Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the rave these days. SEO is an activity, which primarily involves ordinary human beings trying to outsmart the programmed robots of the search engine gods. In the internet age, every individual’s life is being exposed in some arbitrary fashion via a random listing of SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).
As a regular “searcher” myself, I rarely go beyond the first couple of SERPs on the “searchees” that I occasionally Google. I have therefore concluded that I need to take control of my own destiny and ensure that the two people (my wife and my dog) who might someday Google me get to see the “Jack Nargundkar” SERPs of my choosing! So this blog is my very own SEO exercise to influence the appearance of those initial SERPs, when my wife finally decides to Google me. Apparently, one of the tricks is providing the desired links in a blog such as this to pages that you wish to appear upfront in the SERPs. So here goes:
Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on November 3, 2006, "A Man, a Cab, a Cellphone, a Laptop"
Jack Nargundkar in the Wall Street Journal on October 24, 2006, "Counting War Dead Is Difficult -- Therefore, Let's Not Exaggerate"
Jack Nargundkar in the Wall Street Journal on October 6, 2006, "Musharraf May Be Our Fair-Haired Boy Now . . . But Watch Out"
Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on September 4, 2006, "Are We Seeing a Half-Empty Glass?"
Jack Nargundkar in the Washington Post on July 29, 2006, "Still Dreaming"
Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on March 8, 2006, "Bush and the Nuclear Subcontinent"
Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on January 8, 2006, "Other Voices: How The Times Handled the Surveillance Story"
Jack Nargundkar in the Washington Post on April 11, 2005, "No Individual Blamed"
Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on April 1, 2005, "A Life Ends, and a Nation Pauses to Reflect"
Jack Nargundkar in the New York Times on December 16, 2004, "Medals at Odds With Reality of War"
Jack Nargundkar in the Washington Post on May 27, 2004, "Punctuate a Comma Date"
Jack Nargundkar in the Washington Post on February 4, 2004, "Screening Bush: The Winners"
Jack Nargundkar in the Washington Post on December 5, 2003, "'Cut and Run' and the Right Approach in Iraq"
Jack Nargundkar in the Business Week on December 29, 2003, "The Challenge From India"
Jack Nargundkar in the Washington Post on April 12, 2003, "Next Steps on Iraq"
These are links to my letters that have been published in the The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Business Week in the past three years. As a budding writer I would like to see these articles appear in the first couple of pages of my SERPs. Capiche, Google? My wife then might finally come round to believing that someday I could make a living as a writer!
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Saving President Bush
While answering a question relating to the “war on terror” in August 2004, President Bush told Matt Lauer on NBC’s “Today” show,
In September 2006 the New York Times published part of a leaked National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report, which suggested that the war in Iraq had only made the terrorism problem worse? Shortly after 9/11 and prior to the start of the Iraq war, the Bush Administration’s rhetoric was nowhere as critical of and as closely tied to the religious aspects of the “war on terror”. It is apparent that the Administration’s increasingly pointed linkage of Islam to terror has been directly proportional to the deteriorating situation in Iraq. In the lead up to the 2006 elections, we heard new phrases such as “Islamo-fascist”, “Islamic Caliphate”, “Islamic Totalitarianism”, “Islamism” enter the public consciousness. Such linkages inflamed not only the faithful but also the long dormant – as has been evidenced by the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
President Bush must surely know that there are over one billion Muslims in the world, totaling nearly one-sixth of humanity. He cannot continue to associate their religion with historically unpopular political dogma such as fascism, totalitarianism, caliphates, etc. and still expect to “create conditions” that come even remotely close to winning a “war on terror”. By conflating religion with politics, President Bush is making his own gut pronouncement to Matt Lauer come true – effectively putting victory, in what he has called the “defining struggle of the 21st century”, out of the western world’s reach.
With a Democratic Congress now ready to take over, we can finally expect some meaningful oversight of the President’s foreign policy. Unfortunately, trying to hold the President accountable for bad policy does not necessarily help make that policy better. One can only hope that the Iraq Study Group’s forthcoming recommendations make some progress in this regard. Nevertheless, I too would like to propose a new strategic direction for the larger foreign policy of the United States – one that I believe will help in saving President Bush. It may not guarantee him an enduring legacy, but I believe my five-point plan will help restore our country’s respect and leadership in the world.
1. Declare an end to the amorphous “global war on terror”.
The “war on terror” has been irrevocably lost, since it has become so clearly demarcated along religious lines both within and outside of Iraq. This is a war that should have never been explicitly declared, much less overtly fought. Following the attacks of 9/11, we knew exactly who its perpetrator (Osama Bin Laden) was and in which country he was based (Afghanistan). It was a no-brainer to declare war on Afghanistan, topple its government (the Taliban), and try to bring this perpetrator to justice.
We also knew that the perpetrator’s organization, Al Qaeda, had a network of terror cells around the world. We even surmised that many of these cells were organized as sleeper cells in various nations that were both friendly and unfriendly to the United States. Thus it should have been obvious that the disparate structure of this terror network would make an overt “war on terror” very difficult to successfully execute on a sustained basis. Following our overt military action in Afghanistan, we should have engaged the remainder of this terror network in a long “silent war” with the help of key western allies. The objective of this silent war would be to root out these terror cells around the world via covert action using “Special Ops” forces as and when required. In fact, I had recommended this “Silent War Doctrine” as a counter to the Bush Doctrine back in December 2001.
The Bush Administration’s conduct of the Iraq war, as a continuation of the global war on terror, has been an unmitigated disaster. Even if this had not been the original intent, it has become apparent that the Iraq war is causing the global war on terror to degenerate into a religious divide between the Judeo-Christian and Muslim worlds. There cannot conceivably be a healthy conclusion to a modern day crusade of this kind – as a result, we need to bring about a quick end to our occupation of Iraq. More importantly, we must find and kill Osama Bin Laden – even if this means reinforcing American troop strength in Afghanistan and engaging the Taliban inside Pakistan. After Osama Bin Laden has been taken “dead or alive”, we should declare an end to the overt global war on terror and let a covert silent war take its place to fulfill our ongoing post-9/11 objectives.
2. Dissolve the “axis of evil” and engage its two recalcitrant members in direct talks.
The reference to “axis of evil” was an unwise piece of rhetoric that should have never seen light of day and I indicated as much in an article that I wrote shortly after President Bush’s 2002 state of the union address, which gave birth to this monstrosity. Bush might have intended to emulate Reagan’s evil empire comparison – but Reagan took on an actual empire, with which there were no religious or theological affiliations to consider. Ironically, the application of the so-called Bush Doctrine to the first member of the axis of evil (Iraq) has resulted in the other two charter members of the axis of evil (Iran & North Korea) actually hastening their respective programs to acquire weapons of mass destruction. With preemptive action against these two nations no longer a viable option, diplomacy can make progress only if these nations are no longer vilified. In the long run, we stand to lose more by not talking directly with Iran and North Korea. If engaging these nations in direct talks requires that we “change our attitude”, we should do so – because it’s time that the Bush Administration realized that substance (producing meaningful outcomes) will eventually trump style (demanding or expecting certain types of behavior from lesser nations). As an indicator of our change in attitude towards Iran, President Bush must offer to re-establish diplomatic relations with Tehran.
3. Initiate “six-party talks” on a divided Iraq.
Shortly after the Biden-Gelb plan on Iraq appeared in the New York Times on May 1st, I endorsed it with the following qualifications in my blog dated May 6th:
“Most of the Biden-Gelb plan for “Unity Through Autonomy in Iraq” makes a lot of sense. However, it did not take into consideration one very important geo-political consideration that is critical to the plan’s success – Iraq’s neighbors. When Saddam was in power he was a constant threat to his neighbors. Once the United States withdraws and with no unifying authoritarian figure in control of Iraq, its neighbors will become a threat to its unity. We cannot forget that Iraq was a country created by the British from disparate nomadic regions. The Turks have had historical issues with the Kurds and Iran will continue to become increasingly influential and meddlesome with the autonomous Shia portion of Iraq. So we need to involve all of Iraq’s neighbors ¬– Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey – upfront in a Dayton-type round of discussions to ensure that the Biden-Gelb plan is destined to succeed.”
Now, more than six months later, I might be so bold as to suggest that the Sunni region of Iraq might want to consider merging with Kuwait to ensure its economic survival – which would be an ironical but fitting twist to Saddam Hussein’s geopolitical mis-adventure of 1990. It is also apparent that the Shia region of Iraq will become a satellite state of Iran, in effect delivering Iran a much-belated victory in its 1980-88 war with Iraq. In order for the Kurdish region to survive a combined Turkish and Iranian threat, we will need to maintain substantial troop strength there for several years – as we have done in South Korea.
4. Appoint President Clinton as Special Ambassador to the Middle East.
There can be no long-term peace in the Middle East until we successfully resolve the Israeli-Palestine problem. President Clinton got very close in 2000 but was betrayed by a greedy Yasser Arafat, who was not happy with the return of 97% of the occupied territories, including joint-control of Jerusalem. With Arafat out of the picture and his Fatah party feuding with Hamas, now might be a good time to mediate a new peace settlement. President Bush can condition his re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Iran to their intervening with Hamas in the West Bank and Hezbollah in Lebanon. He can then appoint President Clinton as his special ambassador to the region with cabinet rank and full authority to negotiate a 2000-style peace accord.
5. Accept the resignation of Vice President Cheney and appoint a prominent Muslim-American to his cabinet.
President Bush must realize by now that the failure of his foreign policy has been largely due to an aggressive Vice President and his band of neoconservative advisors. The firing of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld can only be the first step in the rejection of a failed “stay the course” strategy. Conservative writer, Peggy Noonan, was on to something when she had headlined a column back in February, “Hit Refresh? Why Bush may be thinking about replacing Cheney.” If he wasn’t thinking about it then, he must do so now – a revised Bush foreign policy has no chance of succeeding in the next two years with its old architect still around. Ms. Noonan was right – a Cheney replacement would have two years to be groomed as a logical successor to President Bush in 2008. John McCain would be a good choice.
Finally, President Bush must appoint a prominent Muslim-American to his cabinet. This would be a terrific gesture to not only the Muslims at home, but it would also show Muslims worldwide that we are a tolerant and inclusive society. There is no vacancy in the cabinet right now, but if someone were to resign, I think such an appointment would go a long way in defusing tensions in the Muslim world more than anything else.
“I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world — let's put it that way.”With his then reelection a little over two months away, the President soon backtracked on the “cannot win it” part.
In September 2006 the New York Times published part of a leaked National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report, which suggested that the war in Iraq had only made the terrorism problem worse? Shortly after 9/11 and prior to the start of the Iraq war, the Bush Administration’s rhetoric was nowhere as critical of and as closely tied to the religious aspects of the “war on terror”. It is apparent that the Administration’s increasingly pointed linkage of Islam to terror has been directly proportional to the deteriorating situation in Iraq. In the lead up to the 2006 elections, we heard new phrases such as “Islamo-fascist”, “Islamic Caliphate”, “Islamic Totalitarianism”, “Islamism” enter the public consciousness. Such linkages inflamed not only the faithful but also the long dormant – as has been evidenced by the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
President Bush must surely know that there are over one billion Muslims in the world, totaling nearly one-sixth of humanity. He cannot continue to associate their religion with historically unpopular political dogma such as fascism, totalitarianism, caliphates, etc. and still expect to “create conditions” that come even remotely close to winning a “war on terror”. By conflating religion with politics, President Bush is making his own gut pronouncement to Matt Lauer come true – effectively putting victory, in what he has called the “defining struggle of the 21st century”, out of the western world’s reach.
With a Democratic Congress now ready to take over, we can finally expect some meaningful oversight of the President’s foreign policy. Unfortunately, trying to hold the President accountable for bad policy does not necessarily help make that policy better. One can only hope that the Iraq Study Group’s forthcoming recommendations make some progress in this regard. Nevertheless, I too would like to propose a new strategic direction for the larger foreign policy of the United States – one that I believe will help in saving President Bush. It may not guarantee him an enduring legacy, but I believe my five-point plan will help restore our country’s respect and leadership in the world.
1. Declare an end to the amorphous “global war on terror”.
The “war on terror” has been irrevocably lost, since it has become so clearly demarcated along religious lines both within and outside of Iraq. This is a war that should have never been explicitly declared, much less overtly fought. Following the attacks of 9/11, we knew exactly who its perpetrator (Osama Bin Laden) was and in which country he was based (Afghanistan). It was a no-brainer to declare war on Afghanistan, topple its government (the Taliban), and try to bring this perpetrator to justice.
