One of the reasons why the Saudi-Iranian conflict is so sharp is because most of Saudi oil and gas reserves are in areas populated by Shia Muslims who have more of an affinity for Iran than the Sunni-dominated Saudi government. A quick glance at a map shows how the Saudis might legitimately fear for control of their most precious resource. The dark green areas are Shia-majority and the light green are Sunni-majority. The black and red are oil and gas reserves.
Rami Khouri is a very smart analyst of Middle Eastern affairs. His interpretation of the growing Saudi-Iranian discord is right on target–not alarmist but sufficiently sober. His essay, however, has an insight which I had not though about before. The dynamic of this hostility may lead to the break-up of some well-established states. Such an transformation would be very unstable when it occurred but might be more stable in the long run.
There’s lot going on in the stock markets all around the world, and all of it is bad. The Shanghai stock market was open for only 29 minutes before it was closed to trades because the index had fallen by over 7%. The US stock market is now officially in “correction” because it has fallen over 10% from its previous high. Financial uncertainty always aggravates world politics, but there is usually a lag in time. Incredibly, the Saudis are losing a great deal of money and are thinking the unthinkable: selling ARAMCO, arguably the most valuable company in the world as an initial public offering (IPO)
The dispute between Saudi Arabia and Iran continues to deepen, although it is not likely that an open, violent confrontation will take place any time soon. The dispute is long-standing over dominance in the Middle East although many continue to refer to the dispute as a Shia-Sunni split. However, that issue is overblown by Westerners and, to the extent that it is valid, it is also constant. What has changed is the relative distribution of power between the two. Iran has been slowly gaining power largely due to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the successful nuclear agreement. At the same time Saudi Arabia has been losing influence largely due to the change in the government and Saudi stubbornness on the issue of its support for Wahabist groups abroad.
Stock markets all over the world took a major hit today and evidence continues to mount that the Chinese economy is slowing down. Lost in all the panic, however, is the fate of some very important middle-income countries to global growth. The worst case is probably Brazil as it has slid steadily into a crushing recession.
Sweden introduced border controls on refugees entering from Denmark. The change in policy reflects the incredible pressure on what has always been the most welcoming country in the world to refugees. Although press coverage of the refugee crisis has tapered off, the crisis continues almost unabated despite the onset of winter.
A strong theme in the Republican primary debates is that the US should “do more” in the Middle East. But the details of what should be done are few and far between (except for Senator Cruz’s suggestion to carpet bomb Daesh). One of my old college friends, Paul Pillar, has written an essay that shreds these vapid suggestions.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have exchanged serious diplomatic insults after Saudi Arabia executed Shaikh Nimr al Nimr, an outspoken defender of the rights of Shia Muslims. Nimr was one 47 persons executed by Saudi Arabia at the of the year. Those who oppose capital punishment decried the Saudi attitude toward human rights.
It is safe to say that since the Great Recession which began in 2008, there are very people who really understand what is going on in the global economy. With globalization, roboticization, zero and negative interest rates, and incredible rates of indebtedness, the world is in uncharted waters. The Atlantic polled some analysts to tap into their insights. It is a sobering group of statements.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been pushing for constitutional reforms in order to give the country’s president more powers. When he returned from a trip to Saudi Arabia, Erdogan was asked whether such powers were possible given that the current system gives power to a Prime Minister. According to the New York Times, Erdogan responded:
“There are already examples in the world,” Mr. Erdogan said. “You can see it when you look at Hitler’s Germany.”
The response is not one likely to give comfort to those Turkish citizens who believe in human rights and democracy.
Russia has issued an update of its national security policy which describes NATO expansion as a threat to Russian national security. Several states which were once part of the Soviet Union’s military alliance, the Warsaw Pact, are now members of NATO and Russia fears that the former policy of containment is being revived against it much closer to its national borders. NATO expansion has occurred as several states have indicated that they seek protection against Russian expansionism. The conflict is a classic case of the security dilemma.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has labeled New Delhi as the city with the most polluted air on the planet. The air usually worsens in the city during the winter as inhabitants turn to a variety of fuels to keep warm, but the levels of particulates in the air is higher than even in Beijing. Officials have ordered a crackdown on automobile traffic in the city in an effort to reduce those levels. India needs to take effective action as 13 of the 20 cities on the planet with the highest levels of pollution are in India.
I am going on vacation for two weeks and will only blog sporadically. I will return to daily postings on 17 January.
Many of the current political problems in the Middle East stem from the artificial boundary lines drawn up by the British and French after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I (the British and French actually agreed on the lines in 1916 before the Ottoman Empire collapsed but kept their agreement secret). The contesting parties–Sunni Mulsims, Shia Muslims, Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, to name a few–are fighting over boundaries that divide their own groupings. We don’t know how the final boundaries will be drawn, but one can imagine a Middle East with ethnic and religious boundaries quite different from today’s lines.
