Global Paradigms

Business Times - 08 Jul 2011 US debt limit: Republicans playing a risky game By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT THERE is a general agreement in Washington and Wall Street that the US is in real risk of defaulting on its debt if Congress fails to approve legislation that permits the federal government to exceed the current national borrowing ceiling of US$14.3 trillion by the beginning of next month. In fact, Obama Administration officials insist that Republican and Democratic lawmakers need to agree on a deal by July 22 in order to allow for enacting the necessary legislation before the Aug 2 deadline. In the aftermath of the Great Recession and at a time when the recovery of the US economy remains in very slow motion and the global economy is threatened by ongoing political and economic crises in the eurozone and in the Middle East, you would assume that US legislators would put in place a deal to ensure the US can meet its financial obligations - and as soon as possible. It shoul...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/netanyahus-misguided-repu_b_890549.html

http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1233441.html w w w . h a a r e t z . c o . i l עודכן ב- 07:20 04/07/2011 לי-און הדר | היי שלום ניאו-שמרנות מאת לי-און הדר, וושינגטון בנימין נתניהו ובעלי בריתו בוושינגטון חולמים בהקיץ על השידוך המושלם אחרי הבחירות לנשיאות ארה"ב בשנה הבאה. לפי הפנטסיה הזאת, נשיא רפובליקאי יחבור לראש הממשלה מהליכוד, ושניהם יקימו לתחייה את ההגמוניה של ארה"ב במזרח התיכון ויחזירו לישראל את תפקידה כשריף אזורי. ישראל תקבל לאחר מכן אור ירוק מהבית הלבן להשמיד את אתרי הגרעין באיראן, לצאת למתקפה מחודשת על עזה, ולהפציץ את ביירות כדי לדכא את החיזבאללה. נתניהו, האיש שיש לו הכל לבד מהזמנה לשמש יועץ פוליטי למפלגה הרפוליקאית בבחירות 2012, פועל בהנחה שאם ברק אובמה יודח מתפקידו הוא יוחלף בהעתק של ג'ורג' בוש הבן, שיגבש מדיניות מזרח תיכונית הדומה לזאת של ממשלה בהנהגת הליכוד. נראה שמנהיג הליכוד צפה פעמים רבות מדי בנאומים של גלן בק ושרה פיילין ברשת "פוקס", שבהם הם תוקפים את "המוסלמי" בבית הלבן, והחליף אי-מיילים רבים מדי עם עמיתיו הניאו-שמרנים. דומה ג...

Published on The National Interest (http://nationalinterest.org) Source URL (retrieved on Jul 1, 2011): http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/saving-us-policy-the-mideast-5556 Saving U.S. Mideast Policy | More [1] | July 1, 2011 Leon Hadar [2] You don't have to be a strategic analyst or a regional expert to figure out that U.S. policies in the Middle East and Central Asia—ranging from Afghanistan to Libya—are reaching a dead end. In Afghanistan, more than 100,000 U.S. and NATO troops, a huge contingency of special operations forces and a bevy of private companies have failed to crush the Taliban-led insurgency and bring political stability and economic growth to the country. Instead, Washington has subsidized an ineffective and corrupt government in Kabul while the U.S. military presence has eroded U.S.-Pakistan relations. The American public's patience for war is running thin. Disdain for the nation-building effort in Afghanistan was compounded by the military intervention in...

Business Times - 01 Jul 2011 Don't write off the West and pin hopes only on the Rest By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT MUCH has been said and written in recent years about the growing challenge to US geo-strategic and geo-economic status by China, BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and the other rising global powers, including South Africa, South Korea, and Turkey. Indeed, in the aftermath of the US military debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, and especially since the financial meltdown and the ensuing Great Recession, small-time pundits as well as renowned futurologists have been predicting that the West is basically kaput and that the rest of the Twenty-First Century belongs to the 'Rest'. In this scenario, China replaces the US and the global hegemonic power sooner or later. As we study these America-is-finished-and-China- rules-the-world forecasts, it is important to recall that not so long ago many of the same pundits and futurologists were anticipating that glo...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/obama-afghanistan-_b_885478.html Leon T. HadarJournalist and foreign affairs analyst Barack Gorbachev: Adjusting To The Global Reality The political leaders and the generals were continuing to debate on whether to start pulling out the troops from Afghanistan at a time when political power was being consolidated by a relatively young reformer interested in mending relations with the rest of the world and despite the growing recognition that the war there was lost. But finally, in April 1988, Mikheil Gorbachev, the leader of the USSR, introduced a timetable for the departure of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, announcing that the withdrawal of about 100,000 troops will start in the following month. It took Gorbachev another four years to complete the withdrawal from South Asia while he was also trying to manage the gradual erosion in Soviet hegemony in Central and Eastern Europe and the broader restructuring of the global position of the Soviet ...

