Still On Pakistan

The apparent calm that seems to herald the prompt arrest and deportation of former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif upon his return from forced exile yesterday sequel to his overthrow in a military coup in 1999 by current dictator, General Pervez Musharraf might not last. There is hardly any doubt that his deportation took not only his party and supporters but also even himself by surprise. The fact that he was served papers for money laundry charges prior to being deported is indication that even the dictator and his regime may have improvised the deportation to Saudi Arabia as a last ditch measure. In which case, they were unprepared for how best to respond to the challenge that Mr. Sharif represents for them in Pakistan.

There are certainly some elements in the regime who favor the option of tackling the challenge evident in Mr. Sharif judicially. Whoever those elements might be, Mr. Sharif’s deportation may indicate that there are also another set of elements in the regime who are uncomfortable with the Pakistani judiciary, which has recently signaled with the restoration of Chief Justice who Musharraf tried to remove, and the ruling that Sharif was free to return to Pakistan, that it is unwilling to side with Musharraf and his regime.

Mr. Sharif’s deportation will further complicate the situation for Musharraf and his regime. They have clearly shown their disregard for the Supreme Court and the rule of law. By so-doing, they are likely to incite negative reactions from parts of the West, particularly the EU, which promptly condemned them for deporting Sharif in disregard of the Supreme Court ruling. Although Musharraf and his regime can resolve to become more aggressive and repressive in their quest to remain in power, there is every doubt that they are capable of stemming the anger of sections of the Pakistani society that show aversion for their continued stay in power. Gone are the days when Musharraf slept peacefully at night. Henceforth, with his regime, he will leap from crisis to crisis all the way, to the point that he may not even have the time and the peace of mind to devout the necessary attention to the task of aiding the US in its global war on terrorism in Pakistan and the sub-region.

The Hand Writing On the Wall

It’s interesting that the Bush White House has refused to see that the hand writing on the wall over its myopic foreign policy gamble in Pakistan clearly indicates a big failure. The pattern of the unfolding events since dictator Pervez Musharraf’s over-reach to get rid of the Chief Justice failed could not have been less clearer: the spontaneous mobilization of various strata of the Pakistani civil society led by the legal profession produced a groundswell that not only succeeded in reversing the dictator’s over-reach, but also emboldened the Supreme Court to void his extra-legal exile of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif sequel to his overthrow of his elected government in a coup eight years ago.

This clear pattern of events ought to have been sufficient cause for the US to appraise the situation of affairs in Pakistan more objectively. Such appraisal could have been sufficient pointer to imbue credence to the fact that Musharraf’s regime had slipped into that slippery slid of difficulty that often characterizes a declining dictatorship. Instead, the White House has preferred to embark on a gamble, which is using former Prime Minister Benizar Bhutto to broker a deal that could presumably save Musharraf and his regime. Well, it does not seems as that gamble is about to pay off at all. The court boycott that began yesterday across Pakistan in a renewed campaign by the legal profession to force Musharraf from power is yet another clear indication that the Pakistani civil society, led by the lawyers clearly has the upper hand in the unfolding power situation. In fact, the US gamble may have neutralized Bhutto’s perceived potential to remain relevant in the unfolding power situation.

There is no doubt now that Sharif will return to Pakistan. There is also no doubt that he might probably lead his party, the Pakistan Muslim League in a spirited mobilization to make life difficult if not impossible for any contraption of a government that may result from the US-Musharraf-Bhutto gamble. IkengaComments predicts that most if not all actions taken by Musharraf and his regime to gain the upper hand in the unfolding power situation in the country henceforth runs the risk of back-firing on the dictator. If the ultimate aim of US foreign policy in Pakistan is anything beyond perpetuating an intractably unstable status-quo ante, then the White House is headed for yet another foreign policy failure over there. The hand writing on the wall is so clear on that.

Musharraf, Bhutto, Et Al

The power situation that Pakistan’s dictator, Parvez Musharraf unknowingly provoked when he over-reached himself in the spring this year and fired the Chief Justice is not likely to resolve itself any time soon. Instead, it is more likely to sustain itself in a truly Pakistani pattern as it spirals itself indefinitely aided by events even as it claims some unsuspecting victims including the dictator himself and even his regime. Apart from Musharraf and his regime, it seems like former Prime Minister Benizar Bhutto is quickly positioning herself as a possible victim of events that she played little or no role to trigger into place in the first instance.

If that happens, it’s only clear that she must blame her extensive opportunistic tendencies more than anyone or anything else for that outcome. Our suspicion is that she may have pre-occupied herself more with listening to the Bush White House than reading the tea leaves on the events more correctly for herself, as the events unfold. In which case, one can only see her as being too myopic to the degree that makes it difficult for her to discern that US desires in Pakistan and in the sub-region has little or nothing to do with whatever her own desires are for herself, her political party, and Pakistan. If she is unable to realize that US desires to save Musharraf and his tottering regime would not further her own ambition to return to Pakistan and to power in the long run, it might be partly because of the issues in her own past that came together to help force her from power some years back. One such issues relates to the corruption charge that was leveled against her husband who could have spent an extended time in jail if she hadn’t embraced the forced choice of exile. If she hopes that the best way to simultaneously protect her husband and return to power is to lend herself and her party to the US gamble to save Musharraf and his regime, she needs to be told that she might not be that lucky.

She and the Bush White House ought to be aware that the circumstances that got Musharraf and his regime to where they are at the moment in Pakistan’s perilous political landscape were made possible by other actors who are highly unsympathetic to US desires in both Pakistan and the sub-region. They should listen to and not ignore the lawyers who successfully saved the Chief Justice from Musharraf's over-reach. That Musharraf’s over-reach was responsible for triggering the situation that gave vent to the anger in the civil society that subsequently produced the defiance that encouraged the Supreme Court to reinstate the Chief Justice and the ruling that exiled former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif has the right to return to Pakistan as a citizen is insufficient grounds for either the US or Musharraf, talk less of Bhutto to presume that they can successfully cash in and benefit is far from the truth. More than the Islamists, who have allied themselves in the past with Musharraf when they deemed it convenient, it’s the secular elements in the civil society who have the upper hand at the moment in the unfolding power game in Pakistan. They were responsible for mobilizing the agitation that compelled Musharraf to blink. They can and will do that all over again if and when they discern that the ploy to save Musharraf in power is about to be off-loaded on Pakistan by the troika of Musharraf, Bhutto and the US.

Even if Musharraf, Bhutto, and the US succeed in installing the former as president, and Bhutto prime minister in a power-sharing deal predicated on Musharraf’s removal of his general’s uniform, there’s no guarantee that the resultant truce would be durable, to say the least. How will they handle Sherrif, the civil society and a Supreme Court, which has found its constitutional voice and place as an independent player? In its quest to isolate Pakistan’s Islamists, the US will certainly ignore the need to ponder this question. But it is a question that will not go away. At the end of the day, the only guarantee for durable stability in Pakistan is a democratic arrangement, which encompasses the secularists and the civil society and places the military under civilian control in Pakistan. Anything short of that will simply sustain a perilous situation that will someday produce a regime controlled by Islamists.

No Disregard

When IkengaComments debuted on April 6, my conscious decision from that outset was to devote it completely to those objectives that I spelt out in the first posting. In other words, the other commitment that I made to myself remained silent. That commitment was to completely remove myself from the postings. That commitment influenced my decision to keep my whereabouts off the blog. The commitment might be reviewed in the future. After a period of silence, which began after the last posting on July 10, IkengaComments has returned. We urge the reading audience not to misconstrue the unannounced absence as a disregard.

US Military Leadership Failure in Iraq

On at least two counts, it seems like the war of choice that the US embarked on in Iraq has quickly turned into another Vietnam for the Bush White House. First, it has become a war which many people believe can no longer be won. Secondly, for members of the US military top brass, the war has increasingly exposed their inability to exhibit leadership expectations. One would recall that some analysts of the Vietnam war argue that long after it became obvious that the US military would be unable to dominate the situation in Vietnam, rather than find the courage to convey that assessment to their civilian leaders, the top brass preferred to play along in what became known as card-punching all in the bid to protect their careers. It is happening again, this time in Iraq.

Since General Shinkeshi gave his candid opinion during Congressional hearings on what he felt were the right estimates of the number of troops he thought was needed in Iraq, and was retired for it, no other serving members of the top brass has been willing again to convey their candid assessment of the situation of things on the ground in Iraq. A front-page story in the USA Today yesterday indicated that attacks on the transportation of supplies for the military in Iraq have been on the increase. From the military point of view, the implications of that story are enormous. As skilled managers of violence, US military top brass are not unaware of the fact that the inability to guarantee supplies to a highly complex outfit like the US military in a theater of operation is not a child’s play after all. There are other related indicators of the inability of the US military so far to dominate the situation in Iraq. Those are in the sense that the US military even at this stage still finds it difficult to move around the entire theater of operation in Iraq—in the air and on the ground—without hindrance. Yet, it does not seem as the top brass have summoned the courage to convey the true implications of that to their civilian leaders. If they do, there is little doubt that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their advisers will certainly be showing some inclinations towards modifying their insistence that they will not accept anything short of “victory” in Iraq. Military victory is unlikely under the aforementioned state of affairs.

The only members of the top brass who have expressed their candid assessment of the situation of things in Iraq are those who are no longer in active service. The inability of the top brass who are still in active service to express such candid assessment is plainly a failure of leadership. One is at a loss as to what the US military establishment and the Bush White House are hoping to make out of the deteriorating situation in Iraq. Someone recently mentioned in a conversation that he would not wish the military situation of things in Iraq today on his worst enemy. The top brass must help with the right leadership.