We also knew that the perpetrator’s organization, Al Qaeda, had a network of terror cells around the world. We even surmised that many of these cells were organized as sleeper cells in various nations that were both friendly and unfriendly to the United States. Thus it should have been obvious that the disparate structure of this terror network would make an overt “war on terror” very difficult to successfully execute on a sustained basis. Following our overt military action in Afghanistan, we should have engaged the remainder of this terror network in a long “silent war” with the help of key western allies. The objective of this silent war would be to root out these terror cells around the world via covert action using “Special Ops” forces as and when required. In fact, I had recommended this “Silent War Doctrine” as a counter to the Bush Doctrine back in December 2001.
The Bush Administration’s conduct of the Iraq war, as a continuation of the global war on terror, has been an unmitigated disaster. Even if this had not been the original intent, it has become apparent that the Iraq war is causing the global war on terror to degenerate into a religious divide between the Judeo-Christian and Muslim worlds. There cannot conceivably be a healthy conclusion to a modern day crusade of this kind – as a result, we need to bring about a quick end to our occupation of Iraq. More importantly, we must find and kill Osama Bin Laden – even if this means reinforcing American troop strength in Afghanistan and engaging the Taliban inside Pakistan. After Osama Bin Laden has been taken “dead or alive”, we should declare an end to the overt global war on terror and let a covert silent war take its place to fulfill our ongoing post-9/11 objectives.
2. Dissolve the “axis of evil” and engage its two recalcitrant members in direct talks.
The reference to “axis of evil” was an unwise piece of rhetoric that should have never seen light of day and I indicated as much in an article that I wrote shortly after President Bush’s 2002 state of the union address, which gave birth to this monstrosity. Bush might have intended to emulate Reagan’s evil empire comparison – but Reagan took on an actual empire, with which there were no religious or theological affiliations to consider. Ironically, the application of the so-called Bush Doctrine to the first member of the axis of evil (Iraq) has resulted in the other two charter members of the axis of evil (Iran & North Korea) actually hastening their respective programs to acquire weapons of mass destruction. With preemptive action against these two nations no longer a viable option, diplomacy can make progress only if these nations are no longer vilified. In the long run, we stand to lose more by not talking directly with Iran and North Korea. If engaging these nations in direct talks requires that we “change our attitude”, we should do so – because it’s time that the Bush Administration realized that substance (producing meaningful outcomes) will eventually trump style (demanding or expecting certain types of behavior from lesser nations). As an indicator of our change in attitude towards Iran, President Bush must offer to re-establish diplomatic relations with Tehran.
3. Initiate “six-party talks” on a divided Iraq.
Shortly after the Biden-Gelb plan on Iraq appeared in the New York Times on May 1st, I endorsed it with the following qualifications in my blog dated May 6th:
“Most of the Biden-Gelb plan for “Unity Through Autonomy in Iraq” makes a lot of sense. However, it did not take into consideration one very important geo-political consideration that is critical to the plan’s success – Iraq’s neighbors. When Saddam was in power he was a constant threat to his neighbors. Once the United States withdraws and with no unifying authoritarian figure in control of Iraq, its neighbors will become a threat to its unity. We cannot forget that Iraq was a country created by the British from disparate nomadic regions. The Turks have had historical issues with the Kurds and Iran will continue to become increasingly influential and meddlesome with the autonomous Shia portion of Iraq. So we need to involve all of Iraq’s neighbors ¬– Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey – upfront in a Dayton-type round of discussions to ensure that the Biden-Gelb plan is destined to succeed.”
Now, more than six months later, I might be so bold as to suggest that the Sunni region of Iraq might want to consider merging with Kuwait to ensure its economic survival – which would be an ironical but fitting twist to Saddam Hussein’s geopolitical mis-adventure of 1990. It is also apparent that the Shia region of Iraq will become a satellite state of Iran, in effect delivering Iran a much-belated victory in its 1980-88 war with Iraq. In order for the Kurdish region to survive a combined Turkish and Iranian threat, we will need to maintain substantial troop strength there for several years – as we have done in South Korea.
4. Appoint President Clinton as Special Ambassador to the Middle East.
There can be no long-term peace in the Middle East until we successfully resolve the Israeli-Palestine problem. President Clinton got very close in 2000 but was betrayed by a greedy Yasser Arafat, who was not happy with the return of 97% of the occupied territories, including joint-control of Jerusalem. With Arafat out of the picture and his Fatah party feuding with Hamas, now might be a good time to mediate a new peace settlement. President Bush can condition his re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Iran to their intervening with Hamas in the West Bank and Hezbollah in Lebanon. He can then appoint President Clinton as his special ambassador to the region with cabinet rank and full authority to negotiate a 2000-style peace accord.
5. Accept the resignation of Vice President Cheney and appoint a prominent Muslim-American to his cabinet.
President Bush must realize by now that the failure of his foreign policy has been largely due to an aggressive Vice President and his band of neoconservative advisors. The firing of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld can only be the first step in the rejection of a failed “stay the course” strategy. Conservative writer, Peggy Noonan, was on to something when she had headlined a column back in February, “Hit Refresh? Why Bush may be thinking about replacing Cheney.” If he wasn’t thinking about it then, he must do so now – a revised Bush foreign policy has no chance of succeeding in the next two years with its old architect still around. Ms. Noonan was right – a Cheney replacement would have two years to be groomed as a logical successor to President Bush in 2008. John McCain would be a good choice.
Finally, President Bush must appoint a prominent Muslim-American to his cabinet. This would be a terrific gesture to not only the Muslims at home, but it would also show Muslims worldwide that we are a tolerant and inclusive society. There is no vacancy in the cabinet right now, but if someone were to resign, I think such an appointment would go a long way in defusing tensions in the Muslim world more than anything else.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
What happened to white America?
In his New York Times column of July 4th, with the attention-grabbing title “Disunited States of America”, John Tierney contemplated Americans acting like “the Red people in the South and the Blue people in the North had a border between them”. Ouch! Not exactly our very own version of a Shia-Sunni divide, but one that is becoming more and more jarring with each passing election.
In 1984 Ronald Reagan won reelection by a landslide capturing 49 of 50 states. Yet I can’t remember any divisive debates about red states and blue states from that era. In fact, the only red state that President Reagan was focused on back then was the one he derisively referred to as “the evil empire” – which he was passionate about defeating. And, the only ridicule that I recall following that lopsided election was a cartoon depicting the lonely “blue” state of Minnesota – as a part of Canada! The rest of the 49 states were not considered “red” – they just happened to represent the “United” States of America.
It was only after the split election of 2000 that the red state-blue state dichotomy began to get deeply ingrained into the American psyche. Candidate Bush, who had promised throughout that campaign to be a uniter and not a divider, ascended to the presidency despite losing the popular vote. President Bush then chose to further alienate the red and blue states throughout his first term. In fact, he successfully used this divisive “politics of color” to win reelection in 2004. In spite of a narrow victory, he claimed to have gained “political capital”.
He quickly managed to spend that capital and some. One would have hoped that the outcome of the 2006 mid-term elections would inject a dose of reality into the remaining two years of his presidency. However, recent indications from the White House seem to suggest that “stay the course”, on all manner of Bush policy, is here to stay – in spite of the American people having expressed their displeasure at the status quo.
The Clinton impeachment over lying about a personal indiscretion now seems Kafkaesque in its absurdity when compared to the steady string of whoppers that the Bush Administration has fed us over the past six years regarding vital matters of state. Nonetheless, impeaching this president, especially in a time of war, would be a cop out – it is imperative that President Bush get us out of the mess that his own “untruths” have created. We the people have elected a Democratic Congress so that we can finally hold the Bush Administration accountable for its actions.
Through his rash conduct of foreign policy, President Bush has seriously degraded the reputation and standing of the United States in the eyes of the world. It is imperative that we set our differences aside in our attempts to repair our international image. In the spirit of which I ask this seemingly provocative question “What happened to white America?” However, I do not ask this question in a pejorative manner implying race, but in the patriotic spirit of red, white and blue! Instead of our constant focus on red vs. blue in every aspect of policy making, I suggest that we all look at a compromising, neutral “white” – which could become the bright white light of enlightenment that guides US to glory!
In 1984 Ronald Reagan won reelection by a landslide capturing 49 of 50 states. Yet I can’t remember any divisive debates about red states and blue states from that era. In fact, the only red state that President Reagan was focused on back then was the one he derisively referred to as “the evil empire” – which he was passionate about defeating. And, the only ridicule that I recall following that lopsided election was a cartoon depicting the lonely “blue” state of Minnesota – as a part of Canada! The rest of the 49 states were not considered “red” – they just happened to represent the “United” States of America.
It was only after the split election of 2000 that the red state-blue state dichotomy began to get deeply ingrained into the American psyche. Candidate Bush, who had promised throughout that campaign to be a uniter and not a divider, ascended to the presidency despite losing the popular vote. President Bush then chose to further alienate the red and blue states throughout his first term. In fact, he successfully used this divisive “politics of color” to win reelection in 2004. In spite of a narrow victory, he claimed to have gained “political capital”.
He quickly managed to spend that capital and some. One would have hoped that the outcome of the 2006 mid-term elections would inject a dose of reality into the remaining two years of his presidency. However, recent indications from the White House seem to suggest that “stay the course”, on all manner of Bush policy, is here to stay – in spite of the American people having expressed their displeasure at the status quo.
The Clinton impeachment over lying about a personal indiscretion now seems Kafkaesque in its absurdity when compared to the steady string of whoppers that the Bush Administration has fed us over the past six years regarding vital matters of state. Nonetheless, impeaching this president, especially in a time of war, would be a cop out – it is imperative that President Bush get us out of the mess that his own “untruths” have created. We the people have elected a Democratic Congress so that we can finally hold the Bush Administration accountable for its actions.
Through his rash conduct of foreign policy, President Bush has seriously degraded the reputation and standing of the United States in the eyes of the world. It is imperative that we set our differences aside in our attempts to repair our international image. In the spirit of which I ask this seemingly provocative question “What happened to white America?” However, I do not ask this question in a pejorative manner implying race, but in the patriotic spirit of red, white and blue! Instead of our constant focus on red vs. blue in every aspect of policy making, I suggest that we all look at a compromising, neutral “white” – which could become the bright white light of enlightenment that guides US to glory!
Thursday, November 09, 2006
The Accidental Pundit
It was the best birthday present that I had received in a long time. In the wee hours of the morning of November 8, 2006, about 3.15 am to be precise, I decided to call it a night. The Democrats had recaptured the House and they were just 2 seats shy from getting control of the Senate – it was time to get some shut-eye.
I awoke again at 5.30 am, only to learn that Burns and Macaca were hanging in there – damn, why couldn’t they just throw in the towel? Nevertheless, it turned out to be the birthday that kept on giving. President Bush called a press conference at 1 pm to announce that he had fired Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. The president also announced that Bill Gates was taking over from Rummy!
I thought that was kind of weird – why would the President want the retired marketing genius from Microsoft running the Defense Department? Honestly, it was kind of late in the day to expect Iraq 3.0 to work. After all, Bill might do Windows and philanthropy well, but honestly what did he know about a war gone bad? Besides, Bill would just throw a whole lot of money and people into the mix – the President had already tried the former and consistently rejected the latter.
Suddenly the phone rang and I woke up. I had dozed off just as the President’s press conference got rolling. I had actually heard Bob Gates being mentioned and then drifted off into a blissful sleep… it was during that brief interlude that I got to wondering how on earth could the Microsoft marketing machine salvage Iraq, when those “nattering nabobs of neocons” had failed to do so?
My son was calling to say that he had been up until four that morning in his college dorm waiting for Burns to go down in flames. After we discussed the exciting turn of events, I let him into my little secret.
I sang it to him in my best Britney Spears imitation, “Oops, I did it again!”
“What on earth are you talking about, Dad?” my son asked in an exasperated voice.
“You are not going to believe this, Jay,” I said, “but I had entered Al Kamen’s ‘In the Loop’ contest about a month ago.”
“Oh, that Post guy who does all that sarcastic stuff on the Federal Page of ‘The Washington Post’?” Jay asked rather impatiently.
“That’s right, son. I had called the mid-term election in his contest as follows – 51 to 49 in favor of the Democrats in the Senate and 239 to 196 in favor of the Democrats in the House.” I said quite proudly.
“Wow! That’s great.” Jay replied.
“Yeah, but Macaca could throw a monkey-wrench into my Senate plan. I know Burns doesn’t have much fire left in him. Also, MSNBC is projecting the final House tally at 234-201 for the Dems. That ain’t bad. I think I am going to nail this puppy.” I told Jay quite animatedly.
