more divisive
Business Times - 25 Jan 2012
Republican race gets wide open and more divisive
It's possible the nominee to challenge Obama won't be decided till Republican convention
By LEON HADAR
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
FORMER Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has lost his earlier designation as his party's presumptive presidential nominee after his electoral defeat in the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina on Saturday.
His margin of defeat of about 14 per cent against Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, was quite devastating for him and came at the end of a week during which the former business executive seemed to be losing his political momentum.
First came the news that after a recount of the votes in the first Republican presidential contest this year, the caucuses in Iowa, Republican officials reversed their earlier estimate - that Mr Romney had come in first - and announced that former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum had won that race.
Then came the decision by Texas Governor Rick Perry and his endorsement of Mr Gingrich.
Republicans were expecting the social and cultural conservative Perry to do well among the rank and file of the party, especially in southern states such as South Carolina. But Mr Perry's poor performance in the televised debates disappointed many conservative Republicans - including the large contingency of Tea Party members. They also suspect Mr Romney of being a closet liberal.
These conservative Republicans divided their vote between Mr Santorum, the fiery crusader against abortion and gay rights; the veteran libertarian activist Ron Paul, a Congressman from Texas; and Mr Gingrich.
For a while, it seemed that Mr Santorum who came in second place in New Hampshire would be the main beneficiary of the anti-Romney vote. After all, it did not seem likely that the 67-year old thrice married serial adulterer Gingrich - his second wife told reporters last week that Mr Gingrich had suggested that they have an 'open marriage' while continuing an affair with the woman who would eventually become his third wife - would win the hearts and minds of the conservative Christian voters in the Bible Belt in the South.
But the rotund Mr Gingrich defied these low expectations. His oratorical skills and his savage attacks against the 'elite media' and 'secular liberals', spiced with racist innuendos aimed at President Barack Obama - calling him 'the greatest food-stamp president in American history' who exhibits 'anti-American' tendencies - appealed to many conservative Republicans in this former slave state.
According to opinion polls, close to a third of all Republican voters believe that President Obama is a Muslim.
In fact, Mr Gingrich turned around the accusations of adultery against him and exploited the interview with his ex-wife as an opportunity to blast the mainstream media that Republicans love to hate.
Moreover, both Mr Gingrich and Mr Santorum have continued to attack Mr Romney of not being a 'real' conservative. He has changed his earlier views on abortion and gay rights - he had supported both in the past - and, as the governor of Massachusetts, crafted government-backed health care insurance plan that served as a model for the one embraced by the president (Obamacare) that Republicans loath.
And then there have been the accusations by Mr Gingrich and Mr Santorum that working in Bain Capital, a company that helped restructure and refinance faltering businesses, Mr Romney engaged in so-called 'vulture capitalism' - making loads of money on the backs of laid off American workers.
Indeed, at a time when more and more Americans are becoming concerned over the widening economic gap in the US, these attacks against Mr Romney - a millionaire and a son of a billionaire and by definition, a member of the wealthiest one per cent of Americans - have clearly been hurting the former business executive in states like South Carolina where the unemployment rate is even higher than the (high) average.
Mr Romney has rejected the criticism of his work at Bain Capital and accused his Republican and Democratic attackers of engaging in the 'politics of envy' and in 'class welfare'. But Mr Romney's resistance to releasing his tax returns and reports that he maintains banking accounts in the Cayman Islands - coupled with comments that reflect a lack of concern about the plight of the poor - have raised concerns that he may be 'out of touch' with the economically distressed majority of Americans.
So it is not surprising that even members of the Republican Party's establishment who tend to feel comfortable with Mr Romney's centrist positions are getting worried that their favourite candidate would be vulnerable to the kind of populist us-against-them that President Obama is planning to launch against the Republicans.
The Democratic message is expected to depict the Republicans generally and their presidential candidate as political allies of Big Business who want to reduce taxes for their buddies in Wall Street while slashing social-economic programmes that help blue collar workers and the middle class.
Mr Romney's second place in South Carolina does not mean that he is not going to become the presidential nominee. Nor does Mr Gingrich's victory solidify his position as a front runner. The Republican bosses may be less excited about Mr Romney but they have even less confidence in the ability of the temperamental Mr Gingrich to win the votes of centrist independent voters and may conclude that they have no choice but to mobilise all organisational and financial resources behind the more moderate and telegenic Mr Romney.
In addition, Mr Santorum and Mr Paul are not planning to withdraw from the race anytime soon and will continue to compete with Mr Gingrich over the conservative and the Tea Party vote.
While Mr Romney may have an organisational advantage and the support of the Republican establishment in Florida where the next primary will take place, Mr Gingrich is benefiting from a growing political momentum and Republican sentiment in this southern state where the Republican convention which selects the presidential nominee will take place in the summer.
It is not inconceivable that Mr Romney, Mr Gingrich, Mr Santorum and Mr Paul will each arrive to the convention with their delegates and that the choice of the party's presidential nominee will be made there.
Copyright © 2010 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.
Republican race gets wide open and more divisive
It's possible the nominee to challenge Obama won't be decided till Republican convention
By LEON HADAR
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
FORMER Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has lost his earlier designation as his party's presumptive presidential nominee after his electoral defeat in the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina on Saturday.
His margin of defeat of about 14 per cent against Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, was quite devastating for him and came at the end of a week during which the former business executive seemed to be losing his political momentum.
First came the news that after a recount of the votes in the first Republican presidential contest this year, the caucuses in Iowa, Republican officials reversed their earlier estimate - that Mr Romney had come in first - and announced that former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum had won that race.
Then came the decision by Texas Governor Rick Perry and his endorsement of Mr Gingrich.
Republicans were expecting the social and cultural conservative Perry to do well among the rank and file of the party, especially in southern states such as South Carolina. But Mr Perry's poor performance in the televised debates disappointed many conservative Republicans - including the large contingency of Tea Party members. They also suspect Mr Romney of being a closet liberal.
These conservative Republicans divided their vote between Mr Santorum, the fiery crusader against abortion and gay rights; the veteran libertarian activist Ron Paul, a Congressman from Texas; and Mr Gingrich.
For a while, it seemed that Mr Santorum who came in second place in New Hampshire would be the main beneficiary of the anti-Romney vote. After all, it did not seem likely that the 67-year old thrice married serial adulterer Gingrich - his second wife told reporters last week that Mr Gingrich had suggested that they have an 'open marriage' while continuing an affair with the woman who would eventually become his third wife - would win the hearts and minds of the conservative Christian voters in the Bible Belt in the South.
But the rotund Mr Gingrich defied these low expectations. His oratorical skills and his savage attacks against the 'elite media' and 'secular liberals', spiced with racist innuendos aimed at President Barack Obama - calling him 'the greatest food-stamp president in American history' who exhibits 'anti-American' tendencies - appealed to many conservative Republicans in this former slave state.
According to opinion polls, close to a third of all Republican voters believe that President Obama is a Muslim.
In fact, Mr Gingrich turned around the accusations of adultery against him and exploited the interview with his ex-wife as an opportunity to blast the mainstream media that Republicans love to hate.
Moreover, both Mr Gingrich and Mr Santorum have continued to attack Mr Romney of not being a 'real' conservative. He has changed his earlier views on abortion and gay rights - he had supported both in the past - and, as the governor of Massachusetts, crafted government-backed health care insurance plan that served as a model for the one embraced by the president (Obamacare) that Republicans loath.
And then there have been the accusations by Mr Gingrich and Mr Santorum that working in Bain Capital, a company that helped restructure and refinance faltering businesses, Mr Romney engaged in so-called 'vulture capitalism' - making loads of money on the backs of laid off American workers.
Indeed, at a time when more and more Americans are becoming concerned over the widening economic gap in the US, these attacks against Mr Romney - a millionaire and a son of a billionaire and by definition, a member of the wealthiest one per cent of Americans - have clearly been hurting the former business executive in states like South Carolina where the unemployment rate is even higher than the (high) average.
Mr Romney has rejected the criticism of his work at Bain Capital and accused his Republican and Democratic attackers of engaging in the 'politics of envy' and in 'class welfare'. But Mr Romney's resistance to releasing his tax returns and reports that he maintains banking accounts in the Cayman Islands - coupled with comments that reflect a lack of concern about the plight of the poor - have raised concerns that he may be 'out of touch' with the economically distressed majority of Americans.
So it is not surprising that even members of the Republican Party's establishment who tend to feel comfortable with Mr Romney's centrist positions are getting worried that their favourite candidate would be vulnerable to the kind of populist us-against-them that President Obama is planning to launch against the Republicans.
The Democratic message is expected to depict the Republicans generally and their presidential candidate as political allies of Big Business who want to reduce taxes for their buddies in Wall Street while slashing social-economic programmes that help blue collar workers and the middle class.
Mr Romney's second place in South Carolina does not mean that he is not going to become the presidential nominee. Nor does Mr Gingrich's victory solidify his position as a front runner. The Republican bosses may be less excited about Mr Romney but they have even less confidence in the ability of the temperamental Mr Gingrich to win the votes of centrist independent voters and may conclude that they have no choice but to mobilise all organisational and financial resources behind the more moderate and telegenic Mr Romney.
In addition, Mr Santorum and Mr Paul are not planning to withdraw from the race anytime soon and will continue to compete with Mr Gingrich over the conservative and the Tea Party vote.
While Mr Romney may have an organisational advantage and the support of the Republican establishment in Florida where the next primary will take place, Mr Gingrich is benefiting from a growing political momentum and Republican sentiment in this southern state where the Republican convention which selects the presidential nominee will take place in the summer.
It is not inconceivable that Mr Romney, Mr Gingrich, Mr Santorum and Mr Paul will each arrive to the convention with their delegates and that the choice of the party's presidential nominee will be made there.
Copyright © 2010 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Romney faces new mood in his party
Business Times - 18 Jan 2012
Romney faces new mood in his party
Republicans seem to be more attracted to his rivals' economic and foreign policy agenda
By LEON HADAR
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
THE leading presidential candidates of the political party are blasting Wall Street private equity executives as 'vultures' who are destroying the livelihood of economically distressed blue-collar workers. 'They're just vultures,' one of this party's presidential aspirants declared recently, as he was describing what those greedy venture capitalists do for living. 'They're vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb waiting for the company to get sick, and then they swoop in, they eat the carcass, they leave with that and they save the skeleton,' he concluded. His remarks would have been applauded even by Comrade Lenin.