How Is the General Doing So Far?

Here at IkengaComments, our informed assessment has been that US support for Pakistan’s dictator, General Pervez Musharraf is a misguided gamble that has very high chances of unraveling in a manner which could shift US geopolitical calculations in that part of the world into a pitiful situation. Staking so much on the continuity of an individual, a dictator for that matter who is in power in such a precariously volatile society cannot but merit such a bleak assessment.

Mr. Musharraf’s travails since he sacked the Chief Justice have not fared that well. He has faced increasing open challenge to his regime from several sections of the Pakistani civil society ever since. If the US is less jittery about the opposition that lawyers and other notable members of the Pakistani civil society have mobilized against him in response to that singular action, the opposition that he is now facing from radical Islamists will be serious cause for worry for the Bush White House given the conviction that the end of his dictatorship will not be good for the success of the War on Terror, WoT.

The stand-off currently going on between his regime and a radical mosque in Islamabad, is not likely to unfold and end favorably for him. The opposition that his removal of the Chief Judge fanned could have emboldened the Islamists who are involved in this stand-off. The heavy gun shots fired at the aircraft he was flying in yesterday is a clear escalation of the uncertainty he is faced with. Knowing how dictators function, Musharraf will occupy himself henceforth with the task of survival. He will do that by using every trick at his disposal to manipulate the US for support even as he strives to suppress those who are opposed to his dictatorship in Pakistan. The US will be quite eager to aid his efforts to suppress the Islamists. But the unfortunate thing about that is that the General may not be quite willing to go after the Islamists in a decisive manner. The Islamists will make life increasingly difficult for him if they sense any shift in what may have been a secret pact between him and them. In other words, there is a clear risk in pressing the General to move decisively against the Islamists. On the other hand, if the status quo ante sustains, it may not last that long. The non-Islamist opposition may not relent that easily in their quest to curb what it considers the General’s excesses. In deed, so far, the General is not doing that well.

Humanity Must Protect Itself

Critics of the Bush administration’s War on Terror, WoT in general and the invasion and occupation of Iraq insist that it is so ill-conceived, wrong-headed, and ill-executed that rather than achieve their executors’ proclaimed outcomes of making the world safer from Islamist terrorism, will and are exacerbating the scourge by doing otherwise. It does not take the services of a seer for an honest observer to discern from the deluge of news reports each week that the world is far from being safe from the heartless individuals who wrap themselves with the jihadist banner of Islamism and present themselves as willing zealots ready to embark on any manner of terrorist acts that unleash terror on unsuspecting people.

The recent terror-related events in Britain involving well-educated individuals from Iraq and India do not just underscore the view that the world is increasingly unsafe; they should also be cause for worry for every sensible person anywhere in the world. For one, Britain was never a target of Islamist terrorism prior to its involvement in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Apart from Spain, which under the previous government was also a member of the clique of three that embarked on the invasion of Iraq with Mr. Bush, no other society has been targeted by Islamist terror as much as Britain since the invasion of Iraq. The lives of unsuspecting members of society have been turned upside down in virtually every part of the world because of the looming prospects of terrorist attacks. International travelers and other users of air transportation are so concerned of their safety these days that some of them resort to executing or updating their will each time before they embark on trips. We know where it all began, but we do not know when it will end.

Meanwhile, US politicians, particularly the ardent Republicans who blindly lined up support for the invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq are finding it just expedient to re-calibrate their position on the occupation just to suit their political survival. In the last few weeks the gradual shift in the support of the occupation noticed in some Republican Party senators is evidently inspired by fear that they might loose their seats in their re-election bid next year. The latest shift in stance of support was expressed just yesterday by New Mexico’s Pete Domenici who is facing re-election next year. Earlier, it was the turn of Virginia’s John Warner, who is also billed for re-election next year. The troubling aspect of the shift in the support of these individual US senators for the occupation of Iraq is that it is just enough to enable a campaign stance that could translate into a message to win as many votes from many of the voters whose initial support for the invasion and occupation has completely soured. Mr. Domenici who is “not calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq or a reduction in funding for our troops” merely railed against an “Iraqi government [which] is not making measurable progress”. He is calling “for a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to continuing home”. How that path will unmake all the wrong-headed aspects of the policy of invasion and occupation is yet to be figured out.

It is high time for the rest of the world to rally and come up on their own with anti-terror policies capable of succeeding. Someone mentioned the other time that such a policy will necessarily not involve the US so along as it is intent on waging the WoT as it currently conceived it. Humanity cannot afford to continuing living in fear and stress. The world must rally and begin the task of protecting and saving itself.

Nigeria’s Dysfunctional Leadership Spawns Hostage Taking

Every time there is news about Nigeria these days, it is bad news. Bad news, not in the sense that Nigerians and their country are being smeared in a conspiracy of sorts in the international press. It is bad news that come straight from bad acts perpetrated in Nigeria by either Nigerian officialdom or through neglects by it. One is talking about the regular news of hostage-taking that takes place these days in the Niger Delta where much of the hydrocarbons that provide 85% of the revenue that sustains Nigeria’s dysfunctional supra-national state, are extracted from.

Refusal by Nigeria’s dysfunctional leaders to respond honestly to the demands by inhabitants of the Niger Delta to be allowed a fair share of the wealth that accrues from the hydrocarbons that are extracted in such reckless manner which destroys and degrades their environment, has spawned shameful acts of hostage-taking by militants and even brigands that are flashed almost regularly in the international media. Up until today when a 3-year-old child of a British oil worker became their latest victim, the hostage takers have specifically concentrated on mostly foreign oil workers. In all cases, they released their victims after holding them for some time. They have consistently indicated that their intention has been to draw attention to the plight of inhabitants of the Delta who exist in unconscionable poverty even as the wealth realized from the resources that are taken from their homeland is stolen and shared out by Nigeria’s corrupt rulers.

One cannot take the liberty to condone their acts of hostage taking. At the same time, the harshest condemnation is reserved for Nigeria’s leaders who have let this state of affairs perpetuate itself. It is absolutely clear that the Nigerian supra-national state and the corrupt individuals that operate it are incapable of subduing the militants and brigands who are responsible for these acts. Why then have they refused to hearken to demands made by aggrieved nationalities in the country for an equitable restructure of the polity to give all excluded groups a sense of belonging? Amongst other reasons, their refusal bothers on the sort of irresponsibility that derives from dysfunctional disposition. It is only dysfunctional leaders who will care next to nothing about the atrocities that they inflict on their society so long as they feather their nests. Many Nigerians are sick and tired of a dysfunctional leadership that presides over their affairs in ways that spawn anger and acts of brigandage from aggrieved groups. Nigeria’s rulers are as responsible as the de facto perpetrators of acts of hostage taking in the Niger Delta. Reasonable people the world over must lend their condemnation for not just the hostage takers who have now resorted to abducting babies, but also for Nigeria’s corrupt and dysfunctional leaders.

America Is Challenged Again By Its Own Presidency

Ronald Reagan’s presidency saddled America as a society with the challenge of looking at itself in the mirror and telling itself nothing but the truth about what it saw. However, American society woefully failed itself in that regard. Rather than disclose that the man Reagan lacked the intellectual capacity required for the highly demanding office he occupied, the society shielded his lack of that capacity all in the bid to protect the US presidency, an office which is so highly exalted by a good majority of Americans to the point that stokes their conviction that it is divinely-ordained to provide the leadership necessary for the so-called shining city on the hill to lead the rest of humanity out of decadence.

The eagerness to flaunt Mr. Reagan’s superb communication skills was almost suffocating. His affliction with Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive ailment that cripple’s the mental capacity of its victims slowly but decisively over the course of time was probably kept from public view until it became impossible to hide successfully any more. Even then, the preference was to portray him as a cowboy riding away into the sunset but to nowhere in particular. Rather than come clean and admit that there was nothing but hollow to the man, Edmund Morris, who was commissioned to write Mr. Reagan’s authorized memoir and given unfettered access to him in the White House and even after he left the place at the end of his mandatory two terms, claimed instead that his subject was impenetrable. To the effect that what he produced as a memoir 14 years later in 1999 was a faction in which he blatantly tried to portray him as an exceptional gift from God to the rest of the world.

George W. Bush’s presidency has saddled America with a challenge almost similar to the one it unsuccessfully grappled with in Ronald Reagan’s presidency in the 1980s. This time, some sections of the American society, including some mass media channels are effectively trying to sanctify themselves in their efforts to factually portray what The New Yorker starkly describes as “the callow, lazy, and ignorant President”. The four-part series in Washington Post last week entitled, “ANGLER: THE CHENEY VICE PRESIDENCY” will remain one of the more explicit proof of this description of Mr. Bush. More than anything else, the series expose the systematic manner with which Mr. Cheney has taken advantage of Mr. Bush’s apparent hollowness to become “the most influential public official in the country” even though he occupies ‘what John Adams called’ “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived”. The Post series authored by reporters Barton Gellman and Jo Becker are so revealing that there is hardly much doubt in the minds of many Americans about who is actually in charge of their affairs during the Bush presidency. The only initiative that Bush went out of his way to take without Cheney’s clearance was his unsuccessful appointment of Harriet Miers to the US Supreme Court. According to the Post series, that rebellion was quickly shot down by Cheney who after muttering derisively to an associate that Bush “Didn’t have the nerve to tell me himself” engaged his “right-wing allies to upend Miers”. That was how Cheney finally compelled Bush to return to the short list of five appellate judges that he prepared and kept handy ahead of time, to select Samuel Alito

It took the invasion of Iraq by false pretences to awaken sections of the American society to the task of grappling the challenge that it is faced with in the Bush presidency.

