Are Israel’s days numbered?

May 22, 2012 by 4 Comments

Alex Clackson 

Image © Maxnathans

The saga between Israel and Palestine has been ongoing for many decades now, resembling a long dark corridor with no end in sight. For many years, through the financial and military support from the United States, Israel has been able to develop and prevent any moral or physical assault from Palestine and its allies. However, over the last few years we have seen a slow, but sure change in opinion. Through non-mainstream media and organizations like BDS (a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel) and finally individual human rights activists, the world is waking up to the realisation that Israel is not the perfect liberal state among the “dangerous” Arab nations as it wants to be seen. As Norman Finkelstein has said in his most recent book, “Even the American Jews are turning their backs on Israel.” It is becoming clearer that the only life support system the Israeli machine can rely on is the American Israel lobby.

Despite the fast changing opinion on the Jewish state, Israel continues to act in a way which further pushes it away from the support Israel is so used to receiving from the Western powers. The Palestinian’s quest for a state of their own has been as futile as ever, as the Israelis continue to build on land that is supposed to form the basis of Palestine. Nearly three years ago Mr. Netanyahu said he accepted the principle of two states, Jewish and Palestinian, existing side by side in peace and security. But he has since shown precious little appetite for putting that principle into practice. Despite admonitions from the State Department, Netanyahu’s government has continued to approve and/or legalize settlement constructions in Jerusalem and the West Bank following the expiration of a freeze on settlement construction in September, 2010.

Even the Israeli politicians are starting to understand the thin thread the Jewish state is walking on.  In an interview published in the Times of Israel, Dan Meridor, the Israeli minister delivered harsh words to his colleagues who have overseen the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Meridor warned that the current calm in relations with the Palestinians might be producing “an illusion” among Israelis “that this is sustainable in the long term. It is not. It is an anomaly. We need to change it.”

In addition, the deputy prime minister of Israel has urged the government to freeze further settlements “across the line of the [settlement] blocs or the fence or whatever you call it,” a reference to the Israeli West Bank barrier which is partially built along the 1949 armistice line, or “Green Line.”  Read more of this post

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Obama vs. Romney: the world is watching

May 16, 2012 by Leave a comment

Daniel Crump 

Image © Rivarix

Matters of foreign policy do not tend to be first on the list of a voter’s priorities coming up to an election, especially in times of economic turmoil. When US voters go to the polls in November they will be asking themselves when unemployment is going to fall, whether the health care system will continue to be of benefit to them and how much money they will have in their pockets once they retire. Perhaps, then, the sensible move on the part of the contenders is to downplay talk of foreign issues and concentrate on the economy.

However, history has taught us that many a presidency has come to be defined by a set of decisions related to manoeuvrings on the world stage. Kennedy’s record was arguably saved from the humiliation of the Bay of Pigs by his firmness during the Cuban Missile Crisis. What respect George Bush Sr. may have lost in failing to capture Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War, he made up for with his role in German Unification in the early 90’s.

Are we asking the right question?

In the run up to November’s vote, it is perhaps unhelpful to ask whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney would best serve the US’s interests on the world stage. The question people ought to be asking is whether a first term president is preferable to one in his second term. This is the case for two main reasons. Firstly, a President’s first term in office has always been more about dealing with the footprint left by the previous administration than about imposing his own foreign policy vision. Secondly, foreign policy is by nature reactionary. No matter how concise a doctrine exists at the outset, there are certain events that one can simply not prepare for.

To argue the first case, we need only go back four years when Obama officially inherited two wars from George Bush Jr. It was clear, despite his commendable desire to ease tensions with Iran, that his Middle Eastern policy was going to be dictated by how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan played out. It is certainly no secret that Iranian involvement in the Iraq War was one of the biggest obstacles the President was going to have to overcome if peace between Tehran and Washington was reachable. U.S officials insist that the training of Militant Shiite groups in Iraq by Iranian forces has been a huge challenge for the US army. Iran is said to view Iraq as a potential buffer zone from any future invasion, most likely by the US’s main ally, Israel. Similarly, George Bush’s unavoidable presence in Afghanistan was always going to make Obama’s relationship with Islamabad one on permanent knife edge.  Read more of this post

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Pakistan, India and the Bi-Polar World Order

May 10, 2012 by Leave a comment

Daniel Crump

Image © Omer Wazir


Fukuyama’s ‘The End of History’ essay may not have correctly predicted everything it was supposed to, but one realisation certainly holds true to this day: Realist manoeuvrings and proxy inter-state wars have always been an inevitable feature of a Bi-Polar world. With the fall of the USSR, and the US’s securing of uncontested, top dog status, inter-state warfare has fallen to its lowest level since World War II, making this the most peaceful period of modern history.  The explanation being that in a world with two competing super powers, fragile alliances are held together by mutual enemies.

Although not yet a Bi-Polar world by most people’s evaluations, the rising influence of China will undoubtedly lead to nations asking serious questions of themselves and who they choose to associate with. This week, while the US ambassador to Pakistan stepped down for what Washington insisted was for personal reasons alone, The Chinese ambassador to Pakistan met with President Zardari to discuss matters of mutual cooperation and bilateral trade.