And in the presidential primary of the above-mentioned political party, a leading anti-war activist who has been calling for the withdrawal of US troops from the Middle East, East Asia and Europe, and for getting rid of the Central Intelligence Agency - he even challenged the legality of the assassination of Osama bin Laden - ended up winning 23 per cent of the vote.
Does that mean that the Democratic Party is coming under the influence of hardcore Marxists and being taken over by 'anti-American appeasers' and 'secret Muslims'? Is American capitalism being threatened by attacks of European-style socialists and left-wing peaceniks?
Actually, this attack on Wall Street financiers has been led by Republican presidential contenders. Indeed, the attack against those capitalist 'vultures' was made by Comrade Rick Perry, the so-called 'conservative' Republican Governor of Texas, of all states, who has joined two other well-known socialists and presidential candidates - former speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum - in taking a shot at their main rival for their party's presidential nomination, former Bain Capital executive and multimillionaire Mitt Romney.
As the Republicans prepare for the next primary vote in South Carolina, a state with a large unemployment rate and where many blue-collar Republican voters have been devastated by the Great Recession, Mr Perry, Mr Gingrich and Mr Santorum have been depicting Mr Romney as a cut-throat capitalist who made his money in restructuring failed companies and in the process laying off thousands of workers. A group allied with Mr Gingrich has produced an anti-Romney television commercial in which some of the laid-off workers blame Bain Capital and Mr Romney for their economic misfortunes.
Mr Romney and his political supporters and financial backers counter that criticism by arguing that capitalism is all about 'creative destruction' under which some old jobs are lost while new ones are created, and at the end of the day the entire economy grows to the benefit of almost everyone. But while this kind of model of free-market capitalism continues to be espoused by well-to-do Americans and business executives who defend Mr Romney, much of the rank and file of the party, that does not reside in the wealthy suburbs, has been very critical of the government bailout of Wall Street, and may have difficulties identifying with, and voting for, the super-rich Mr Romney.
These Republicans seem to be more attracted to the populist and economic nationalist agenda that Mr Perry and Mr Gingrich are advancing. At the same time, many of the young and independent voters Republicans are hoping to win over in November reject the neo-conservative foreign policy that Mr Romney and the Republican Party establishment have embraced.
Indeed, it was the anti-war libertarian and the Congressman from Texas, Ron Paul, who came in second and won 23 per cent of the vote in the recent New Hampshire Republican primary, while former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, who has now pulled out of the nomination race, received 17 per cent of the vote by calling for a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan.
So if you consider that Mr Huntsman came in third in New Hampshire, winning 17 per cent of the vote, and you combine that number with the 23 per cent that Mr Paul mustered there, it is possible to conclude that 40 per cent of the Republican voters in New Hampshire rejected president George W Bush's global military adventures.
Moreover, the three most radical neocons in the race - Mr Gingrich, Mr Santorum and Mr Perry - who cannot wait to start bombing Iran and in the case of Mr Perry, to re-invade Iraq - got altogether 20 per cent of the vote in New Hampshire. The libertarian Mr Paul had been regarded as 'unelectable' and his critics argue that his anti-interventionist foreign policy positions are 'outside the mainstream' while they continue to take seriously the push for war with Iran by Mr Gingrich and Mr Santorum (not to mention their support for the bizarre anti-syariah campaign in this country).
It is true that it may be too early to predict whether Mr Paul would do as well (and perhaps even better) in the primary in South Carolina and other states in the South and Midwest - where Republicans tend to espouse more nationalist positions - as he did in New Hampshire and Iowa.
And the fact is that Mr Romney - who did win in Iowa and New Hampshire - continues to adhere to foreign policy positions that are very similar to those of Mr Bush and former presidential candidate John McCain. And he is widely expected to win the Republican primary race.
In fact, Mr Romney has surrounded himself with national security advisers who belong to the neo-conservative wing of the Republican Party and the conservative movement and continues to accuse President Barack Obama - under whom Osama was killed, the number of US troops in Afghanistan have increased and an effort to raise the diplomatic status of the Palestinians at the United Nation was averted - of 'appeasement', of gutting the US military and of abandoning Israel.
But Mr Romney, whose main strength has been his ability to adjust his earlier more moderate political views on social-cultural issues - such as abortion or gay rights - to the prevailing ultra-conservative views of the Republican establishment, will now have to deal with another changing political reality: The neoconservative strategy of maintaining American global hegemony has ceased to be the dominant view among ordinary Republican voters.
At the minimum, there is going to be a serious and heated debate among Republicans about the direction of US foreign policy in the coming years. Indeed, many conservatives have concluded that the notion of using the power of the US government to do 'regime change' and 'nation building' around the world runs very much contrary to conservative values that highlight scepticism about the ability of government to promote political and social change - whether it is in Dubuque, Iowa or in Baghdad, Iraq.
If Mr Romney wants to ensure that the supporters of Mr Paul and Mr Huntsman - that include many young voters and the kind of middle-class professionals that constitute the critical bloc of 'independent voters' - vote for him, he would need to respond to their opposition to military adventurism. But it is not clear that Mr Romney would be ready to re-invent himself once again by shedding off his neo-conservative position as well as his free-market fundamentalism. Or that his party's establishment would allow him to do so.
Copyright © 2010 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.
Romney faces new mood in his party
Republicans seem to be more attracted to his rivals' economic and foreign policy agenda
By LEON HADAR
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
THE leading presidential candidates of the political party are blasting Wall Street private equity executives as 'vultures' who are destroying the livelihood of economically distressed blue-collar workers. 'They're just vultures,' one of this party's presidential aspirants declared recently, as he was describing what those greedy venture capitalists do for living. 'They're vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb waiting for the company to get sick, and then they swoop in, they eat the carcass, they leave with that and they save the skeleton,' he concluded. His remarks would have been applauded even by Comrade Lenin.
And in the presidential primary of the above-mentioned political party, a leading anti-war activist who has been calling for the withdrawal of US troops from the Middle East, East Asia and Europe, and for getting rid of the Central Intelligence Agency - he even challenged the legality of the assassination of Osama bin Laden - ended up winning 23 per cent of the vote.
Does that mean that the Democratic Party is coming under the influence of hardcore Marxists and being taken over by 'anti-American appeasers' and 'secret Muslims'? Is American capitalism being threatened by attacks of European-style socialists and left-wing peaceniks?
Actually, this attack on Wall Street financiers has been led by Republican presidential contenders. Indeed, the attack against those capitalist 'vultures' was made by Comrade Rick Perry, the so-called 'conservative' Republican Governor of Texas, of all states, who has joined two other well-known socialists and presidential candidates - former speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum - in taking a shot at their main rival for their party's presidential nomination, former Bain Capital executive and multimillionaire Mitt Romney.
As the Republicans prepare for the next primary vote in South Carolina, a state with a large unemployment rate and where many blue-collar Republican voters have been devastated by the Great Recession, Mr Perry, Mr Gingrich and Mr Santorum have been depicting Mr Romney as a cut-throat capitalist who made his money in restructuring failed companies and in the process laying off thousands of workers. A group allied with Mr Gingrich has produced an anti-Romney television commercial in which some of the laid-off workers blame Bain Capital and Mr Romney for their economic misfortunes.
Mr Romney and his political supporters and financial backers counter that criticism by arguing that capitalism is all about 'creative destruction' under which some old jobs are lost while new ones are created, and at the end of the day the entire economy grows to the benefit of almost everyone. But while this kind of model of free-market capitalism continues to be espoused by well-to-do Americans and business executives who defend Mr Romney, much of the rank and file of the party, that does not reside in the wealthy suburbs, has been very critical of the government bailout of Wall Street, and may have difficulties identifying with, and voting for, the super-rich Mr Romney.
These Republicans seem to be more attracted to the populist and economic nationalist agenda that Mr Perry and Mr Gingrich are advancing. At the same time, many of the young and independent voters Republicans are hoping to win over in November reject the neo-conservative foreign policy that Mr Romney and the Republican Party establishment have embraced.
Indeed, it was the anti-war libertarian and the Congressman from Texas, Ron Paul, who came in second and won 23 per cent of the vote in the recent New Hampshire Republican primary, while former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, who has now pulled out of the nomination race, received 17 per cent of the vote by calling for a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan.
So if you consider that Mr Huntsman came in third in New Hampshire, winning 17 per cent of the vote, and you combine that number with the 23 per cent that Mr Paul mustered there, it is possible to conclude that 40 per cent of the Republican voters in New Hampshire rejected president George W Bush's global military adventures.
Moreover, the three most radical neocons in the race - Mr Gingrich, Mr Santorum and Mr Perry - who cannot wait to start bombing Iran and in the case of Mr Perry, to re-invade Iraq - got altogether 20 per cent of the vote in New Hampshire. The libertarian Mr Paul had been regarded as 'unelectable' and his critics argue that his anti-interventionist foreign policy positions are 'outside the mainstream' while they continue to take seriously the push for war with Iran by Mr Gingrich and Mr Santorum (not to mention their support for the bizarre anti-syariah campaign in this country).
It is true that it may be too early to predict whether Mr Paul would do as well (and perhaps even better) in the primary in South Carolina and other states in the South and Midwest - where Republicans tend to espouse more nationalist positions - as he did in New Hampshire and Iowa.
And the fact is that Mr Romney - who did win in Iowa and New Hampshire - continues to adhere to foreign policy positions that are very similar to those of Mr Bush and former presidential candidate John McCain. And he is widely expected to win the Republican primary race.
In fact, Mr Romney has surrounded himself with national security advisers who belong to the neo-conservative wing of the Republican Party and the conservative movement and continues to accuse President Barack Obama - under whom Osama was killed, the number of US troops in Afghanistan have increased and an effort to raise the diplomatic status of the Palestinians at the United Nation was averted - of 'appeasement', of gutting the US military and of abandoning Israel.
But Mr Romney, whose main strength has been his ability to adjust his earlier more moderate political views on social-cultural issues - such as abortion or gay rights - to the prevailing ultra-conservative views of the Republican establishment, will now have to deal with another changing political reality: The neoconservative strategy of maintaining American global hegemony has ceased to be the dominant view among ordinary Republican voters.