The Post-9/11 Question

Right after the unconscionable Al-Qaeda-scripted and directed terrorist attacks on the US in the morning of September 11, 2001, a question started making the rounds in key US-based mass media channels, particularly conservative talk radio: “Why Do They Hate Us?” The ‘They’ in the question refers to ‘the rest of the world’, and the ‘Us’ refers of course to the ‘US’. Up till date, the one answer to that question that floated most on conservative talk radio here in the US was that the rest of the world hates the US because its loves democracy and that the attach is the manifestation of the hatred of the US by the rest of the world. For any objective analyst or observer, it was an answer that begged the question because people in every corner of the world mourned with Americans over those acts: major newspapers in many parts of the world went out of their way to proclaim in extra-ordinary pieces of editorial that “We Are All Americans!” The inherent truth in this proclamation underscored the support and justification expressed by many people all over the world for the invasion of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan by the US to punish Al-Qaeda and its leaders for their terrorist attacks on America.

But beyond Afghanistan, in its reaction to those attacks, the Bush White was completely taken by its sworn conservative credentials. Going by the tenacity that it exhibited as it fished around for excuses and justifications to invade Iraq on the grounds that it was involved in the attacks, there has been little doubt that Mr. George Bush himself, his vice, Mr. Dick Cheney, and the range of their high-ranking aides all subscribe to the answer to the aforementioned question peddled on conservative radio that the rest of the world hates America because it loves democracy. Proof of this was partly revealed in a Washington Post story Monday July 2 on Mr. Bush ineffectual attempts to understand the isolation he is experiencing at a time when his presidency is about to end. In the absence of factual evidence, no one except perhaps Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their supporters, believes any more that Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks. There is no doubt that many are disappointed in Mr. Bush and his administration as a result.

The story is that Mr. Bush has been spending a lot of time with individual theologians, historians, philosophers, and leading authors or groups of them that he invites to the White House to help him seek answers over light refreshments to an array of questions that include: “Why does the rest of the world seem to hate America? Or is it just me they hate?” He does not yet appreciate that his preference for the answer to the question spawned by conservative radio is largely responsible for all the failing policy initiatives, particularly on Iraq, he has taken so far, and that they are largely responsible for souring turn in his presidency.

Although no one knows at this point what his invitees tell Mr. Bush in response to the many questions that he tables before them, every one of them who has said anything so far is convinced that he is a highly isolated individual, and that he is highly fixated on Iraq. According to a former aide who recently visited with him: “Nothing matters except the war. That’s all that matters. The whole thing rides on that.” That fixation is to the degree of disengagement from serious governance issues. His friends who made excuses for him insist that he is not oblivious of the responsibilities of the presidency. But that incompetence that pervades every aspect of his presidency so far still lingers. Rather than engage New York Congressmen that he invited to accompany him to a school in Harlem to promote his education program on issues of importance he preferred to talk baseball aboard Air Force One. One of them, Democrat Charlie B. Rangle, chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which was involved in a tough negotiations with the White House on trade pacts at the time was so disappointed in Mr. Bush’s preference to talk baseball instead of serious legislative issues. Rangle’s observation that: “He talked a lot about the Rangers. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about” was to say the least aptly dismissive of one who he felt lacked the capacity for rising up to what the occasion demanded. Can Mr. Bush's reported capacity or "terrific knack of not looking through the rearview (sic) mirror" to absorb the massive wreckage produced by virtually all his policy initiatives indicate anything in his personality with regard to particularly his evident incompetence as president?

Mr. Bush’s inability to come up with the right answer(s) to the post-9/11 question for himself may be the greatest undoing of his presidency so far. The US, indeed, the world is worst off for it.

The Immigration Reform Debate in the US

Beyond the charges of nativism and xenophobia that proponents of comprehensive immigration reform in the US might level at those Americans who advocate otherwise, the recent failure of the Immigration Reform Bill twice in the US Senate in less than two months is cause for a more conscientious soul-searching in both camps. Such an endeavor is necessary particularly for the reasons that it will lay bare the core issues in the immigration reform debate and pave the way for durable solutions to a major problem that knocks at the heart of what American society is all about and what most Americans aspire for.

The efforts made by representatives of those thirteen colonies that canalized into the birth of what they called the United States of America erased in the most fundamental way the possibility of any one of them ever reverting to the desire to chart the sort of independence existence which might set it separate and apart from the other members of the Union. This is in terms of forging another society distinct in language and culture from the Union itself. The slave-owning states in the South of the Union that attempted such a reversion when they found that their continued subscription to its Charters posed a mortal danger to slavery as the basis of their civilization provoked the Civil War. At the end not only that they were defeated and dragged back into the Union, they also lost the basis of their plantation-based agricultural economy. Perhaps the failure of their rebellion convinced them once and for all that they are part and parcel of a mainstream society that subscribes to one language, etc. Ever since, the idea of a separate existence doesn't hold currency in any meaningful way in America.

The Hispanics who cross into the US in large numbers in search of economic opportunities seem to have failed to realize that their determination by default perhaps to cling fast to their Latino cultures—including their language—is being seen as a challenge to what America is all about. The evident and gradual shift to bilingualism in the conduct of some official business is big cause for worry amongst many Americans who now see Hispanics as invaders who are determined to either over-run their society or establish a visibly different society within the United States. Americans were horrified to see Hispanics re-write their national anthem in Spanish language, wave different flags other than the US flag even as they sort support to be legalized. It is common place these days to hear complaints of rude and blatant behavior by Hispanics from many Americans. Americans are highly concerned about what they perceive as threats to displace them in their own society by people who give them cause to perceive them as insensitive Hispanics. There is anger towards Hispanics these days.

On the other hand, many Americans have failed to realize that better economic climate in Latin America is the most effective antidote to large-scale Hispanic immigration into the US. A better economic climate can be achieved in Latin America through more equitable policy initiatives by the US to wards Latin American countries. Polls have shown that Americans are not entirely averse to the idea of immigration reform. They seem to be averse to any endeavor which will encourage people to subvert the core of their society. Comprehensive immigration reform in the US will not be possible unless the aforementioned issues are properly understood and addressed.

Africa and UN Population Fund’s Self-Evident Prediction

The UN Population Fund’s report, which was just released yesterday may sound newsy particularly with the prediction that a stupendous proportion—3.3 billion people—of the world’s growing population will, for the first time live in cities and towns by next year. As is often the case with such reports that are ritually-authored by renowned academic-experts—yesterday’s was written by Canadian sociologist and demographer, George Martine—and released by major international outfits, the aspects of its contents that will eventually make news may not reflect the more dire issues and challenges that it may contain.

For anyone who may be conversant with Africa, every city on the continent is already immersed in the blights of unplanned and unchecked urban growth. Are you talking about infrastructural decay and its manifestations by way of crime, pollution, etc. and the threats that they pose to people who reside in them, cities in South Africa and Nigeria will equally come to mind. Although, the differences in the dire condition of cities in South Africa and Nigeria are still in terms of day and night, they still threaten the existence of people who live in them all the same. The decay evident in South Africa’s downtown Johannesburg for instance ought to catch the attention of the ruling African National Congress, ANC for the particular reason that the victims are still poor blacks whose situation hasn’t improved in meaningful terms in the post-apartheid era.

However, hopes cannot be lost in the case of South Africa for the reason that, in spite of the ANC’s sluggish bearings in the expectations by many that it should rise up to the challenges of delivering the dividends of victory in the anti-apartheid struggle to the victims, indeed all South Africans, most of the elements and ingredients required to meet such challenges in a democratic society are already in place in South Africa. Such elements and ingredients include an ever-expanding democratic culture, which seems to show the capacity to hold political leaders to the obligation to conduct public business with responsiveness. One is talking about popular participation in the direction of the affairs of society.

Much to the contrary, Nigerian cities are in an endless precariousness altogether. The prospects of achieving the sort of democratic culture already in existent in South Africa in Nigeria are increasingly disappearing by the day. The increasing decay evident in every Nigerian city is reflective of the degeneration and decay that plagues Nigeria’s politics and the conduct of public affairs in Nigeria. In Nigeria, everyone’s obsession is the proceeds from the sale of the hydrocarbons being drilled with unparalleled recklessness in the Niger delta. Typically, impunity, and high-handedness in their worst varieties constitute the norms that characterize the conduct of public affairs in Nigeria. Corruption and the attendant cynicism that result manifest in such huge proportions that seem like they will nullify the chances of turning things around towards a healthy path in the conduct of public affairs in the Nigerian society.

The scare therefore is that for an indefinite period, every Nigerian city will continue to epitomize the worst indices cited in the just-released report by the UN Population Fund—lack of water and sanitation, terrible housing, etc.—that threaten “the environmental quality of the city” and those that dwell in it!

A New President at the World Bank

As Mr. Robert Zoellick who US President George W. Bush nominated to replace Mr. Paul Wolfowitz whose embattled tenure as president at the World Bank provoked a power situation that paralyzed Bank mission steps into his new position this week, there is every need for observers of the Bank to raise a crucial and pertinent question. That question is: How much does the Bush White House, its appointees, and all those who associate themselves with the ideologically-driven mission that Mr. Bush and his administration subscribe to understand about the post-Cold War World?

The logic inherent in that question is that the ideologically-steeped neoconservative elements who influence US foreign policy in the Bush administration seem to be fixated on just their understanding that the end of the Cold War led to the emergence of the US as the lone super-power. They are so obsessed with this reality to the degree that it tends to dictate not just their perception of global events, but also the actions that the embark on to shape world affairs as well as their reactions global events including the response of other global actors to US foreign policy. They strongly believe that the most important, if not the only change that matters is the emergence of the US as a lone super-power, which therefore implies that everyone else must subscribe to America’s prescriptions on world affairs. But the truth is that the rest of the world, which includes European states and significant proportions of Europe’s masses are averse to that obsession.

