Global Paradigms

Next Year in Jerusalem? Monday, April 21st in Election, Politics by Leon Hadar Bill Kristol is trying to convice the readers of the New York Times on Monday that unlike the two leading Democratic presidential candidates, John McCain “might be called a Zionist,” adding that in this election campaign there is “a clear choice of worldviews here — and not just for Jews, but for all Americans.” (read the rest)

Business Times - 22 Apr 2008 In search of the Next Big Foreign Policy Idea Will a tripolar global system emerge if the US were to lose its global hegemonic position? By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT HISTORIAN Paul Kennedy's 'The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict From 1500 to 2000' (New York: Random House, 1987), which was published during the final years of the Cold War, succeeded in doing to geo-politics what Mao's Little Red Book had done to the thoughts of the communist Chinese leader. It helped popularise the somewhat esoteric topic of discussion in stuffy gentlemen's clubs in Victorian London or Bismarck's Berlin and turned it into a trendy topic of conversation among more diverse American and international audiences. Rising to the top of the New York Times best-seller list, the heavy 'Rise and Fall' (close to 700 pages) became a book that members of the cool chattering class were required to read (or at ...

Business Times - 18 Apr 2008 Lost opportunities caused by Iraq war The rising war expenditure and its impact on the US economy is coming under scrutiny By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT GROVER Norquist, who heads the Americans for Tax Reform organisation, is an influential Washington activist who promotes the agenda of fiscal conservatives. These folks believe that the US federal government should cut its spending and reduce the tax burden on the American people. Thus, he recently told the New York Times that he decided to jump aboard the team of presumptive Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain. Mr McCain 'won, and he's the tax cutter, so I am with him', he explained. But when the Times reporter noted that much of the increase in government spending by the Bush administration has been a result of the rising costs of the war in Iraq, Mr Norquist was quick to dismiss the notion that there was any direct link between the war in Iraq and the economic prob...

According to the Jerusalem Post report on Wednesday’s televised debate, the two Democratic presidential candidates are now committed not only to use U.S. military in retaliation against a possible Iranian nuclear attack on Israel but are also ready to extend the U.S. nuclear umbrella to Israel and the entire Middle East: (read the rest) Follow-up on the topic here.

Do you want to know why “Iraqi Units Flee Post, Despite American’s Plea” as the New York Times reported on Wednesday?

Business Times - 15 Apr 2008 US Congress turns its back on Colombia FTA Bush administration suffers stinging defeat by the Democrats on the trade deal By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT A US trade association has published an advertisement in several Capitol Hill magazines in recent weeks in which Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is seen hugging Cuba's Fidel Castro while his speech balloon conveys his request: 'Please reject the Colombia Free Trade Agreement!' In case you failed to get the message, the ad explains: 'Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez doesn't like the US-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement. He knows that it will strengthen our ties to Latin America, help a key ally and undercut his anti-American agenda.' And if you still didn't get that, the ad then concludes by proclaiming that the Colombia Free Trade Agreement was 'good for America but bad for anti-American dictators'. Yet despite the ad and a related massive public relations and lobbyi...

My recent article in the American Conservative: magazine: March 24, 2008 Issue Copyright © 2007 The American Conservative The Guns of April The choices are intervene or intervene. by Leon Hadar April 18, 2009 Pundits warned that the Middle East would present the newly elected president with his first international crisis. Iraqi Shi’ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr could revive his forces’ attacks on U.S. troops. The Iranians might try to test the new occupant of the White House. More violence between Israelis and Palestinians could force the president to “do something.” And then there was the prospect of a devastating terrorist attack on the U.S. itself. But as usual, the conventional wisdom was wrong. The leading Middle Eastern players decided to wait for the 44th president to make the first move on their regional chessboard. Instead, the international crisis confronting the new resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue emanated from another part of the former Ottoman Empire, the Balkans. The e...