At the minimum, there is going to be a serious and heated debate among Republicans about the direction of US foreign policy in the coming years. Indeed, many conservatives have concluded that the notion of using the power of the US government to do 'regime change' and 'nation building' around the world runs very much contrary to conservative values that highlight scepticism about the ability of government to promote political and social change - whether it is in Dubuque, Iowa or in Baghdad, Iraq.
If Mr Romney wants to ensure that the supporters of Mr Paul and Mr Huntsman - that include many young voters and the kind of middle-class professionals that constitute the critical bloc of 'independent voters' - vote for him, he would need to respond to their opposition to military adventurism. But it is not clear that Mr Romney would be ready to re-invent himself once again by shedding off his neo-conservative position as well as his free-market fundamentalism. Or that his party's establishment would allow him to do so.
Copyright © 2010 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Are GOP squabbles helping Obama?
Business Times - 12 Jan 2012
Are GOP squabbles helping Obama?
Republican candidates are fighting on social-cultural issues when the economy is on top of most American voters' agenda
By LEON HADAR
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
WHILE the Republican presidential candidates in the United States have been blasting one another, things seem to be looking better than expected for President Barack Obama in recent days.
Last week's jobs report indicated that unemployment had dropped to 8.5 per cent in December, its lowest in three years. Nothing to celebrate about, but then any sign of improvement in the labour market may hint that the economic recovery is gaining momentum, raising the chances Mr Obama could be re-elected in November despite an expected strong challenge from the Republican candidate.
More importantly, the results of Tuesday's Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire suggest that it could take a long time for the party to select the man who will face Mr Obama.
There was almost no doubt that Mitt Romney, who had served as the governor of Massachusetts, would win the primary in the neighbouring state of New Hampshire. And he did.
Yet the libertarian and anti-war contender, Ron Paul, finished a close second in the primary, followed by former Utah governor Jon Huntsman. The two, as well as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum are not giving up and will show up for the coming primary in South Carolina and continue to try to deny Mr Romney his big victory.
All this suggests that the Republican race is going to remain close and for a long time.
Of course, Mr Romney and the other Republican presidential candidates dismissed the notion that the new jobs report is a sign of better economic times to come. It is true that the signs that the unemployment rate is falling could be misleading, and may only underscore the fact that many workers, discouraged by the lack of job opportunities, have stopped looking for jobs altogether.
Therefore, what the American economy is experiencing may be a shrinking labour force and not necessarily an increase in the number of jobs. In any case, the unemployment rate has traditionally been a lagging variable of economic growth.
But against the backdrop of more good economic news - or, at least, of less bad economic news - the improving job numbers provide a psychological boost for the economy as well as for Mr Obama's electoral fortunes.
And No-Drama Obama who has been criticised for his lack of political feistiness demonstrated last week that he is more than ready to pick up a fight with his Republican rivals when he announced that he would make a 'recess appointment' - meaning that he would not wait for Congress to approve it - of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The Democratic White House occupant is hoping that appointment of a consumer protection chief, which has been opposed by Congressional Republicans while enjoying wide support among Americans, will help his re-election strategy.
It gives Mr Obama a chance to bash the 'do nothing' Republican-controlled Congress for failing to support his effort to protect the interests of economically distressed middle class and while, at the same time, going out of their way to propose more tax cuts for wealthy Americans.
At times it seems as though the Republicans in Congress as well as the ones who are hoping to challenge Mr Obama are doing their best to provide valuable assistance to the incumbent.
If anything, much of what has been taking place in the long and winding Republican presidential nomination process in recent months - including a score of televised debates among the candidates - has been dominated by numerous gaffes and nasty exchanges. And then there are the never-ending reports about ethical misconduct and sex scandals that have engulfed some of them and which have turned the party's White House hopefuls into the butt of jokes of television comedians.
Moreover, the continuing political infighting among the contenders during the Republican presidential campaign also helped expose the extent to which they seem to be so out of touch with the problems and aspirations of most Americans, and more particularly with independent voters - white middle class professionals - who are expected to determine the outcome of the presidential race.
Bizarre issues
First, there is the continuing preoccupation, if not obsession, of some of the leading candidates - including Mr Santorum, Mr Gingrich and Texas Governor Rick Perry - with social-cultural issues, such as abortion, gay rights and the theory of evolution (which they question).
In fact, one of the bizarre issues that was raised during the primary election campaign in New Hampshire was Mr Santorum's suggestion that states should have the right to make contraception and other forms of birth control illegal.
And with the exception of Mr Huntsman (who also served as US ambassador to China and Singapore), all the Republican candidates (including former Pizza business executive Herman Cain and Representative Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota who have dropped out of the race) want to outlaw abortion and deny homosexuals the right to serve in the military and get married.
Mr Santorum, Mr Perry, Mr Gingrich and Mr Paul of Texas have supported of the so-called 'personhood amendment' that would declare life beginning at fertilisation. And together with Mr Romney - one of the more moderate figures in the race - the candidates reject the current scientific consensus over climate change.
While these radical positions on social-cultural problems and the environment may help the candidates win support among religious activists, especially in the former slave-owning 'Bible Belt' states in the south, it could backfire against them when it comes to the more culturally tolerant independent voters around the country, and especially on the East and West Coasts.
And at a time when the economy is on the top of the agenda of most Americans voters, the attention that the Republican candidates seem to be paying to such issues as gay rights and abortion is probably going to antagonise many voters who had to watch the Republican candidates debating whether a state should be banning condoms or not.
It is economy that could force the Republican candidates to be left behind the political curve at a time when voters, perhaps under the impact of the Occupy Wall Street movement, seem to be more and more receptive to concerns over economic and social inequality favoured by the Democrats. Yet Mr Romney, the former financial business executive, and the other candidates have been accusing Mr Obama of trying to establish a European-style social-welfare state. They demand that he slash spending on social-economic programme and lower taxes on the rich aka 'job creators'.
Romney's problems
Indeed, Mr Paul wants to abolish many of the existing government agencies, including the US Federal Reserve, as well as the income tax, while Mr Santorum, who tends to emphasise his blue-collar upbringing, is promoting an economic nationalist agenda and, like Mr Romney, is advocating punishing China for its alleged unfair trade practices.
Mr Romney's problems go beyond his message and have to do with his personality and professional background. The son of a former car company executive and former governor, Mr Romney made millions as an executive with Bain Capital, a company that was involved in the financial restructuring of large American businesses, a process that included the laying off of hundreds of workers.
That even the pro-business Mr Gingrich and Mr Santorum have been depicting Mr Romney as someone who has made his money by firing people, only demonstrates the extent to which Mr Romney is vulnerable on an issue. Yet he is trying to make his extensive experience in the business sector into the centrepiece of his campaign. And Mr Romney did not help himself by remarking in one of his campaign appearances that: 'I like being able to fire people'.
The candidate who could probably do the best among independent voters and win support in major 'blue' Democratic inclined states is Mr Huntsman who has emerged as the most moderate and pragmatic candidate in the race. He has refrained from pandering to the religious right and has placed a lot of emphasis on his diplomatic experience and his support for a more realist foreign policy approach.
That may have helped him in the primary 'purple' state of New Hampshire that tends to swing between support for Republican and Democratic candidates but is certainly not going to lead him towards victories in the Republican votes in the South, including the next primary in South Carolina.
The best-case-scenario from a Republican perspective is that Mr Romney will get nominated as presidential candidate ASAP and that the other candidates and the rest of the party unite behind him and prepare for the big fight with Mr Obama and the Democrats. If opinion polls are any guide, that is all they have to do. But will they?
Copyright © 2010 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.
Are GOP squabbles helping Obama?
Republican candidates are fighting on social-cultural issues when the economy is on top of most American voters' agenda
By LEON HADAR
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
WHILE the Republican presidential candidates in the United States have been blasting one another, things seem to be looking better than expected for President Barack Obama in recent days.
Last week's jobs report indicated that unemployment had dropped to 8.5 per cent in December, its lowest in three years. Nothing to celebrate about, but then any sign of improvement in the labour market may hint that the economic recovery is gaining momentum, raising the chances Mr Obama could be re-elected in November despite an expected strong challenge from the Republican candidate.
More importantly, the results of Tuesday's Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire suggest that it could take a long time for the party to select the man who will face Mr Obama.
There was almost no doubt that Mitt Romney, who had served as the governor of Massachusetts, would win the primary in the neighbouring state of New Hampshire. And he did.
Yet the libertarian and anti-war contender, Ron Paul, finished a close second in the primary, followed by former Utah governor Jon Huntsman. The two, as well as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum are not giving up and will show up for the coming primary in South Carolina and continue to try to deny Mr Romney his big victory.
All this suggests that the Republican race is going to remain close and for a long time.
Of course, Mr Romney and the other Republican presidential candidates dismissed the notion that the new jobs report is a sign of better economic times to come. It is true that the signs that the unemployment rate is falling could be misleading, and may only underscore the fact that many workers, discouraged by the lack of job opportunities, have stopped looking for jobs altogether.
Therefore, what the American economy is experiencing may be a shrinking labour force and not necessarily an increase in the number of jobs. In any case, the unemployment rate has traditionally been a lagging variable of economic growth.
But against the backdrop of more good economic news - or, at least, of less bad economic news - the improving job numbers provide a psychological boost for the economy as well as for Mr Obama's electoral fortunes.
And No-Drama Obama who has been criticised for his lack of political feistiness demonstrated last week that he is more than ready to pick up a fight with his Republican rivals when he announced that he would make a 'recess appointment' - meaning that he would not wait for Congress to approve it - of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The Democratic White House occupant is hoping that appointment of a consumer protection chief, which has been opposed by Congressional Republicans while enjoying wide support among Americans, will help his re-election strategy.
It gives Mr Obama a chance to bash the 'do nothing' Republican-controlled Congress for failing to support his effort to protect the interests of economically distressed middle class and while, at the same time, going out of their way to propose more tax cuts for wealthy Americans.
At times it seems as though the Republicans in Congress as well as the ones who are hoping to challenge Mr Obama are doing their best to provide valuable assistance to the incumbent.