One of the groups that has been fighting for many years to be able to draw its own boundaries is the Kurds. There are about 30-32 million Kurds in the world, making them one of the largest nations without a state. They also have expanded the area in Syria under their control considerably during the current fighting. Their success has frightened the Turks, who fear losing some of their territory to an independent Kurdistan. That fear has led to a sharp increase in military attacks on the Kurds in southeastern Turkey and a frightening increase in civilian casualties. It is difficult to see how the conflict in Syria and Iraq will be resolved without some major concessions to the Kurds.
It’s New Year’s Eve!! For your listening pleasure, listen to Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale play “After Midnight” Rock On!
Find the Panda in this Image (I found it in one minute)
Thanks to Matt and Emily
The Economist has issued its global wealth forecast for 2016. It predicts modest global growth of around 2.7%, a rate that is below that necessary to create enough jobs for new workers entering the job market. But the most interesting part of the forecast is the reversal of fortunes between the developed economies and the emerging economies. The emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) have been the growth centers since 2011, but their slowdown in 2015 has been dramatic and shows little sign of reversing course. The US and Europe are slated to do a little better in 2016, but growth rates are hardly robust. Slow growth is always politically dangerous.
Richard Yeselson has written a fascinating essay on the rise of Donald Trump and how the forces that seem to be ignited by his rhetoric mimic the sordid ethno-nationalism that afflicted the US in the 1920s. The rigid ideologies of that period, the romantic illusion of a “white” America, and the irrational fear of immigrants all seem to be replaying in the current political scene in the US. Those passions actually seem to be taking hold all over the world. Economic hard times often lead to such conditions.
In a live-fire exercise, Iran shot off unguided rockets about 1,500 yards away from the US aircraft carrier, USS Harry Truman which was operating in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran had announced its intention to fire the rockets so it was not an attack on the US vessel. But the Strait of Hormuz is only about 20 navigable miles across and the area is bristling with naval vessels from a large number of countries. Such activities simply raise the level of tension in an already dangerous situation.
USS Harry Truman
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The US tax system is impossible to understand. The tax code takes about 2000 pages to articulate and many of those pages are incomprehensible. There is probably no good public policy interest to justify such complexity, but the code reflects a systematic effort to create opportunities for individuals and corporations to reduce their tax obligations. The New York Times has an article in today’s paper that every American should be required to read. The essential argument of the essay? The US has the most biased tax code that money can buy: owners of capital pay a much lower percentage in taxes than do owners of labor.
Do lower taxes lead to higher rates of economic growth?
The evidence doesn’t support that proposition.
After retaking the city of Ramadi, Iraqi forces will turn their attention to the much larger and much more important city of Mosul. That city, however, is contested by both Iraqi Arabs and Iraqi Kurds. The Iraqi army will have to cooperate with Kurdish forces to retake the city, but the Kurds will likely expect greater autonomy in the city and in their parts of Iraq as the price for their support. The Kurds are emerging as the pivotal element in the fight against Daesh (the Islamic State), but they hold weaker cards in the longer game for their own aspirations.
Some are predicting that the North Pole will have temperatures above freezing tomorrow. If that does happen, it will only be the second time in recorded history that above freezing temperatures have occurred in the winter. There is little question that the weather in South Hadley has been very strange this winter. Something weird is definitely going on.
During World War II, as many as 200,000 women and girls were kidnapped from Korea, China, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations and were forced by the Japanese Imperial Army to work as sex slaves. That atrocity has bedeviled Japanese relations with its neighbors throughout the postwar period. Finally, the Japanese government has acknowledged its guilt and promised to pay $8.3 million into a South Korean account to support the surviving 46 South Korean women who were kidnapped. While some of those women have rejected the agreement, South Korea has indicated that it will consider the dispute successfully “resolved” if Japan keeps its word. We will see how others regard the settlement.
The rules governing the treatment of refugees are outlined in the UN’s 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Denmark is questioning two parts of that convention. The first governs the movement of refugees from states that are not at war, and the second questions the right of families to follow refugees granted asylum. Reopening the convention to changes would likely allow other changes to be entertained and would also likely take an extended period of time. But the simple fact that the convention is being questioned is an index of how troubling the refugee issue has become to some of the European states.
Last May, US Special Operations Forces conducted a raid in Syria that killed Daesh (Islamic State) financial official, Abu Sayyaf. In that raid, thousands of documents were taken. These documents allegedly outline a very sophisticated bureaucracy governing everything from the handling of oil revenues to the treatment of slaves. Taken altogether, the documents belie the idea of a ragtag, ideologically driven jihadist group. Rather, they suggest officials with long careers in government bureaucracy such as the careers of former Baathist officials in the former Saddam Hussein regime. One should be aware that Daesh is comprised of many people that wish to restore a Hussein-like, Sunni-rule over Iraq and Syria.
World Politics News 