Business Times - 28 Jun 2011 US says hello to realism, bye bye to neoconservatism The majority of Americans agree the US should 'pay less attention to problems overseas' By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT IN A speech before an audience of Asian defence ministers and military commanders in Singapore early this month, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates pledged that the United States would sustain its military presence and diplomatic involvement in Asia. He was trying to calm anxieties among US allies in the region about rising isolationist sentiments that are seen to be affecting Americans these days as they confront the realities of skyrocketing budget deficits and a military overstretched in two major wars and a few small ones in the Middle East. But even Mr Gates admitted during his address in Singapore that 'fighting two protracted and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has strained the US military's ground forces, and worn out the patience and appetite of the Ame...

Business Times - 24 Jun 2011 No QE3, so ball now in politicians' court By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT POLICYMAKERS at the US central bank have been surprised by the continuing weakness of the American economy - but they are hoping that things will pick up later this year. This sense of apprehension about the current slow pace of the economic recovery was expressed by the members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on Wednesday, following a two-day meeting in Washington during which they agreed to shift policy and to end the US$600 billion bond-buying programme (aka QE2, or Quantitative Easing Part 2) as scheduled by the end of this month. Much of what the Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday should not have come as a big surprise to politicians in Washington or to investors on Wall Street, who share the growing anxiety about the feebleness of the recovery. The Fed in its statement, and chairman Ben Bernanke during a press conference, seem to be providing official ...

Business Times - 22 Jun 2011 High time for Republicans, Democrats to agree fiscally By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT WASHINGTON'S two leading political rivals made history over the weekend when they decided to leave their differences behind and work together to win a major victory. Indeed, US President Barack Obama and the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, playing a golf match as a team on Saturday, defeated Vice-president Joseph Biden and Republican Ohio governor John Kasich. It was only a friendly game of golf, but the event seemed to have acquired some political overtones. Observers wonder if the opposing Democratic and Republican sides facing each other in a long and exhausting legislative fight will be able to agree on a deal over the US federal budget. The White House said in a statement that the president and Mr Boehner defeated their counterparts on the 18th hole, each winning US$2. 'The foursome had great time and really enjoyed playing golf,' th...

Business Times - 16 Jun 2011 Obama is sitting pretty for now But if the economy gets worse, the Republican challenge will look more formidable By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT I DON'T know whether US President Barack Obama watched the televised exchange between the leading Republican presidential candidates. If he did, he may have felt reassured that none of the seven GOP members who gathered for the second debate of the season in New Hampshire - the state that will hold the first primary next year - and who are hoping to win his job next November pose any serious threat to him. But should he? Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, Representative Michele Bachmann from Ohio, former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, Representative Ron Paul from Texas, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, former Ohio governor Tim Pawlenty and business executive Herman Cain are all accomplished individuals. They believe in their professional and political experience as wel...

Business Times - 10 Jun 2011 This is a struggle for power, not Arab Spring By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT SKIM through old editorials that were published in the Soviet Communist Party's Pravda newspaper during the Cold War and you'll have a lot of fun, laughing out loud when reading about all those loopy notions that the people in Moscow held about the upheaval taking place in the Middle East at the time. Historians of the Middle East explain that the region was then going through major structural, political and economic changes resulting from, among other things, the collapse of the British and French empires, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the impact of secular Arab nationalism and socialism, the rise of military elites, and various religious, ethnic and tribal conflicts. But according to the old Pravda and the Soviet officials who published it, things were actually very simple. Whether it was the military coup in Egypt (1952), the periodic unrest in Syria and Iraq in the...

Business Times - 07 Jun 2011 Economic fears may dent Obama's re-election hopes By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT A TSUNAMI of bad economic news is raising new concerns about the prospects for the recovery of the US economy and for the re-election of US President Barack Obama. While it may too early to consider the likelihood of a double-dip recession and for a Republican takeover of the White House in 2013, the mood on Wall Street and in Washington is certainly dipping. A negative private job report sent the Dow on its biggest fall in a year on Wednesday. Indeed, figures released last Wednesday and showing a big drop in manufacturing employment was another indication that job growth continues to be slow. And while the US Labor Department announced the next day that the number of jobless benefit applications fell by 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 422,000, very few economists were cheering. There was no change in the number of Americans who continued to receive unemployment cheq...

Business Times - 03 Jun 2011 Headwinds for Obama trade agenda By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT AS PART of its stated commitment to help American companies double their exports by 2015, the Obama administration has been pressing Congress to approve the proposed free trade agreements (FTAs) with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. Indeed, early this year in his State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama hailed a trade deal with South Korea 'that will support at least 70,000 American jobs'. In fact, President Obama and his aides had to deal with strong opposition from Democrats in Congress and their supporters in the labour unions who opposed the three pacts that were negotiated by former president George W Bush and that enjoyed the backing of a majority of the pro-business Republicans on Capitol Hill. The White House was able to eventually secure Democratic support only after making some modifications to the Korean bill. At a time when the US economy is recovering from...