Then I went on to remind him about my last great call on the eve of the millennium (December 31, 1999) – almost a year before that infamous 2000 election – when I had prophesized about the first split election in over a century! I still smart from the fact that I got no recognition for that prescient piece of punditry. Maybe if someone from Gore’s staff had read my piece (“Musings for the New Millennium”) in a timely fashion, they would have been better prepared to deal with those “hanging chads”.
Nonetheless, the inconvenient truth is I blew my subsequent predictions in 2002, when I wrote that the Democrats would capture the Senate 53-47, and in 2004 when I went out on a limb for Senator Kerry and “stuck” with a 53% to 47% victory in his favor! What had I been smokin’?
The moral of this story is that punditry has as much to do with your political skills, as it has to do with premonition and luck. Just ask triple-crown winner, Karl Rove, and all the conservative talk radio gasbags that he invited on to the lawns of the White House in the week prior to this election. They all blew so much hot air from under those tents that day, one could have floated across the mall and landed right on the steps of the Capitol to witness a new Republican Congress being sworn in.
In any event, as I write this, Macaca has decided to settle for the “real world of Virginia” and ride into the sunset (at least, for now). So I could hit the mother lode again this time, but I no longer pine for my fifteen minutes. I am trying to be happy just being an accidental pundit, who happens to get it right once in a while. But maybe just this one time, say, later “this week”, I would love to “meet the press” and then “face the nation” squarely – and, tell them about my plans for “Saving President Bush” (the title of my upcoming blog, which has a metaphorical reference to the movie, “Saving Private Ryan”).
With sincere apologies to Harold Ford, and minus the wink, I conclude my commercial with this appeal, “George, Tim, Bob… call me!”
I awoke again at 5.30 am, only to learn that Burns and Macaca were hanging in there – damn, why couldn’t they just throw in the towel? Nevertheless, it turned out to be the birthday that kept on giving. President Bush called a press conference at 1 pm to announce that he had fired Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. The president also announced that Bill Gates was taking over from Rummy!
I thought that was kind of weird – why would the President want the retired marketing genius from Microsoft running the Defense Department? Honestly, it was kind of late in the day to expect Iraq 3.0 to work. After all, Bill might do Windows and philanthropy well, but honestly what did he know about a war gone bad? Besides, Bill would just throw a whole lot of money and people into the mix – the President had already tried the former and consistently rejected the latter.
Suddenly the phone rang and I woke up. I had dozed off just as the President’s press conference got rolling. I had actually heard Bob Gates being mentioned and then drifted off into a blissful sleep… it was during that brief interlude that I got to wondering how on earth could the Microsoft marketing machine salvage Iraq, when those “nattering nabobs of neocons” had failed to do so?
My son was calling to say that he had been up until four that morning in his college dorm waiting for Burns to go down in flames. After we discussed the exciting turn of events, I let him into my little secret.
I sang it to him in my best Britney Spears imitation, “Oops, I did it again!”
“What on earth are you talking about, Dad?” my son asked in an exasperated voice.
“You are not going to believe this, Jay,” I said, “but I had entered Al Kamen’s ‘In the Loop’ contest about a month ago.”
“Oh, that Post guy who does all that sarcastic stuff on the Federal Page of ‘The Washington Post’?” Jay asked rather impatiently.
“That’s right, son. I had called the mid-term election in his contest as follows – 51 to 49 in favor of the Democrats in the Senate and 239 to 196 in favor of the Democrats in the House.” I said quite proudly.
“Wow! That’s great.” Jay replied.
“Yeah, but Macaca could throw a monkey-wrench into my Senate plan. I know Burns doesn’t have much fire left in him. Also, MSNBC is projecting the final House tally at 234-201 for the Dems. That ain’t bad. I think I am going to nail this puppy.” I told Jay quite animatedly.
Then I went on to remind him about my last great call on the eve of the millennium (December 31, 1999) – almost a year before that infamous 2000 election – when I had prophesized about the first split election in over a century! I still smart from the fact that I got no recognition for that prescient piece of punditry. Maybe if someone from Gore’s staff had read my piece (“Musings for the New Millennium”) in a timely fashion, they would have been better prepared to deal with those “hanging chads”.
Nonetheless, the inconvenient truth is I blew my subsequent predictions in 2002, when I wrote that the Democrats would capture the Senate 53-47, and in 2004 when I went out on a limb for Senator Kerry and “stuck” with a 53% to 47% victory in his favor! What had I been smokin’?
The moral of this story is that punditry has as much to do with your political skills, as it has to do with premonition and luck. Just ask triple-crown winner, Karl Rove, and all the conservative talk radio gasbags that he invited on to the lawns of the White House in the week prior to this election. They all blew so much hot air from under those tents that day, one could have floated across the mall and landed right on the steps of the Capitol to witness a new Republican Congress being sworn in.
In any event, as I write this, Macaca has decided to settle for the “real world of Virginia” and ride into the sunset (at least, for now). So I could hit the mother lode again this time, but I no longer pine for my fifteen minutes. I am trying to be happy just being an accidental pundit, who happens to get it right once in a while. But maybe just this one time, say, later “this week”, I would love to “meet the press” and then “face the nation” squarely – and, tell them about my plans for “Saving President Bush” (the title of my upcoming blog, which has a metaphorical reference to the movie, “Saving Private Ryan”).
With sincere apologies to Harold Ford, and minus the wink, I conclude my commercial with this appeal, “George, Tim, Bob… call me!”
Sunday, October 29, 2006
A Consistent Foreign Policy Based on Core American Values – How Convenient?
John Tierney, talking about Republican and Democratic stereotypes in the voters’ minds, wrote in his October 10th column in The New York Times, “At one time these stereotypes made sense, but not anymore.” But why would they? Back in 2000 would anyone have predicted that the party that would get – reckless about government spending, suffused by sexual scandals, tainted by powerful lobbyists, mired in another unpopular war, etc. – so removed from its traditional image, would be the party of Eisenhower and Reagan? Therefore it is not the voter who is confused, as Mr. Tierney implies in his column, but the GOP. Having been in control of both branches of our government for most of the past six years, the GOP seems to have lost its way.
This stereotype would have us believe that foreign policy has always been the strong suit in the GOP armor, especially after President Reagan’s efforts in ending the Cold War. However, in the aftermath of the Bush Doctrine, we have seen a litany of foreign policy setbacks. Afghanistan is witnessing a resurgence of the Taliban, Iraq seems to be mired in a civil war, Iran in brazen defiance of the UN is on the verge of going nuclear, and North Korea has already tested its first WMD. Even outside the "axis of evil", freedom and democracy seem to be stumbling?
It looks like Thailand did not get the State Department’s memo on President Bush’s preference for democracy over stability? With violence challenging the fledgling democracies produced by the Bush Doctrine, we cannot afford to have otherwise stable U.S. allies fall off the democracy wagon as well. In fact, Thailand could be sending the wrong message to Pakistan, whose General Musharraf might be now tempted to postpone general elections next year under the garb of ensuring stability for his country?
President Reagan is credited with having ended the Cold War but, in his October 25th column in The New York Times, Thomas Friedman resurrects what he calls “The Really Cold War”. Mr. Friedman’s “‘First Law of Petropolitics,’ which posits that the price of oil and the pace of freedom operate in an inverse relationship in petrolist states” is undoubtedly emboldening Russia to backslide on freedom and democracy. President Bush, who had “looked the man in the eye” back in 2001 and got “a sense of his soul”, has clearly misread Mr. Putin. In fact, Russia started a slow march away from freedom and democracy, soon after the ex-chief of the KGB took over as President on the eve of the new Millennium. The upsurge in the price of oil over the past couple of years has only hastened this march.
Mr. Friedman in another recent column also suggested that the rise in radical Islamic power has been directly proportional to the rise in the price of oil. Iran did not appear as much of a threat a couple of years ago when crude oil was under $40 a barrel. In the $60-$70 range, even the Shia in Iraq are having “pipe dreams” about ruling their own country without the “infidel Americans” – which is probably another reason why the sectarian violence there has spiraled towards civil war. It won’t be long before the Sunni oil cartel led by Saudi Arabia (another stable ally?) starts acting up, now that they don’t have to worry about Saddam Hussein any more? This is fallout from a wrong turn in the “war on terror” that the American taxpayer will be paying for a long time – at least, until we are no longer “addicted to oil”.
It is therefore quite distressing to watch President Bush fawn over petro-authoritarianists such as Russia’s Putin, Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev, and Saudi Arabia’s Abdullah, while he simultaneously condemns leaders that he has never met such as North Korea’ Kim Jong Il, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. In the long run this inverted diplomacy could also prove to be a “lose-lose” approach in our overall foreign policy efforts.
Now does anyone in the Bush Administration really have a clue about the Middle East? Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had characterized the recent Israel-Lebanon conflict as the “birth pangs of a new Middle East” when civilians were being brutally killed on both sides. When a truce finally went into effect after a month of senseless fighting, Hezbollah (a U.S.-designated terrorist organization) appears to have emerged politically and morally stronger – and, the “new Middle East” seems to have been still born.
Then we had the transfer of fourteen suspected terrorists from secret CIA prisons to Guantanamo Bay. Not one of these fourteen prisoners is a national of Afghanistan, Iraq, or Iran. Nine of these fourteen terrorists were captured in Pakistan, a country that also contributed three of these high-value prisoners. It really makes one wonder on what basis President Bush constituted his “axis of evil” after the events of 9/11, which were largely planned in and executed by nationals of two of our allies – Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. It is almost like President Bush’s version of the Sun Tzu strategy, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”
In any event, the transfer of these prisoners from secret CIA prisons to Guantanamo Bay was a forced result of the Supreme Court’s ruling in late June. Vice President Cheney did not help the United States’ already tarnished image on human rights, when he had this exchange (as reported in The Washington Post) with Scott Hennen, a conservative talk show host, in an interview on October 24th:
So Republicans, who often compare President Bush to President Reagan, would do well by reading George Will’s October 5th column in The Washington Post “What Goeth Before the Fall”. In it Mr. Will defines “unresolved tensions between, two flavors of conservatism -- Western and Southern”. In applying Mr. Will’s reasoning, I consider President Reagan as a western “libertarian” conservative, whereas President Bush is a southern “religious” one. The long Cold War was eventually won by a western conservative president at the helm. I believe that we will be hard-pressed to win a long “war on terror”, given its increasingly religious overtones, with a southern conservative president in charge.
Remember those two slogans – relating to his Iraq policy – that had been used effectively by President Bush during and after his successful 2004 reelection campaign up until very recently. The first catchphrase was “cut and run”, which is what he accused the Democrats would do, from Iraq. The other option was naturally to “stay the course”, which he proudly claimed the Republicans would continue to do under his leadership. But that was then and this is now – ten days prior to the 2006 mid-term election, which increasingly looks like it is going to be a 1994-style blowout – and, a very likely end to the long Republican stranglehold on Congress.
The president who claimed to never rule by polls seems to have finally been rattled by them. So President Bush did what he had accused Senator Kerry of doing all through the 2004 campaign – he flip-flopped on Iraq! The president finally “cut and run” on “stay the course” in Iraq, when he told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News on the October 22nd edition of “This Week”,
Meanwhile the road to the other “state of denial”, a.k.a. Darfur, littered with corpses, will have to unfortunately wait its turn – wait, to even make it onto our foreign policy agenda in the near future, since our human rights agenda has been severely compromised by this wrong turn in the “war on terror”. However, we could start to make at least some headway in addressing the root cause of terrorism, if we at least tried what I had suggested in my October 6th letter to The Wall Street Journal:
This stereotype would have us believe that foreign policy has always been the strong suit in the GOP armor, especially after President Reagan’s efforts in ending the Cold War. However, in the aftermath of the Bush Doctrine, we have seen a litany of foreign policy setbacks. Afghanistan is witnessing a resurgence of the Taliban, Iraq seems to be mired in a civil war, Iran in brazen defiance of the UN is on the verge of going nuclear, and North Korea has already tested its first WMD. Even outside the "axis of evil", freedom and democracy seem to be stumbling?
It looks like Thailand did not get the State Department’s memo on President Bush’s preference for democracy over stability? With violence challenging the fledgling democracies produced by the Bush Doctrine, we cannot afford to have otherwise stable U.S. allies fall off the democracy wagon as well. In fact, Thailand could be sending the wrong message to Pakistan, whose General Musharraf might be now tempted to postpone general elections next year under the garb of ensuring stability for his country?
President Reagan is credited with having ended the Cold War but, in his October 25th column in The New York Times, Thomas Friedman resurrects what he calls “The Really Cold War”. Mr. Friedman’s “‘First Law of Petropolitics,’ which posits that the price of oil and the pace of freedom operate in an inverse relationship in petrolist states” is undoubtedly emboldening Russia to backslide on freedom and democracy. President Bush, who had “looked the man in the eye” back in 2001 and got “a sense of his soul”, has clearly misread Mr. Putin. In fact, Russia started a slow march away from freedom and democracy, soon after the ex-chief of the KGB took over as President on the eve of the new Millennium. The upsurge in the price of oil over the past couple of years has only hastened this march.
