What’s on the Horizon?

Hey, gang. Sorry for being silent for so long. I’ve had much more on my plate recently than I expected to have. Luckily I’m snowed in today, so I don’t have many excuses not to write. Here’s my list of possible surprises that could be among the headlines in 2009, in no particular order:

1. The Defeat of Ahmadinejad – Yes, he may actually lose this June’s presidential election. He’s been targeted for much of the blame behind Iran’s economic woes. Plus, most of the populace isn’t nearly as anti-American as he is, and they’re concerned that his antics could seriously damage Iran’s future prospects. However, while there are several candidates who could plausibly beat Ahmadinejad, including reformer Mehdi Karroubi and former president Mohammad Khatami, opposition is not much united. Also, Ahmadinejad enjoys the support of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei – at least for the time being.

2. Progress Toward Peace in Israel and Palestine – Don’t fall off your chairs, now. I know this sounds unlikely, given the recent escalation of violence in Gaza. But 2009 has only just begun. Israel will not stop wanting to get rid of Hamas anytime soon (nor will they stop having good reason to do so), but elections in both Israel and the Palestinian Authority could relax tension if moderates gain ground (Tzipi Livni’s Kadima in Israel and Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah in Palestine). Plus, sources keep hinting at a possible Israel-Syria peace treaty; this would be pretty Earth-shattering, given the historical animosity between the two, and the fact that it could change the balance of the region, given that Syria would be stretching its ties with ally Iran.

3. A Minor Meltdown in China – Most people have been touting China’s economic strength recently, and rightly so. However, with GDP growth rates possibly falling below the “magic number” 7% mark this fiscal year, unrest could grow, particularly among already struggling farmers. Also, soaring loan default rates, partially due to loans to failing state-owned enterprises, could cause China’s financial system to collapse. This would put a strain on a Communist Party already stressed by devolution of power to the provinces and minority groups. This may be a trying year for them.

4. The “American Century” Continues – Some claim that America’s time at the top has come to a close, and the vasty majority of foreign policy thinkers believe America will at least lose relative power. While it would be naive to think that the United States must always be the lone superpower it has been since the fall of the Soviet Union, a potential downfall may not be near in the offing. Though the doom-sayers have proclaimed a coming Great Depression, many economists believe 2009 could in fact see a recovery in the U.S. economy, aided by current government fiscal policy. Many of America’s competitors, however, could falter. China may be entering rough waters (see above). The Middle East is coming to grips with a plunge in oil prices and a resumption of violence in Palestine. Russia’s economy is plagued with potential pitfalls and its government is moving back towards repression and isolation from the rest of Europe, which is struggling just to ratify an EU constitution.

5. Readers’ Choice – Do you foresee any big suprises that I missed? Disagree with any that I mentioned? Comment, and tell me what your list would look like.

Until next time!

Peace Collapses in Gaza

The wake of Christmas has not brought much cheer to the Middle East, or the incoming Obama administration, as Israel responded to Hamas’ uptick in rocket attacks with devastating air strikes of its own in Gaza and prepared for a potential ground invasion. Hundreds have been killed and wounded and the shaky cease-fire between the two sides has come to an abrupt end. This recent violence complicates an already muddled situation; both Israel and the Palestinian Authority are due for elections in the coming months which will determine their leadership. In Israel, the moderate Kadima Party led by Tzipi Livni is facing renewed challenges from the right-leaning Likud Party led by Benjamin Netanyahu. If the hardline Likud, who have been less likely to cede land to the Palestinians and have been less open to a partition of Jerusalem, regain leadership, prospects for peace could be stalled. In Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas must call an election early next year or risk creating a leadership vacuum which could be capitalized on by Hamas.

The Arab world has, unsurprisingly, roundly condemned the Israeli attacks. It’s no secret that there has been no love lost between Arabs and Jews since the creation of Israel in 1948. However, recent denunciations could have a more lasting impact. Syria’s rebuke places in doubt a much hoped-for agreement between Syria and Israel, which would have dramatically shifted power in the region away from Iran and its Hezbollah puppets in Syria. Instead, leaders of Hezbollah have now begun to call for a third intifada, or rebellion, against Israel, which would likely mean a resumption of suicide bombings for the first time since 2005.

The recent violence only cements the fact that 2009 could be a make or break year for the Middle East peace process. There have been promising signs in the region recently: the potential Syria-Israel agreement that I mentioned, willingness on the part of Saudi Arabia to take a lead in negotiations, and unrest that could topple Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a stumbling block to regional security in his own right, in his 2009 presidential election. It’s distressing to think that instead 2009 could see a total reversal. The incoming administration will have yet another tough balancing act to manage. Obama will need to restore faith in the 1994 Oslo Accords, in which  both sides affirmed the need for a Palestinian state and Arab recognition of Israel, and deal with the questions of partitioning Jerusalem and how to resettle Palestinian refugees.