If anything, much of what has been taking place in the long and winding Republican presidential nomination process in recent months - including a score of televised debates among the candidates - has been dominated by numerous gaffes and nasty exchanges. And then there are the never-ending reports about ethical misconduct and sex scandals that have engulfed some of them and which have turned the party's White House hopefuls into the butt of jokes of television comedians.
Moreover, the continuing political infighting among the contenders during the Republican presidential campaign also helped expose the extent to which they seem to be so out of touch with the problems and aspirations of most Americans, and more particularly with independent voters - white middle class professionals - who are expected to determine the outcome of the presidential race.
Bizarre issues
First, there is the continuing preoccupation, if not obsession, of some of the leading candidates - including Mr Santorum, Mr Gingrich and Texas Governor Rick Perry - with social-cultural issues, such as abortion, gay rights and the theory of evolution (which they question).
In fact, one of the bizarre issues that was raised during the primary election campaign in New Hampshire was Mr Santorum's suggestion that states should have the right to make contraception and other forms of birth control illegal.
And with the exception of Mr Huntsman (who also served as US ambassador to China and Singapore), all the Republican candidates (including former Pizza business executive Herman Cain and Representative Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota who have dropped out of the race) want to outlaw abortion and deny homosexuals the right to serve in the military and get married.
Mr Santorum, Mr Perry, Mr Gingrich and Mr Paul of Texas have supported of the so-called 'personhood amendment' that would declare life beginning at fertilisation. And together with Mr Romney - one of the more moderate figures in the race - the candidates reject the current scientific consensus over climate change.
While these radical positions on social-cultural problems and the environment may help the candidates win support among religious activists, especially in the former slave-owning 'Bible Belt' states in the south, it could backfire against them when it comes to the more culturally tolerant independent voters around the country, and especially on the East and West Coasts.
And at a time when the economy is on the top of the agenda of most Americans voters, the attention that the Republican candidates seem to be paying to such issues as gay rights and abortion is probably going to antagonise many voters who had to watch the Republican candidates debating whether a state should be banning condoms or not.
It is economy that could force the Republican candidates to be left behind the political curve at a time when voters, perhaps under the impact of the Occupy Wall Street movement, seem to be more and more receptive to concerns over economic and social inequality favoured by the Democrats. Yet Mr Romney, the former financial business executive, and the other candidates have been accusing Mr Obama of trying to establish a European-style social-welfare state. They demand that he slash spending on social-economic programme and lower taxes on the rich aka 'job creators'.
Romney's problems
Indeed, Mr Paul wants to abolish many of the existing government agencies, including the US Federal Reserve, as well as the income tax, while Mr Santorum, who tends to emphasise his blue-collar upbringing, is promoting an economic nationalist agenda and, like Mr Romney, is advocating punishing China for its alleged unfair trade practices.
Mr Romney's problems go beyond his message and have to do with his personality and professional background. The son of a former car company executive and former governor, Mr Romney made millions as an executive with Bain Capital, a company that was involved in the financial restructuring of large American businesses, a process that included the laying off of hundreds of workers.
That even the pro-business Mr Gingrich and Mr Santorum have been depicting Mr Romney as someone who has made his money by firing people, only demonstrates the extent to which Mr Romney is vulnerable on an issue. Yet he is trying to make his extensive experience in the business sector into the centrepiece of his campaign. And Mr Romney did not help himself by remarking in one of his campaign appearances that: 'I like being able to fire people'.
The candidate who could probably do the best among independent voters and win support in major 'blue' Democratic inclined states is Mr Huntsman who has emerged as the most moderate and pragmatic candidate in the race. He has refrained from pandering to the religious right and has placed a lot of emphasis on his diplomatic experience and his support for a more realist foreign policy approach.
That may have helped him in the primary 'purple' state of New Hampshire that tends to swing between support for Republican and Democratic candidates but is certainly not going to lead him towards victories in the Republican votes in the South, including the next primary in South Carolina.
The best-case-scenario from a Republican perspective is that Mr Romney will get nominated as presidential candidate ASAP and that the other candidates and the rest of the party unite behind him and prepare for the big fight with Mr Obama and the Democrats. If opinion polls are any guide, that is all they have to do. But will they?
Copyright © 2010 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.
Monday, January 09, 2012
Another War that nobody wants
Business Times - 10 Jan 2012
Another war that nobody wants
But things can go wrong, and unexpected provocations and miscalculations may lead to West's confrontation with Iran
By LEON HADAR
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
REPORTS that members of the European Union (EU) were planning to impose an embargo on Iranian oil as part of a US-led strategy to force Teheran to end its alleged nuclear military programme should not have come as a major surprise. Iran has been developing surface-to-surface missiles with a maximum range of 2,000km, that equipped with nuclear weapons could put France and its European partners - as well as Israel and US bases in the Middle East - within its range.
Or to put it differently, if Iran with nukes is indeed a strategic threat, it is the Europeans more than the Americans who should be worried about it.
Some Europeans were hoping to pursue once again their all-too-familiar approach of free riding on US military power - counting on the United States and/or Israel to attack Iranian nuclear facilities (Win I for Europe) while allowing European nations that depend heavily on Iranian oil to continue doing business with the Islamic Republic (Win II for Europe). They could have then distanced themselves from the American and/or Israeli action while facing no disruption in the flow of Iranian oil into their economies (Win III for Europe).
But as the Obama administration has already demonstrated in Libya, with the US military overstretched (hence, the plans to shrink it) and the American fiscal house in a mess (while the Europeans continue to maintain their expensive welfare programmes), the Americans were not going to allow the Europeans to do more free riding on their military power in the Middle East - which is (and that includes Iran) in Europe's strategic backyard.
Hence, the Obama administration has made it clear that it would not launch a unilateral military strike against Iran and would instead pursue a 'graduated' strategy of slowly escalating economic and military pressure on Iran. But that would require a unified Western front for it to succeed, since any proposed sanctions would not bite Iran without EU participation.
The expected EU decision to ban Iranian oil imports comes after President Barack Obama signed into law last month a measure (included in the Defense Bill) targeting Iran's central bank and financial sector following similar steps against Iran's financial institutions that the British had taken last November (in retaliation for demonstrators' storming of the British embassy in Teheran).
The new measures signed by Mr Obama in December would punish foreign firms that continue dealing with Iran's central bank to facilitate oil transactions by imposing restrictions on their access to the American economy and its financial sector.
But it would take some time for the US-EU moves to go into effect. The southern European countries that are heavily dependent on Iranian oil import (and are also in the midst of a devastating financial crisis) will probably resist the planned EU ban.
Moreover, Turkey and Japan have already requested waivers from the US financial sanctions against Iran (and Mr Obama has the authority to grant them), while China and Russia, two leading trade partners of Iran, could circumvent the sanctions, by shifting to barter deals with Teheran.
Feeling the heat
It is obvious that the Iranian economy has taken a hit in the form of rising food prices and a dramatic drop in the value of the Iranian currency as a result of the sanctions imposed on it by the US and the United Nations in recent years. So the new sanctions that would target Iranian oil exports on which its economy is dependent could have the effect of forcing it to the brink of bankruptcy.
But it is not clear that these Western steps are going to bring about the desired changes in Iranian policy. If anything, against the backdrop of the Iranian parliamentary elections in March and a growing split inside the leadership - pitting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his political allies against even more conservative clerical groups - policymakers in Teheran are under pressure to project diplomatic and military toughness vis-Ã -vis Washington and its partners. That explains Teheran's threats to stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz if sanctions were imposed on its oil exports. It also threatens to stop US warships crossing this strategically important strait.
The West has cheered the emergence of the anti-clerical and more liberal Green Movement in Iran. But Iran's clerics and its notorious Revolutionary Guards could exploit the confrontation with the US to mobilise public support by stirring up nationalist sentiments.
The set of financial sanctions imposed on Iran by the US in September 2006, and that were integrated into a UN Security Council resolution in March 2008, have targeted Iran's elites and highlighted the growing isolation of the country. It also allowed the Obama administration to demonstrate that its non-military strategy on Iran was working while insisting the military option world 'remain on the table'.
White House officials argue that a war with Iran would not be cost-effective in terms of securing long-term US interests. A military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities could perhaps slow down Iran's drive to build nuclear weapons by a year or so. But it could also ignite an all-out Middle Eastern war involving Israel and the Hizbollah (Iran's allies in Lebanon) and lead to a major rise in world energy prices that could bring the US economic recovery to a halt.
At the same time, the Obama administration is facing enormous pressure from the Israeli government that has threatened to use military force against Iran if intelligence reports indicate that the Iranians are close to manufacturing a nuclear bomb. Interestingly enough, leading Israeli national security figures have echoed the American view by arguing that a war with Iran would result in many casualties while failing to end its nuclear programme.
Playing into the hands of Israeli and American supporters of the military option was a report issued earlier in the year, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency that expressed its concerns that Iran may be on the threshold of making a nuclear warhead small enough to be put on top of a ballistic missile.
Republican lawmakers and the leading presidential candidates of the party - and their neoconservative allies in the media and the think tanks - have accused the Obama administration of failing to force the Iranians to end their nuclear programme and have urged that Washington take immediate military action - or at least give Israel a green light to do the job.
Saddam-era scenario
These let's-bomb-Iran crowd consists of the same politicians and pundits that not so long ago were warning that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that the world-as-we-know-it would come to an end unless the US invaded Iraq.
Recent reports suggest that the Israelis have agreed to refrain from taking military action against Iran while the Obama administration continues to use diplomatic means and widen the anti-Iran international coalition to pressure the clerics in Teheran to change course. American and Israeli officials have apparently drawn a set of 'red lines' that would determine if and when a use of a military option against Iran becomes acceptable to both sides.
Mr Obama and his diplomatic and national security aides are confident that they have a relatively long window of opportunity - at least until after this year's presidential and Congressional elections - in pursuing their diplomatic option. They believe that the collapse of the Assad regime in Damascus is imminent and this has deprived Iran of a central regional partner, making it much more difficult for the Iranians to provide support for Hizbollah if war breaks out with Israel. At the same time, the withdrawal of US military from Iraq makes it unlikely that American troops there would be threatened by Iranian retaliation in case of a war with Iran.