Mr. Friedman in another recent column also suggested that the rise in radical Islamic power has been directly proportional to the rise in the price of oil. Iran did not appear as much of a threat a couple of years ago when crude oil was under $40 a barrel. In the $60-$70 range, even the Shia in Iraq are having “pipe dreams” about ruling their own country without the “infidel Americans” – which is probably another reason why the sectarian violence there has spiraled towards civil war. It won’t be long before the Sunni oil cartel led by Saudi Arabia (another stable ally?) starts acting up, now that they don’t have to worry about Saddam Hussein any more? This is fallout from a wrong turn in the “war on terror” that the American taxpayer will be paying for a long time – at least, until we are no longer “addicted to oil”.
It is therefore quite distressing to watch President Bush fawn over petro-authoritarianists such as Russia’s Putin, Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev, and Saudi Arabia’s Abdullah, while he simultaneously condemns leaders that he has never met such as North Korea’ Kim Jong Il, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. In the long run this inverted diplomacy could also prove to be a “lose-lose” approach in our overall foreign policy efforts.
Now does anyone in the Bush Administration really have a clue about the Middle East? Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had characterized the recent Israel-Lebanon conflict as the “birth pangs of a new Middle East” when civilians were being brutally killed on both sides. When a truce finally went into effect after a month of senseless fighting, Hezbollah (a U.S.-designated terrorist organization) appears to have emerged politically and morally stronger – and, the “new Middle East” seems to have been still born.
Then we had the transfer of fourteen suspected terrorists from secret CIA prisons to Guantanamo Bay. Not one of these fourteen prisoners is a national of Afghanistan, Iraq, or Iran. Nine of these fourteen terrorists were captured in Pakistan, a country that also contributed three of these high-value prisoners. It really makes one wonder on what basis President Bush constituted his “axis of evil” after the events of 9/11, which were largely planned in and executed by nationals of two of our allies – Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. It is almost like President Bush’s version of the Sun Tzu strategy, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”
In any event, the transfer of these prisoners from secret CIA prisons to Guantanamo Bay was a forced result of the Supreme Court’s ruling in late June. Vice President Cheney did not help the United States’ already tarnished image on human rights, when he had this exchange (as reported in The Washington Post) with Scott Hennen, a conservative talk show host, in an interview on October 24th:
“Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?” Hennen asked.Earlier in the summer, in another jarring reference, President Bush classified the people behind the London airlines plot as “Islamofascists”. By thus conflating religion with politics, which is what a made-up term such as "Islamofascists" does, the Bush Administration is effectively putting victory in the “war on terror” out of the western world’s reach. On Labor Day, the New York Times published my letter in which I had cautioned:
“Well, it's a no-brainer for me,” Cheney said, “but for a while there, I was criticized as being the vice president for torture. We don’t torture. That’s not what we're involved in.”
“…with the passage of time, this war is getting increasingly divided along religious lines. History has proved that religious fundamentalists are the last ones to accept that they are the children of a lesser god.”President Bush must surely understand that Muslims make up one-sixth of the world’s population and trying to win a “war on terror” by associating their religion with fascism is simply foolhardy.
So Republicans, who often compare President Bush to President Reagan, would do well by reading George Will’s October 5th column in The Washington Post “What Goeth Before the Fall”. In it Mr. Will defines “unresolved tensions between, two flavors of conservatism -- Western and Southern”. In applying Mr. Will’s reasoning, I consider President Reagan as a western “libertarian” conservative, whereas President Bush is a southern “religious” one. The long Cold War was eventually won by a western conservative president at the helm. I believe that we will be hard-pressed to win a long “war on terror”, given its increasingly religious overtones, with a southern conservative president in charge.
Remember those two slogans – relating to his Iraq policy – that had been used effectively by President Bush during and after his successful 2004 reelection campaign up until very recently. The first catchphrase was “cut and run”, which is what he accused the Democrats would do, from Iraq. The other option was naturally to “stay the course”, which he proudly claimed the Republicans would continue to do under his leadership. But that was then and this is now – ten days prior to the 2006 mid-term election, which increasingly looks like it is going to be a 1994-style blowout – and, a very likely end to the long Republican stranglehold on Congress.
The president who claimed to never rule by polls seems to have finally been rattled by them. So President Bush did what he had accused Senator Kerry of doing all through the 2004 campaign – he flip-flopped on Iraq! The president finally “cut and run” on “stay the course” in Iraq, when he told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News on the October 22nd edition of “This Week”,
“Well, listen, we’ve never been stay the course, George.”With that admission, President Bush appears to have overcome an unusually lengthy “state of denial” over his disastrous foreign policy undertaking in Iraq. However, I believe that it will take him equally long to acknowledge reality. I suspect that the Bush Administration and the GOP will go through the other four classical stages of coping with loss – anger (which will manifest itself in their reaction to the results of the upcoming midterm elections), bargaining (with a Democratic Congress in 2007 to contain their humiliation), depression (as 2008 nears, they might pretend not to care anymore), and finally, acceptance (arising more from a need to protect their legacy). Hopefully, some conscientious leader in the Bush Administration or the GOP will quickly seek to redeem the nation’s prestige before any attempts at salvaging their own pride?
Meanwhile the road to the other “state of denial”, a.k.a. Darfur, littered with corpses, will have to unfortunately wait its turn – wait, to even make it onto our foreign policy agenda in the near future, since our human rights agenda has been severely compromised by this wrong turn in the “war on terror”. However, we could start to make at least some headway in addressing the root cause of terrorism, if we at least tried what I had suggested in my October 6th letter to The Wall Street Journal:
“The U.S. could make serious progress with this reasoning if it showed some consistency in the application of its core values to its foreign policy. This would necessarily imply that we make no exceptions of convenience even in the short-term: Musharraf, Mubarak, Nazarbayev, Abdallah, et al. We insult the intelligence of the common Muslim populace with these exceptions of convenience -- this is the core issue, it seems to me.”To my mind, it’s these three C’s of distinction in our foreign policy – core values, consistency, and no exceptions of convenience – that will restore the United States as a beacon of freedom and democracy throughout the world.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
As Baghdad sizzles, Condi fiddles and Bush piddles over “Long War” riddle
The Bush Administration has been trying to have it both ways since 9/11 in the security vs. liberty argument. At home their covert actions have been suggesting to us for some time that in order to ensure our security, we need to sacrifice some of our liberties. But then abroad, they have been pushing liberty at a tremendous expense of security – where far more innocent, non-American lives are being lost on a daily basis. This high incidence of “collateral damage” is not only morally repugnant, but also a cause for increasing disenchantment with America around the world.
To therefore help keep an increasingly skeptical American public engaged, the Bush Administration has begun drawing parallels between the longevity of the Cold War and what some in the Administration have been referring to lately as the “Long War” (a.k.a. the “War on Terror”). In any event, they cannot continue to unilaterally violate a sacrosanct principle common to these two ideological struggles: the preservation of liberty as enshrined in the Constitution. Ironically, the preservation of liberty – which their oxymoronic “Long War” policy now seeks to curtail in order to secure – was the rai•son d'être for the Cold War.
The genesis of the “Long War” was an attempt by the Bush Administration to establish a dubious link between Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda and 9/11. This blatantly false equivalence was used as a rationalization to divert the true “war on terror” from Afghanistan to Iraq. To make matters worse, after no WMD were found in Iraq, the Bush Administration changed its phony primary objective to an even harder, secondary objective of “establishing democracy” in Iraq. In recent Senate testimony, the top two Pentagon officials politely suggested that it is hard for a democracy to function in the midst of a civil war. This stark testimony leaves President Bush with a Hobson’s choice – to continue to promote “democracy” or try to contain a civil war.
Is it any wonder then that almost 60% of the American public now believes that the Iraq war was a mistake? In the light of which, it is quite surprising that Senator Lieberman, a strong supporter of President Bush’s “Long War” policy, lost his primary bid for reelection in a deep blue state by only a narrow four point margin. One could conclude that Senator Lieberman took his constituents for granted and paid a price for it. However, based on his post-primary remarks, “For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand” it appears that Bush-style hubris has infected Senator Lieberman as well.
The morning after his humiliating loss in the primary, Senator Lieberman proclaimed, “I am even more devoted to my state and my country,” as his justification for making an independent run in November. Senator Lieberman may think that he is putting his country first, but he is definitely putting himself second, and his party last among his priorities. He does not seem to care how his selfish power grab might affect the chances of his Democratic Party in winning back the Congress – ironically, from those very Republicans he now hopes will help elect him as an independent senator.
As far as the “Long War” is concerned, it’s quite apparent that both parties are playing politics with what “The Daily Show” host, Jon Stewart, so presciently called “Mess-O-Potamia” shortly after it began. Many people now see President Bush’s “Long War” strategy as trying to “stay the course”, even if it’s a failing one, for the next two-and-one-half years – then to “get outta Dodge” and leave it to the next administration to clean up the mess. Personally, I had an epiphany while watching Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on a recent Sunday morning talk show. It seemed to me like she was fiddling while Baghdad was going up in flames. One can only hope that the larger American public will resist political fear mongering, as was witnessed in the aftermath of the foiled London plot last week, and hold the Bush Administration’s feet to this messianic fire of its own volition. As Baghdad sizzles, we can no longer afford to have Condi fiddle and Bush piddle with the “Long War” riddle – they either solve it or “Lamont” (i.e. lament) the consequences of a November tsunami!
To therefore help keep an increasingly skeptical American public engaged, the Bush Administration has begun drawing parallels between the longevity of the Cold War and what some in the Administration have been referring to lately as the “Long War” (a.k.a. the “War on Terror”). In any event, they cannot continue to unilaterally violate a sacrosanct principle common to these two ideological struggles: the preservation of liberty as enshrined in the Constitution. Ironically, the preservation of liberty – which their oxymoronic “Long War” policy now seeks to curtail in order to secure – was the rai•son d'être for the Cold War.
The genesis of the “Long War” was an attempt by the Bush Administration to establish a dubious link between Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda and 9/11. This blatantly false equivalence was used as a rationalization to divert the true “war on terror” from Afghanistan to Iraq. To make matters worse, after no WMD were found in Iraq, the Bush Administration changed its phony primary objective to an even harder, secondary objective of “establishing democracy” in Iraq. In recent Senate testimony, the top two Pentagon officials politely suggested that it is hard for a democracy to function in the midst of a civil war. This stark testimony leaves President Bush with a Hobson’s choice – to continue to promote “democracy” or try to contain a civil war.
Is it any wonder then that almost 60% of the American public now believes that the Iraq war was a mistake? In the light of which, it is quite surprising that Senator Lieberman, a strong supporter of President Bush’s “Long War” policy, lost his primary bid for reelection in a deep blue state by only a narrow four point margin. One could conclude that Senator Lieberman took his constituents for granted and paid a price for it. However, based on his post-primary remarks, “For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand” it appears that Bush-style hubris has infected Senator Lieberman as well.
The morning after his humiliating loss in the primary, Senator Lieberman proclaimed, “I am even more devoted to my state and my country,” as his justification for making an independent run in November. Senator Lieberman may think that he is putting his country first, but he is definitely putting himself second, and his party last among his priorities. He does not seem to care how his selfish power grab might affect the chances of his Democratic Party in winning back the Congress – ironically, from those very Republicans he now hopes will help elect him as an independent senator.
As far as the “Long War” is concerned, it’s quite apparent that both parties are playing politics with what “The Daily Show” host, Jon Stewart, so presciently called “Mess-O-Potamia” shortly after it began. Many people now see President Bush’s “Long War” strategy as trying to “stay the course”, even if it’s a failing one, for the next two-and-one-half years – then to “get outta Dodge” and leave it to the next administration to clean up the mess. Personally, I had an epiphany while watching Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on a recent Sunday morning talk show. It seemed to me like she was fiddling while Baghdad was going up in flames. One can only hope that the larger American public will resist political fear mongering, as was witnessed in the aftermath of the foiled London plot last week, and hold the Bush Administration’s feet to this messianic fire of its own volition. As Baghdad sizzles, we can no longer afford to have Condi fiddle and Bush piddle with the “Long War” riddle – they either solve it or “Lamont” (i.e. lament) the consequences of a November tsunami!