Sorry to be the bearer of gloomy predictions and rain on your jolly holiday parade. To make it up to you, I’m going to come up with a list of possible successes on the political horizon in 2009. Keep a lookout for that post in the next couple days.

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Obama’s Foreign Policy Christmas List

Barack Obama will likely be mentioning his upcoming foreign policy quandaries when he sits on Santa’s lap at the mall this year (how much would you love to see that picture?). Here, I take a look at some of the top issues that he’ll ask for help in solving:

1. Afghanistan – The war here is not going well. Fueled by the immense corruption of Hamid Karzai’s government, the illegal opium trade (which supplies 90% of the world’s opium) is inadvertently enriching former Taliban fighters. Osama bin Laden has long since fled into Pakistan, and the NATO force has been left a historically disunited country led by tribal warlords. Additionally, individual NATO countries on the ground have had widely different approaches to the situation, which could throw off the balance in certain key areas. Afghanistan has become, in short, a mess, and it will be up to the Obama administration to sort it out to prevent the country from once again becoming a haven for those who threaten world security.

2. Iran – A nuclear Iran is on no one’s wish list this Christmas. I’m hopeful that the recent plummet in the price of oil, which will significantly restrict Ahmedinejad’s spending, will convince the regime in Tehran to take seriously the carrots and sticks offered by the new administration. Worrisome, however, is what may happen if they don’t. Many in the Arab world say they would be “perfectly fine” with either a diplomatic or military solution. Ironically, most Arab countries, despite their varying discomfort with Israel, would rather Israel take out Iran’s nuclear capacity with their own nukes because they trust Israel to not use their nuclear weapons. On the other hand, they believe that a nuclear Iran would attempt to become a regional military hegemon at their expense.

3. Pakistan -  A nuclear-armed state with a teetering government is always a recipe for disaster. One whose state organs sponsor terrorist groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba group that is believed to have carried out the Mumbai attacks last month is even worse. Pakistan’s oppressive government with its lukewarm commitment to rooting out al Qaeda members within its borders has always been a delicate issue for the U.S. government. Likely, President-elect Obama will have to make tough decisions early in his presidency about the extent to which American forces will raid into Pakistan to fight jihadists there and the question of how best to encourage Pakistan’s government to reform without causing it to fall.

4. Iraq – A new Status of Forces Agreement signed by the U.S. and Iraq in the last week ensures that the U.S. military will vacate the country by the end of 2011. This seems to alleviate one of the new president’s first problems (what to do about Iraq?) but it means that the U.S. must be vigilant to prevent a loss of the remarkable, and delicate, stability which has come to Iraq in the last year or so.

5. Africa – Africa is a continent of both great hopes and great fears. Sub-Saharan Africa seems poised on the verge of increased foreign investment and attention. But the new administration will have to deal with quite a few problems. It’s difficult to choose the most pressing, so I’ll outline them in no particular order:

1. Zimbabwe – Robert Mugabe has ravaged his country in the last 25 years. At present, inflation stands at a mind-blowing 230 million percent and unemployment is nearing 90%. And as if matters couldn’t get worse, the government last week announced a national emergency due to a cholera epidemic. With most hospitals crippled already, it will be almost impossible to deal with this threat. Mugabe lost out on billions in desperately-needed aid from the U.S. and the U.K. by not giving the opposition party even one major cabinet post. He’s a madman who must go.
2. Darfur – With countless millions killed or displaced due to one of the world’s worst genocides and a president who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, Sudan is a mess as well. The joint UN-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) has been shaky at best. The new administration must put significant pressure on the international community to step in, and must make the AU realize that if they cannot deal with Darfur on their own, the UN must take a larger role.
3. Congo – The numbers reached by the crisis in the Congo rival those of Darfur. Perhaps 4 million have been killed or displaced by fighting between the government and the forces of rebel Laurent Nkunda. The Congolese military, along with MONUC, the UN Mission in the Congo, have held the eastern city of Goma from falling, but the situation remains perilous, with Nkunda threatening to march all the way to Kinshasa to take the capital.
4. Somalia – Called by the Economist “The World’s Most Utterly Failed State,” Somalia hasn’t had a central government in over 15 years. With no way to police its own waters, this political chaos has led to a spree of piracy that severely threatens international shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden.
5. Runners up – Chad (massive spillover from Darfur), Egypt (government more and more repressive and unable to deal with problems), Nigeria (major oil pipelines threatened by rebels) and Uganda (Lord’s Resistance Army fighting in the north).