These developments coupled with the more assertive anti-Iran position of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies (that pledged to increase oil exports to the West and China if tighter sanctions on Iran's oil exports go into effect) may have weakened the diplomatic bargaining power of Iran and putting may be more pressure on Teheran to reach a compromise of sorts with the US and its European allies.
Turkey's role
Turkey, which notwithstanding some of the recent tensions with Washington and Paris - not to mention Israel - remains a Nato member and a key US ally, is emerging as a leading Middle Eastern power that is counter-balancing Iran and certainly does not want to see Teheran with nuclear arms.
But it also wants to avert a military confrontation between the US and Iran and could play a major role in trying to facilitate a diplomatic deal under which Iran could agree to put its nuclear programme on hold in exchange for enhanced diplomatic and economic ties with the West.
Moreover, notwithstanding the heated rhetoric coming out of Teheran, its leaders are worried about its growing diplomatic and economic isolation and the disastrous impact that a war with the US could have on the ability of the regime to continue maintaining its power in the long run.
Similarly, there is very little support for a war with Iran in the Obama administration which recognises that such a course could draw the US into a new costly military quagmire in the Middle East. And considering that both on Iraq (over the issue of maintaining US military presence there) and on Afghanistan (over the issue of changing the timeline for withdrawing troops) Mr Obama has been able to resist the pressure from the political right, it is not inconceivable that he could continue pursuing his graduated approach on Iran and counter the calls to go to war.
But things can go wrong. As Britain's prime minister during World War I, David Lloyd George, explained in his memoirs: 'Nobody wanted war' in 1914. 'The nations slithered over the brink into the boiling cauldron of war without any trace of apprehension or dismay,' he recalled.
Indeed, the danger is in a regional and global strategic environment under which the balance of power remains very shaky. US power is being challenged. The Iranian leadership feels that it is being pushed into a corner. The Israelis are feeling isolated as the Middle Eastern political system continues to go through dramatic changes.
Unexpected provocations and miscalculations could lead the kind of war that once again nobody wants.
Another war that nobody wants
But things can go wrong, and unexpected provocations and miscalculations may lead to West's confrontation with Iran
By LEON HADAR
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
REPORTS that members of the European Union (EU) were planning to impose an embargo on Iranian oil as part of a US-led strategy to force Teheran to end its alleged nuclear military programme should not have come as a major surprise. Iran has been developing surface-to-surface missiles with a maximum range of 2,000km, that equipped with nuclear weapons could put France and its European partners - as well as Israel and US bases in the Middle East - within its range.
Or to put it differently, if Iran with nukes is indeed a strategic threat, it is the Europeans more than the Americans who should be worried about it.
Some Europeans were hoping to pursue once again their all-too-familiar approach of free riding on US military power - counting on the United States and/or Israel to attack Iranian nuclear facilities (Win I for Europe) while allowing European nations that depend heavily on Iranian oil to continue doing business with the Islamic Republic (Win II for Europe). They could have then distanced themselves from the American and/or Israeli action while facing no disruption in the flow of Iranian oil into their economies (Win III for Europe).
But as the Obama administration has already demonstrated in Libya, with the US military overstretched (hence, the plans to shrink it) and the American fiscal house in a mess (while the Europeans continue to maintain their expensive welfare programmes), the Americans were not going to allow the Europeans to do more free riding on their military power in the Middle East - which is (and that includes Iran) in Europe's strategic backyard.
Hence, the Obama administration has made it clear that it would not launch a unilateral military strike against Iran and would instead pursue a 'graduated' strategy of slowly escalating economic and military pressure on Iran. But that would require a unified Western front for it to succeed, since any proposed sanctions would not bite Iran without EU participation.
The expected EU decision to ban Iranian oil imports comes after President Barack Obama signed into law last month a measure (included in the Defense Bill) targeting Iran's central bank and financial sector following similar steps against Iran's financial institutions that the British had taken last November (in retaliation for demonstrators' storming of the British embassy in Teheran).
The new measures signed by Mr Obama in December would punish foreign firms that continue dealing with Iran's central bank to facilitate oil transactions by imposing restrictions on their access to the American economy and its financial sector.
But it would take some time for the US-EU moves to go into effect. The southern European countries that are heavily dependent on Iranian oil import (and are also in the midst of a devastating financial crisis) will probably resist the planned EU ban.
Moreover, Turkey and Japan have already requested waivers from the US financial sanctions against Iran (and Mr Obama has the authority to grant them), while China and Russia, two leading trade partners of Iran, could circumvent the sanctions, by shifting to barter deals with Teheran.
Feeling the heat
It is obvious that the Iranian economy has taken a hit in the form of rising food prices and a dramatic drop in the value of the Iranian currency as a result of the sanctions imposed on it by the US and the United Nations in recent years. So the new sanctions that would target Iranian oil exports on which its economy is dependent could have the effect of forcing it to the brink of bankruptcy.
But it is not clear that these Western steps are going to bring about the desired changes in Iranian policy. If anything, against the backdrop of the Iranian parliamentary elections in March and a growing split inside the leadership - pitting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his political allies against even more conservative clerical groups - policymakers in Teheran are under pressure to project diplomatic and military toughness vis-Ã -vis Washington and its partners. That explains Teheran's threats to stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz if sanctions were imposed on its oil exports. It also threatens to stop US warships crossing this strategically important strait.
The West has cheered the emergence of the anti-clerical and more liberal Green Movement in Iran. But Iran's clerics and its notorious Revolutionary Guards could exploit the confrontation with the US to mobilise public support by stirring up nationalist sentiments.
The set of financial sanctions imposed on Iran by the US in September 2006, and that were integrated into a UN Security Council resolution in March 2008, have targeted Iran's elites and highlighted the growing isolation of the country. It also allowed the Obama administration to demonstrate that its non-military strategy on Iran was working while insisting the military option world 'remain on the table'.
White House officials argue that a war with Iran would not be cost-effective in terms of securing long-term US interests. A military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities could perhaps slow down Iran's drive to build nuclear weapons by a year or so. But it could also ignite an all-out Middle Eastern war involving Israel and the Hizbollah (Iran's allies in Lebanon) and lead to a major rise in world energy prices that could bring the US economic recovery to a halt.
At the same time, the Obama administration is facing enormous pressure from the Israeli government that has threatened to use military force against Iran if intelligence reports indicate that the Iranians are close to manufacturing a nuclear bomb. Interestingly enough, leading Israeli national security figures have echoed the American view by arguing that a war with Iran would result in many casualties while failing to end its nuclear programme.
Playing into the hands of Israeli and American supporters of the military option was a report issued earlier in the year, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency that expressed its concerns that Iran may be on the threshold of making a nuclear warhead small enough to be put on top of a ballistic missile.
Republican lawmakers and the leading presidential candidates of the party - and their neoconservative allies in the media and the think tanks - have accused the Obama administration of failing to force the Iranians to end their nuclear programme and have urged that Washington take immediate military action - or at least give Israel a green light to do the job.
Saddam-era scenario
These let's-bomb-Iran crowd consists of the same politicians and pundits that not so long ago were warning that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that the world-as-we-know-it would come to an end unless the US invaded Iraq.
Recent reports suggest that the Israelis have agreed to refrain from taking military action against Iran while the Obama administration continues to use diplomatic means and widen the anti-Iran international coalition to pressure the clerics in Teheran to change course. American and Israeli officials have apparently drawn a set of 'red lines' that would determine if and when a use of a military option against Iran becomes acceptable to both sides.
Mr Obama and his diplomatic and national security aides are confident that they have a relatively long window of opportunity - at least until after this year's presidential and Congressional elections - in pursuing their diplomatic option. They believe that the collapse of the Assad regime in Damascus is imminent and this has deprived Iran of a central regional partner, making it much more difficult for the Iranians to provide support for Hizbollah if war breaks out with Israel. At the same time, the withdrawal of US military from Iraq makes it unlikely that American troops there would be threatened by Iranian retaliation in case of a war with Iran.
These developments coupled with the more assertive anti-Iran position of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies (that pledged to increase oil exports to the West and China if tighter sanctions on Iran's oil exports go into effect) may have weakened the diplomatic bargaining power of Iran and putting may be more pressure on Teheran to reach a compromise of sorts with the US and its European allies.
Turkey's role
Turkey, which notwithstanding some of the recent tensions with Washington and Paris - not to mention Israel - remains a Nato member and a key US ally, is emerging as a leading Middle Eastern power that is counter-balancing Iran and certainly does not want to see Teheran with nuclear arms.
But it also wants to avert a military confrontation between the US and Iran and could play a major role in trying to facilitate a diplomatic deal under which Iran could agree to put its nuclear programme on hold in exchange for enhanced diplomatic and economic ties with the West.
Moreover, notwithstanding the heated rhetoric coming out of Teheran, its leaders are worried about its growing diplomatic and economic isolation and the disastrous impact that a war with the US could have on the ability of the regime to continue maintaining its power in the long run.
Similarly, there is very little support for a war with Iran in the Obama administration which recognises that such a course could draw the US into a new costly military quagmire in the Middle East. And considering that both on Iraq (over the issue of maintaining US military presence there) and on Afghanistan (over the issue of changing the timeline for withdrawing troops) Mr Obama has been able to resist the pressure from the political right, it is not inconceivable that he could continue pursuing his graduated approach on Iran and counter the calls to go to war.
But things can go wrong. As Britain's prime minister during World War I, David Lloyd George, explained in his memoirs: 'Nobody wanted war' in 1914. 'The nations slithered over the brink into the boiling cauldron of war without any trace of apprehension or dismay,' he recalled.
Indeed, the danger is in a regional and global strategic environment under which the balance of power remains very shaky. US power is being challenged. The Iranian leadership feels that it is being pushed into a corner. The Israelis are feeling isolated as the Middle Eastern political system continues to go through dramatic changes.
Unexpected provocations and miscalculations could lead the kind of war that once again nobody wants.
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
The Republican primaries
Business Times - 05 Jan 2012
Wide open GOP race after the Iowa primary
The Republican caucuses in the state have thrown up, not one, but three front-runners
By LEON HADAR
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
THE Republican front-runner has changed seven times since leaders and activists started their party's process of nominating the 2012 presidential candidate early last year, according to an analysis of opinion polls issued by the Gallup company last Monday.