That not withstanding, the Bush White House is still driven by that obsession which guides every foreign policy initiative it takes. The result hasn’t been a resounding success in each and every case. Paul Wolfowitz’s presidency at the World Bank failed particularly because of his personification of that obsession. Mr. Zoellick will succeed at the Bank as president if he extricates himself from that obsession. Going by the broadside he threw at Venezuela two weeks ago during his pre-tenure tour of Africa, Europe, and Latin America, the concern that it might be difficult for him to do that is real. It is clearly evident that apart from the frosty relationships between Venezuela and the US, Mr. Zoellick might not be that happy with Venezuela’s determination to bring its oil sector firmly under state control. The two global oil giants—ConoccoPhilips and ExxonMobil—that are about to be locked out of Venezuela’s oil sector following their refusal to accept a new regime which gives majority control to Venezuela are US-based. Their assets in Venezuela run into $3.5b and $800m respectively. What Mr. Zoellick may have forgotten before he threw his broadside is that the rest of the world including Europeans may not share his perceptions. Proof of that can be found in the fact that the defiance expressed by ConoccoPhilips and ExxonMobil couldn’t deter other European oil giants—Chevron, BP, and Total—from falling in line. Mr. Zoellick must realize that US lone super-power status not withstanding, the world is still a diverse arena. He may not immerse himself into Mr. Wolfowitz's problem at the Bank, but the potentials for other problems are still out there.

When Peacekeepers Become Targets

The car bomb explosion Sunday that killed six UN peacekeepers from Spain and Columbia in southern Lebanon is bad omen for the possibilities of achieving durable peace and stability in Lebanon. Lebanon is a highly fractured country. In deed, Lebanon is a living example of what could happen to a country and society that have been tied into the nexus of a highly destabilized Mideast. On yet another count, targeting peacekeepers with this kind of violence will negatively affect future UN deployments in parts of the world where their deployment will be critical for saving the vulnerable from annihilation through state-sponsored violence.

It’s both sad and unconscionable that all stakeholders in the Mideast have handled their involvement in the sub-region’s politics and affairs in manners that negate their proclaimed intentions to achieve durable peace between the contending parties in the age-old crisis that bedevils the sub-region. There’s no doubt that each of these stakeholders that include the countless local Mideast-based factions, the US, the EU, France, the Russians, Israel, and several Mideast states understand that the crisis which manifests in different parts of the sub-region derives mostly from the Palestinian-Israel problem in the main. The other underlying issue in the Mideast crisis is the quest by particularly the US to realize the sort of resolution of the Palestinian-Israel problem that will guarantee indefinite upper hand for the US in the affairs of a region that retains the most known quantities of hydro-carbon-based sources of energy.

It is unfortunate that the determination by the US to realize that desire and not the quest for durable peace in the Mideast is actually what drives its Mideast policy, which tends to exacerbate rather than resolve the crisis year after year. Talking specifically about Lebanon, there is no doubt that the perennial instability that reigns in that country can directly be linked to the determination of groups and factions in the region to resist what they see as US grand design to dominate their affairs and resources. The assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafiq Hariri is a concomitant outcome of that perception. Granted that the assassination is unconscionable and that the perpetrators ought to be brought to justice, the determined push by the Bush White House to establish a UN tribunal charged with the responsibility to get that process underway right now is ill-advised. It is ill-advised in the sense that the situation in the entire Mideast is highly charged by current US policy. So much that the tribunal which was recently approved by the Security Council may not even take off at all even as its existence gives anti-US vested interests all over the region another cause to muddy Lebanon’s politics even further.

Mideast factions that perceive the UN as an agency through which the US pushes its Mideast policy are now targeting UN peacekeepers to dislodge UN presence in Lebanon. Their ultimate aim no doubt is to frustrate the possibility of the Hariri tribunal ever taking off. Of what use will the tribunal be if it does not take off at all? Even if it does take off, of what use will it be if it stokes rather than stems instability in Lebanon? Peacekeeping is one of the few tools that the UN can still use to save vulnerable societies from state-sponsored violence in a highly turbulent world.

Ikengacomments supports the vow by Major-General Claudio Graziano, the Spaniard who is also the commander of the 13,000 UNFIL contingent in Lebanon that the peacekeepers will remain, we must add that no party, not even the US should let itself get to the point where its policies will expose UN peacekeepers to the sort of violence which makes it difficult to deploy peacekeepers anywhere in the future. Israel’s war with Hezbollah last summer was ill-timed, and ill-advised. Not only that it was a disaster for Israel, it led to the deployment of UN peacekeepers that are now being targeted in Lebanon by an unknown group or groups with car bombs. Vulnerable societies should not be exposed to the annihilation that will result if the UN is unable to muster peacekeepers because of the wilful actions that fit the ones taken last summer in Lebanon by the Hezbollah and Israel, and the one the US took when it pressed for the Hariri tribunal.


Al-Qaida Cashing in On the Mess in Palestine
Al-Qaida's call in a video posted on the web today through it's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri for Muslims all over the world to rush support and supplies to Hamas in Gaza vindicates our consistent argument that US policy in the Mideast will rather complicate an already complex mess. Even if Hamas comes out to decline al-Zawahri's call as unsolicited, the bad blood has already been transfused. Accusations and counter-accusations will ensue and every stakeholder would discern whatever it likes from the scenario and proceed to act on the basis of that to justify its actions. The crisis will escalate endlessly, more violence will ensure and countless lives will continue to be lost, needlessly. Some interests will be served by all that though, but the cause of peace in Palestine will not be part of those.

Marx, Violent Crime, and South Africa’s Future

An earlier version of this piece was written for Business Day last year. This slightly modified version is published herein to highlight the inherent folly in the reluctance of Mr. Thabo Mbeki's government to address and help resolve the continuing crisis in neighboring Zimbabwe where Mr. Robert Mugabe's mis-governance has steadily run the economy into the dust. Recent reports indicate that the huge flow of economic refugees from Zimbabwe into South Africa is provoking a hostile back-lash from South Africans.

Notwithstanding that he lived and died more than a hundred years ago, and that the former Soviet Union, which represented the first human society that implemented the socio-political ideology that he formulated with his benefactor Frederick Engels, aspects of Karl Marx’s thoughts remain quite relevant even today. One such thought is his prediction that economic systems or modes of production lay foundations for those that succeed them. We must recall that he was most particular about that in his predictions that capitalism would lay the infrastructures in the science and technology realms that socialism would inherit once it dawns under the auspices a workers’ vanguard Party. No where is that prediction most applicable today than in post-apartheid Republic of South Africa. In spite of all of the evils that it represented, as an ideology, apartheid provided its architects, advocates, and supporters with the basis for the unprecedented exploitation and management of African labor in a manner never seen before on the continent in the twentieth century. Like all other modes of production before it, apartheid crumbled at the very time when it couldn’t cope with its inherent contradictions and the crisis they unleashed in South Africa, which rocked and threatened international capital quite tremendously. That was to the degree that compelled the various stakeholders in South Africa and elsewhere to reconsider their quiescent support and collaboration with apartheid. As they say, the rest is history, but today apartheid is no more in South Africa. Only the most cynic who visits South Africa today would ignore to acknowledge that the extensive fixed capital—extensive road network, efficient power and portable water systems, educational, healthcare—and others that were embedded in South Africa under apartheid remain the attraction for the stupendous capital from abroad which fuels South Africa’s continuing economic transformation. These are in spite of the truism that the quality of life of Africans was extensively marginalized by apartheid and all that it represented while apartheid and the state that practiced it lasted.

Around this immediate point revolves the problem that represents the most serious threat to South Africa’s future as a multi-racial and democratic society. That threat is represented by violent crimes. Hardly does a week pass without screaming front-page headlines in all manner of South African newspapers about one violent crime or the other that took place in parts of the country. The more eye-catching are the violent crimes that involve the death of police officers and other security agents. The one of Monday, July 17 last year that claimed the life of 37-year old officer Lesley Mashaba in Kliptown is typical for the reason that it knocks at the heart of economic and politically-driven immigration from within Africa, which is one of the issues that this piece addresses. Officer Mashaba, a fifteen-year veteran of the force in Gautang province was allegedly killed in a shot-out that involved suspects who are Mozambican nationals. He is one of the 51 officers killed in South Africa’s eight provinces, including Gauteng between January 1 and June 30 last year. Gauteng, which was described by the Johannesburg Star as “the deadliest province for police officers to work” claims 23 of the 51 off and on-duty police officers who have lost their lives to violent crime during the period. Gautang province includes Johannesburg, the vibrant commercial nerve centre of the South African sub-region which attracts economic migrants from across the continent.

In Durban during the next week in July last year, delegates to the International Sociological Association, ISA sixteenth World Congress of Sociology who came into town to be hosted by their South African colleagues for their body’s four yearly gathering were literally made ‘prisoners’ in their hotel rooms after five of them fell victim to muggings. The experiences of the delegates to the ISA Congress are hardly isolated by any means.