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Fear Leader
The Bush Administration currently has foreign policy crises of gargantuan proportions on its hands: a worsening Iraqi sectarian war, a resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, a defiant Iran in pursuit of nuclear weapons, belligerent North Korea launching missiles, and an Israeli-Lebanon war provoked by Iran and Syria. This sordid mess is both, direct and indirect fallout from a doctrine of unintended consequences – which is, nothing else but a catastrophic failure in the execution of the Bush Doctrine. All manner of pundits are seeing this preemption strategy for what it is now, but in the immediate aftermath of our glorious, albeit incomplete, triumph in Afghanistan it was largely praise when President Bush first outlined his provocative “axis of evil” policy. In an article, “State of the World”, written immediately after his 2002 State of the Union speech, I had made the following observations:
Not surprisingly the domestic fear-mongering is wearing thin and even neo-conservatives who fashioned the original Bush Doctrine are beginning to wonder, in the light of the current crises, whether the President has the will to see it through. Already former Speaker and 2008 presidential contender, Newt Gingrich is talking about “World War III” and other pundits have compared the current turmoil similar to the one that sparked World War I. Given these dire pronouncements, it might be time for President Bush to stop, not only leading with fear but also fearing to lead – his presidency, his legacy, and most importantly our status as the world’s only remaining superpower is at stake.
Buoyed by stratospheric approval ratings in his execution of the war on terrorism, President Bush now appears to be milking the “terror cow” for what it’s worth! At least one got that impression after listening to the President touch briefly on a few domestic issues in the middle of his speech, while devoting most of his attention to the “state of the world”!More than fours years later, it has become quite apparent that we are in the midst of the very situation that I had warned about and President Bush’s responses thus far have more or less proven that he is unable to “walk that talk”. The whole world has had a good laugh at the expense of the despot, Kim Jong Il who insists on being referred to as “Dear Leader” by his people. Ironically, it is “we the people” of the United States who elected our very own “Fear Leader” – he, who intended to strike fear among the hearts of all the world’s evil dictators with his post-9/11 policies, but in reality has managed to largely scare his own citizenry with conveniently-timed reminders of how these evil dictators are out to harm America.
One would like to give kudos to the President’s speechwriters for coming up with a quotable gem like “axis of evil”. However, one must wonder if the President and his advisors have really considered all the implications of engaging such a disparate axis in protracted, simultaneous, and geographically dispersed wars, if it became necessary? Are we ready to walk that talk?
Not surprisingly the domestic fear-mongering is wearing thin and even neo-conservatives who fashioned the original Bush Doctrine are beginning to wonder, in the light of the current crises, whether the President has the will to see it through. Already former Speaker and 2008 presidential contender, Newt Gingrich is talking about “World War III” and other pundits have compared the current turmoil similar to the one that sparked World War I. Given these dire pronouncements, it might be time for President Bush to stop, not only leading with fear but also fearing to lead – his presidency, his legacy, and most importantly our status as the world’s only remaining superpower is at stake.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Family Ties Redux
What better time to reminisce about a great sitcom from the eighties than on Father’s Day – which happens to be tomorrow – after all, 'Steven Keaton' was ranked #12 in TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" (20 June 2004 issue). But this is not only about me. While I confess to being moderately liberal, my own parents ensured that I never experimented with the hippie thing. Although this might sound unbelievable, I did have friends in 1970s Bombay who went that route! So what sparked my trip down memory lane?
My son, Jay (Alex P. Keaton), just completed his sophomore year at the University of Maryland, College Park – where he intends to graduate with a major in Finance. Jay opened his own Scottrade account this year, recently took up golf, and is interning at a prominent DC investment banking firm this summer. Meanwhile, my daughter, Pia (Mallory Keaton), just finished her sophomore year in the Magnet Program at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring. She will be interning this summer as a congressional page for Representative Albert D. Wynn (D-MD) from our home district.
What does this have to do with the ties that bind? Jay recently wrote a blog, “Two Minute Bush Quiz”, in which he asked his readers to partake in The George W. Bush Loyalty Quiz. I was surprised, but not alarmed, to find that Jay rated our President a 6 on a 10 scale. As the author of the “The Bush Diaries”, I was naturally keen on my evaluation of the President through this wacky poll. Not unexpectedly, I ranked the Decider a 4 out of 10 which, given my already published account of the President’s dismal job performance, appeared to be a fair reckoning. But then along came our Mallory (Pia), and she low-balled the President with a 2 ranking on the same quiz! That’s when I had this Family Ties epiphany – and with apologies to Billy Vera & the Beaters for a slightly distorted version of their classic “At This Moment” – along the lines of which, I offer this confession:
My son, Jay (Alex P. Keaton), just completed his sophomore year at the University of Maryland, College Park – where he intends to graduate with a major in Finance. Jay opened his own Scottrade account this year, recently took up golf, and is interning at a prominent DC investment banking firm this summer. Meanwhile, my daughter, Pia (Mallory Keaton), just finished her sophomore year in the Magnet Program at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring. She will be interning this summer as a congressional page for Representative Albert D. Wynn (D-MD) from our home district.
What does this have to do with the ties that bind? Jay recently wrote a blog, “Two Minute Bush Quiz”, in which he asked his readers to partake in The George W. Bush Loyalty Quiz. I was surprised, but not alarmed, to find that Jay rated our President a 6 on a 10 scale. As the author of the “The Bush Diaries”, I was naturally keen on my evaluation of the President through this wacky poll. Not unexpectedly, I ranked the Decider a 4 out of 10 which, given my already published account of the President’s dismal job performance, appeared to be a fair reckoning. But then along came our Mallory (Pia), and she low-balled the President with a 2 ranking on the same quiz! That’s when I had this Family Ties epiphany – and with apologies to Billy Vera & the Beaters for a slightly distorted version of their classic “At This Moment” – along the lines of which, I offer this confession:
Happy Father’s Day, folks!What did you think I would say at this moment?
When I'm faced with the knowledge
That I have a son who might be a Republican
And a daughter who is a bleeding heart liberal
I guess that puts me right in the middle
If I just could live with it
If I could just live with it, again
Saturday, May 20, 2006
The Coincidental Pundit – my literal 15 minutes!
My book “The Bush Diaries” was published back in July 2005. As a self-published author, who also holds a day job, I have had no opportunity so far to market or promote it. But recently, I was referred by a friend to the producers of a local TV program – Darshan TV – which caters to the Indian-American community. I was interviewed by Darshan TV host, Ramesh Butani, about my book for the program’s “In Conversation” segment, which aired today.
After watching my own TV debut, I happened to be reading today’s New York Times editorial page – lo and behold, John Tierney has a column entitled, “The People's Pundit”. Folks, it doesn’t get any more surreal than this because Mr. Tierney writes:
If you watch my video debut with Mr. Butani, all you need to do is replace “Goma” with “Jack” and I am good to go. In fact, I do make an appeal to all the Sunday morning talk show hosts at the end of my Darshan TV interview – which believe it or not is exactly 15 minutes long! Andy Warhol must surely be chuckling up there? But seriously – Bob, George, Mike, and Tim – if you want to disprove this whole fifteen minute thing, give me a call!
After watching my own TV debut, I happened to be reading today’s New York Times editorial page – lo and behold, John Tierney has a column entitled, “The People's Pundit”. Folks, it doesn’t get any more surreal than this because Mr. Tierney writes:
“His performance made it clear that television networks have been wasting money on professional commentators. Why not give everyone their 15 minutes of punditry? The only preparation the masses need is a video of Goma's debut”
If you watch my video debut with Mr. Butani, all you need to do is replace “Goma” with “Jack” and I am good to go. In fact, I do make an appeal to all the Sunday morning talk show hosts at the end of my Darshan TV interview – which believe it or not is exactly 15 minutes long! Andy Warhol must surely be chuckling up there? But seriously – Bob, George, Mike, and Tim – if you want to disprove this whole fifteen minute thing, give me a call!
Saturday, May 13, 2006
With apologies to the Beatles, we are – Back in the USSR!
Welcome to the new USSR – the United States of Spying & Reconnaissance. George Bush’s 2006 makes George Orwell’s 1984 really look like “Morning in America”. Shame on AT&T and Verizon for turning over my phone records to Big Brother – I wish Qwest offered service in Maryland because I would switch faster than Patrick Henry could have said “Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death”. Henceforth, we all should no longer feel “Orwellian”; Americans must simply feel “AmBushed”.
Speaking of ambushed, we cannot afford to have Bush fatigue set in on us with another 32 months – yes, that is one month for each point of the President’s current approval rating per CNN – left to go in this presidency. Although, it can be rather disheartening when the President himself admits, as reported by Reuters last Sunday that the best moment he has had in his last five years in office was when:
However, I wouldn’t want to get all “caught” up on a little white lie and try to take away from the President what was after all, by his own admission, the best moment of his presidency so far. I am more perturbed by the constant erosion in our liberties during the course of this Administration – this is one mission that we, as Americans, cannot let the President accomplish. That the President is willing to curtail our freedom in order to guarantee it is an oxymoronic policy, which is in gross violation of our Constitution and needs to stop. With apologies to my favorite Beatles, I would rather be “Back in the US, Back in the US” but never “Back in the USSR”. So enough already with all the spying and reconnaissance, Mr. President.
Speaking of ambushed, we cannot afford to have Bush fatigue set in on us with another 32 months – yes, that is one month for each point of the President’s current approval rating per CNN – left to go in this presidency. Although, it can be rather disheartening when the President himself admits, as reported by Reuters last Sunday that the best moment he has had in his last five years in office was when:
“I caught a 7.5 pound (3.402 kilos) perch in my lake”.Last night on his HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher”, the comedian challenged that assertion saying that the largest perch ever caught in the history of fishing has weighed in at a little over four pounds. So Bill facetiously suggested that the President Bush should be impeached for lying! As the other Bill might have said in a situation as awkward as this, “It depends on the meaning of the word ‘caught’”.
However, I wouldn’t want to get all “caught” up on a little white lie and try to take away from the President what was after all, by his own admission, the best moment of his presidency so far. I am more perturbed by the constant erosion in our liberties during the course of this Administration – this is one mission that we, as Americans, cannot let the President accomplish. That the President is willing to curtail our freedom in order to guarantee it is an oxymoronic policy, which is in gross violation of our Constitution and needs to stop. With apologies to my favorite Beatles, I would rather be “Back in the US, Back in the US” but never “Back in the USSR”. So enough already with all the spying and reconnaissance, Mr. President.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Seinfeld Option on Iran and Biden-Gelb (+Six Neighbors) Plan for Iraq
The latest AP-Ipsos poll finds that “Angry conservatives are driving the approval ratings of President Bush and the GOP-led Congress to dismal new lows”. It suggests to me that even the "war on terror" is taking a back seat to $3/gallon gas for the party faithful. I find this amusing only because all manner of conservative pundits have been singing of the same "law of supply and demand" song sheet after gas broke the $3/gallon milestone again last month for the first time since Hurricane Katrina – only this time around there were no natural disasters to blame! In fact, in the April 28th edition of The Washington Post, neocon pundit Charles Krauthammer head-lined his column “Say It With Me: Supply and Demand”. However, I strongly believe the reasons that we are paying $3/gallon at the pump has more to do with our foreign policy of the past few years than as much to do with the laws of a dismal science.
On the demand side, we cannot do much in the short-term to influence China and India from “gobbling huge amounts of energy” as Mr. Krauthammer calls it. But then the Bush Administration could do far more to curb our own insatiable domestic demand in the short-term – something that Mr. Krauthammer chose not to address despite waxing nostalgic about how we did the very same thing back in the seventies? On the supply side, Mr. Krauthammer is surprisingly silent on the Bush Administration’s current (Iraq) and perceived (Iran) casus belli that is contributing to the steep hike in the price of oil. He offers the perennial long-term conservative answer in “the missing supply of might-have-been American crude” from the “Arctic and outer continental shelf”. I would dare suggest that more immediate changes in our foreign policy could bring about an equally rapid decline in oil prices in short order.
Only a couple of days prior to Mr. Krauthammer’s lesson in macroeconomics, President Bush had announced his decision to tinker with the "supply side" of the oil equation. A front-page story in the April 26th edition of the Post reported:
In an interesting theory, New York Times columnist, Thomas L. Friedman postulates in his May 5th column that there is a direct correlation between rising energy prices and the decline of democracy in, what he calls “petro-ist” states. I would take his theory one step further and suggest that the United States has had a decline in its bilateral relationships with each one of these petro-ist states throughout the Bush presidency. So I would posit that instead of the price of oil, it should be the larger Bush foreign policy – that has brought about this precipitous decline in our bilateral relationships with many of these petro-ist states – that needs to become, what Mr. Friedman refers to as “a daily preoccupation of the secretary of state”. A less confrontational foreign policy would bring about an upsurge in our bilateral relationships with several of these petro-ist states, which in turn would result in a dramatic and faster drop in the price of oil.