And after the year in which the candidates took part in numerous televised debates and the Republican race dominated the chatter on cable news, the radio talk shows and the biosphere, Republican voters were finally provided with their first opportunity to pick up a favourite candidate during the first presidential primary of 2012 in Iowa on Tuesday.
But the results of the Republican caucuses in Iowa have failed to determine who is going to emerge as the party's presidential candidate.
In fact, there now seem to be three front-runners, each representing three different political brands: former Massachusetts governor and business executive Mitt Romney, who represents the more moderate pro-business wing of the party; Representative Ron Paul from Texas, who is the leader of right-wing libertarians who want to abolish the Federal Reserve, legalise drugs and withdraw US troops from around the world; and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, a devout Christian who enjoys the support of Christian Evangelists and social conservative activists in the Republican Party.
No sure thing
None of the three now has a lock on the party's presidential nomination. Mr Romney is expected to win the Republican primary in New Hampshire next week but may not do as well in the coming primaries in the southern states, where Mr Santorum could gain new electoral momentum. Mr Paul has succeeded in mobilising young and enthusiastic supporters who could help him win more votes in other states.
And then there are the former front-runners who could come back to political life in the coming weeks and try to challenge Mr Romney and the other two new front-runners.
In the early summer last year, it seemed as though the main contender for the Republican vote in Iowa would be Representative Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota, an outspoken social conservative and a leading figure in the Tea Party movement who ended up winning the Republican Iowa Straw Poll in Ames, Iowa last August, narrowly defeating Representative Paul and dealing former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty (who finished in third place in the poll) a mortal electoral blow and forcing him to withdraw from the race. Ms Bachmann, who did not do well in Iowa on Tuesday, may now have no choice but to withdraw from the race.
Iowa Republican voters include a large number of Christian Evangelists and other social-cultural conservative, which explains why Christian broadcaster and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee won the Republican presidential primary four years ago and why former senator Santorum did so much better than expected on Tuesday.
But Mr Huckabee as well as four other popular Republican politicians - Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, former Alaska governor (and the 2008 Republican vice- presidential candidate) Sarah Palin, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and Wisconsin Representative and House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan - decided to take a pass on running for the White House (Mr Huckabee and Ms Palin preferred to keep their lucrative jobs as Rupert Murdoch's Fox News pundits).
With those four political heavyweights as well as former governor Pawlenty out of the race and following a brief political infatuation with the potential presidential candidacy of business magnate and television personality Donald Trump, Republican voters seemed to be gravitating to Ms Bachmann, and next to Texas Governor Rick Perry, and then to former pizza executive Herman Cain - and a week or two before the Iowa vote even to former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich.
In a way, the Republicans were searching - and may continue to do so for a few more weeks - for the non-Romney candidate, reflecting their main political predicament.
The mostly conservative rank-and-file Republican primary voters, mostly working-class whites, and the members of the powerful Tea Party movement dislike ex-governor Romney, whom they perceive to be too moderate, if not a closet liberal (who at one point was opposed to banning abortions and supported an activist agenda to deal with climate change). They would prefer to see a 'real conservative' politician heading the party's presidential ticket.
Moreover, Mr Romney is a Mormon, and many Christian Evangelists in the South and Midwest regard the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a non-Christian religious sect - which makes it difficult for the candidate to win the support of a large number of Republican primary voters.
Yet, according to opinion polls, Mr Romney is the only Republican candidate who has a better-than-even chance to beat Democratic President Barack Obama in the November election.
Indeed, most opinion polls suggest that President Obama's approval rating remains lower than Mr Romney's approval rating, and that economically distressed and very angry voters are clearly dissatisfied with the current White House occupant's management of the economy.
Mr Romney seems to be doing particularly well among independent voters, including those who had voted for Mr Obama in 2008 and who have deserted him since then. The members of this crucial bloc of voters seem to feel comfortable with the former governor of the very 'blue' state of Massachusetts and perceive the former business executive as an effective manager who would be able to fix the economy.
Swing voters
And these independent voters have the electoral power to deliver several key swing states to the Republican presidential nominee and get him elected as the next president.
President Obama and his political strategists believe that they could defeat Mr Romney or any other Republican nominee by launching a populist presidential campaign that would try to paint the former investment banker and the Republican leadership in Congress as the political allies of the 'fat cats' in Wall Street who want to lower taxes for the super-rich 'one per cent' of Americans - using the rhetoric of the Occupy Wall Street protesters - while gutting major social-economic programmes, such as the government-backed retirement and healthcare insurance systems, that help provide assistance to the middle class.
But if Mr Romney fails to force Mr Santorum and Mr Paul to withdraw from the race anytime soon - and if former Speaker Gingrich and Texas Governor Perry, or perhaps even former US Ambassador to China and Singapore Jon Huntsman, succeed in gaining new momentum - the Republican presidential primaries could end up being very long, very gruelling and very nasty.
And a divided Republican Party could prove to be President Obama's greatest electoral asset.
Copyright © 2010 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.
Wide open GOP race after the Iowa primary
The Republican caucuses in the state have thrown up, not one, but three front-runners
By LEON HADAR
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
THE Republican front-runner has changed seven times since leaders and activists started their party's process of nominating the 2012 presidential candidate early last year, according to an analysis of opinion polls issued by the Gallup company last Monday.
And after the year in which the candidates took part in numerous televised debates and the Republican race dominated the chatter on cable news, the radio talk shows and the biosphere, Republican voters were finally provided with their first opportunity to pick up a favourite candidate during the first presidential primary of 2012 in Iowa on Tuesday.
But the results of the Republican caucuses in Iowa have failed to determine who is going to emerge as the party's presidential candidate.
In fact, there now seem to be three front-runners, each representing three different political brands: former Massachusetts governor and business executive Mitt Romney, who represents the more moderate pro-business wing of the party; Representative Ron Paul from Texas, who is the leader of right-wing libertarians who want to abolish the Federal Reserve, legalise drugs and withdraw US troops from around the world; and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, a devout Christian who enjoys the support of Christian Evangelists and social conservative activists in the Republican Party.
No sure thing
None of the three now has a lock on the party's presidential nomination. Mr Romney is expected to win the Republican primary in New Hampshire next week but may not do as well in the coming primaries in the southern states, where Mr Santorum could gain new electoral momentum. Mr Paul has succeeded in mobilising young and enthusiastic supporters who could help him win more votes in other states.
And then there are the former front-runners who could come back to political life in the coming weeks and try to challenge Mr Romney and the other two new front-runners.
In the early summer last year, it seemed as though the main contender for the Republican vote in Iowa would be Representative Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota, an outspoken social conservative and a leading figure in the Tea Party movement who ended up winning the Republican Iowa Straw Poll in Ames, Iowa last August, narrowly defeating Representative Paul and dealing former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty (who finished in third place in the poll) a mortal electoral blow and forcing him to withdraw from the race. Ms Bachmann, who did not do well in Iowa on Tuesday, may now have no choice but to withdraw from the race.
Iowa Republican voters include a large number of Christian Evangelists and other social-cultural conservative, which explains why Christian broadcaster and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee won the Republican presidential primary four years ago and why former senator Santorum did so much better than expected on Tuesday.
But Mr Huckabee as well as four other popular Republican politicians - Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, former Alaska governor (and the 2008 Republican vice- presidential candidate) Sarah Palin, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and Wisconsin Representative and House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan - decided to take a pass on running for the White House (Mr Huckabee and Ms Palin preferred to keep their lucrative jobs as Rupert Murdoch's Fox News pundits).
With those four political heavyweights as well as former governor Pawlenty out of the race and following a brief political infatuation with the potential presidential candidacy of business magnate and television personality Donald Trump, Republican voters seemed to be gravitating to Ms Bachmann, and next to Texas Governor Rick Perry, and then to former pizza executive Herman Cain - and a week or two before the Iowa vote even to former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich.
In a way, the Republicans were searching - and may continue to do so for a few more weeks - for the non-Romney candidate, reflecting their main political predicament.
The mostly conservative rank-and-file Republican primary voters, mostly working-class whites, and the members of the powerful Tea Party movement dislike ex-governor Romney, whom they perceive to be too moderate, if not a closet liberal (who at one point was opposed to banning abortions and supported an activist agenda to deal with climate change). They would prefer to see a 'real conservative' politician heading the party's presidential ticket.
Moreover, Mr Romney is a Mormon, and many Christian Evangelists in the South and Midwest regard the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a non-Christian religious sect - which makes it difficult for the candidate to win the support of a large number of Republican primary voters.
Yet, according to opinion polls, Mr Romney is the only Republican candidate who has a better-than-even chance to beat Democratic President Barack Obama in the November election.
Indeed, most opinion polls suggest that President Obama's approval rating remains lower than Mr Romney's approval rating, and that economically distressed and very angry voters are clearly dissatisfied with the current White House occupant's management of the economy.
Mr Romney seems to be doing particularly well among independent voters, including those who had voted for Mr Obama in 2008 and who have deserted him since then. The members of this crucial bloc of voters seem to feel comfortable with the former governor of the very 'blue' state of Massachusetts and perceive the former business executive as an effective manager who would be able to fix the economy.
Swing voters
And these independent voters have the electoral power to deliver several key swing states to the Republican presidential nominee and get him elected as the next president.
President Obama and his political strategists believe that they could defeat Mr Romney or any other Republican nominee by launching a populist presidential campaign that would try to paint the former investment banker and the Republican leadership in Congress as the political allies of the 'fat cats' in Wall Street who want to lower taxes for the super-rich 'one per cent' of Americans - using the rhetoric of the Occupy Wall Street protesters - while gutting major social-economic programmes, such as the government-backed retirement and healthcare insurance systems, that help provide assistance to the middle class.
But if Mr Romney fails to force Mr Santorum and Mr Paul to withdraw from the race anytime soon - and if former Speaker Gingrich and Texas Governor Perry, or perhaps even former US Ambassador to China and Singapore Jon Huntsman, succeed in gaining new momentum - the Republican presidential primaries could end up being very long, very gruelling and very nasty.
And a divided Republican Party could prove to be President Obama's greatest electoral asset.
