Syria is conducting a referendum today, signaling its disregard for the protests and violence that have been going on for so long. The last referendum in 2007 gave Assad 98% of the vote, so its not hard to predict what the outcome of this vote will be. The world still remains inert, although there are an increasing number of discussions and proposals being floated. Syria still receives support from Russia, China, and Iran so the Assad government can probably hold on for quite some time.
An article in Al Arabiya about the Greek debt crisis. This particular point of view is very common in the world, but it is rarely articulated in the Western press. Note that an article in the Toronto Star can be just as damning about how devastating the bailout terms have been, but doesn’t go to the next step of suggesting that the reason for all this pain is to bail out the banks, not the Greeks.
Pushback by the elements in the US who do not wish to see an attack on Iran: an article in the New York Times articulating the view that some important intelligence agencies do not believe thats Iran has made a decision to build a nuclear bomb. Articles such as these represent a propoaganda war within the US domestic political arena since they are obviously timed to be released right after the International Atomic Energy Agency released a report that Iran has accelerated its production of enriched uranium.
Paul Krugman offers some interesting graphs on the european debt crisis, testing three hypotheses on why the crisis occurred: 1) excessive social welfare spending; 2) excessive budget deficits; and 3) export competitiveness. The results tend to support explanation #3 which suggests that it is the reliance on the euro itself that is the underlying cause of the crisis. The graphics are quite persuasive, but be careful of drawing such sweeping conclusions from single data points.
The Greek debt situation is rapidly descending into the absurd. Germany has offered to send some of its tax collectors to Greece to help the Greeks run a more efficient collection system One can hardly think of a more insulting offer and the Greeks will certainly feel less obliged to worry about the financial safety of the German banks who are holding Greek bonds. To make matters worse, the German Interior Minister has suggested that Greece would be better off if it left the eurozone. I am certain we will enjoy a strong Greek reaction to these comments.
The Economist periodically runs online debates on topics of great public interest. These debates are patterned after traditional Parliamentary Debates and the motion discussed this week is: “This house believes that military intervention in Syria would do more harm than good.” There are essays supporting and opposing the motion and a vigorous online debate. I won’t ask any questions about this post in the American foreign policy class quiz next week, but I highly recommend the posting for those who wish to be better informed about the options available to the world in the face of this tragedy.
The Greeks have passed a law to restructure its debt, imposing losses on private bondholders. Private investors will now have to decide whether to accept these losses (perhaps as much as 75%). These debts need to be resolved by 20 March, so there will be a high degree of posturing and brinksmanship among the bondholders. It will be an interesting week, but most of the gory details will be carried out in secret. We will be reading tea leaves for a while.
More information on the role of domestic politics in the US on the question of military action against Iran. In this case, an interesting article in Foreign Policy on how to interpret the public opinion polls in the United States on the question of whether the US should attack Iran.
The inability of the world to respond effectively to the tragedy in Syria begs an explanation. The explanation is rooted in the disagreements among the states with the power to mount an effective intervention, as well as the difficulties in determining what internal forces in Syria to support. This article from Reuters gives a good summary of these cleavages. It is not an optimistic read.
Tensions are building in Senegal as the Presidential election nears. Anger toward President Wade is rising as he seeks a third term, which most Senegalese regard as unconstitutional. The likelihood of violence appears to be very great right now, an extremely unfortunate turn for a once peaceful society.
We do not know very much about the decision-making process within the Obama Administration on the issue of the Iranian nuclear program. Quite clearly, the Administration is working hard to tighten sanctions in order to induce the Iranians to change their program. But we know very little about President Obama’s back-up plan. The rhetoric is that “everything” is on the table which includes a military strike. But that rhetoric could simply be a bargaining ploy. There is a constituency in the United States, however, that believes that a military attack is necessary and that constituency is applying pressure though Congress to force the Administration’s hand. This political pressure will intensify in the next two weeks before Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu visits Washington in early March. The decibel level of the rhetoric is certain to go up dramatically. To complicate matters even further, the Russians have issued a strong warning to Israel against a military strike on Iran.
The news reports out of Syria are tragic beyond measure. It appears as if the Syrian military is now shelling civilian areas indiscriminately without any pretense of a military objective. These are war crimes and the world still seems unable to mobilize itself. One wonders how the Russians and the Chinese will justify their obstruction when all the evidence comes out, as it inevitably will.
If you are interested in listening to some of the music coming out of the Egyptian revolution, you can check out this site at the Middle East Media Research Institute:
There is an interesting article in the New York Times today on the Iranian nuclear weapons crisis. It doesn’t really report anything new, but it is a very oblique critique of the way the media has handled information about the crisis. It deliberately compares the run-up to the Iraq war to the news flow about a possible war with Iran. The article suggests that the Times took seriously the criticism it received about its coverage prior to the Iraq war and is aware that it has already committed some of the same mistakes in its coverage of Iran. Such self-awareness is rare in the American media. Whether it makes a long run difference remains to be seen. Let’s hope so.
Additionally, the Israelis could attack from the Persian Gulf with submarines. But the flight paths raise all sorts of questions about the willingness of Turkey, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia to allow overflights of their territory.
The BBC is reporting that the Chinese government pays more for internal security than it does for national defense. If true, the allocation of resources is truly extraordinary–it suggests that the Chinese regard its own citizens as a more serious security threat than other nations. One should, however, be suspicious of budget information–often official reports are heavily distorted for a variety of reasons.
The quiz on 22 February will be on the following readings: Ambrose & Brinkley, Chapters 1-3, Tassava, and Fussell. It will also be on the blog postings from 16-20 February 2012.
One of the long-term effects of globalization is to induce a convergence of wages and working conditions (at least theoretically). For high wage countries, this means wages will go down, and this has certainly been the case since the 1970s. For low wage countries, wages should rise, but this effect has not been as apparent. Now, however, it appears as if this effect is beginning to take hold. One of the largest suppliers for Apple products, Foxconn, a Taiwanese company that operates in China, has been plagued by worker protests and suicides because of working conditions. It has responded to these problems, largely because of protests in the developed world, by finally raising wages.
We tend to look at the Israeli-Iranian conflict through the lenses of the United States, but we all need to remember that there are a very large number of alternative perspectives on the conflict. There is a fascinating column in the Times of India which does an excellent job of looking at the conflict from the perspective of India–a perspective that fleshes out many of the dimensions of the conflict that we tend to ignore.
The Chinese government continues to tighten its control over dissent about conditions in Tibet. Governmental concern can often be measured by how wide the net of control is extended. The arrest of so many Tibetans returning from a meeting with the Dalai Lama suggests that the Chinese government believes that the recent protests are being choreographed from abroad. Such suspicions often continue to deepen and broaden into a very wide network. We should monitor Chinese actions further afield from Tibet and the Sichuan province.
The chess game between Iran and the rest of the world has become a little more complex as Iran has signaled a willingness to re-enter talks with the US and the EU on nuclear issues. Re-opening the talks constrains those who wish to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities (it is politically impossible to launch such a strike if one side has expressed a willingness to negotiate. One should remember, however, that the Japanese were negotiating with the United States during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941). The Netanyahu government and those within it who support a pre-emptive strike are clearly flummoxed by the move. We should anticipate a revived effort to portray the Iranians as unreliable. In the meantime, Iran has sent a destroyer through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean. There are far too many balls in the air right now–let’s hope that everyone is an expert juggler.
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