With regards to petro-ist Iran, the Wall Street Journal came up short in its April 21st editorial, “Bush and Iran”. They reiterated our long-standing problem with Iran but offered no solutions – something that they have been critical about with the “Bush and Iraq” critics? Unfortunately, the river of bad blood between Iran and the U.S. has been flowing for far too long and far too deep to offer any hope for a serious breakthrough via bilateral negotiations. Unless President Bush can get the international community to agree to prolonged and comprehensive sanctions enforced by a complete land, air, and sea blockade of Iran – he might as well get used to a nuclear Iran, just as he has become accustomed to a nuclear North Korea.
With regards to petro-ist Iraq, Senator Joseph Biden and Leslie H. Gelb (President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations) recently proposed a very reasonable plan in an op-ed in The New York Times. Most of the Biden-Gelb plan for “Unity Through Autonomy in Iraq” makes a lot of sense. However, it did not take into consideration one very important geo-political consideration that is critical to the plan’s success – Iraq’s neighbors. When Saddam was in power he was a constant threat to his neighbors. Once the United States withdraws and with no unifying authoritarian figure in control of Iraq, its neighbors will become a threat to its unity. We cannot forget that Iraq was a country created by the British from disparate nomadic regions. The Turks have had historical issues with the Kurds and Iran will continue to become increasingly influential and meddlesome with the autonomous Shia portion of Iraq. So we need to involve all of Iraq’s neighbors ¬– Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey – upfront in a Dayton-type round of discussions to ensure that the Biden-Gelb plan is destined to succeed.
Conclusion: The Bush Administration must ignore Iran for the rest of its term (I call this the Seinfeld option – “Do Nothing”), as it has ignored North Korea (since the start of the second term), and also immediately initiate another “six-countries” round of talks on implementing the Biden-Gelb plan for Iraq. If President Bush immediately executes the Seinfeld option on Iran and Biden-Gelb (+Six Neighbors) Plan for Iraq, I am confident that we will see crude oil prices sink below $50 a barrel and domestic gas at the pump under $2/gallon by the fall! More importantly, we will witness a more stable Middle East and a concomitant increase in our standing in the world.
On the demand side, we cannot do much in the short-term to influence China and India from “gobbling huge amounts of energy” as Mr. Krauthammer calls it. But then the Bush Administration could do far more to curb our own insatiable domestic demand in the short-term – something that Mr. Krauthammer chose not to address despite waxing nostalgic about how we did the very same thing back in the seventies? On the supply side, Mr. Krauthammer is surprisingly silent on the Bush Administration’s current (Iraq) and perceived (Iran) casus belli that is contributing to the steep hike in the price of oil. He offers the perennial long-term conservative answer in “the missing supply of might-have-been American crude” from the “Arctic and outer continental shelf”. I would dare suggest that more immediate changes in our foreign policy could bring about an equally rapid decline in oil prices in short order.
Only a couple of days prior to Mr. Krauthammer’s lesson in macroeconomics, President Bush had announced his decision to tinker with the "supply side" of the oil equation. A front-page story in the April 26th edition of the Post reported:
“Amid growing Republican unrest about the politics of $3-plus gasoline, Bush told the Renewable Fuels Association he will take the unusual step of suspending shipments to the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to boost supply and help hold down oil prices.”Ironically, in September 2000, Governor Bush had said the following at a presidential campaign stop in Cleveland, and I quote him from the CNN archive:
“Strategic Reserve should not be used as an attempt to drive down oil prices right before an election. It should not be used for short-term political gain at the cost of long-term national security.”I think it is foolhardy for the President to expect that, by skipping a few deposits into a reserve that is nearly full, he is going to make any immediate difference to the price of gas at the pump. Although, it could make a difference if he decided to open the spigot to the tune of one million barrels a day every day from Memorial Day to Labor Day? But then he would only be further guilty of fueling our “addiction to oil” – a belated conclusion that he had arrived at in his 2006 State of the Union speech, when he pontificated:
“America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.”One would imagine that if we are importing this “drug” from “unstable parts of the world”, we should either wean ourselves off the drug or try to stabilize parts of the world from where we get it? In the past five years President Bush has not offered any serious rehab program to wean American motorists off their oil addiction. More distressingly, his foreign policy initiatives have only further “destabilized” parts of the world (Middle East, Venezuela) from where we import our oil.
In an interesting theory, New York Times columnist, Thomas L. Friedman postulates in his May 5th column that there is a direct correlation between rising energy prices and the decline of democracy in, what he calls “petro-ist” states. I would take his theory one step further and suggest that the United States has had a decline in its bilateral relationships with each one of these petro-ist states throughout the Bush presidency. So I would posit that instead of the price of oil, it should be the larger Bush foreign policy – that has brought about this precipitous decline in our bilateral relationships with many of these petro-ist states – that needs to become, what Mr. Friedman refers to as “a daily preoccupation of the secretary of state”. A less confrontational foreign policy would bring about an upsurge in our bilateral relationships with several of these petro-ist states, which in turn would result in a dramatic and faster drop in the price of oil.
With regards to petro-ist Iran, the Wall Street Journal came up short in its April 21st editorial, “Bush and Iran”. They reiterated our long-standing problem with Iran but offered no solutions – something that they have been critical about with the “Bush and Iraq” critics? Unfortunately, the river of bad blood between Iran and the U.S. has been flowing for far too long and far too deep to offer any hope for a serious breakthrough via bilateral negotiations. Unless President Bush can get the international community to agree to prolonged and comprehensive sanctions enforced by a complete land, air, and sea blockade of Iran – he might as well get used to a nuclear Iran, just as he has become accustomed to a nuclear North Korea.
With regards to petro-ist Iraq, Senator Joseph Biden and Leslie H. Gelb (President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations) recently proposed a very reasonable plan in an op-ed in The New York Times. Most of the Biden-Gelb plan for “Unity Through Autonomy in Iraq” makes a lot of sense. However, it did not take into consideration one very important geo-political consideration that is critical to the plan’s success – Iraq’s neighbors. When Saddam was in power he was a constant threat to his neighbors. Once the United States withdraws and with no unifying authoritarian figure in control of Iraq, its neighbors will become a threat to its unity. We cannot forget that Iraq was a country created by the British from disparate nomadic regions. The Turks have had historical issues with the Kurds and Iran will continue to become increasingly influential and meddlesome with the autonomous Shia portion of Iraq. So we need to involve all of Iraq’s neighbors ¬– Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey – upfront in a Dayton-type round of discussions to ensure that the Biden-Gelb plan is destined to succeed.
Conclusion: The Bush Administration must ignore Iran for the rest of its term (I call this the Seinfeld option – “Do Nothing”), as it has ignored North Korea (since the start of the second term), and also immediately initiate another “six-countries” round of talks on implementing the Biden-Gelb plan for Iraq. If President Bush immediately executes the Seinfeld option on Iran and Biden-Gelb (+Six Neighbors) Plan for Iraq, I am confident that we will see crude oil prices sink below $50 a barrel and domestic gas at the pump under $2/gallon by the fall! More importantly, we will witness a more stable Middle East and a concomitant increase in our standing in the world.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Crossing the Persian Gulf
When I spent four months in Doha, Qatar back in 1981 I was advised not to refer to the ocean surrounding the mostly Arab states as the “Persian Gulf”. Apparently, letters from home would arrive in a more timely fashion if the last line of my Doha address read “Arabian Gulf”. In those days, when Arab Iraq was in the first year of its eight year war with Persian Iran, Arab pride was literally causing a big gulf between Muslim nations of the Middle East.
How times have changed? President Bush’s “war on terror” is now rapidly bridging the divide between these disparate Muslim countries. In fact, after we toppled Saddam Hussein, Iran began to accelerate its nuclear program. The leadership in Iran has recently started to get nostalgic about its ancient Persian heritage. We have learned that Saddam Hussein had dreams of becoming a modern-day Saladin. We shouldn’t be too surprised then, if Iranian President Ahmadinejad soon adopts the mantle of Cyrus the Great? In order to earn that sort of reverence from the Iranian people, Ahmadinejad feels the need to acquire the power, prestige, and protection afforded by nuclear weapons.
Sadly, Iran’s determination to proceed along this nuclear path presents a dangerous dilemma to the western world in general and the U.S. in particular. In his April 19th New York Times column, Thomas L. Friedman said it offered us a stark choice between “Iraq II or a Nuclear Iran?” Unfortunately, this is a Hobson's choice. Nonetheless, we might be forced to pick the lesser of two evils for now – a Nuclear Iran? Iraq I established the failure of the much vaunted Bush Doctrine and the inefficacy of preemption. In fact, it produced the opposite effect, which was to increase the belligerence of the “axis of evil” nations. So it’s unlikely that any carrot-and-stick policy attempted by the Bush Administration with Iran is likely to produce any meaningful change in Iran’s behavior. It might be best to put Iran on ice for the next 33 months and let the next President start with a clean slate. In the meanwhile, the Bush Administration should focus on getting Iraq I right – that might even have a causal effect on Iran?
Speaking of getting Iraq I right, I was surprised to read Friday’s Wall Street Journal editorial, “Bush and Iran”. The WSJ editors were apparently not practicing what they often preach to the “Bush and Iraq” critics. Their lengthy dissertation on “Bush and Iran” reiterated the complexity of the problem but offered no solution beyond:
Excuse me? The “gulf” between Iran and the U.S. has become so wide and so deep over so long a period, it is unlikely that a majority of the American public is not already aware of the threat that a nuclear Iran poses to the United States. As far as Iran’s nuclear program is concerned, unless we can get the international community to agree to prolonged and comprehensive sanctions enforced by a complete land, air, and sea blockade of Iran – we might as well get used to a nuclear Iran, just as we have become accustomed to a nuclear North Korea.
If we are ever going to cross the Persian abyss, preemption is not an option and meaningless threats must stop at the water’s edge. If President Bush is really serious about making headway with Persia before he leaves office, he could appoint President Clinton as a special envoy to head bilateral negotiations between Iran and the U.S. - with carte blanche authority to bridge the gulf between our two nations!
How times have changed? President Bush’s “war on terror” is now rapidly bridging the divide between these disparate Muslim countries. In fact, after we toppled Saddam Hussein, Iran began to accelerate its nuclear program. The leadership in Iran has recently started to get nostalgic about its ancient Persian heritage. We have learned that Saddam Hussein had dreams of becoming a modern-day Saladin. We shouldn’t be too surprised then, if Iranian President Ahmadinejad soon adopts the mantle of Cyrus the Great? In order to earn that sort of reverence from the Iranian people, Ahmadinejad feels the need to acquire the power, prestige, and protection afforded by nuclear weapons.
Sadly, Iran’s determination to proceed along this nuclear path presents a dangerous dilemma to the western world in general and the U.S. in particular. In his April 19th New York Times column, Thomas L. Friedman said it offered us a stark choice between “Iraq II or a Nuclear Iran?” Unfortunately, this is a Hobson's choice. Nonetheless, we might be forced to pick the lesser of two evils for now – a Nuclear Iran? Iraq I established the failure of the much vaunted Bush Doctrine and the inefficacy of preemption. In fact, it produced the opposite effect, which was to increase the belligerence of the “axis of evil” nations. So it’s unlikely that any carrot-and-stick policy attempted by the Bush Administration with Iran is likely to produce any meaningful change in Iran’s behavior. It might be best to put Iran on ice for the next 33 months and let the next President start with a clean slate. In the meanwhile, the Bush Administration should focus on getting Iraq I right – that might even have a causal effect on Iran?
Speaking of getting Iraq I right, I was surprised to read Friday’s Wall Street Journal editorial, “Bush and Iran”. The WSJ editors were apparently not practicing what they often preach to the “Bush and Iraq” critics. Their lengthy dissertation on “Bush and Iran” reiterated the complexity of the problem but offered no solution beyond:
“the President must begin to educate the American public about what is at stake in Iran and what the U.S. might be prepared to do about it.”
Excuse me? The “gulf” between Iran and the U.S. has become so wide and so deep over so long a period, it is unlikely that a majority of the American public is not already aware of the threat that a nuclear Iran poses to the United States. As far as Iran’s nuclear program is concerned, unless we can get the international community to agree to prolonged and comprehensive sanctions enforced by a complete land, air, and sea blockade of Iran – we might as well get used to a nuclear Iran, just as we have become accustomed to a nuclear North Korea.
If we are ever going to cross the Persian abyss, preemption is not an option and meaningless threats must stop at the water’s edge. If President Bush is really serious about making headway with Persia before he leaves office, he could appoint President Clinton as a special envoy to head bilateral negotiations between Iran and the U.S. - with carte blanche authority to bridge the gulf between our two nations!
