A Storm May Be Gathering in the East

Hello Papamoka Bloggers! Michael Jackson's death - may he rest in peace - came at a fascinating and highly uncertain time geopolitically, distracting us from a darkening political storm in the Middle East.

I'm talking about the clear rejection of religious fundamentalism in Iran - despite the government coup, which I will ignore to make a point. When you combine it with the anti-fundamentalist victory in Lebanon a few weeks ago, the two are very significant. Sadly, they may also represent bad news. Why? I have a theory.

President Obama's speech in Cairo went a long way to encourage moderates in both Lebanon and Iran to get off their backsides and vote against the mullahs. Of course, the Iranian government helped by giving it's electorate every indication their votes would count. They even held a few debates. Amazing, what were they thinking?

Those victories prove to many Middle East experts that people want more freedom, and that things may start to change even more - if Egypt begins to fracture, watch out. The problem is that whenever moderates stand up to extremists all kinds of bad things can happen, such as in Iran. Change that spins out of control can be disasterous, such as when the entrenched leadership begins to feel threatened. The way they are feeling today in Iran, and possibly even Eqypt.

Don't get me wrong, I realize the status quo doesn't work, and we all loved it when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, but it's clear the Middle East is a powder keg and once ignited it could lead to worldwide conflict. One very dark sign is the growing Iranian-Russian-Chinese alliance - in various forms. Another is the possibility of a fundamentalist crack-down across the Middle East, igniting chaos. I'm convinced that's why more leaders aren't speaking-out. Nobody wants to be responsible for open conflict and mass murder.

Bush was the beginning. He lit the Middle East fuse with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - two places ill-equipped to handle Western democracy and the freedoms that come with it. Nevertheless, his actions started the pieces moving across the board. Sadly, despite his potential for domestic success, Obama's legacy will most likely be seen through the same presidential prism of the Middle East. Did he control events in the Middle East after Bush, or did he allow them to spin out-of-control?

You see, there is one very hard-to-predict variable. He is the very hard-headed, right-wing Benjamin Netanyahu. I would like to think that he's a Nixon-China kind of guy, but my gut tells me he's more from the Bush-Iraq school. If I were to see the glass-as-half-empty, I would guess he's the George W II. That to me is a terrifying prospect.

He's already ignoring the significance of the Iranian-Russian-Chinese alliance (a typical neo-con), as well as Obama's request to control settlement construction and focus on the Road Map. Instead, he seems to be taking his marching orders from the Republicans and the far-right in America.

Personally, I think he's in bed with the Bush-Cheney branch of the GOP, who are all pushing Israel to bomb Iran before it has the chance to threaten the existence of Israel - no matter what Obama says about it.

If Israel bombs Iran, then President Obama and the Democrats will lose their entire agenda - both domestic and international. The Republicans would use the conflict to divide, conquer, win votes and take back power. Right or wrong, as usual they would maneuver to benefit from the chaos. Poor Obama would be forced to spend his time and energy cleaning-up another conflict created by an irresponsible, paranoid and pernicious far-right.

Of course, the scariest outcome is that America could be dragged into a regional or world conflict. One clear sign of chaos would be a potential threat to President Mubarak in Egypt. Don't scoff at the possibility. It may even be secretly supported by Russia and China; the two powers who would love to see America's primary African ally on the Nile fall to extremists - at least the kind they could do business with.

Despite all my hope for Obama and my glass-is-half-full mentality, I'm terrified of the uncompromising and paranoid extremists embodied by the neo-con Republicans, Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad. President Obama and Secretary Clinton must pull off a diplomatic miracle soon to make sure the international far-right doesn't get another war.

Netanyahu must be made to tow the line. Ahmadinejad must be undermined to prevent Israel from using him as an excuse. Obama must lead and control events in the Middle East to prevent more conflict.

I also think Obama needs to act quickly to fire most of the Bushies still in government - especially those within the DOD, STATE and INTELLIGENCE. He should not trust them. They represent a possible shadow government operating within his own Administration. Unless he acts quickly to make sure that he has full control, anything is possible. This is something that has been worrying me since he took office.

It's clear that President Obama is a change agent. Now we need to make sure the change is the right change. There are hot spots throughout history involving change - think the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Kristallnacht and 9/11, and I think we may be witnessing another one about to hit - for good or bad.

Let's hope that while most Americans are spending this weekend mourning the death of the King of Pop, a potential Earth-shattering clash isn't brewing in the Middle East between East and West. Let's hope that President Obama can control the international far-right agenda led by the GOP and Netanyahu, and that angry religious fundamentalists don't light the world on fire.

Michael Boh
Papamoka's Left Coast Contributor
from Our Rants & Raves Blog

Another Lurch In the Global War On Diplomacy

Picture Courtesy of The White House

This post Stolen from Michael Linn Jones...

President George W. Bush is in Europe. And, he’s smiling. Why not? He’s not in the United States where his policies and actions have rendered him a rolling-up of the welcome mat in many places.