Copyright © 2010 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
My take on Ron Paul and Israel in Haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/the-truth-about-ron-paul-1.404278
Home Jewish World News
Published 04:33 29.12.11 Latest update 04:33 29.12.11
The truth about Ron Paul
There is no anti-Israel aspect to the Republican presidential candidate's opposition to giving Israel aid, he is opposed in principle to foreign aid, which he sees as a waste of money.
By Leon Hadar
Tags: Israel US
Get Haaretz on iPhone
Get Haaretz on Android
WASHINGTON - He probably won't be the Republican candidate for president in 2012, but Congressman Ron Paul of Texas has a good chance to win the Republican primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire in January, become a driving force in next year's campaign and continue to influence his party's agenda.
This isn't good news for Jewish Republican activists and neoconservative intellectuals who backed the Iraq War; they accuse the most influential libertarian legislator on Capitol Hill of being anti-Israel. The Republican Jewish coalition did not invite Ron Paul to participate in the candidates forum it held this month in Washington, claiming that he is far from the party's mainstream and has criticized Israel bitterly during his years in Congress.
My impression, as someone who was one of his foreign policy advisors during the 2008 presidential campaign, is completely different. Paul, a 76-year-old Baptist who has represented the 22nd District of Texas in Congress since 1979, has a profound knowledge of Jewish history, admires Israel and follows its political and economic developments with great interest.
But Paul is also a believer in the Austrian school of economics, whose standard-bearers include economists such as Josef Schumpeter, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. Like other Austrian-Americans, he tends to be skeptical of the need for government interference in the economy and believes that Washington's activist fiscal and monetary policies will lead America into bankruptcy, dangerous levels of inflation and the collapse of its currency. Paul calls for closing the Federal Reserve and other government offices and a significant reduction in the tax burden, along with broad cuts in government spending, including the military budget.
His belief that the government's growing role in the economy contradicts the value of individual economic freedom makes him a political ally of American conservatives, while his opposition to government enforcement of what are called "traditional values" and to undermining civil rights in the name of "national security" explains why he has also become very popular among liberals, but is loathed by neoconservatives.
However, his beliefs also lead him to strongly oppose U.S. military involvement around the world. He argues that military force should be a last resort in order to defend America's vital national interests, not part of an ambitious and expensive strategy intended to impose American ideals and interests on other nations. This policy leads to dangerous American involvement in international disputes that have no direct impact on it and strengthens the power of both the central government in Washington and the military-industrial complex.
It is therefore not surprising that Paul was one of the most prominent members of Congress to oppose the invasion of Iraq, and that today he refuses to support an American military attack on Iran. He believes that Iran - with or without nuclear weapons - does not present a direct threat to American interests, and that Israel has nuclear capability with which to deter Iran if and when the latter does develop nuclear weapons.
Nor is there any anti-Israel aspect to Paul's opposition to giving Israel economic aid. He is opposed in principle to foreign aid, which he sees as a waste of American money on leaders and countries whose interests and ideals are not necessarily in line with America's. Instead, he would encourage commercial ties with and American investment in Israel and other countries.
Thus the fact that Paul sees Israel as America's "close friend" in no way contradicts his opposition to giving Israel economic aid or to an American attack on Iran. He also emphasizes that when it comes to Israel's national interests with regard to Iran or the Palestinians, Washington doesn't have to "dictate" how Israel runs its affairs.
Hence if the Israeli government decided to attack Iran, or for that matter to reject an agreement with the Palestinians, Paul would honor those decisions. At the same time, President Paul would take it for granted that Israelis should be the ones to pay the price of these policies, and should not expect Washington to extricate them from a military or diplomatic hole they dug for themselves.
Home Jewish World News
Published 04:33 29.12.11 Latest update 04:33 29.12.11
The truth about Ron Paul
There is no anti-Israel aspect to the Republican presidential candidate's opposition to giving Israel aid, he is opposed in principle to foreign aid, which he sees as a waste of money.
By Leon Hadar
Tags: Israel US
Get Haaretz on iPhone
Get Haaretz on Android
WASHINGTON - He probably won't be the Republican candidate for president in 2012, but Congressman Ron Paul of Texas has a good chance to win the Republican primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire in January, become a driving force in next year's campaign and continue to influence his party's agenda.
This isn't good news for Jewish Republican activists and neoconservative intellectuals who backed the Iraq War; they accuse the most influential libertarian legislator on Capitol Hill of being anti-Israel. The Republican Jewish coalition did not invite Ron Paul to participate in the candidates forum it held this month in Washington, claiming that he is far from the party's mainstream and has criticized Israel bitterly during his years in Congress.
My impression, as someone who was one of his foreign policy advisors during the 2008 presidential campaign, is completely different. Paul, a 76-year-old Baptist who has represented the 22nd District of Texas in Congress since 1979, has a profound knowledge of Jewish history, admires Israel and follows its political and economic developments with great interest.
But Paul is also a believer in the Austrian school of economics, whose standard-bearers include economists such as Josef Schumpeter, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. Like other Austrian-Americans, he tends to be skeptical of the need for government interference in the economy and believes that Washington's activist fiscal and monetary policies will lead America into bankruptcy, dangerous levels of inflation and the collapse of its currency. Paul calls for closing the Federal Reserve and other government offices and a significant reduction in the tax burden, along with broad cuts in government spending, including the military budget.
His belief that the government's growing role in the economy contradicts the value of individual economic freedom makes him a political ally of American conservatives, while his opposition to government enforcement of what are called "traditional values" and to undermining civil rights in the name of "national security" explains why he has also become very popular among liberals, but is loathed by neoconservatives.
However, his beliefs also lead him to strongly oppose U.S. military involvement around the world. He argues that military force should be a last resort in order to defend America's vital national interests, not part of an ambitious and expensive strategy intended to impose American ideals and interests on other nations. This policy leads to dangerous American involvement in international disputes that have no direct impact on it and strengthens the power of both the central government in Washington and the military-industrial complex.
It is therefore not surprising that Paul was one of the most prominent members of Congress to oppose the invasion of Iraq, and that today he refuses to support an American military attack on Iran. He believes that Iran - with or without nuclear weapons - does not present a direct threat to American interests, and that Israel has nuclear capability with which to deter Iran if and when the latter does develop nuclear weapons.
Nor is there any anti-Israel aspect to Paul's opposition to giving Israel economic aid. He is opposed in principle to foreign aid, which he sees as a waste of American money on leaders and countries whose interests and ideals are not necessarily in line with America's. Instead, he would encourage commercial ties with and American investment in Israel and other countries.
Thus the fact that Paul sees Israel as America's "close friend" in no way contradicts his opposition to giving Israel economic aid or to an American attack on Iran. He also emphasizes that when it comes to Israel's national interests with regard to Iran or the Palestinians, Washington doesn't have to "dictate" how Israel runs its affairs.
Hence if the Israeli government decided to attack Iran, or for that matter to reject an agreement with the Palestinians, Paul would honor those decisions. At the same time, President Paul would take it for granted that Israelis should be the ones to pay the price of these policies, and should not expect Washington to extricate them from a military or diplomatic hole they dug for themselves.
2012 the year of Counter-Revolution?
Business Times - 30 Dec 2011
2012 the year of Counter-Revolution?
Members of the old order may fight back to protect the status quo just like Europe's counter-revolutionaries did in 1849
By LEON HADAR
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
THE outgoing 2011 is the Year of the Protester, according to Time magazine. The insurgency targeting the ruling political elites, first in Tunisia, and then in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, has not been confined to the Middle East. Protests have taken place in Spain, Greece, Italy, France, Britain and Israel. And in the United States, the Occupy Wall Street protesters began demonstrating first in New York, and then in Washington, Chicago, and in other cities across the country.
The 2011 global uprisings against the status quo have been compared to the revolutions that swept through Europe in 1848, when working-class socialists and middle-class liberals in Paris, Milan, Vienna, Prague, Budapest and Berlin tried to bring down the old regimes.
And indeed, not unlike the Spring of Nations of 1848, the Arab Spring and the ensuing protests in New York's Zuccotti Park or Tel Aviv's Rothschild Avenue have raised expectations for change and the forging of a new order based on the principles of freedom and equality.
But with the benefit of hindsight, the 1848 revolutions are seen as failures. The old social and political order remained in power. So is it possible that the rebellions of 2011 could also leave some disappointment behind in 2012 if and when the members of the old order start fighting back to protect the status quo just like the counter-revolutionaries in 1849?
Of course, history does not repeat itself. But some of the reasons that led to the expiration of the revolutionary momentum in Europe after 1849 - tensions between and inside the opposition movements, the lack of wide public support and the enormous power retained by the ruling elites - could also end up stalling the pressure for change in 2012. Come the Counter-Revolution?
In the Middle East, expect the military to reassert its power and force fragile and precarious ruling coalitions with the rising Islamist movement. Expect Saudi Arabia and Turkey, with the support of the US and its allies, to lead an effort aimed at re-establishing a delicate regional status quo that protects Israel.
In the West, centrist political parties will contain the pressure for reining in the financial markets and take baby steps to reform the bloated welfare state. Washington will count more and more on its partners worldwide to help sustain its global interests.
The fall of the Arab nationalist rulers of Tunisia (Zine El Abidine Ben Ali), Egypt (Hosni Mubarak), Libya (Muammar Gaddafi) and Yemen (Ali Abdullah Saleh) in 2011 could be followed by the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria in 2012. But it has already become clear in 2011 that the secular, liberal and social-democratic members of the Arab opposition are not going to emerge as winners in the post-revolutionary struggle for power.
Indeed, the elections that took place in Egypt and Tunisia have demonstrated that the young, multilingual and Internet-savvy spokesmen for the revolution who had become prominent on Al Jazeera and CNN television coverage from Tahrir Square lack any strong base of electoral support.
Instead, Arab-Sunni Islamist political parties are expected to take power not only in Egypt and Tunisia, but also in Libya, Yemen and Syria, countries that will continue to be plagued by divisions along religious, ethnic and tribal lines. Shiite-Arab Islamist parties are already playing a dominant role in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq and in Lebanon, where Sunni Arabs are playing political defence.