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Kissing Up to India
It looks like Nixon White House counselor John Dean is now seeing a cancer growing on the Bush presidency. At the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing yesterday on President Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping, the Watergate icon suggested, “Hopefully the Senate will not sit by while even more serious abuses unfold before it.” Ouch!
While Bush is certainly unlike Nixon on domestic policy, they do seem to have some similarities on the foreign policy front and I am not talking about the Vietnam-Iraq comparisons that have been made almost from the start of the Iraq war. It’s their shared obsession with Pakistani dictators that confounds me.
Some political pundits have compared Bush’s recent trip to India with Nixon’s groundbreaking visit to China in 1972. However, back then Nixon wanted to befriend China as a counter to the Soviet Union, which happened to be cozying up to India. Nixon thus also chose Pakistan over India and, as the BBC reported last June, “developed a ‘special relationship’ with Pakistan's then military dictator, General Yahya Khan.”
Official documents released last year from that era also reveal a strong personal distaste that both, Nixon and Kissinger had for Indians in general. Here is another snippet from that same BBC News story:
Ouch! As a first generation Indian-American that revelation stung me. Kissinger is revered like a foreign policy god, but I remember him being flummoxed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s diplomatic panache and political skills during the Bangladesh crisis. The same “old witch” ran circles around Kissinger back then as he desperately tried to save Pakistan from humiliation and inhibit the creation of Bangladesh.
Nevertheless, Nixon did make a stark choice – he clearly preferred Pakistan’s military dictatorship to India’s then fledgling democracy. In contrast, President Bush appears to be hedging his bets on the subcontinent – opting for a new strategic relationship with India while continuing to coddle yet another Pakistani military dictator, General Musharraf. This wily leader manages to simultaneously “talk the talk” about Pakistan’s assistance to the United States in its “war on terror”, while he continues to hedge his bets on the future of the Taliban. One can’t imagine that Bush and Condi Rice are naïve enough not to recognize this transparent behavior. I can almost visualize a post-9/11 White House conversation transcript being released in 2025 that reads as follows:
By negotiating what President Carter called in the same Post article a “dangerous deal with India”, President Bush is strategically trying to rope in a growing economic and nuclear power on to the Judeo-Christian side of what is quite clearly becoming a political divide along religious lines. Also, it is highly unpredictable as to which side of this religious fault line the old “evil empire” and the remnants of the communist world will come out in the long term. I would therefore counter that not consummating Bush’s nuclear deal with India would be dangerous to the lasting interests of the United States.
Not surprisingly then Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn, co-chairman and chief executive of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, also believes that Bush’s nuclear deal with India would harm the “United States' vital interest” in preventing nuclear proliferation. Surely Senator Nunn must recognize that India has lived without US civilian nuclear technology for over thirty years. There is no reason, aside from its burgeoning energy needs, that India would have a need for US nuclear power reactors. Irrespective of the outcome of this deal, India will continue to honor the principle of nuclear non-proliferation without being an actual signatory to the NPT.
The United States has a lot more to lose from a business and global security standpoint than India, if this deal were not consummated. I would much rather see my native country dependent on the US, than either Iran or Russia, for its long term energy needs. Besides, with the US economy increasingly reliant on communist China, a diversification in our strategic relationships portfolio is long overdue. The new US-India relationship could well turn out to be the only significant foreign policy achievement of the Bush presidency.
So while prominent Democrats are trying to put the kibosh on President Bush’s nuclear deal with India, some renowned Republicans are supporting it. After Dr. Henry A. Kissinger’s old anti-Indian sentiments were exposed last year, he quickly apologized for branding all Indians with a broad brush in such harsh terms. His bona fides were further established recently in an article entitled, "Anatomy of a partnership” that appeared in the International Herald Tribune on March 10, 2006. In a strong endorsement of President Bush’s India policy, the man who once doubted the legitimacy of my birth concluded:
As the old saying goes “from your lips to God’s ears” – kissing up never felt sweeter – Amen!
While Bush is certainly unlike Nixon on domestic policy, they do seem to have some similarities on the foreign policy front and I am not talking about the Vietnam-Iraq comparisons that have been made almost from the start of the Iraq war. It’s their shared obsession with Pakistani dictators that confounds me.
Some political pundits have compared Bush’s recent trip to India with Nixon’s groundbreaking visit to China in 1972. However, back then Nixon wanted to befriend China as a counter to the Soviet Union, which happened to be cozying up to India. Nixon thus also chose Pakistan over India and, as the BBC reported last June, “developed a ‘special relationship’ with Pakistan's then military dictator, General Yahya Khan.”
Official documents released last year from that era also reveal a strong personal distaste that both, Nixon and Kissinger had for Indians in general. Here is another snippet from that same BBC News story:
One key conversation transcript comes from the meeting between President Nixon and Mr. Kissinger in the White House on 5 November 1971, shortly after a meeting with the visiting Indira Gandhi.
“We really slobbered over the old witch,” says President Nixon.
“The Indians are bastards anyway,” says Mr. Kissinger.
Ouch! As a first generation Indian-American that revelation stung me. Kissinger is revered like a foreign policy god, but I remember him being flummoxed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s diplomatic panache and political skills during the Bangladesh crisis. The same “old witch” ran circles around Kissinger back then as he desperately tried to save Pakistan from humiliation and inhibit the creation of Bangladesh.
Nevertheless, Nixon did make a stark choice – he clearly preferred Pakistan’s military dictatorship to India’s then fledgling democracy. In contrast, President Bush appears to be hedging his bets on the subcontinent – opting for a new strategic relationship with India while continuing to coddle yet another Pakistani military dictator, General Musharraf. This wily leader manages to simultaneously “talk the talk” about Pakistan’s assistance to the United States in its “war on terror”, while he continues to hedge his bets on the future of the Taliban. One can’t imagine that Bush and Condi Rice are naïve enough not to recognize this transparent behavior. I can almost visualize a post-9/11 White House conversation transcript being released in 2025 that reads as follows:
“We really slobbered over that two-timing armchair general,” President Bush remarks.Ouch! In any event, after 9/11 President Bush probably recognized that it would be impossible for the western world to contain, what Jimmy Carter recently referred to as, a “Pandora’s box of nuclear proliferation” already in progress. Bush found out that this box had been blown open by Pakistan several years prior to 9/11, when their top nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan, began selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. In fact, this Pandora’s Box had actually begun a slow leak after the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of the Cold War.
“The Pakistanis are idiots anyway,” Condi Rice adds.
By negotiating what President Carter called in the same Post article a “dangerous deal with India”, President Bush is strategically trying to rope in a growing economic and nuclear power on to the Judeo-Christian side of what is quite clearly becoming a political divide along religious lines. Also, it is highly unpredictable as to which side of this religious fault line the old “evil empire” and the remnants of the communist world will come out in the long term. I would therefore counter that not consummating Bush’s nuclear deal with India would be dangerous to the lasting interests of the United States.
Not surprisingly then Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn, co-chairman and chief executive of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, also believes that Bush’s nuclear deal with India would harm the “United States' vital interest” in preventing nuclear proliferation. Surely Senator Nunn must recognize that India has lived without US civilian nuclear technology for over thirty years. There is no reason, aside from its burgeoning energy needs, that India would have a need for US nuclear power reactors. Irrespective of the outcome of this deal, India will continue to honor the principle of nuclear non-proliferation without being an actual signatory to the NPT.
The United States has a lot more to lose from a business and global security standpoint than India, if this deal were not consummated. I would much rather see my native country dependent on the US, than either Iran or Russia, for its long term energy needs. Besides, with the US economy increasingly reliant on communist China, a diversification in our strategic relationships portfolio is long overdue. The new US-India relationship could well turn out to be the only significant foreign policy achievement of the Bush presidency.
So while prominent Democrats are trying to put the kibosh on President Bush’s nuclear deal with India, some renowned Republicans are supporting it. After Dr. Henry A. Kissinger’s old anti-Indian sentiments were exposed last year, he quickly apologized for branding all Indians with a broad brush in such harsh terms. His bona fides were further established recently in an article entitled, "Anatomy of a partnership” that appeared in the International Herald Tribune on March 10, 2006. In a strong endorsement of President Bush’s India policy, the man who once doubted the legitimacy of my birth concluded:
In a period preoccupied with concerns over terrorism and the potential clash of civilizations, the emerging cooperation between the two great democracies, India and the United States, introduces a positive and hopeful perspective.
As the old saying goes “from your lips to God’s ears” – kissing up never felt sweeter – Amen!
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Return of the King – an Exit from Iraq
In his March 2nd column in The Washington Post, George Will quoted President Bush as having said, “Our strategy in Iraq is that the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down.” Therein lies the problem because the President is confusing strategy with objective. Training Iraqi security forces has often been mentioned as a strategy to meet the President’s objective of getting Iraqis to “stand up”. But then our tactics to execute that strategy have not been very effective either, as we learned recently that the number of “combat-ready Iraqi brigades” had dropped from one to zero.
Mr. Will also quoted Winston Churchill’s dire warning to Britons in 1940 that “Wars are not won by evacuations.” There is no way anyone, Americans or Iraqis, can win in Iraq by the evacuation of coalition forces at this point in time. Nonetheless, one hopes that we don’t have to witness “déjà vu all over again” – a helicopter airlift of Ambassador Khalilzad from the roof of our embassy in Baghdad in the near future. It’s more likely that a reminder of that infamous 1975 video from Saigon could force the Bush Administration away from what Mr. Will calls their “rhetoric of unreality”.
With the incessant media chatter about the likelihood of an impending civil war in Iraq, I was not the least surprised to read in yesterday’s New York Times about “The Conservative Epiphany”. In his column, Paul Krugman writes:
Mr. Krugman concludes his liberal broadside with this incredulous question, “It's still fair, however, to ask people like Mr. Bartlett the obvious question: What took you so long?”
I would imagine the answer to that question is rather superfluous, since Mr. Bartlett is in the midst of peddling his new book, “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy”. It didn’t take me any time at all because I have been critiquing Bush Administration policies in real time throughout the President’s first term. In fact, I was constantly haranguing the media for not doing its oversight job, a role which a supine Republican Congress pretty much abdicated after 9/11. You can read all about my lonely crusade in “The Bush Diaries: A Citizens Review of the First Term” published by iUniverse in July 2005.
Also in yesterday’s New York Times, Thomas Friedman ("Mr. Nasty, Brutish and Short-Tempered") came up with a great idea for resolving the impasse in Iraq. However, instead of Ambassador Khalilzad and Vice President Cheney playing a good cop-bad cop routine at what Mr. Friedman calls “a national reconciliation conference”, I think that the U.S. delegation should actually pull off a “bad cop-badder cop” number. Such a meeting would surely produce desired results if Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney brought Saddam “Lord Voldemort” Hussein along to the party. All Iraqi factions, including the Sunnis, would quickly get in line – if they realized that an imminent U.S. withdrawal could herald the return of the king?
In the past few months, Don Imus (host of “Imus in the Morning” radio program) and Chris Matthews (host of “The Chris Matthews Show” and “Hardball”) have been rather facetiously touting the return of Saddam Hussein as our exit strategy from Iraq. Well, I had promoted a similar idea, quite seriously, in a letter to the Post on April 25, 2004. This letter, in response to an article by Robin Wright entitled, “U.S. Moves to Rehire Some From Baath Party, Military” appears in my book, “The Bush Diaries” (pg. 162) and is reproduced below:
This letter was written almost two years ago! The bitter truth is that it contains a strategy that might still work and is probably a more effective one than Thomas Friedman’s proposed shot gun approach with Dick Cheney.
Mr. Will also quoted Winston Churchill’s dire warning to Britons in 1940 that “Wars are not won by evacuations.” There is no way anyone, Americans or Iraqis, can win in Iraq by the evacuation of coalition forces at this point in time. Nonetheless, one hopes that we don’t have to witness “déjà vu all over again” – a helicopter airlift of Ambassador Khalilzad from the roof of our embassy in Baghdad in the near future. It’s more likely that a reminder of that infamous 1975 video from Saigon could force the Bush Administration away from what Mr. Will calls their “rhetoric of unreality”.
With the incessant media chatter about the likelihood of an impending civil war in Iraq, I was not the least surprised to read in yesterday’s New York Times about “The Conservative Epiphany”. In his column, Paul Krugman writes:
“Born-again Bush-bashers like Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Sullivan, however churlish, are intellectually and morally superior to the Bushist dead-enders who still insist that Saddam was allied with Al Qaeda, and will soon be claiming that we lost the war in Iraq because the liberal media stabbed the troops in the back. And reporters understandably consider it newsworthy that some conservative voices are now echoing longstanding liberal critiques of the Bush administration.”