In the same month of July last year, an official world alert on crime in South Africa was issued by major industrialized West European and North American countries—Australia included—to their nationals who travel to South Africa as tourists and cautioned them that the former is unsafe for holidays. The alert is hardly frivolous. It came on the heels of a survey of clients’ travel insurance claims by Norwich Union, a United Kingdom-based insurance company. Norwich Union’s survey revealed that more than travelers to other countries, travelers to South Africa were the most likely to be victims of a range of crimes that include violent robberies and the loss of luggage and other belongings. Johannesburg’s Berea and Hillbrow inner city enclaves, KwaZulu-Natal’s central Durban, beachfronts, Zululand, and Northern KwaZulu-Natal, the Table Mountain in Cape Town, and virtually all the country’s isolated picnic points and beaches were indicated as likely places where violent and serious crimes reign.

Some analysts and even South African public servants have been quick to simply lay the blame for the problem on apartheid. Some others have preferred to merely spin it away in ways that minimize the dangers that it represents for South Africa’s future as a vibrant economy and new democracy. Such dangers are too real for ANC, the South Africa Communist Party, SACP; the Coalition of South Africa’s Trade Unions, COSATU; and other stakeholders in the current multiracial dispensation not to appreciate them. Violent crimes in South Africa derive from two principal sources; internal and external. On the internal front: Apartheid’s uneven development of South Africa, its peoples and economy is indeed responsible for creating the internal situation in which those South Africans who were left behind in the impoverished homelands and townships from where they can now migrate to the cities and other places without restriction where they embrace crime to survive. The external sources are the surrounding countries in the sub-region and the rest of sub-Sahara Africa where political instability, bad governance and gross mismanagement of all sorts wreck havoc on economies and drive able-bodied individuals out to South Africa where they seek economic refuge, and in most cases succumb to lives of crime.

The current emphasis on law enforcement by South Africa’s policy makers at all levels of government is the equivalent of band aid, which will not stem the trend of violent crimes in the country to any meaningful degree. The bold measures must come by way of a package that must alongside law and immigration enforcement, include on the one hand, initiatives that would extend the dividends of multi-racial democracy to impoverished areas of South Africa, on yet the other hand, others that will help to restore or bring about political stability, good governance, and sound economic management to those African countries that export economic refugees in droves to South Africa.

Urgent steps must be taken to extend the ‘built environment of facilities’—roads, airports, ports, cable networks, railways, pipelines, fibre-optic systems, electricity grids, water and sewage systems, housing, factories, offices, schools, and hospitals, and the like—to the homelands, townships, and other areas in South Africa where apartheid wouldn’t have them. The absence of such ‘built environment’ in the homelands, townships, etc. will sustain the age-old status-quo whereby capital ‘in all its physically mobile forms, continue to actually move over’ them and perpetuate their economic impoverishment, which will in turn perpetuate the flow of uneducated, and jobless individuals to where they must adopt crime to survive. Political stability in Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, etc. will translate to good governance and sound resources management all of which will dove-tail to less number of economic refugees into South Africa. Manageable numbers of internal and external migrants in South Africa is one of the logical solutions to its growing violent crimes rates. In that regard South Africa must step forward to assume its leadership role on the continent without equivocation. There’s no alternative to South Africa’s leaders going beyond the call of duty to compel and convince the leaders of countries that send economic refugees to South Africa to sit up and govern their countries and manage their economies well.

This is where all of the stakeholders in South Africa’s multi-racial democracy must step forward and take the bold initiative to secure their country’s future. Continuing to do otherwise translates to the sort of irresponsibility that Karl Marx once decried as sitting by and waiting for the roast pigeon of science and technology to fall into one’s mouth. It’s a choice that resonates all over most of the rest of Africa, which is at the root of the economic stagnation that prevails on the continent.

Pakistan's Dictator Buys Additional Insurance

It is sadly absurd that US analysts prefer to view the new nuclear reactor which Pakistan is building at the Khushab nuclear site, located 100 miles south, from its capital Islamabad solely in the context of the decades-old rivalry that exists between it and India. Granted that Pakistan is already a declared nuclear state, it does not require a sophisticated mindset to discern that the current upgrade in Pakistan’s nuclear capability although linked to the rivalry with India, has more to do with its dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s desire to make himself and his regime to remain relevant to US geopolitical calculations in that part of the world on the one hand. On yet the other hand, he wants to continue holding the US to ransom at this point in the War against Terrorism, WaT when his dictatorship is increasingly under a lot of pressure at home since he got rid of the chief justice a few months ago.

The dictator considers the recent nuclear pact that the US entered with India a slight given his cooperation in the WaT. The new nuclear endeavor is capable of producing enough weapons-grade plutonium for 50 additional bombs annually. He is intent on improving Pakistan’s nuclear bombs, no doubt. What will an impoverished country like Pakistan need so many nuclear bombs for?

The feeble request from the US earlier to Pakistan not to expand its nuclear capability is obviously being ignored, and the US is obviously unconcerned about Pakistan's quest for additional nuclear capability at a time when it blows hot and cold over Iran’s determination to acquire its own nuclear capability. The under laying logic that it is risky for the US to diminish support for the dictator might seem logical. This is in view of the claim that the US cannot afford to forsake the dictator for fear that if he goes, Pakistan might fall into the hands of Islamists. But the policy of standing firmly behind a dictator although completely in sync with the dictates of real politic, does not guarantee that the dictator will remain in power indefinitely. It’s at best a gamble that has high unraveling potentials.

The dictator is sufficiently savvy in his dealings with the US, which is why he keeps buying up additional insurance policy by adding to Pakistan’s nuclear capability. He seems to be succeeding. John Negroponte’s meeting with him last week is clear evidence of that. Only time will prove that even though the US may go along with dictator Musharraf for some distance, his dictatorship will most probably not have durable pay-offs to deliver to the US for the extensive aid and support it offers him and his regime.

A Summit that Might Be Called a Gang-Up

How much of the popular will do the traditionalist regimes in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt, Qatar, U.A.E. represent in the Arab and Muslim world? This is a question which has not been explored by pollsters even though it craves their attention day after day. However, in spite of the absence of those descriptive statistics from polls that would throw some measure of definitive answers to the question, there are also several other objectives indicators that one might glean meaningful answers to the question from.

One such indicator is the refusal of all traditionalist Arab rulers and regimes to even make the least venture towards opening their holds on state power to any form of true democratic test. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak who makes the least seeming attempts in those regards counters his gestures with blatant rigging tactics all in the bid to retain absolute control over state power. Those traditionalist regimes are all scared stiff of popular participation in the affairs of their countries. There is therefore no doubt the alliance that these traditionalist rulers enjoy with the US is predicated on the protection they receive from the latter.

As these traditionalist rulers jockey and maneuver around these days fronting here and there on behalf of Washington to counter what the Bush administration calls rising Shiite influence in the Mideast, one wonders why not even one of them foresaw the possibility of an upsurge in Shiite influence stemming from the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US. Seymour Hersh’s investigative pieces in The New Yorker have severally exposed much of the support that Saudi Arabia’s rulers rendered the Bush administration from behind the scene in the invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq. It would be difficult to discern why the Saudi rulers rendered hidden support to Washington to invade and occupy Iraq.

These traditionalist rulers lack the credibility to successfully counter rising Shiite influence in the Arab and Muslim world. The masses of their people who do not see their regimes as legitimate will simply conclude that their efforts are gang-up on behalf of the US. This is one of the reasons that the announcement today of a summit Monday by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan with Israel in support of Mahmoud Abbas’ Unilateral Declaration of Independence, UDI in the West Bank is more likely to further complicate an already complicated situation. As unconscionable as the suicide bombings that Hamas has been known for are, wishing the organization away as an unknown stakeholder in Palestine is probably ill-advised. One does not know how the summit will advise Abbas to handle those Palestinians who support Hamas and mistrust Fatah. The latest poll placed the percentage of Hamas support amongst Palestinians at 37. It will be perilous to ignore this significant percentage of people.

Mr. Tony Blair’s Reward?

Although Mr. Tony Blair’s aides did dismiss it as untrue, but The Washington Post reported it as a done deal that US president, George W. Bush will soon announce his appointment of retiring British Prime Minister Tony Blair as his new special envoy in the Mideast with the responsibility to over-see governance and economic issues in Palestine. The appointment, which is reported to have been in the works since the past two months would take effect some time after Mr. Blair relinquishes his office at the end of the month.

If this appointment takes place, many will rightly interpret it as Mr. Bush’s reward to Mr. Blair for his unquestioning support and alliance to the US over the invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq. The appointment might not be worth more than finding something doing for Mr. Blair because the odds seem to be staked against any likelihood of his been effective in the position. Apart from the fact that the Mideast has profoundly been polluted by policies and actions that Mr. Blair himself was part of, last week’s violent factional face-off between Hamas and Fatah has muddied the Palestinian-Israeli crisis even more. The other thing is that the Bush administration, which doesn’t seem to be genuinely keen on fostering the much-needed atmosphere that could encourage sincere engagement between all the stakeholders in the crisis, will not cede the necessary leeway to Mr. Blair to function effectively as an envoy. It seems like crucial aspects of US Mideast policy will still be in the hands of Secretary of State, Ms. Condoleezza Rice.

We mustn’t forget that former World Bank president, Mr. James D. Wolfensohn, who held the position that Mr. Blair might assume resigned in frustration in January last year after only twelve months on the job when he couldn’t convince the Bush administration and others that withholding aid from the Hamas-run government was a bad idea.

There is little doubt that Mr. Mahmoud Abbas’ recently declared UDI in the occupied West Bank might have encouraged the leak about the decision to appoint Mr. Blair. Apart from portraying the US as being in the play, the announcement indeed the appointment whenever it is formally announced, wouldn’t amount to much. Mr. Blair lacks the credibility of an impartial envoy. This reward may not amount to much at all.

