Global Paradigms

From the Hartford Courant: Courant.com No Sunshine For Bush In Mideast LEON HADAR January 17, 2008 Some U.S. presidents facing political and economic problems at home seemed to have embraced the political dictum, "If it rains in the Midwest, seek the sunshine in the Middle East." Hence in June 1974, as he was drowning politically and personally in scandals that would lead eventually to a humiliating resignation from office, President Richard Nixon took a triumphant seven-day trip to four Arab states and Israel where, as Time put it, "the huzzas and the hosannas fell like sweet rain." President Bill Clinton, who was also beset by scandals in the last years of his term, was eager to salvage his legacy as a statesman by inviting the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to Camp David in July 2000 to negotiate a historic peace accord. But neither Nixon nor Clinton could warm the political weather in Washington. President George W. Bush seems to dismiss the lessons learned by ...

Business Times - 18 Jan 2008 Voter anxiety over economy to decide White House race By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT POLITICAL and economic analysts are continuing to debate whether the American economy is heading towards a full-blown recession. But they all would agree that Michigan - the state in which Mitt Romney, the son of the late governor of the state, won the Republican presidential primary on Tuesday - is in the midst of what has been described as a 'one-state recession'. Most observers seem to recognise that Michigan's faltering economy was a major issue in Tuesday's presidential primary and this explains why Mr Romney - a successful business executive who placed the bad economic news coming out of the Great Lakes State at the centre of his campaign there - achieved an impressive victory, winning 39 per cent of the votes in the primary, compared to 30 per cent for Senator John McCain and 16 per cent for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Indeed, exit...

I didn't like There will be Blood and was disappointed by Daniel Day-Lewis's performance in the film. I thought that the film was too long and boring and very pretentious. It's based loosely a novel by socialist author Upton Sinclair and indeed, its "message" is that the so-called Robber Barons who helped establish the economic-indutrial foundations of this country -- it wasn't TR who did it -- were not only ruthless and greedy; but as reflected in the the character of "Daniel Plainview," played by Day-Lewis, they were either sociopaths, pyscopaths or both. I don't think so. The Aviator where Leonardo_DiCaprio played Howard Hughes did a better job in terms of portraying the fascinating and complex characters of the risk-taking American entrepreneurs who were the driving forces behind America's greatness.

Business Times - 15 Jan 2008 Not saying the R-word - but alluding to it a lot Bush concedes 'economic challenges' and the Fed stands ready to take 'substantive action' By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT FEDERAL Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke was asked whether he expects, as the questioner put it, 'the R-word'. 'The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession,' Mr Bernanke responded after his address in Washington last week. 'We are forecasting slow growth.' Then he added: 'But as I mentioned today, there are downside risks and, therefore, it's very important for us to stand ready to take substantive action to address those risks and provide some insurance against those negative outcomes.' Since the start of the downturn in the American economy - the housing crisis; the credit crunch; the high oil prices; signs of unemployment and lower spending - US officials and lawmakers, including the head of the central bank, have ...

George McGovern writes that Gulf of Tonkin Will Be Tough to Repeat. Please read my related commentary here.

And now from the Republican to the Democratic race. I’m registered as an “independent” in Maryland so I won’t be able to vote in the Democratic primary even if I wanted (and I don’t). I’ve read a lot about Barack Obama and while I don’t share his views on many issues, I certainly applaud his anti-Iraq-War position (although, again, I’m not sure about his overall foreign policy agenda). And I can’t stand Hillary with her I’m-entitled-to-be-President-and-I-really-care-about-you mode and Obama is really “cool.” So I probably would have voted for him. My guess is that the Clintons are in panic now as they are continuing to spread the allegations that Obama is a “Muslim,” like the one I received through the internet which was emailed to many American-Jewish voters: Who is Barack Obama? Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu , Hawaii , to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel , Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHIEST from Wichit...

I finally had a chance to read James Kirchick piece in the New Republic about a few racist, homophobic and what is described as "Israel-obssesed" (like the New York Times is not "Israel-obsessed?") quotes from newsletters published once- unon-a-time by Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ron Paul about whom I had written here and I've been following the debate over the issue, including Dr. Paul's interview on CNN (via Reason.com). Whoever had written these comments should not be regarded as a libertarian but as a small-time bigot. I do believe Dr. Paul who maintains that he didn't author the material in the newsletters. And I totally agree with the point he made in CNN that racism, homophbia, and anti-Semitism are collectivist ideologies that run contrary to the basic principles of libertarianism. For the sake of transparency, I think that it would be a good idea for Dr. Paul to let us know who did author these ugly comments and then he will be abl...