Ngo Dinh Netanyahu, Benjamin MacArthur by Leon T. Hadar This article appeared in Haaretz on May 31, 2011. On a sunny day in May, the leader of an important U.S. ally from an unstable region of the world where critical American interests were at stake, was addressing a joint meeting of Congress presided over by the Speaker of the House and the Vice President. The foreign leader who reiterated in his address the common interests and values shared by the U.S. and his country in containing the threat posed by global anti-western aggression received a standing ovation and his speech was persistently interrupted by loud applause by legislators, with lawmakers from the two major political parties lavishing him with praise. Seven years after speaking before the U.S. Congress Ngo Dinh Diem, the President of South Vietnam was assassinated on November 2, 1963, in a military coup sanctioned by the administration of President John Kennedy. And in May 9, 1975, the same body that Diem addressed twelv...

Business Times - 27 May 2011 The Republican candidate Obama should fear the most By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT PRESIDENT Barack Obama and his aides have been going out of their way to praise former US ambassador to China Jon Huntsman for the great job he did representing the current Democratic administration in Beijing for two years, before deciding to resign while considering a presidential bid against his former boss in the White House. Addressing members of the prestigious Gridiron Club during their annual dinner recently, Mr Obama joked that he was planning to campaign for Mr Huntsman during the Republican primaries and to tell the very conservative (and anti-Obama) Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire that 'Obama's Man in Beijing' was, indeed, a great team player . . . Fifty-one-year-old Mr Huntsman has yet to announce that he is running for the Republican presidential nomination next year. But the leading Republican politician, who served as governor o...

Business Times - 24 May 2011 Obama plays the fox in Middle-East He recognises that what is happening in the region is complex and requires an accommodating response from Washington By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT DELIVERING his much anticipated address on the Middle East in Washington, US President Barack Obama proved once again that he wasn't an ideologue but a thinker inspired by the very American philosophical tradition of pragmatism with its emphasis on empiricism, incrementalism, and scepticism towards grand theories. Indeed, friends and adversaries were confused by what they saw was his disjointed response to the recent upheaval in the Arab World - grudgingly supporting the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt; unenthusiastically backing limited military action in Libya; projecting a nuanced attitude to the unrest in Bahrain. His supporters had hoped that Mr Obama would lay out a new US grand strategy for the Middle East - the so-called Obama Doctrine - during his speech. Th...

Business Times - 18 May 2011 Waiting for a Republican Leader Current slate of contenders, except perhaps Tim Pawlenty, will find the going tough given their real or perceived failings By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT A FEW nights ago, five candidates for the 2012 presidential election gathered for an early debate that touched upon domestic and foreign policy issues. Two of the five taking part in the televised debates - a member of the House of Representatives from a southern state and a former governor of a large state - argued that the time has come to bring an end to Washington's War on Drugs. In fact, one of the two presidential candidates hoping to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama next year expressed support for legalising drugs, agreeing with the suggestion that heroin and prostitution were an 'exercise of liberty', and insisting that he would leave it to the states to make that decision on whether to de-criminalise them. Based on these sound bites, y...

Business Times - 11 May 2011 'First Pacific' president stuck in the Middle East While Obama wants to focus more on China, US will remain 'underweighted' in East Asia By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT AT THE centre of US President Barack Obama's geostrategic thinking has been the recognition that in the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the devastating financial meltdown, 'America needed to rebuild its reputation, extricate itself from the Middle East and Afghanistan, and turn its attention towards Asia and China's unchecked influence in the (Asia-Pacific) region', according to a much-discussed article about Mr Obama's foreign policy that was published in The New Yorker magazine recently. According to Ryan Lizza, the author of the article, Mr Obama and his advisers concluded upon entering office that America was 'overweighted' in the Middle East and 'underweighted' in East Asia. 'We've been on a little bit ...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/pakistan-client-state_b_857019.html Pakistan Is Not a Strategic Ally But an Irresponsible Client State Posted: 05/ 3/11 06:52 PM ET Adolph Hitler and other top leaders of Nazi Germany escape into neutral Spain after the defeat of the Third Reich and find a sanctuary in the Pyrenees Mountains along the border with France from which they launch deadly attacks against the U.S. and its allies and attempt to overthrow the pro-western government in Paris. Would the U.S. allow Generalissimo Francisco Franco to provide a safe haven for Hitler and his associates in Spain and describe his government as an "ally in the fight against Nazism?" And would the Americans wait for another 10 years before sending U.S. Special Forces to capture and kill the Nazi leader hiding in a mansion a few miles from Madrid and just 800 yards away from a military academy that is the equivalent of Spain's West Point? Quite unlikely, you say. But then many elemen...