Runner Up – The new wild card on the foreign policy front is Russia. While it’s unlikely the former superpower wields as much power as it thinks it does, Russia can upset the politics of Europe and international bodies if it chooses. And it’s certainly shown a willingness to interfere in the largely domestic issues of its neighbors (and former SSRs). And of course, there’s Vladimir Putin, working to bring back the state control of the former USSR. I’m not as concerned as some are that he’ll succeed and that Russia will regain the focus it had during the Cold War, but it will be crucial for the new administration to warm relations with Russia through finding common ground with Russia on issues such as a nuclear Iran.

That was a far longer post than I first envisioned but I think it only touches on some of President-elect Obama’s biggest foreign policy threats. I haven’t even talked about North Korea, the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, China, or India, after all. I’ll save those for next time. Until then, stay tuned!

Happy Thanksgiving!

All of us here at The Empire of the Mind would like to wish you and your loved ones a joyous, healthy, and peaceful Thanksgiving, full of friendship, cheer, and plentiful reminders of all the many reasons we all have to be thankful on this day and throughout the year.

On a sadder note, Empire sends best wishes to anyone involved in the terror attacks yesterday in Mumbai, India. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected and their families.

Livni on a Prayer and Trouble in Yemen

Sorry for the prolonged silence. Not being an economist, I’ve chosen to not stick my foot in my mouth by attempting to comment on the many woes of the U.S. financial system. Rather, I’d like to draw your attention to two stories out of the Middle East today.

First, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has won the centrist Kadima Party’s leadership. replacing lame duck Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. It looks like Livni could soon succeed Mr. Olmert to become the country’s first female premier since Golda Meir 34 years ago. Livni now has six weeks to form a governing coalition or a national election must be called. Livni, a relative newcomer to politics, has had a major role in peace negotiations in the last year; Olmert has been more or less useless, with multiple corruption cases against him and approval ratings often in the low single digits. A Livni leadership would likely continue Ariel Sharon’s stance on negotiations, meaning a willingness to cede land if it will lead to a settlement. Livni might also leave open the possibility of partitioning Jerusalem. Success in Israeli-Palestinian dialogue also hinges on Palestinian leadership; Mahmoud Abbas must call a presidential election by early 2009 or risk a leadership vaccuum. In any case, there probably will not be much progress in the peace process until next year, much to the chagrin of the Bush Administration, which had hoped to be able to show some achievements before leaving office.

Also, in case we’ve allowed terrorism to fall under the radar, 16 people were killed when a group of heavily armed members of Islamic Jihad began firing rocket-propelled grenades into the U.S. Embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, and drove two vehicles containing bombs into the front gates. None of the casualities were Americans, and the American press has largely buried the story under the troubles in the financial markets, but the attack must serve as a wake-up call. Though the group that perpetrated the attack was small and seems to have only loose links to al Qaeda, the U.S. government must continue to put pressure on governments in the Middle East and North Africa to squash these groups before they recruit more followers. Yemen has largely done a good job so far, and with American support, but getting distracted may cause backsliding. To add to this recent attack, worries have been building that militant Islamist groups have been growing in North Africa, particularly Algeria. These groups have begun to move through the ill-guarded borders of Mali and Mauritania as well, and have committed acts against Westerners while conducting widespread recruiting of fighters for Iraq. Algeria, Mauritania, Mali, and Niger should follow the lead set by Morocco and Tunisia in tightening security and stepping up intelligence operations to prevent these groups from gaining strength, with the support of the U.S. government. On the bright side, none of the groups mentioned above seems yet to be well-organized or well-connected to al Qaeda. However, preparedness is key to preventing, or at least minimizing, the success of militant Islamism.

The Olympics in Beijing: Triumph or Travesty?

Now that the curtain has fallen on the 29th Olympiad, let’s take a look at this historic Olympic Games and the effect it has had on China.

No Olympics since the Moscow Games of 1980 have aroused such controversy (that was also the last Olympics hosted by a totalitarian state). Demonstrations by pro-Tibet groups, the Falun Gong, and promoters of human rights marked the lead-up to the Games. There was, however, little show of dissent during the actual course of the Olympics, largely because most opposition groups were placed safely behind bars or in labor camps and away from the public eye. China managed to minimize the pollution issue, although the first few days of the Olympics in particular made obvious the serious air quality problems in the capital. The Opening and Closing Ceremonies were huge, phenomenally expensive extravaganzas, showcasing China’s wealth and somewhat eerie lock-step unity. So what to make of IOC President Jacques Rogge’s comment that these Olympics allowed the world to learn about China and vice versa?