Business Times - 11 Apr 2008 By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT DEMOCRATIC Senator Hillary Clinton, who is hoping to occupy the White House next year, is trying now to win the votes of blue-collar workers in her party's presidential primary in Pennsylvania. And since many of these voters have lost their manufacturing jobs after American companies had decided to relocate their factories to China, Mrs Clinton decided that a bit of China bashing could help her win some brownie points with these voters as she competes with another presidential contender, Senator Barack Obama. So the former first lady is now calling on the current occupant of the White House to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games. 'The violent clashes in Tibet and the failure of the Chinese government to use its full leverage with Sudan to stop the genocide in Darfur are opportunities for presidential leadership,' Mrs Clinton said in a statement, suggesting that 'these events unde...

Business Times - 08 Apr 2008 When Bernanke utters the 'R' word 'A recession is possible,' he told the somewhat hostile members of the Senate Joint Economic Committee last week By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT YES. US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke actually used the word 'recession' during his Congressional testimony last week. He didn't say that the US economy was in a recession or that it was about to enter into a recession. But he did tell the somewhat hostile members of the Senate Joint Economic Committee on Wednesday that 'a recession is possible', adding that the economy was apparently 'slightly growing at the moment but we think that there's a chance that for the first half as a whole, there might be a slight contraction'. And Mr Bernanke sounded a bit more explicit on the issue - without using the word 'recession' itself - when he told the senators that 'it now appears likely that real gross domestic produc...

I'm also blogging now on @TAC which provides a forum for the editors and writers of TAC . Here are some of my recent posts: The Next Big Foreign Policy Idea. The Athletic Rodhams. The Economist 's War. And the Media's McCainiacs.

Business Times - 02 Apr 2008 Democrats have upper hand in presidential race Their approach resonates with call from homeowners, consumers for more govt action By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT IT WAS not so long ago that officials and lawmakers in Washington were joining investors on Wall Street in a warning that the United States was losing its edge in global financial markets. The culprit, they complained, was the US federal government that was placing burdensome regulations, most notably the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation passed by Congress in 2002 in the wake of the Enron and other financial scandals. The critics concluded that government intervention in the financial markets was driving business away from New York, and strengthening other financial centres around the world such as London and Hong Kong. Indeed, exactly a year ago, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) head Chris Cox brought together a group of leading economic figures fro...

Business Times - 28 Mar 2008 Facts don't back notion of US energy independence By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT THE leading US presidential candidates have disagreed on many policy issues, ranging from the invasion of Iraq to the handling of the current housing market crisis. But there is one matter over which Democratic senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican senator John McCain - not to mention President George W Bush, the majority of members of Congress, and most pundits, both liberal and conservative - seem to have the same opinion: based on environmental, economic and national security considerations, Washington needs to embrace policies that could bring about 'energy independence'. Mrs Clinton has stated that she wants to make America 'energy independent and free from foreign oil' while Mr Obama, her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, has declared that 'now is the serious time for serious leadership to get us started d...

Martin Wolf is (I think) the best economic analyst writing from a pro-free market perspective working in the media today. Read his latest commentary in the Financial Times. If he concludes that the US "has passed the high water mark of financial deregulation," that is probably the case. The end of an era. The rescue of Bear Stearns marks liberalisation’s limit By Martin Wolf Published: March 25 2008 19:06 Last updated: March 25 2008 19:06 Remember Friday March 14 2008: it was the day the dream of global free- market capitalism died. For three decades we have moved towards market-driven financial systems. By its decision to rescue Bear Stearns, the Federal Reserve, the institution responsible for monetary policy in the US, chief protagonist of free-market capitalism, declared this era over. It showed in deeds its agreement with the remark by Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, that “I no longer believe in the market’s self-healing power”. Deregulation has rea...

Business Times - 21 Mar 2008 When taxpayers end up holding the baby Greater oversight and transparency of financial industry needed to regain market trust By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT FOR a while, officials, lawmakers and pundits in Washington were debating whether the American economy was - or soon would be - in a recession. The key historical analogy applied in their discussions was the mild recession in late 1990, during the presidency of George Bush the elder that lasted for only six months. The message then was that the economy was facing a cyclical downturn that could be managed through appropriate monetary and fiscal policies. So it is intriguing - or scary, some would argue - when the same officials, lawmakers and pundits are now starting to refer more frequently in recent days to the Great Depression of the 1930s and to the various 'New Deal' programmes initiated by then president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Under his leadership, the US federal government succ...

