Forget all the arguments about Iraq, we are told. In the UK, we have had two seperate inquiries (Hutton and Butler), British Prime Minister Tony Blair won't apologize for misleading the public and parliament, and it is time to move on. \nBut how can we possibly move on? \nThe invasion of Iraq has cost the lives of more than 1,000 American and more than 60 British soldiers. Put on one side the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction and the fact that former president Saddam Hussein's Iraq posed less of a threat to its neighbors -- let alone the West -- last year than when Western governments were supplying his regime with WMD precursors right up to the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. \nFor Blair, as well as US President George W. Bush and his neocons, an invasion of Iraq would topple a vicious dictator, help the "war on terror" by preventing nasty weapons getting into the hands of al-Qaeda sympathizers and promote democracy in the Middle East and neighboring central Asia. \nWe have just witnessed the latest manifestation of the so-called war on terror in the Caucasus. Further east, across the oil-rich Caspian, lies Uzbekistan, where the US turns a blind eye to serious human rights abuses in return for military bases for the same war on terror. They were initially used to attack the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, where elections are due next month -- an event the US has done little to prepare for, wary of upsetting warlords, while leaving responsibility for security to its European NATO allies, which are unwilling or unable to provide. \nIn Iraq -- described with out irony by the Bush administration as the new "frontline" in the war on terror -- the US has installed a government of placemen. As the Iraq expert Toby Dodge observes in Survival, the International Institute for Strategic Studies journal, it has "a high proportion of formerly exiled politicians in the cabinet and a prime minister closely associated with the intelligence arms of both the British and American governments." \nThe insurgency, he writes, is a home-grown phenomenon, springing from the political and security failures of the occupation. Foreign troops, he suggests, will be needed "for many years to come if anarchy is to be avoided". Dodge adds pointedly: "In the 1920s and 1930s, the hegemonic power seeking to recreate Iraq was Britain. The 1920 revolt made the occupation extremely unpopular with the British people and led to a change in government in London. The result was that state-building in Iraq was sacrificed at the altar of British domestic politics." \nBlair insists his government will not walk away from countries it has helped occupy. The bigger question is how he will achieve his stated objectives of promoting democracy and human rights in the Middle East (as well as the road map to a peace deal between Israel and Palestine), fighting poverty, and giving a much-needed boost to a UN-focused internationalism. All this would help, much more than military occupation, in the fight against terrorism. \nIn a telling comment last week, Mai Yamani, of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, described the annual get-together at Oxford University of the Project for Democracy Studies in Arab Countries. The participants, she wrote in the International Herald Tribune, represented the "lost resources of an Arab world that is fast becoming isolated by illiteracy, ignorance, and repression." \nA new generation "denied the opportunity to participate in a range of democratic institutions or other vehicles for public self-expression, is finding more dangerous outlets for its passions." \nYamani quoted a Saudi researcher at an English university as remarking: "It's easier for a young Arab to blow himself up than sweep outside his house. He doesn't feel he belongs to anything." \nIt is hard not to conclude that one of the greatest obstacles to the kind of better world Blair says he wants -- one with less cause for terrorism, even if terrorists will always be around -- is the Bush administration, and notably the likes of Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. They have consistently dismissed British interests and embarrassed a prime minister who has attached himself so closely to the president with such little reward. \nWhat did Blair think when delegates at the Republican convention booed speakers who mentioned the UN? How much longer can Blair, or his ministers, accept to be led by a US administration that denigrates everything they say they stand for? \nAsked at his press conference on Sept. 8 whether the war on terror can be won, Blair replied: "We can win it and I believe ultimately we will win it. But it is going to require emphasis not only on security, but tackling other issues as well." \nThere is absolutely no sign he is succeeding in tackling them, not least because his closest ally, the US president, is simply not interested.
No matter what indicator you use, Russian President Vladimir Putin is winning in the energy markets. Moscow is milking its oil cash cow, earning hundreds of millions of US dollars every day to bankroll the invasion of Ukraine and buy domestic support for the war. Once European sanctions against Russian crude exports kick in from November, the region’s governments will face some tough choices as the energy crisis starts to bite consumers and companies. Electricity costs for homes and businesses are set to soar from October, as the surge in oil income allows Putin to sacrifice gas revenue and squeeze supplies to
In an August 12 Wall Street Journal report, Chinese sources contend that in their July 28 phone call, United States President Joe Biden was told by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) that “he had no intention of going to war with the US” over House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s then upcoming visit to Taiwan. However, there should be global alarm that Xi did use that visit to begin the CCP’s active war against democracy in Taiwan and globally, and that the Biden Administration’s response has been insufficient. To hear CCP officials, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) spokesmen, and a
Much of the foreign policy conversation in the US over the past two weeks has centered on whether US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi ought to have visited Taiwan. Her backers pointed out that there was precedent for such a visit — a previous House speaker and US Cabinet members had visited Taiwan — and that it is important for officials to underscore the US’ commitment to Taiwan in the face of increasing Chinese pressure. Critics argued that the trip was ill-timed, because Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) would likely feel a need to respond, lest he appear weak
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has restarted military maneuvers around Taiwan in response to the visit of a delegation of US lawmakers led by US Senator Ed Markey, who arrived in Taiwan on Sunday. Having failed to intimidate Taiwanese with its response to US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit earlier this month, Beijing is having another go at it. On Sunday, the PLA deployed 22 warplanes and six warships in areas around Taiwan, with 10 aircraft crossing the Taiwan Strait median line to coincide with the delegation’s arrival. Monday saw a slight increase in aircraft sorties, with the
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