So, off to Europe for eight days of lecturing a number of nations in the fashion that he has become accustomed to back home. Like 70% of Americans, many around the globe just don’t get it. So President Bush is going to give another series of Jackson Square speeches that are, in the parlance of his native state, all hat and no cattle.

In trying to determine what President Bush’s strong points are, I find it best to use the process of elimination. It’s a long list, but mastery of the English language is not one. The ability to receive (let alone accept) contrary advice or opinions is another. Now I have to add diplomacy. Whatever is at stake is not going to be helped by this trip.

Jennifer Loven of AP has an article, BUSH: RUSSIANS HAVE DERAILED REFORMS .

Russian President Vladmir Putin has been in need of a lecture, and George W. Bush is just the man to deliver it.

“In Russia, reforms that once promised to empower citizens have been derailed, with troubling implications for democratic development,” Bush said, speaking at a conference of current and former dissidents.

The president asserted that this discussion of democratic backsliding in Russia under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin was just one part of a strong relationship. “America can maintain a friendship and push a nation toward democracy at the same time,” Bush said.

But the lecture, however gentle, was not likely to be well-received by Putin, already riled over what he sees as unwelcome meddling by the United States in Russia’s sphere of influence.
Most recently, Moscow has become increasingly irritated by U.S. plans to build a missile shield in Eastern Europe, on Russia’s doorstep.

U.S. officials have been alarmed by threatening statements from Putin and others over the proposed network. Russia believes the system — with a radar base to be sited in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in neighboring Poland — is meant for it. Putin has said he has no choice but to boost his nation’s own military potential in response.

President Putin may be a ruthless scoundrel. Then, he may not. He doesn’t appear to be a big proponent of democracy, and that is putting it mildly. But, to be fair, how would we react if the Russians established a “missile defense shield” in Cuba or Mexico, and reassured us that it was aimed at say, Bermuda instead of us?

Our president is telling the Russians that this shield is aimed at rogue states, such as Iran. He is also saying the Cold War is over. These type of statements might be addressed diplomatically. But what is regional or world stability compared to a good photo op?

There is a smell of Karl Rove to this; appropriate being that Rove is Bush’s Rasputin. There are, however, no more elections to be won. Only peace and stability and that is something that can be influenced diplomatically, but never by declarations.

Lecturing the leader of a nation like Russia is never a good idea, even in private. Doing so publicly is asking for trouble.

And I think it’s self evident that President Bush has already bitten off enough for other people to chew.

Great article Mike!!!

Papamoka

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Russian First Elected President Boris Yeltsin has Died

Picture Courtesy of the Washington Post

Personally, I am not a favorite advocate for Boris Yeltsin as a man or as the first freely elected President of Russia. I am however appreciative of what he brought to his people and that is freedom. The price of that freedom from the oppression of the communist regime since the days of Stalin came with a heavy price and yet the Russian people survived it. Most of them did anyway.

Former Russian Leader Boris Yeltsin, 76, Dies

By Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 23, 2007; 11:36 AM

Boris Yeltsin was once asked to name his greatest goal as president. He answered that more than anything, he wanted tranquility for Russia.

Ultimately, Yeltsin failed to achieve it in his own term. But the burly Siberian who was Russia's first freely elected leader in 1,000 years did more than anyone to raze the rotting communist superstructure of the former Soviet Union and build from its ruins the framework of a newly democratic and capitalist country.

Yeltsin died today at 76, a Kremlin official announced, without providing further details. The Interfax news agency quoted an unidentified medical source as saying Yeltsin died of heart failure.

Like Peter the Great, the 18th century czar he once mentioned as his model, Yeltsin was no great democrat. In ordering the war on the breakaway southern region of Chechnya in 1994, he was responsible for the violent deaths of more Russian citizens than any Kremlin leader since Joseph Stalin. As president he tolerated--and even authorized--the excesses of a system in some ways as corrupt and morally adrift as the one it replaced.

Yet like the autocratic Peter, Yeltsin took hold of a stultifying, hermetically closed country and flung open its doors to fresh ideas, methods and influences.
"He created a new kind of power," said Vladislav Starkov, editor of the weekly newspaper Argumenty i Fakty. "He created a new economic situation. A new psychological situation. A new international policy. A new Russian mentality. Of course, there were many mistakes, stupidities. But today we live with and take for granted absolutely new political ideas and institutions . . . This is Yeltsin's legacy." – The Washington Post

Boris Yeltsin was not the picture perfect first president other than the fact that he was the one man with the power and convictions to end the madness of his government and replaced it with his own corruption ridden rule. Beside his best efforts to profit from his own government the larger idea of a free Russia stuck with his people and sometimes the good comes with the bad.

Ending the Communist Party and its oppressive mentality of government that suppressed the people of Russia and any state that the former Soviet Union touched is Boris Yeltsin’s legacy. Americans only have to look ninety something miles to the south of the Sunshine State of Florida to see the continued existence of the failed experiment of the communist mentality and government system.

I admire Yeltsin for what he did to truly end the misery of his people but I frankly can not shed a tear for what he did as President of Russia to make sure it continued. His own people will tell his history and that is how it should be.

Papamoka

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