Business Times - 10 Jan 2008 By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT IN THE aftermath of last week's Democratic and Republican caucuses in Iowa, it seemed as though the political pundits in Washington were joining what was described as 'Obamania', an ecstasy-like outburst of enthusiasm over the impressive victory of the young and charismatic African-American Senator Barack Obama over Senator Hillary Clinton who once upon a time was considered to be the 'inevitable' presidential candidate of her party. Defying all the political insiders and pollsters, Mr Obama ended-up transforming expectations about who was going to win the nomination, gaining a huge momentum, or a Big Mo as the political professionals call it, and leading the same people who dismissed his significance before Iowa to predict after Iowa that Hillary was 'finished', especially if - as most opinion polls indicated - the Senator from New York would lose the primaries in New Hampshire. Indeed, tel...

Business Times - 09 Jan 2008 While anti-Bush sentiment and cracks in the Republican coalition are clearly playing into the hands of the Democrats, it's too early to conclude that the Democrats are about to emerge as the next majority party By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT IN THE aftermath of the 2004 re-election of US President George W Bush - who was considered in 2000 to be an 'accidental president' - and the regaining by Republicans of control over the Senate and the House of Representatives, analysts were speculating that the Republicans were on their way to dominate US politics for another generation of two. After all, Republicans had occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years and had managed to hold on to the House of Representatives for eight years, reflecting economic and demographic changes that had transformed the nation since the 1960s. Hence pundits and historians suggested that the 'war of terrorism' was providing the Republicans, whose ...

An article in the New York Times drew my attention to a new website Big Think which the NYT piece describes as "a YouTube for ideas." It sounds very intriguing, until you check it out and you discover that it's nothing more than another platform for the kind of people who show up on Charlie Rose, which is not surprising since the two guys behind it are former "producers" with the show. The concept itself is interesting if Big Think could have developed into a site where intellectuals discuss issues with other intetellectuals and interact with you and I. But there isn't any reason why should waste my time watching John McCain or Tom Friedman do their familiar shtick.

Business Times - 08 Jan 2008 The success of Obama also marks the decline of the older generation of the Baby Boomers By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT IF A YEAR ago while at a party in Washington, you had contemplated over dinner that a Kenyan man's son whose middle name happened to be 'Hussein' and who had spent his early childhood in Indonesia would win the Democratic party's first presidential primary in Iowa - and with the help of white rural voters would beat a former First Lady and the choice of the party's establishment - the guests would probably respond to your prediction by urging you to stop drinking that strong stuff in your glass. And if you had also suggested that the Republicans would select in Iowa as their presidential candidate a Baptist Minister and a unknown governor of a small southern state, whose only claim to fame is that he had lost more than 100 pounds instead of a former governor of Massachusetts, a former mayor of New York city and a...

There have been a lot of articles in the MSM and on the Internet in recent weeks about the coming breakup of the so-called Reagan Coalition -- social conservatives; national security conservatives; economic conservatives -- here and here and here and here. Like my thoughtful brothers and sisters in the media I enjoy promoting grand decline-and-fall theories explaining current political developments by ascribing them to historical struggles involving clashing intellectual-political forces (or the other side of the coin: the formation of coalitions between them). But I'm not sure whether that that is happening right now with regard to the Reagan Coalition. It's true that the glue of the Cold War that held it together melted after the Soviet Union and Communism collapsed. But the post-9/11 effort to replace the Soviet/Communism threat with that of so-called Islamo-Fascism has overall been quite successful. Yes, some of of the "realists" and a few libertarians and pale...

letter to the editor ... but at least Prof Ferguson kept it short this time Published: January 4 2008 02:00 | Last updated: January 4 2008 02:00 From Dr Leon Hadar. Sir, It took me 416 pages, or about five hours, to learn that the US could and should become the 21st-century version of the 19th century’s successful British empire (Niall Ferguson, The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, Penguin Books, 2005). But it took me only 914 words and about five minutes to discover that the US was actually becoming the 21st-century version of the 19th century's bankrupted Ottoman empire (Niall Ferguson, “An Ottoman warning for America”, Financial Times, January 2 2008). Thank God (and the FT) for small mercies. Leon Hadar, Research Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute, Washington, DC 20001, US

Today in Iowa: Democrats: 1. Edwards. 2. Obama. 3. Clinton. Republicans: 1. Paul. 2. Huckabee. 3. Romney. November: Romney vs. Edwards. And I'm probably wrong. But it's fun doing it. ...And I was wrong. I suppose that with regard to Paul it had to do with some wishful thinking. In any case, it's good news that the two anti-war candidates in the Democratic party came ahead of the Washington Candidate. Huckabee has been critical of Bush's foreign policy and that he and Ron Paul ended-up with so many delegates is also good news. Let's hope that the trend continues. My worst-case scenario is McCain re-emerging (imagine a McCain-Giuliani ticket).

