Global Paradigms

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2011/0316/Libya-should-be-Europe-s-problem-not-America-s The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com Libya should be Europe's problem – not America's European powers can no longer act as casual bystanders expecting the US to resolve strategic challenges in Libya and the Middle East. Washington should tell Europe to put its own money – and troops, if necessary – where its own strategic interests lie. By Leon T. Hadar posted March 16, 2011 at 11:20 am EDT Washington During his second year in office, French President Nicolas Sarkozy initiated the formation of a Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) as part of a strategy to promote stability and prosperity in the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. Under Mr. Sarkozy’s proposed UfM, European, Middle Eastern, and North African countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea would form a loose economic community. It would promote political and economic liberalization and also address immigration...

Business Times - 15 Mar 2011 Will Obama trade agenda fizzle out? The formula that seemed to be a sure win following the 1994 midterm election may not work this time around By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT THE Republican takeover of the US House of Representatives in last November's midterm elections may have made it more difficult for Congress to reach agreements over how to balance the federal budget. But some free traders in Washington had hoped that the growing power of the pro-business Republicans on Capitol Hill would make it less difficult to get Congress to approve key free trade agreements (FTAs). Indeed, those Republican and a few Democratic proponents of an energetic US effort to liberalise global trade recalled after last year's Congressional races that the success of former Democratic president Bill Clinton in winning Congressional support for several critical free-trade accords - including the permanent normalisation of US trade relationship with China which ...

Business Times - 10 Mar 2011 US obsession with the M-E will only benefit China By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT US PRESIDENT Barack Obama's 10-day trip to Asia at the end of last year was seen as an effort by his administration to demonstrate that it was placing its relationship with the rising powers of that region on the top of US foreign policy agenda. Indeed, during most of the eight years that Mr Obama's predecessor had occupied the White House, Asian policymakers and pundits were warning that Bush Administration's post-9/11 focus on the war on terrorism, including the launching of two long and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ended up diverting American attention from the remarkable strategic and economic changes taking place in Asia that could have major impact on US economic and military interests. At times it seemed as though the investment of so much time, energy and resources in managing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in dealing with Iran's perce...

http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/sub/premiumstory/0,4574,428966,00.html? Business Times - 05 Mar 2011 The postmodern thinker International relations scholar and author Parag Khanna talks about geopolitics and identity in the post-post-modern world. By Leon Hadar PARAG Khanna, adventurer-scholar extraordinaire, bestselling author, pundit, former geopolitical adviser to generals (US General Stanley McChrystal) and celebrities (Bono), has some great news for the bearish among us. Or does he? Addressing a packed hall in Washington, DC, on the same evening that President Barack Obama is giving a televised speech, a cool and calm Dr Khanna, sans necktie and any prepared notes, explains that we are already living in the post-post-American World that is not very flat, but actually very messy, chaotic, and unruly. Welcome to the 'New Middle Ages' - or the 'Neomidage'. And that apparently should make us all very, very bullish about the future. Say what? The guy seating next to me ...

Business Times - 05 Mar 2011 Tea Party serves up a bitter brew for Bernanke By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT IF anyone still had any doubts that the Tea Party movement had become a powerful force on Capitol Hill, he or she would have had to revise the assessment this week. First, the contingency of conservative and libertarian lawmakers who were part of the Tea Party insurgency and who were elected to Congress in last year's mid-term election has forced the Republican leadership to continue playing chicken with the White House over this year's federal budget. Under pressure from the Republicans who now control the House of Representative, the Obama administration and the Democrats had agreed to US$4 billion cuts in spending on a few social and economic programmes in exchange for an agreement by the Republicans to a two-week extension in funding for the federal government. Now Congress will have until March 18 to come up with a budget deal before the government runs out of...

http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/burying-pan-arabism-4956 Published on The National Interest (http://nationalinterest.org) Source URL (retrieved on Mar 1, 2011): http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/burying-pan-arabism-4956 Burying Pan-Arabism |More[1] | March 1, 2011 Leon Hadar [2] The uprisings in the Arab World have generated two competing narratives in Washington. The first has the making of a Middle Eastern End-of-History prototype: The Arab embrace of liberal democracy is another chapter in the historical epoch evolving since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The competing narrative—a derivative of the Clash-of-Civilizations paradigm—raises the specter of political Islamist radicalization along the lines of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Adopting the first narrative generates confidence that democratic reforms may bring to power political players well disposed to the United States and the values it represents. Hence Washington should help accelerate this process through more “e...

Business Times - 01 Mar 2011 Obama's road to re-election fraught with obstacles A recent poll shows he runs even with a 'generic' Republican presidential contender By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT HIS public opinion poll numbers look much better than they did last year in the aftermath of the impressive Republicans' wins in the midterm elections. But despite some signs that more Americans now approve of his leadership style and the direction of his policies, US President Barack Obama and his political aides recognise that his road to getting re-elected to a second term are stacked with many obstacles. President Obama's handling of the shooting tragedy in Tuscon, Arizona, including his calls for more civility in American public life, helped him win praise from both Democrats and Republicans and scored many political brownie points with the American public. There have been some signs that the American economy is starting to recover - the stock market seem to be ...