Another Blunder Is Underway in Palestine

The US, Israel, the EU, indeed the international community are all co-joined once again to commit yet another blunder in Palestine. The notion that encouraging Palestinian Authority president, Mr. Mahmoud Abbas to embark on what amounts to a Unilateral Declaration of Independence, UDI from the Gaza Strip, which was over-ran by Hamas militants in last week’s factional violence will advance the course of resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is clear blunder if not worse. It compares to countless other blunders that all parties involved in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict committed in the past.

Mr. Abbas is playing along in this blunder oblivious of the near certainty that it will get the Palestinians, and even the Israelis nowhere. At the most Mr. Abbas and his clique will receive the monetary and other forms of aid that the US, Israel, and the EU have promised to steer their way. They will, as has often been the case, continue to cushion their posh lifestyle with all that aid even as the cause for Palestinian statehood suffers. Perhaps Mr. Abbas needs to be reminded of some hard facts: Himself and his organization, Fatah lost a popular election last November, and clearly couldn’t even hold their own in the violent face-off against Hamas last week. In a neighborhood where muscular tactics matter a lot in politics, their inability to hold their own and preference for relying on external support to remain in the game will certainly not win them much-needed credibility.

Without condoning neither the violence that gave Hamas total control of Gaza last week, nor its resort to certain unpalatable tactics, it will amount to sheer hypocrisy to absolve Abbas, and Fatah of blame over the confrontation with Hamas. Their willingness to lend themselves to geopolitical power play in the region to the point of continuously acting like the election that Hamas won was of no effect was partly responsible for provoking that violent face-off last week. The laughable thing in tha is that Fatah was routed in a face-off that it helped provoke.

It is unrealistic for Mr. Abbas and Fatah to continue to presume that they will find themselves relevant by not encouraging the sort of behavior that would wean Hamas off its hard-line tendencies without fracturing Palestinian unity. When he proclaims that his UDI has created the atmosphere to engage the Israelis in peace negotiation, Mr. Abbas is simply operating from denial. Peace with Israel is absolutely necessary, but his UDI cannot enable it. Peace with Israel cannot obtain in the absence of Palestinian unity. The emphasis on security for Israel as a pre-eminent necessary and sufficient condition for meaningful engagement in the peace process is bound to continuously chart the path of failure. Israel’s security is just one of the several other issues that are involved in the Palestinian-Israeli crisis. In order for any effort to solve the crisis to become meaningful, all of the issues—including economic, well-being for the Palestinian, the return issue, etc.—involved in the crisis ought to be addressed together. Isolating Hamas will not help matters in that regard at all. It will encourage it to remain stuck in bad behavior.

Piling support and aid on Mr. Abbas and Fatah to encourage their UDI will worsen a worsening situation even more.

Ethiopian Government’s Alleged Abuses in the Ogaden

In journalistic terms, the story in The New York Times today on claims made by the Ogadeni people that Ethiopian government troops routinely commit atrocities against civilians in the course of their pursuit of fighters that belong to the Ogaden National Liberation Front, ONLF against which it has been engaged in a separatist war since 1994 would qualify as news. This is in the sense that stories on this claim haven’t been international media staples, even though the rebellion has been underway for about thirteen years now. However, the news is true-to-type. This is in the sense that the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the one in neighboring Eritria headed by Isaias Afworki, ever since they ousted Mengistu Haile Miriam in 1991 seem to be in competition with themselves to see who will come tops in the repression of their citizens. Human Rights Watch, the European Parliament and even the US State Department have all implicated the Zenawi government in abuses.

The interesting thing is that at no time has either Afworki or Zenawi lost support for a long time from the US. During the Clinton presidency both individuals alongside Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, were show-cased as the epitome of new African leaders. Since the Bush White House began the War against Terrorism, WaT, Afworki and Zenawi have upped their competition against one another to be the favorite boy-supporters of US anti-terror efforts in the Horn of Africa. In return Washington looks the other way and ignores their repression of internal dissent. Only last year, Zenawi went out of his way to rig general elections to perpetuate himself in power, and went as far as unleashing his security forces on opposition protesters, many of whom were shot on the streets of Addis Ababa, the capital, when they protested. He is still holding unknown numbers of opposition elements in indefinite detention. He has been involved in a campaign against Al-Qaeda-backed Islamists in Somalia as US proxy. The ONLF has certainly played into Zenawi’s hands by killing Chinese oilmen alongside Ethiopian troops recently. If that act convinces the US to listen to Zenawi’s plea to declare the ONLF a terrorist organization, there might be no secrecy or denial again whenever his troops step up their alleged acts of brutality against Ogadeni civilians.

If Zenawi gets away with the allegation being made against him in Ogaden, it will be another affirmation that the Wat is indeed a ploy to let dictators in Asia, and Africa brutalize their people and get away with it so long as they lend themselves to the Wat.

Un-Making Obasanjo’s Evils

The onus to cleanse Nigerian society of all the evils that Olusegun Obasanjo inflicted on the land in the eight years he was in power has fallen on the judiciary. So far, it seems like the judiciary will summon the courage this time to redeem itself and give the polity another chance. The Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of Governor Peter Obi’s petition for the Court to imbue him with the legitimacy to finish his four-year term as governor, and the court ruling last week too, authorizing the release of the leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, who has been in indefinite detention by Obasanjo since 21 months ago, are indicators of that fact. The indefinite detention of Dokubo-Asari and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra's, MASSOB Ralph Uwazurike indicated not only Obasanjo’s evil side, it also made a mockery of the rule of law, which was supposed to be the basis of civilian rule.

Mujahid Dokubo-Asari’s release is just the beginning. Uwazurike should be allowed to return home as well.

Discharging the obligation to cleanse Obasnajo’s evils will not be easy. It will take courage though. It will entail serving justice to all petitioners at the various election tribunals that were established to examine the massively rigged elections this April. All the allegations of corruption leveled against the governors who presided in some of the states in the country in the last eight years must be examined and looked into without fear or favor. The sale of public corporations, the allocation of oil blocks to friends and cronies of Mr. Obasanjo are the other areas that must be investigated and cleaned up. The other big task will be to attend to the recent suit brought by Chief Anthony Enahoro and others challenging the validity of the 1999 Constitution. It is an unparalleled fraud for the country to operate a constitution in the name of the people when there is no such document that was established on their mandate. The cleansing would not take people who are geniuses. It can be done.

False Antithesis in Palestine

For the Bush administration and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the factional violence between Hamas and Fatah may have been God-sent. This is in the sense that it has severed the links between Hamas, which both the US and Israel still call a terrorist organization, even though it won a democratic election and formed a government last year as a result, and Fatah, whose leader and Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas is seen by both as a negotiating partner.

The resultant split from that factional violence has given rise to two separate Palestinian territories in Gaza, where Hamas is in total control, and the West Bank, where Mahmoud Abbas has declared his readiness to establish a separate government, which will operate by decrees, after he announced the dissolution of the Hamas-led government yesterday. Buoyed by out-right declaration of support from both the US and Israel, Abbas issued a decree in which he annulled a law that required legislative approval before his appointment of a prime minister could stand as legitimate. Hamas has not wasted time to dismiss his actions and decrees as irrelevant.

The logic in Mr. Abbas’s moves is that both the US and Israel will open up to him with aid and other forms of support. To what extent will an Abbas-led factional Palestinian government be able to truly carry the majority of Palestinians and sympathizers of their cause in an engagement with Israel? The answer to this question cannot be a definitive Yes! In which case, the unfolding scenario is therefore irrelevant as far as the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli crisis is concerned. If the desire on the part of the US, Israel, and even the EU is to suspend the crisis in the sort of precarious limbo that stokes anarchy, then the gamble that is unfolding by way of aid and support to Mr. Abbas and squeezing of Hamas is well-aimed. But if the intention is to enable a situation that would entail peace between the Palestinian antagonists, on the one hand, and between the Palestinians and Israel on yet the other hand, then, aiding Mr. Abbas and squeezing Hamas is false antithesis. All the squeezing that was directed at Hamas since it won the elections last year didn’t come to much. It didn’t seem to have weakened it at all. There has to be a better way of forging US policy amongst the Palestinians if at all the ultimate desire is to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli crisis.

Cause for Hope in Nigeria

The ruling yesterday by Nigeria’s Supreme Court in Abuja in favor of Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State in his suit in which he prayed the Court to validate his demand to serve out a full four-year term as governor sequel to the validation of his 2003 election might be cause for hope that the country might be bracing up to correct some of the extensive wrongs that Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo inflicted during the last eight years. The Court’s decision is indeed courageous and significant. Moreso, in that it came so quickly on the heels of Mr. Obasnajo's return to his Ota Farm only a few weeks ago.

On both counts, the decision should provide a cue to particularly the various tribunals that are handling all the petitions that derived from the shameful elections that Mr. Obasanjo rigged in the most blatant manner to extend his rule albeit by proxy. If those tribunals show the necessary courage and deliver justice in each of those petitions brought before them, they would have restored the meaning of transition to all that went awry on Mr. Obasanjo’s deliberate watch. By so-doing, the stage will then be set for Nigeria to proceed on a sound democratic path, so to say. For that to happen, the meritorious petitions brought to challenge the installation of Mr. Obasanjo’s hand-picked successor, Mr. Umar Yar’Adua must produce a verdict that will nullify his claims to the presidency and order a fresh election to be conducted by a credibly electoral body, which will not be the INEC chaired by Mr. Maurice Iwu.