The end of authoritarian rulers such as Mubarak, Gaddafi or, for that matter, Bashar Al-Assad, and the holding of free elections, giving citizens their first taste of political freedom, may provide some hope for those clamouring for change. But majority rule in countries that lack constitutional guarantees that protect individual rights, gender equality and religious freedom is likely to become rule by the Islamist parties that could pose a threat to women and religious minorities, such as the Coptic Christians in Egypt and Chaldean Christians in Syria and in Iraq. This could accelerate ethnic, sectarian and tribal rivalries in Libya, Yemen, Syria and Egypt and create the conditions for a series of civil wars in 2012 in these countries.
Moreover, much of the sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shiites in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq or in Bahrain - where a Sunni minority rules over the Shiite majority - is going to be exacerbated by the growing concern by Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council - which is shared by Turkey - over the rising power of Shiite Iran and the potential for growing secessionist movements among their own Shiite minorities.
And like the Saudis, the Turks are interested in preventing the disintegration of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon into civil wars - which could provide an opportunity for Kurdish secession from Iraq - and in ensuring peaceful transition to power in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya; in maintaining the status quo in Jordan and Morocco; and in moving towards a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In that context, helping create mechanisms for cooperation between political forces affiliated with Egypt's military and the Muslim Brotherhood aimed the establishing law and order and opening the road for economic recovery in that country will be one way that Turkey and Saudi Arabia, with the backing of the majority of Egyptians and the support of the US and Europe, will try to control the revolutionary change.
Thus, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will emerge as the two leading counter-revolutionary players in the Middle East in 2012, pursuing the kind of regional policies that seem to align with the interests of the US. Indeed, at a time of weakening American military power and eroding economic base, Washington will encourage regional powers such as the Turks and the Saudis in the Middle East, or its partners in East Asia (Japan; Korea; Australia) to play a more active role in promoting the global US security agenda.
This strategy could prove to be effective in 2012 but could face serious challenges in the coming years as these players embrace policies that may run counter to US interests.
But even as it sheds come of its military commitments in the Middle East (Iraq), the US will continue to play the role of a global balancer of the last resort in 2012, especially if it ends up being drawn into a diplomatic and military confrontation with Iran that will probably not ignite a full-blown war next year but could allow President Barack Obama to engage in an exercise in brinkmanship with Teheran around the time of the 2012 presidential campaign.
Western scenario
Not a lot will change in the way fiscal and monetary policies will be pursued in Washington whether Mr Obama vacates the White House in the aftermath of a Republican presidential victory in November or if he is re-elected. (And the same applies to France, if President Nicolas Sarkozy loses in next year's election).
The interests of the financial industry and Corporate America that fund the election campaigns of both parties will continue to pre-dominate the legislative and policy-making process while pressure from the electorate and labour unions representing public workers will make it difficult to slash the major government-backed retirement and health-insurance programmes.
There is no reason to believe that short of a devastating economic catastrophe, this kind of political-economic order that prevails also in much of Western and Central Europe will be brought down anytime soon.
Indeed, neither the Occupy Wall Street protesters on the left nor, for that matter, the members of the Tea Party movement on the right - or their political counterparts in Europe - have come up with new sets of ideas to help bring about major structural changes in the current political and economic status quo.
If anything, at a time of economic insecurity and political uncertainly, angry voters in the West or, for that matter, in the Middle East gravitate to the politics of identity that merge the explosive ingredients of nationalism, ethnicity and religion.
So if the most important legacy of the 1848 spring time of hope was the rise of German, Italian and other forms of nationalism in Europe, the insurgencies of 2011 could start igniting similar pressures in the Middle East and even in Europe in 2012 as disillusionment with the promise of change starts setting in.
Copyright © 2010 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.
2012 the year of Counter-Revolution?
Members of the old order may fight back to protect the status quo just like Europe's counter-revolutionaries did in 1849
By LEON HADAR
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
THE outgoing 2011 is the Year of the Protester, according to Time magazine. The insurgency targeting the ruling political elites, first in Tunisia, and then in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, has not been confined to the Middle East. Protests have taken place in Spain, Greece, Italy, France, Britain and Israel. And in the United States, the Occupy Wall Street protesters began demonstrating first in New York, and then in Washington, Chicago, and in other cities across the country.
The 2011 global uprisings against the status quo have been compared to the revolutions that swept through Europe in 1848, when working-class socialists and middle-class liberals in Paris, Milan, Vienna, Prague, Budapest and Berlin tried to bring down the old regimes.
And indeed, not unlike the Spring of Nations of 1848, the Arab Spring and the ensuing protests in New York's Zuccotti Park or Tel Aviv's Rothschild Avenue have raised expectations for change and the forging of a new order based on the principles of freedom and equality.
But with the benefit of hindsight, the 1848 revolutions are seen as failures. The old social and political order remained in power. So is it possible that the rebellions of 2011 could also leave some disappointment behind in 2012 if and when the members of the old order start fighting back to protect the status quo just like the counter-revolutionaries in 1849?
Of course, history does not repeat itself. But some of the reasons that led to the expiration of the revolutionary momentum in Europe after 1849 - tensions between and inside the opposition movements, the lack of wide public support and the enormous power retained by the ruling elites - could also end up stalling the pressure for change in 2012. Come the Counter-Revolution?
In the Middle East, expect the military to reassert its power and force fragile and precarious ruling coalitions with the rising Islamist movement. Expect Saudi Arabia and Turkey, with the support of the US and its allies, to lead an effort aimed at re-establishing a delicate regional status quo that protects Israel.
In the West, centrist political parties will contain the pressure for reining in the financial markets and take baby steps to reform the bloated welfare state. Washington will count more and more on its partners worldwide to help sustain its global interests.
The fall of the Arab nationalist rulers of Tunisia (Zine El Abidine Ben Ali), Egypt (Hosni Mubarak), Libya (Muammar Gaddafi) and Yemen (Ali Abdullah Saleh) in 2011 could be followed by the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria in 2012. But it has already become clear in 2011 that the secular, liberal and social-democratic members of the Arab opposition are not going to emerge as winners in the post-revolutionary struggle for power.
Indeed, the elections that took place in Egypt and Tunisia have demonstrated that the young, multilingual and Internet-savvy spokesmen for the revolution who had become prominent on Al Jazeera and CNN television coverage from Tahrir Square lack any strong base of electoral support.
Instead, Arab-Sunni Islamist political parties are expected to take power not only in Egypt and Tunisia, but also in Libya, Yemen and Syria, countries that will continue to be plagued by divisions along religious, ethnic and tribal lines. Shiite-Arab Islamist parties are already playing a dominant role in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq and in Lebanon, where Sunni Arabs are playing political defence.
The end of authoritarian rulers such as Mubarak, Gaddafi or, for that matter, Bashar Al-Assad, and the holding of free elections, giving citizens their first taste of political freedom, may provide some hope for those clamouring for change. But majority rule in countries that lack constitutional guarantees that protect individual rights, gender equality and religious freedom is likely to become rule by the Islamist parties that could pose a threat to women and religious minorities, such as the Coptic Christians in Egypt and Chaldean Christians in Syria and in Iraq. This could accelerate ethnic, sectarian and tribal rivalries in Libya, Yemen, Syria and Egypt and create the conditions for a series of civil wars in 2012 in these countries.
Moreover, much of the sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shiites in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq or in Bahrain - where a Sunni minority rules over the Shiite majority - is going to be exacerbated by the growing concern by Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council - which is shared by Turkey - over the rising power of Shiite Iran and the potential for growing secessionist movements among their own Shiite minorities.
And like the Saudis, the Turks are interested in preventing the disintegration of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon into civil wars - which could provide an opportunity for Kurdish secession from Iraq - and in ensuring peaceful transition to power in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya; in maintaining the status quo in Jordan and Morocco; and in moving towards a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In that context, helping create mechanisms for cooperation between political forces affiliated with Egypt's military and the Muslim Brotherhood aimed the establishing law and order and opening the road for economic recovery in that country will be one way that Turkey and Saudi Arabia, with the backing of the majority of Egyptians and the support of the US and Europe, will try to control the revolutionary change.
Thus, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will emerge as the two leading counter-revolutionary players in the Middle East in 2012, pursuing the kind of regional policies that seem to align with the interests of the US. Indeed, at a time of weakening American military power and eroding economic base, Washington will encourage regional powers such as the Turks and the Saudis in the Middle East, or its partners in East Asia (Japan; Korea; Australia) to play a more active role in promoting the global US security agenda.
This strategy could prove to be effective in 2012 but could face serious challenges in the coming years as these players embrace policies that may run counter to US interests.
But even as it sheds come of its military commitments in the Middle East (Iraq), the US will continue to play the role of a global balancer of the last resort in 2012, especially if it ends up being drawn into a diplomatic and military confrontation with Iran that will probably not ignite a full-blown war next year but could allow President Barack Obama to engage in an exercise in brinkmanship with Teheran around the time of the 2012 presidential campaign.
Western scenario
Not a lot will change in the way fiscal and monetary policies will be pursued in Washington whether Mr Obama vacates the White House in the aftermath of a Republican presidential victory in November or if he is re-elected. (And the same applies to France, if President Nicolas Sarkozy loses in next year's election).
The interests of the financial industry and Corporate America that fund the election campaigns of both parties will continue to pre-dominate the legislative and policy-making process while pressure from the electorate and labour unions representing public workers will make it difficult to slash the major government-backed retirement and health-insurance programmes.
There is no reason to believe that short of a devastating economic catastrophe, this kind of political-economic order that prevails also in much of Western and Central Europe will be brought down anytime soon.
Indeed, neither the Occupy Wall Street protesters on the left nor, for that matter, the members of the Tea Party movement on the right - or their political counterparts in Europe - have come up with new sets of ideas to help bring about major structural changes in the current political and economic status quo.
If anything, at a time of economic insecurity and political uncertainly, angry voters in the West or, for that matter, in the Middle East gravitate to the politics of identity that merge the explosive ingredients of nationalism, ethnicity and religion.
So if the most important legacy of the 1848 spring time of hope was the rise of German, Italian and other forms of nationalism in Europe, the insurgencies of 2011 could start igniting similar pressures in the Middle East and even in Europe in 2012 as disillusionment with the promise of change starts setting in.
Copyright © 2010 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.
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