Business Times - 02 Jan 2008 By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT IF YOU'VE been following the media coverage of the current US presidential campaign and listened to the many predictions that have been made by the pundits, pollsters and political 'insiders' about which of the Democratic and Republicans candidate was going to win the nomination of his or her party, you may have concluded by now that the 'experts' seem to be always wrong. Indeed, at the start of the campaign last year, Washington's political professionals, reflecting the Conventional Wisdom (CW), were stating with quite a lot of confidence that Democratic New York Senator (and former first lady) Hillary Clinton and Republican Senator John McCain were going to emerge as the winners in the presidential primaries. Hence Democratic Illinois Senator Barack Obama, the young and charismatic African-American, was dismissed by the media as nothing more than a brief media sensation, a political upstart th...

I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Ron Paul when I visited his office and briefed him and his colleagues on Middle Eastern issues last year (and I know that he had read my two books on the Middle East and liked them). He is clearly a man of integrity and an American patriot who is committed to classical liberal principles and is opposed to the current interventionist U.S. foreign policy. I hope that he win the Republican party's presidential nomination (and this is my personal view which doesn't necessarily reflect the outlets I'm associated with). But even if he doesn't, it seems to me that he has helped transform the debate on foreign policy, and especially the war in Iraq by drawing the attention of the general public and the media (including MSM) to the idea that America needs to start reducing its military commitments abroad, and especially in the Middle East, and embrace a policy that reflects U.S. interests and principles. We clearly need that!

My radio interview with Federal News Service on Bhutto's death, etc. is here. Also see comments by Jim Henley and Henri. And I also liked the op-ed by David Ignatius, , who is one of the smartest guys in town, and especially the following words of wisdom: Bhutto's death is a brutal demonstration of the difficulty for outsiders in understanding -- let alone tinkering with -- a country such as Pakistan. The Bush administration attempted a bit of political engineering when it tried to broker an alliance between Musharraf and Bhutto and sought to position her as the country's next prime minister. Yesterday's events were a reminder that global politics is not Prospero's island, where we can conjure up the outcomes we want. In places such as Pakistan, where we can't be sure where events are heading, the wisest course for the United States is the cautious one of trying to identify and protect American interests. Pakistanis will decide how and when their country ma...

(Lithograph by Honoré Daumier(1808-1879) Business Times - 28 Dec 2007 Events in 2007 and in 2008 accentuating the trend By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT THERE was a time - many years ago - when Time magazine was considered to be an American and international 'institution'. That explained why the world's movers and shakers paid a lot of attention to the individual that the founder Henry Luce and his successors picked as the magazine's Man of the Year. That choice - basically announcing who was the persona that had the power to change the world - reflected the wisdom prevailing then among the political and corporate elites, located mostly in New York and Washington. But gradually, Time magazine was transformed from that institution into the older and serious brother of People magazine, and now it has become, for all practical purposes, the Lenin Mausoleum of American journalism, an institutional corpse that is being preserved for some reason (prestige?) while People...

My piece from the January 2008 issue of Chronicles magazine: (and sorry about speaking ill of the dead...) PAKISTAN: HERE WE GO AGAIN Condi Rice had a vision: It was springtime in Pakistan, and love was in the air—which was an ideal time for a chick flick. From the lady who brought us the Shiite-Sunni Love Fest in Iraq, Fatah-Hamas: Isn’t It Romantic? in Palestine, The Amorous Cedars in Lebanon, not to mention the first season of Democratic Idol in Ukraine (Viktor Yushchenko) and Georgia (Mikheil Saakashvili) would come a new production, A Match Made in Heaven, starring small-time military dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf and the slick and crooked ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. At the Happy End of this new romantic drama would come the ultimate Celebration of Sisterhood: Two hip babes are brought together—Rice, the symbol of the powerful awakening of African-American feminism, commanding the world’s attention with her pair of black knee-high boots, hugs Bhutto, whose trademark white s...

I initially had some hesitations about going to see a film that takes place in a hospital. I’m glad that I did see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It is a cinematic masterpiece that invites you to enter into the mind of Jean-Dominique Bauby, the 43-year-old Elle editor, who is played by Mathieu Almaric, (who btw is the son of famous French journalist, Jacques Amalric). Bauby suffered a massive stroke that left him completely paralyzed, unable to speak and with the use of his one good eye he communicated through blinking—once for yes, twice for no, and once when he heard a letter he wanted to use in a word and dictated the novel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." Visiting Bauby’s mind consists of a collage of memories and fantasies. You experience the recreation of brain activity that keeps him alive. The visual effects are sensational and you are forced to consider central religious and philosophical dilemmas such as the meaning of consciousness. It’s a movie about de...