"Hugh, I hope Hillary doesn't get that big." ... but you choose what church you want to attend," says Senator Hillary Clinton, explaining why Rev. Wright "would not have been my pastor." Well, you do choose your spouse, who in the above pic is standing next to the larger-than-life Hugh Rodhman, one of Hillary's two crooked brothers. In case you don't recall the two, refresh your memory with Hillary may have to hide her brothers.

Please see my Futile Surges and Bailouts. ...and also this: Business Times - 21 Mar 2008 When taxpayers end up holding the baby Greater oversight and transparency of financial industry needed to regain market trust By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT FOR a while, officials, lawmakers and pundits in Washington were debating whether the American economy was - or soon would be - in a recession. The key historical analogy applied in their discussions was the mild recession in late 1990, during the presidency of George Bush the elder that lasted for only six months. The message then was that the economy was facing a cyclical downturn that could be managed through appropriate monetary and fiscal policies. So it is intriguing - or scary, some would argue - when the same officials, lawmakers and pundits are now starting to refer more frequently in recent days to the Great Depression of the 1930s and to the various 'New Deal' programmes initiated by then president Franklin Delano Roo...

My "The Guns of April: The choices are intervene or intervene" is in the new issue (March 24, 2008) of The American Conservative. It's not yet online, but if you click on the three items below you can read and print it.

My new analysis on UPI: Outside View: Iran upstages U.S. in Iraq Published: March 14, 2008 at 9:48 AM By LEON HADAR UPI Outside View Commentator WASHINGTON, March 14 (UPI) -- They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And the image of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad glowing -- radiating a Bush-like smugness, some might say -- during a red-carpet welcome in the American-occupied "Green Zone" in Baghdad last week was no exception. That picture was more powerful than a thousand pages in illuminating who has emerged as the big winner after the United States ousted Saddam Hussein. By contrast, recall the images of U.S. President Bush's brief and somewhat stealthy outings in Iraq. The commander of the most powerful military in the world, whose 160,000 troops are occupying Iraq, resembled a thief sneaking under cover of night into Aladdin's cave. The Iranian leader's two-day visit proved anything but stealthy. Ahmadinejad was received with great fanfare by Iraqi...

My new analysis on PRA Right Web: The Pitfalls of Forecasting Foreign Policy By Leon Hadar | March 13, 2008 PRA Right Web After close to eight years during which the relationship between the United States and much of the international community has been dominated by tensions over foreign policy, many wonder what a new administration will hold. Some hope there will be a new U.S. approach to the rest of the world—especially to the Middle East—that will be a dramatic foreign policy U-turn. Others hope for a president who maintains similar versions of current policies. It is powerfully tempting to try to predict U.S. foreign policy under this or that president by means of deconstructing his or her statements and campaign speeches; in election months, such predictions flow nonstop from the news media and pundits. But such an exercise is likely to produce misleading, unreliable conclusions, and a look at history and the candidates’ backgrounds suggests that predicting future policy is ...

Business Times - 14 Mar 2008 Will liquidity boost worsen US debt woes? The Fed's latest bailout may create a moral danger by giving investors and consumers incentive to keep irresponsible habits By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT A FEW financial pundits speculated half-jokingly that the Dow's rise by 417.66 points earlier this week reflected the sense of relief among investors over the impending resignation of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer aka 'Wall Street's Sheriff,' who as a crusading former attorney-general had prosecuted many white-collar criminals in the financial community. But in fact, the boost to the stock market, reflected in Dow's biggest one-day point gain since July 2002, came as a response to the surprising offer by the US Federal Reserve - coordinated with other central banks - to offer to lend through a 28-day-long auction up to US$200 billion of highly liquid Treasury securities to America's biggest banks and investment houses. These f...