Business Times - 23 Feb 2011 Clash of ideologies over US deficit An agreement needs to be reached by March 4; if not, the federal government will run out of money and will shut down By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT EGYPTIAN supporters of trade union protesters in Wisconsin have been calling Ian's Pizza in Madison, the state capital, to donate pizzas to the public employees who have been demonstrating against Republican Governor Scott Walker's plan to eliminate collective bargaining rights. That seems to fit into the political narrative drawn these days by Democratic activists who depict the protesting union workers as part of growing public backlash a la Tahrir Square against Republican-led pressure in state capitals and in Washington to slash the state and federal deficits on the back of financially distressed middle class workers. 'Wisconsin's Tunisia Moment' and 'Is it Madison or Cairo?' have been two of the recent headlines of posts in liberal blog...

Business Times - 19 Feb 2011 More work in store for Egypt now Following the overthrow of an authoritarian leader, it needs to fire up an underperforming economy By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT AS EGYPTIANS and others celebrate the downfall of former president Hosni Mubarak, they need to recognise that the overthrow of an authoritarian leader is not a guarantee that his oppressive rule will be replaced with liberal and democratic institutions. In fact, the overthrow of the monarchy in 1952 brought to power a military regime. And it has remained in control - even now, after Mr Mubarak's resignation. Moreover, free and open elections are only one element of a functioning liberal-democratic system that includes among other things, independent political institutions, a free press and the protection of the rights of women and religious minorities. Without a political culture that nourishes and upholds these freedoms and a set of constitutional and legal constraints on the governme...

Business Times - 17 Feb 2011 A Budget shaped by political constraints Obama hopes a compromise will lead to reforms of social programmes and the tax system By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT THERE is one good thing you could say about US President Barack Obama's federal budget proposals in the form of US$3.7 trillion blueprint for 2012 which were released on Monday. The White House's proposals - a revision in the plan for the current fiscal year coupled with a plan for the coming years - include proposals to cut the deficit by US$1.1 trillion through major spending cuts and large tax increases. So as the White House envisions it, the federal deficit would grow under the budget plan from around US$14 trillion today to close to 'only' US$21 trillion in five years. But most experts believe that these numbers reflect over-optimistic forecasts that assume the acceleration of the current economic recovery to be followed by a new economic boom combined with relatively low ...

http://www.amconmag.com/blog/dont-party-like-its-1989/ Don’t Party Like It’s 1989 Today’s turmoil in the Middle East looks more like the stillborn revolutions of 1848. By Leon Hadar The uprising in Egypt and challenge to the Middle East’s autocratic rulers could have produced a sense of déjà vu for the late German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt. Notwithstanding her reputation as a progressive thinker, Arendt believed that the erosion in the power of Europe’s conservative ruling elites and the strong national states they controlled helped set the stage for rise of totalitarianism and the horrific wars that engulfed Europe in the first part of the 20th century. As Arendt pointed out in her classic study The Origins of Totalitarianism, the inability of these ruling elites in France, Germany, Austro-Hungary, and the Slavic states to retain their legitimacy in the face of waves of nationalist convulsions ignited by “the people”—the opening chapter being the uprisings of 1848—led to the ...

Obama is not Carter - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

Business Times - 11 Feb 2011 It's doubtful his pro-business rhetoric and proposed policies will make much difference By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT US President Barack Obama and America's business executives may have had their differences over the plans to reform the healthcare insurance and the financial regulatory systems. But there is certainly one issue over which they agree. It's all about jobs! Indeed, the very big sign hanging on the front of the US Chamber of Commerce building across Lafayette Square in Washington, DC, not far from the White House, says it all - and in huge letters: 'JOBS'. And considering the main theme of Mr Obama's address to the members of the Chamber of Commerce this week, there is no doubt that he would have liked to hang exactly the same sign in front of the White House. Shared commitment While the heads of the Chamber of Commerce tend to subscribe to the pro-business agenda of the Republican Party - in fact, some of them ...

my stuff on the topic on The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/george-bush-was-wrong-wro_b_818757.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/not-all-is-well-in-americ_b_816125.html

Business Times - 09 Feb 2011 Egypt's fate yet to be sealed By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT IT may be too early to conclude whether the protests in Egypt will amount to a revolution. And it remains to be seen if the 2011 Egyptian Revolution will go the way of the 1979 Iranian Revolution that led to the collapse of the pro-American Shah and to the rise of the Ayatollah's theocracy. Iran then challenged the balance of power in the Middle East and that led to major political and economic developments, including the Iran-Iraq War and a global oil crisis. Perhaps Egypt's continuing political unrest will eventually fizzle out and the demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Cairo will only bring about marginal reforms in the country's political and economic system. Such an outcome will allow the military-based regime that has controlled that country since 1952 when a revolution did result in the downfall of the then British-backed monarchy - sans the 83-year-old Hosni Mubarak...

Business Times - 03 Feb 2011 PERSPECTIVE Obama's Sputnik spin is way off orbit By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT WHO could fault US President Barack Obama when he used his State of the Union Address last week as an opportunity to call for American economic renewal and for investing in scientific research technological development as well as in the reform of the education system and the rebuilding of the country's infrastructure? After all, he proposed these and other ideas as part of a strategy aimed at unleashing another wave of American innovation and meeting the competitive challenges of globalisation in the 21st century. And Mr Obama should be applauded for challenging the Americans, who are recovering from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, to look towards a better future by setting these ambitious goals that involve cooperation between government and business in investment in clean energy technology and biomedical research and in trying to open n...