Despite the overall success of the Games, the world was exposed to many new facets of China’s growth. News stories before and during the Olympics dealt as much with human rights and pollution in the country as with China’s economic success. Those paying attention to the saga came to realize how little China has changed;  stories abounded of journalists being hassled, completely empty protest zones, and tales of those sent to prison camps for applying for protest permits. Taken together, all of the press about China’s human rights abuses, pollution, and other problems should have a somewhat sobering effect on the West. China will be slow to change unless it is forced to do so; experiments with capitalism came about largely due to the necessity of fixing the country’s widespread poverty. Overall, the confidence that these Olympics bring to China may prove a double-edged sword: China may now enhance its cooperation and trust in the international system, but may also be persuaded against the need for reform in the face of such success.

Putin’s Georgia State of Mind

Well, we’re about a week into the conflict in South Ossetia, so it’s time for a look back on what we’ve learned.

1. The relatively unknown Republic of Georgia has a truly intriguing leader. Mikheil Saakashvili has been called by some an idiot for his actions leading up to the conflict, and by some a political genius. Those who degrade him blame him for stupidly provoking Russia into military action; those who exalt him acknowledge that he didn’t exactly encourage Russia to stay out, but that he has been using the attack to his advantage, playing Russia against the West in an intricate game of political puppetry. The Columbia grad has been called both a brilliant politician who has moved Georgia forward and an autocratic leader who has repressed his people’s rights in many areas.

2. The United States needs to rethink its attitudes towards Russia. The Bush-Clinton-Bush doctrine of tossing a friendly arm around the leader in the Kremlin may need some tweaking. Russia does not seem to be going along the path of democratization and liberalization that many expected. The U.S. must acknowledge that it may have to take a tougher line against Russia in the future.

3. Those who thought Vladimir Putin was in any way relinquishing power by allowing Dmitri Medvedev to become president were dead wrong. The autocratic-leaning Putin is very much the man in control, his puppet of a premier merely putting on the stage show by publicly agreeing to a “cease-fire.”

4. Russia will not let international agreements get in the way of quashing neighborhood dissent and supporting Pan-Slavism. Putin has treated the aforementioned cease-fire as a mere technicality which he is free to abide by when it’s convenient for him to do so. He has no respect for the Georgia’s territorial sovereignty, as his foreign minister bluntly put it to the press. Putin’s clear message: any neighbors, such as the Ukraine, looking to democratize, better think twice.

Only time will tell the long-term impact of the Georgia conflict. The next presidential administration must tackle the issue of relations with Russia immediately upon taking office, sending a clear message to Russia that infringing in the rights of weaker neighbors cannot be tolerated by the international community. Charles Krauthammer’s idea of booting Russia from the G8 may actually do more harm than good. Isolating Russia completely might just provoke Putin and future leaders to get along without the West and become closer allies with China. The West must exchange the hand of humanitarian assistance and business partnership to increase trust, but must also make it clear to Russia that the West will intervene with sanctions and other actions as necessary if Russia tries to bully its neighbors (much of this applies to China as well).

In other news…

VP fever has not subsided in the last few days. Though the innermost players in the Veepstakes aren’t talking, among those who are talking the momentum clearly appears to favor Joe Biden on the Democratic side and Tom Ridge on the Republican side. Now that Barack Obama has completed his family vacation, Empire expects his announcement early next week to boost his stagnant poll numbers, while McCain will, it seems, hold out for a while before making his decision (or at least making it public).

From Capitol Hill – Government Shutdown and Stevens Meltdown

The Capitol is a-buzz with speculation on whether the government will shut down after September 30. The GOP can bring this about, and may do so to force the Democrats to bring domestic drilling to a floor vote in one or both houses. Empire is unsure whether the Republicans will go this far; I do note that the public seems to be very much in favor of drilling in the short term, and this has been a winning proposal for the GOP. If gas prices stay high and public sympathy for drilling gains momentum, they may play in fact play the shutdown card, gamble though it would be (they may not have much to lose in a year so unfavorable to Republicans).

In other news…

In what’s been called an “earthquake in Alaska politics,” long-time Senator Ted Stevens of the 49th state was indicted today on seven counts of providing false information about gifts he received. This puts another Republican seat in peril, as Stevens was already slightly trailing his Democratic rival. If the former Senate President Pro-Temp were to lose, it would also be a huge morale-killer for the GOP, much like then-Minority Leader Tom Daschle’s loss in ‘04 for the Dems.

Also…

Ehud Olmert is on his way out as Israeli PM. Is anyone surprised? The only shocker is that he held on for so long despite abysmal approval ratings and personal scandals. Hopefully, credibility will be restored and the peace process invigorated by the selection of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni or Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, the leading candidates to replace Olmert when Kadima leadership elections are held on September 17.