Mr. Peter Obi’s historic feat will be enhanced only by how well he positions himself as governor. He must exhibit unparalleled independence from Abuja in order to assert that the unitary power grab by Mr. Obasanjo is illegitimate and bad for good governance. He doesn’t even need to go cap in hand each month for the so-called allocation from Abuja. He could govern Anambra credibly by raising revenue from alternative sources within the state. His worthy victory in the Supreme Court has placed him on the worthy pedestal to redefine governance in Nigeria. One would hope that he wouldn’t squander the opportunity.

Anarchy Unfolds in Palestine

In a neighborhood, which has for a long time been associated with violence, the assassination death of a law maker in Lebanon, and the continuing high intensity warfare amongst the Palestinians that qualifies as a full-blown civil war are the sort of events that could be taken for granted. But any informed watcher of the Middle East should not but conclude that the pattern of violence this time in Palestine points to an unfolding anarchy that will seriously hurt any prospects for peace there and the neighborhood that it is part of in the long run.

The foundation of the unfolding anarchy in Palestine was laid after the election that gave Hamas victory last year. The refusal of Israel, the US, and even the Europeans to acknowledge the outcome of that election on the ground that Hamas refuses to renounce its non-acceptance of Israel’s existence, and the open declaration of support for Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas by the US, even though they lost the election, were gestures that gave wrong signals to Palestinians. Hardliners within Hamas may have been gratified by those gestures however. All the same, the crippling of the incipient Hamas-led government after aid and support from the US and Europeans was cut off, did not in any way compel Hamas to comply with the demand to recognize Israel. Instead, Hamas has forged ahead on its own terms. The latest step in that regard is its unfolding determination to militarily over-run and subdue Fatah to possibly pave way to consolidate its power in Gaza. There is no doubt that by so-doing, Hamas has throttled events to the degree in which Israel, Mr. Abbas, and the White House have been caught flat-footed in their own desire to steer the course of events in Palestine to reflect their desires. The truth therefore is that the quest by Israel and the US to shape the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli problem according to their subjective worldview may have suffered yet another big set back.

Perhaps, new efforts will now be scrambled together by the US and others who share that subjective worldview to achieve the kind of resolution of the crisis they crave all in the bid to rescue Fatah and Mr. Abbas. There is no doubt that such efforts will stoke the anarchy further, and deepen the factional divide between Hamas and Fatah. It is sad, but the truth is that the policies that led to the present scenario were avoidable. Such policies may have been informed by the belief that violence could coerce concession from the Palestinians, experience has shown that the crisis in the Middle East has been deepened by initiatives that were meant to lift it out of the doldrums towards a solution. The fact that the crisis end up each and all the time, not being resolved is cause for the parties concerned to step back and rethink. No one involved in the quest to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli problem has shown the necessary courage to step forward to assume the role of an impartial arbiter between the Palestinians and Israelis. Until that happens, the violence and blood shed will sadly continue.

Hurting America’s Bona Fide in the World

The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US and the events that they provoked when the Bush White House embarked on several activities in the world may have over-shadowed the big blot that the outcome of the 2000 presidential election represents in the perception of the US by many in the world. But it is worthy of note to mention that many people the world over read cynical meanings from the 2000 presidential election on the grounds that it was rigged by the Republican party. I still recall a friend in Nigeria mockingly suggesting that the US could have been better off if the Republicans had approached Nigerians to teach them the ropes of how best to rig elections. Who would imagine that the US would be thought of as an importer of a primer on how best to rig elections! On their part, unsavory political actors in parts of Africa became comfortable with the assumption that they could rig elections in their respective countries and get away with any criticism from the US by simply turning the table at the US.

The continuing revelations about the incompetence of US Attorney General, Mr. Alberto Gonzalez don’t help matters at all in this regard on two counts: It has been established beyond doubt so far that he is incompetent, and his refusal to resign and President George W. Bush’s refusal to relieve him of his position have given the world further cause to presume that the US is not different from other societies where incompetence in public office don’t have consequences at all for individuals. The longer the mess drags on the more entrenched that notion becomes in the minds of people in different parts of the world. But the decision to halt the erosion in US credibility depends more on Mr. Gonzalez than his boss, the President. If he decides to resign, he would not only aid his country, he would also rehabilitate himself as an honorable individual.

Incomplete Diagnosis

Ms. Michelle Rhee, whose appointment as the new superintendent of the District of Columbia Public Schools system is slated to be announced today by Washington, DC Mayor Adrian M. Fenty may have gotten off on a rocky start before even she could begin her new job. Her diagnosis of the problem with the troubled DC Public School System is wrong. She strongly believes that only good teachers will make the difference in any school.

But I respectfully disagree with her. The problems facing the DC Public Schools System are several and multi-faceted. They range from the various broken dawn homes and families from which most of the children in DC public schools come to the faceless bureaucratic machinery that over-burdens what actually transpires in the schools right in the classrooms. A child who is not properly brought up to respect the authority of significant others and adults is not ready for the rigors of academics. That child will refuse to abide by all the rules that make schools what they are. When schools are not seen as institutions, teachers cannot perform as authority figures, and everything else will fall by the way side as a result.

The first problem with educating children in the DC Public Schools System derives from their homes. One is aware of the legacies of slavery, etc. that make it difficult for black people to be trustful of authority in the US. Such legacies have for a long time made it possible for teachers to take advantage of the system to prey on the children placed on their care. This is to the degree that teachers go out of their ways to place children on the path that will systematically lead them to self-destruction. In a normal world, teachers teach and nurture children under their care but nit destroy them. But parents must also be trustful of the teachers under whose care they place their children; else they will not be trustful of their judgment. Parents, even if they lack the ability to impart discipline on their children, must be willing to cede some authority to the teachers to hew off whatever rough edges that their children bring from home to school. Those rough edges are indeed, some of the factors that interfere with the teaching and learning processes, when they are brought into the classrooms and allowed to fester.

Mr. Fenty must return to the voters, to parents in the City to ascertain the degree to which they are willing to rise to their responsibility as parents and as partners in the education of their children. Unless that happens, it is only going to be a matter of time before a burn-out sets in to erode the Mayor’s confidence in Ms. Rhee. That burn-out will affect her credibility, and things will begin to fall apart, as has often been the case. She will not be a miracle woman who will deliver what is not there. The problem with the DC Public Schools system must be fixed in the over all for it to functional well. Otherwise, Ms. Rhee’s appointment will be another musical chair, and as has been the case in the past, the cheers may not be there when she moves on.

The Bottom Line Remains Unchanged

Ever since the occupation of Iraq began, there is one central puzzle that has been left addressed even as the US continues to tinker with all manner of strategies aimed at achieving what President George W. Bush and members of his inner circle in the White House and in the other sections and arms of the US government call ‘victory’. That puzzle is: How much do Iraq’s diverse groups want continued US presence in their country? The invasion proper was rightly preceded by that puzzle, but the derivative response to it was fraught with extensive assumptions steeped in fantasy. That was why the architects of the invasion proclaimed that the Iraqis will receive US troops with flowers. Well, no flowers were seen when US troops entered Baghdad, or thereafter. But all the same, the occupation has continued in the absence of a valid resolution of that puzzle.

It seems that the need to resolve that puzzle has been lost in either the debate over continued US presence in Iraq, which was heralded by the mid-term election that brought the Democrats to a slim majority in Congress in November 2006, or over the White House’s over-zeal to plod on with the occupation like nothing has changed at all in the initial support for the war by most Americans. The decision to escalate the number of American troops in Iraq was made in spite of the non-resolution of that puzzle. So was the kite flown last week by Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the Bush administration’s desire to have troops in Iraq for an indefinite period of time.

The current decision to arm members of the Sunni religious sect to combat al-Qaeda is riding on the back of that vacuum as well. One is hard-pressed to believe that the same Sunni community whose leadership was routed and humiliated by Saddam Hussein’s ouster and execution, which was televised globally, would willing and truly stand behind the US in its occupation of Iraq. The decision to arm the Sunni is indicative of US desperation, because going by instances in the past when what was received from the US by the Iraq security forces was deployed against US troops by elements in them, there is no proof that the current arrangement to assist the Sunni will not turn out that way as well. The only litmus test that it would not back fire can be found in a change in the bottom line, i.e. the Sunni people must genuinely declare their acceptance of continued US presence in Iraq. It is only when they do that that the US can then begin to court them as allies. They haven't do that yet, and don't seem ready to do it at all.

The Government of Tanzania, the UAE Royal Family, and the Hadzabe Nationality

Africa’s contemporary reputation as a continent where impunity reigns is playing out once again, this time in Tanzania where the government of President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete is about to sacrifice the Hadzabe, an indigenous nationality that inhabits the country's Yaeda Valley for a few dollars more simply because they are vulnerable people. The Hadzabe, who still retain their simple hunting and gathering life style which they evolved over the past 50,000 years are being forced to vacate their homeland to make way for the United Arab Emirate, UAE royal family which has leased 2,500 square miles of their land from the Tanzania government for safari and other pleasures that its members feel that they must enjoy elsewhere other than their own land. Some members of the UAE royal family are not content with the chunk of the Hadzabe land they already have and share with other members of their family. They want some more of the Hadzabe land to themselves even at the expense of the indigenous owners who must be driven out to make room to accommodate their greed, simply because they have the money to pervert the Tanzania officials involved.

Elsewhere the Hadzabe would be a protected national treasure. But Tanzania prefers to force off their land, even though it is clear that driving them off their land and a life style that they have been used to will amount to driving them into extinction. It has already been established that the Hadzabe cannot cope with a sudden thrust into the so-called modern life style. Some of them who were carted to prison by the Tanzania government for simply raising their voice to disagree with the quest to force them out never returned alive.