Mr. Krugman concludes his liberal broadside with this incredulous question, “It's still fair, however, to ask people like Mr. Bartlett the obvious question: What took you so long?”
I would imagine the answer to that question is rather superfluous, since Mr. Bartlett is in the midst of peddling his new book, “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy”. It didn’t take me any time at all because I have been critiquing Bush Administration policies in real time throughout the President’s first term. In fact, I was constantly haranguing the media for not doing its oversight job, a role which a supine Republican Congress pretty much abdicated after 9/11. You can read all about my lonely crusade in “The Bush Diaries: A Citizens Review of the First Term” published by iUniverse in July 2005.
Also in yesterday’s New York Times, Thomas Friedman ("Mr. Nasty, Brutish and Short-Tempered") came up with a great idea for resolving the impasse in Iraq. However, instead of Ambassador Khalilzad and Vice President Cheney playing a good cop-bad cop routine at what Mr. Friedman calls “a national reconciliation conference”, I think that the U.S. delegation should actually pull off a “bad cop-badder cop” number. Such a meeting would surely produce desired results if Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney brought Saddam “Lord Voldemort” Hussein along to the party. All Iraqi factions, including the Sunnis, would quickly get in line – if they realized that an imminent U.S. withdrawal could herald the return of the king?
In the past few months, Don Imus (host of “Imus in the Morning” radio program) and Chris Matthews (host of “The Chris Matthews Show” and “Hardball”) have been rather facetiously touting the return of Saddam Hussein as our exit strategy from Iraq. Well, I had promoted a similar idea, quite seriously, in a letter to the Post on April 25, 2004. This letter, in response to an article by Robin Wright entitled, “U.S. Moves to Rehire Some From Baath Party, Military” appears in my book, “The Bush Diaries” (pg. 162) and is reproduced below:
“After reading Robin Wright's report, one wonders if the U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, might extend his “re-Baathification” strategy to include a “humbled” Saddam Hussein at some point of time in the near future. Outrageous and heretical as this suggestion might seem, we might recall that during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, the Reagan Administration not only supported Saddam Hussein but also supplied him with some of the raw materials for his chemical and biological programs. With the current situation in Iraq spiraling out of control, Mr. Bremer could conceivably seek the assistance of a “de-programmed” Saddam Hussein to restore law and order in the country? The Bush Administration could justify this action on several grounds:
• Without WMD, Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States or his neighbors
• Saddam Hussein is the only one who can prevent Iraq from breaking up into parts ala Yugoslavia
• Saddam Hussein is our best containment-cum-insurance policy against a virulent Iran
• Saddam Hussein was never aligned with Al Qaeda, which is our real enemy
• Re-Baathification, with Saddam Hussein back in the saddle, provides us the quickest, cleanest, and most inexpensive exit strategy out of Iraq
If one thinks this is a far-fetched scenario, which patriotic American would have believed even six months ago that we would resume business dealings with Libya's Moammar Gaddafi!”
This letter was written almost two years ago! The bitter truth is that it contains a strategy that might still work and is probably a more effective one than Thomas Friedman’s proposed shot gun approach with Dick Cheney.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Shot Gun Approach
In his Post column “Quell Quailgate” dated February 17, 2006 Charles Krauthammer writes, “Something happened involving the vice president that was interesting and unusual but of no great significance beyond that.” I wish the rest of us could be as sanguine about this infamous shooting incident. Mr. Krauthammer concludes wistfully that “Cheney got a judgment call wrong” and that’s all there was to it.
However, Mr. Krauthammer must recall that this is the same vice president, who assured us three days prior to the start of the war that “we will be greeted as liberators” in Iraq. Over two years later, despite a still-raging insurgency in Iraq, Vice President Cheney famously declared it was “in the last throes”. One wonders how many more such Cheney judgment calls it will take, before other conservatives “get religion” as Peggy Noonan did a couple of days ago. Ms Noonan concluded in her Wall Street Journal op-ed column that
Meanwhile on the liberal side of town Eugene Robinson erred only slightly, when he wrote in his Post column on Tuesday that “out-of-control is the way this whole administration operates: Ready, fire, aim.” I believe that it’s actually been more like: Fire, aim, not ready! We can’t forget that the Bush Administration took a shot gun approach into Iraq as well – in the misguided belief that their “shock and awe” strategy did not require a need to “aim”. Three years later, the Bush Administration has discovered that the American public is “not ready” for what they are now calling a “long war” in Iraq.
In fact, this friendly fire, shot gun approach has proven to be a metaphor for the Bush Administration’s handling of major domestic crises as well. Senior citizens have been peppered by a confusing array of options with the Administration’s new prescription drug plan – it’s apparent now that no one was ready for it. The hodge-podge of the Administration’s post-Katrina efforts included cash payments, hotel stays, extensions, evictions, vacant trailer lots, etc. – yet, almost six months later, New Orleans is still a mess and the new hurricane season is barely four months away.
Finally, a word about the vice president’s judgment in selecting Fox News to tell his side of the shooting story – Mr. Cheney was responsible for sending our soldiers into a war where they were hardly greeted as liberators, Mr. Cheney even shot a dear friend in the face, yet Mr. Cheney lacks the chutzpah to host a more open national press conference? With their record of warrantless surveillance, a Pravda-like reliance on Fox News, and a never-ending “war on terror” deteriorating into a modern day crusade – I am tempted to conclude with a Woodwardian warning “be afraid, be very afraid”. But instead, I can only hope that this “friendly fire” incident is a wake-up call to the larger American public. We can no longer be duped by this Administration’s trump card – crying wolf on "national security" whenever it’s convenient to mask its larger failings – that shot gun approach is only for the birds!
However, Mr. Krauthammer must recall that this is the same vice president, who assured us three days prior to the start of the war that “we will be greeted as liberators” in Iraq. Over two years later, despite a still-raging insurgency in Iraq, Vice President Cheney famously declared it was “in the last throes”. One wonders how many more such Cheney judgment calls it will take, before other conservatives “get religion” as Peggy Noonan did a couple of days ago. Ms Noonan concluded in her Wall Street Journal op-ed column that
“Mr. Bush may feel in time that he has reason to want to put in a new vice president”.
Meanwhile on the liberal side of town Eugene Robinson erred only slightly, when he wrote in his Post column on Tuesday that “out-of-control is the way this whole administration operates: Ready, fire, aim.” I believe that it’s actually been more like: Fire, aim, not ready! We can’t forget that the Bush Administration took a shot gun approach into Iraq as well – in the misguided belief that their “shock and awe” strategy did not require a need to “aim”. Three years later, the Bush Administration has discovered that the American public is “not ready” for what they are now calling a “long war” in Iraq.
In fact, this friendly fire, shot gun approach has proven to be a metaphor for the Bush Administration’s handling of major domestic crises as well. Senior citizens have been peppered by a confusing array of options with the Administration’s new prescription drug plan – it’s apparent now that no one was ready for it. The hodge-podge of the Administration’s post-Katrina efforts included cash payments, hotel stays, extensions, evictions, vacant trailer lots, etc. – yet, almost six months later, New Orleans is still a mess and the new hurricane season is barely four months away.
Finally, a word about the vice president’s judgment in selecting Fox News to tell his side of the shooting story – Mr. Cheney was responsible for sending our soldiers into a war where they were hardly greeted as liberators, Mr. Cheney even shot a dear friend in the face, yet Mr. Cheney lacks the chutzpah to host a more open national press conference? With their record of warrantless surveillance, a Pravda-like reliance on Fox News, and a never-ending “war on terror” deteriorating into a modern day crusade – I am tempted to conclude with a Woodwardian warning “be afraid, be very afraid”. But instead, I can only hope that this “friendly fire” incident is a wake-up call to the larger American public. We can no longer be duped by this Administration’s trump card – crying wolf on "national security" whenever it’s convenient to mask its larger failings – that shot gun approach is only for the birds!
Saturday, February 11, 2006
The Other Side of US Economic Policy
The Bush Administration keeps touting the strength of the US economy, which in 2005 saw annual GDP growth of 3.5% and a 15% hike in federal revenues over 2004 to a record $2.15 trillion. In today’s Washington Post, Paul Blustein’s “Trade Gap Hits Record For 4th Year In a Row” tells only a part of the other side of this story – at what cost has this “economic success” been achieved?
The US trade deficit almost doubled from $370 billion in 2000 to $725 billion in 2005, while the national debt increased 44% from $5.7 trillion to $8.2 trillion during the same period. The US personal savings rate was -0.5% in 2005, which means that Americans spent more than they earned after taxes – this is the first time that this has happened since the Great Depression. According to the Chicago Tribune, “The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only twice before, in 1932 and 1933.” So not only is our government living beyond its means, now “we the people” are doing so too!
Meanwhile China continues to eat our lunch on the economic front. Recently the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported, “China's economy grew by a red-hot 9.9 per cent in 2005, the Chinese government announced Wednesday – enough to overtake Britain as the fourth biggest economy in the world, after the U.S., Japan, and Germany.” However, as the CBC noted, “Exports surged 28.4 per cent to $878 billion and helped to lead China to record a trade surplus of almost $118 billion.” To make matters worse, Mr. Blustein points out in today’s Post article, “the mounting U.S. deficit with China, which rose 24.5 percent to $201.6 billion last year, the biggest gap the United States has ever posted with a single country.”
If only that were all we had to worry about – Peter S. Goodman of The Washington Post had warned last month that China’s “foreign currency reserves swelled by more than one-third last year to a record $819 billion”. Mr. Goodman also notes that “Traditionally, China has sunk three-fourths of its reserves into U.S.-dollar-denominated investments, such as U.S. Treasury bills.” Is there any doubt as to how easy it has become for China to adversely impact US monetary policy? Never mind, how increasingly difficult it has become for the US to convince China to allow its currency to float!
Finally, we have all heard of the saying, “Like father, like son”. In the geopolitical context, this can be interpreted to mean, “Like nation, like people”. The day after Mr. Goodman’s story appeared in the Post, the Chinese Embassy in the US put out a news release stating “The country had a record 14 trillion yuan (US$1.7 trillion) in personal savings by the end of 2005”.
Candidate Bush had campaigned in 2000 that he would treat China as a “strategic competitor” and not as a “strategic partner” – which is the way he claimed then that President Clinton had dealt with China throughout his presidency. Ironically, President Bush’s own economic policy has now pretty much tied up his hands and severely limited his options in effecting any dramatic change in the overall nature of our relationship with China. It’s the other side of US economic policy that the Bush Administration never talks about!
The US trade deficit almost doubled from $370 billion in 2000 to $725 billion in 2005, while the national debt increased 44% from $5.7 trillion to $8.2 trillion during the same period. The US personal savings rate was -0.5% in 2005, which means that Americans spent more than they earned after taxes – this is the first time that this has happened since the Great Depression. According to the Chicago Tribune, “The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only twice before, in 1932 and 1933.” So not only is our government living beyond its means, now “we the people” are doing so too!
Meanwhile China continues to eat our lunch on the economic front. Recently the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported, “China's economy grew by a red-hot 9.9 per cent in 2005, the Chinese government announced Wednesday – enough to overtake Britain as the fourth biggest economy in the world, after the U.S., Japan, and Germany.” However, as the CBC noted, “Exports surged 28.4 per cent to $878 billion and helped to lead China to record a trade surplus of almost $118 billion.” To make matters worse, Mr. Blustein points out in today’s Post article, “the mounting U.S. deficit with China, which rose 24.5 percent to $201.6 billion last year, the biggest gap the United States has ever posted with a single country.”
If only that were all we had to worry about – Peter S. Goodman of The Washington Post had warned last month that China’s “foreign currency reserves swelled by more than one-third last year to a record $819 billion”. Mr. Goodman also notes that “Traditionally, China has sunk three-fourths of its reserves into U.S.-dollar-denominated investments, such as U.S. Treasury bills.” Is there any doubt as to how easy it has become for China to adversely impact US monetary policy? Never mind, how increasingly difficult it has become for the US to convince China to allow its currency to float!
Finally, we have all heard of the saying, “Like father, like son”. In the geopolitical context, this can be interpreted to mean, “Like nation, like people”. The day after Mr. Goodman’s story appeared in the Post, the Chinese Embassy in the US put out a news release stating “The country had a record 14 trillion yuan (US$1.7 trillion) in personal savings by the end of 2005”.
Candidate Bush had campaigned in 2000 that he would treat China as a “strategic competitor” and not as a “strategic partner” – which is the way he claimed then that President Clinton had dealt with China throughout his presidency. Ironically, President Bush’s own economic policy has now pretty much tied up his hands and severely limited his options in effecting any dramatic change in the overall nature of our relationship with China. It’s the other side of US economic policy that the Bush Administration never talks about!
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