The most unconscionable aspect of this episode of impunity is that the Tanzania government cared so less about the Hadzabe that it found absolutely no needs to consult or include them in the processes that made the deal with the money-bag UAE royal family. This petty act which could not have taken place in Tanzania while the late Julius Nyerere was alive and in office as president in Tanzania must not only be condemned by all decent people and groups the world over, but must also be stopped. Referring to an indigenous people who do not constitute a threat to the government as “backward” and primitive simply because their homeland has been sold for money is raw and uncivilized. There is no need recommending that the Hadzabe who number less than 2,000 should take their case to the courts in Tanzania because they will not get a fair hearing.

The Hadzabe situation is a perfect challenge to the civilized world. The UN and its relevant agencies must rise up to the challenge to save a vulnerable people from a government that lacks morality and decency. This case is the type that the International Court of Justice at The Hague was made for. Some justice-loving group or individuals must act on behalf of the Hadzabe and take the case to The Hague to help them secure some arrangement that will protect them and their culture from extinction by the government and the royal family in the UAE.

Stalling Tactics

There is yet another indication that Israel’s political establishment lacks the genuine intentions to seek and establish the credibility necessary for lasting peace with the Palestinians. It is not that it requires the services of a fortune teller for any ardent watcher of the Palestinian-Israeli problem to discern that Israel wants anything less than a resolution that hinges completely on its own terms, but the report today that Prime Minister Olmert’s government has made back channel overtures to negotiate with Syria with the aim of returning the Golan Heights is capable of creating the impression that there’s a lack of genuine desire for peace particularly because the same report disclosed that Israel’s overtures is aimed at isolating Iran.

That mindset which compels those who hold it in the Israeli political establishment and their international supporters to stop at nothing in the pursuit of whatever frustrates the possibility of solving the crisis falls within the realm of stalling tactics. The assassination of Yshak Rabin under a highly poisoned political atmosphere which was generated and stoked quiet openly by opponents of the Oslo Accords that he initialed with the late Yassir Arafat is yet another indication of the existence of the said mindset. Seeking and making peace with Syria with the aim of curbing Iran’s growing influence in the region will be the latest one. But the question that craves a serious consideration is: Is there really an alternative to a lasting resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli crisis?

The harsh and truthful answer to that question is indeed, no! So far, nothing indicates that there will come a time when the prevalent circumstances in the Middle East would respond to the desires of the holders of this mindset. There is no denying that given America’s unflinching support, Israel will continue to enjoy the upper hand in the balance of military power in the region. But Israel’s military power has proven insufficient in curbing Palestinian resistance and all the destructive violence that characterize the use of military power to quash that resistance. Meanwhile, both sides have continued to bleed in every sense of the word. Nothing can be better than a lasting solution in this case. So far, the will for that is lacking in Israel’s political establishment and in the ranks of its supporters. The Palestinians do deserve their own share of the blame here, but one is convinced that Israel is the more powerful adversary in the conflict. However, that in and by itself places a good measure of the burden to credibly set the stage for genuine peace on Israel and its international supporters. Stalling tactics will not get even the most powerful party in this kind of protracted conflict far enough.

US Intelligence Establishment on Castro

One of his last public acts as US National Intelligence director before he re-deployed to the State Department was Mr. John Negroponte’s appearance before the US Senate Intelligence Committee. The only seeming bomb shell that he handed out during that session was his authoritative 'disclosure' that Cuba’s President Fidel Castro’s death was imminent, in fact, a few months away from then. Negroponte’s ‘disclosure’ came a little after Mr. Castro disappeared from the public because of the ailment, which he is still recuperating from.

Contrary to Negroponte’s ‘disclosure’, Mr. Castro is still alive. The only thing that US intelligence got right was therefore the ailment, which up until recently kept Mr. Castro out of total circulation for 10 months in a row. Although Negroponte’s almost bogus disclosure didn’t make the media radar screen beyond the first few days, the truth remains that it doesn’t bode well for the credibility of the US intelligence establishment. This is especially in the light of the big intelligence failure over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, WMD program. If the circumstances had warranted it, the intelligence from which Negroponte derived the logic of his ‘disclosure’ from was actionable enough to inform critical policy decisions by the White House. As Iraq burns, the need for US policy makers to trust but verify every manner of intelligence from the US intelligence establishment before it can be used to support or justify serious foreign policy decisions cannot be over-emphasized.

There is indeed a difference between wishing death on Mr. Castro and predicting on the basis of hard intelligence that he would die within a specific time period. Now that Mr. Castro has defied the prediction of his death by the newest intelligence clearing house established by the US government in the wake of the intelligence failure over Iraq, where then does it place the US intelligence establishment on credibility?

The Best News, Probably

China’s official announcement today by its State Council had taken new measures to re-invigorate the country’s over all food an drug safety monitoring standards is probably one of the best news on globalization this time around. What started with the importation of tainted pet food into the US from China not long ago had gradually grown to assume enormous proportions when there emerged other cases of tainted toothpaste from China that was alleged to have killed at least 100 people in Panama.

The global frenzy for cheap manufactures literally made China the first stop for international monopoly concerns that find China’s huge appetite for economic growth so luring that no one seemed to have risen to the challenge of ensuring that safety wasn’t sacrificed for quick profits. It is all so good that the Chinese government seemed to have risen quickly to the challenge of restoring global confidence in its safety food and drug structures. That process which began with the death sentence handed last week to Mr. Zheng Xiaoyu, who used to be the head of China’s Food and Drug Administration for taking bribe and over-looking strict adherence to regulation standards, has been extended to the administration of tighter safety standards as well as enforcement procedures at all levels of China's food and drug safety establishment. The new standards include aspects that would prevent errors as well as those that will track and investigate errors if and when they are detected.

The issues involved here are not political at all. They knock at the heart of what drives the world economic system even as it shows signs of terminal crisis. There’s hardly any doubt at all that China is part of if not the heartbeat of the world economy. The other time what emerged as slight quakes in China's stock market sent global waves that almost crashed major stock markets in the major and even minor financial centers in the world. What is needed this time from everyone concerned is cooperation with and support for the Chinese as they proceed with the task of restoring global confidence in their country's food and drug safety regime. Anything else will translate to the most counter-productive outcome that will probably drive the world economy to the lowest low in what Immanuel Wallerstein calls its terminal crisis.

Turkey’s Incursion Into Iraq

Reports today that Turkish troops chased Kurdish fighters into northern Iraq are worrisome but not unexpected. Turkey has never hidden its readiness to foil any attempts by Kurds on its side of the border to take advantage of the nominal independence status that Iraqi Kurdistan is enjoying to re-invigorate their fight for independence from Turkey.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ warning to Turkey last week for it not to invade northern Iraq may not have been in vain after all. Today’s reports indicate that Gates’ warning may not mean much to Turkey by way of deterrence. It doesn’t and may not constitute one. The reason being that Iraqi Kurds who are determined to assert their independence from Iraq someday soon will likely continue to extend a hand of support to their kinsmen across the border in Turkey. Kurdish desire for independence from the rest of Iraq and support for their kinsmen in Turkey will present the US with serious challenges that it may not be able to handle easily. The reasons being that on the one hand, the US cannot easily talk the Kurds in Iraq off their desire to assert their independence, and on yet the other hand, unless the Bush White House acts true to its established swashbuckling persona, sending US forces into northern Iraq and possibly into Turkey to neutralize the latter’s significant military presence will further complicate things for the US in the region. But only time will tell what will unfold in Iraq sequel to US invasion.

Not Without Europe

Even as the US wrangles with Russian President, Vladimir Putin over its projected missile defense system that will tie all of the NATO members, one unacknowledged piece of fact is at the heart of this latest element of US self-appointed role as an advocate and defender of democracy in the free world. That fact is that the Europe will always remain relevant to US foreign policy. For good or for bad, the US cannot afford to ignore Europe in its quest to sustain what Immanuel Wallerstein calls hegemony in the world.

The missile defense system will definitely re-validate US bona fide in Europe on NATO’s auspices. The great economic strides made by countries in the parts of Europe that former Defense Secretary, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld described as ‘old Europe’ when he became exasperated by their refusal to rubber stamp US invasion of Iraq during the post World War II years were partly responsible for deflating some of their allegiance to US world leadership. The collapse of Soviet Communism was the other variable that contributed to that deflation. In the absence of the threat that the Soviet Union posed, West Europeans don’t see the logic for them to play the second fiddle in their relationship with Washington. The call on the political leadership in most of Western Europe by Europe’s masses that the time for them to enable the enjoyment of the dividends of peace is intricately linked to the end of the Cold War. Even in the parts of what used to be in the Soviet Warsaw block, the missile defense system is being seen as a ploy by the US to cash in on the on-going War against Terror, WaT to rope the rest of Europe into a geo-strategic set-up that will re-invigorate Europe’s allegiance to the US. But it doe not seem that Europe's masses are very interested in being part of a muscular alliance with the US any more.

Although Iran is being positioned as Europe’s new common enemy in the current bid to win support for the missile, a re-invigorated US alliance with Europe will probably be more relevant for countering China’s growing reach in Africa and Asia from where it is poised to compete with the US for all manner of mineral and natural resources that it badly needs to sustain its stupendous economic growth. But US difficulties in convincing Europeans that China is a threat is deeply steeped in China’s refusal to let the US succeed in drawing it into Cold War-type enmity. China’s biggest concern at the moment centers on the realization of economic growth to sustain its huge population.

Even after the missile defense is put in place, the dividends that it will yield for the US might not be extensive and durable. It does not seem like the masses in Europe are enthusiastic about building alliance with the US on the basis of military defense. Europe’s masses seem to be more interested in rebuilding their alliance with the US only on a plank that emphasize world peace on an equal partnership.