In recent years, Ambassador Munter may well have held the least coveted role in international relations. Following the arrest of a CIA contractor in Lahore and the US led mission to capture and kill Osama Bin Laden, Munter has had to deal with the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers in November 2011 when the US strayed across the border from Afghanistan. His resignation may appear, after all this, to be the icing on a rather stale and crumbling diplomatic cake.

A Difficult Friendship

The most worrying aspect of these recent events is the fact that they do not come as much of a surprise to anyone. The US and Pakistan have quite a history of sharing mutual enemies and their relationship has, therefore, always been one of convenience and insincerity. Whether it was Nixon and Kissinger using Pakistan’s friendship with China to make Sino-US inroads, or Pakistani support of anti Soviet groups in Afghanistan, the US has always been able to find some beneficial reason to keep Pakistan within arm’s length.

The most recent chapter of this tale has certainly been the trickiest yet. Shortly after 9/11, President Musharraf ended his alliance with the Afghan Taliban while officially entering the Bush Administration’s War on Terror. Since 2001, Pakistan has handed over 5000 members of Al Qaeda to American authorities and received nearly $10 Billion in aid for its troubles. Despite this closeness, Pakistan has constantly been accused of ‘looking both ways’ when it comes to terrorism. Pakistan’s Inter-Services-Intelligence Agency (ISI) has been accused of training and sponsoring groups that the Americans claim to be fighting across the border in Afghanistan. Indeed, it was Pakistan’s Intelligence Agency that was instrumental in bringing the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in the mid 90’s with a view to setting up a favourable regime in a neighbouring country. With the US planning to withdraw a substantial number of troops from Afghanistan in 2014, all bets are off as to what condition Pakistani – US relations will be in if the Taliban were ever to re emerge in Afghan political life. Read more of this post

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It wasn’t supposed to be like this

April 24, 2012 by Leave a comment

Daniel Crump 

Image © Que Comunismo

Initially, South America’s near continent-wide economic expansion meant great advantages for the rest of the Western world. In the opening decade of the century, with Argentina largely at the mercy of the IMF, South America was led mostly by governments that the West could do business with. For better or worse for the people of South America, this meant that the West had stronger trading partners, a decline in drug related violence and yet another example of liberal, free-market economics becoming the default setting for any nation that wished to exist within the international community.

This was also a time when we knew how to differentiate the good guys from the bad. Across the border from Colombia, and 90 miles off the coast of Florida, lay Latin America’s answer to the Axis of Evil. With the menacing prospect of further international terrorism following September 11th, US President George W Bush was able to maintain a healthy distance between Pro and Anti US Latin America. Nowhere was this more evident than between neighbours Colombia and Venezuela. The Bush administration was able to manipulate this relationship by placing US military bases on Colombian soil which were, in the US’s own words, designed as a launch pad for military operations against Anti US Latin American Governments.  South American politics seemed to fit so neatly into the US world-view.

Fast forward to the present day and something rather unexpected seems to have taken place; South American governments are increasingly beginning to think for themselves. Last month’s Organisation of American States (OAS) Summit was the biggest indication yet of the diverging paths taken by South and North America. At the discussion table were measures such as the legalisation of the drugs trade, British claims over ‘Las Malvinas’ and Cuba’s absence from the summit talks. With better relations between Colombia and Venezuela and an increasing desire to settle internal matters through UNASUR rather than the OAS, South America is speaking with its own voice and making its own decisions. The most significant development of South American integration is surely the growing contribution of the Continent’s left-wing bloc.

South American Integration

During the Bush Administration it was clear that the OAS took the majority of decisions affecting the American region. The Organisation was largely designed to satisfy North American goals such as the fights against terrorism and the illegal drugs trade. Cuba was suspended from talks between 1962-2009 and there appears to be no pressing need to reinstate them.

Since then, both the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) have gained a more influential voice. ALBA stands for a rejection of trade liberalization and free trade agreements, preferring to project a vision of mutual economic aid transfers, bartering and social welfare. UNASUR is becoming ever more effective at curbing the influence of the US in South America by resolving the Colombian Venezuelan conflict and agreeing to prohibit US military bases in Colombia being used for military purposes outside of Colombian soil. Read more of this post

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Are you with U.S or against US?

April 15, 2012 by 1 Comment

Daniel Crump 

Image © eltiempo.com

Some may view the behaviour of the US secret service agents this week in Colombia as a further sign of the growing discontent between the US and the rest of Latin America. The sheer audacity of these professional individuals, tasked with securing the safety of President Obama, carries with it an ugly reminder of the disrespect that characterised US attitudes towards Latin Americans in a period of time thought to be long resigned to history.

A recurring theme at this year’s Organisation of American States (OAS) was the ever- growing divide between North and South America, ranging from issues such as the British claim over the Falkland Islands, to the de-criminalisation of the drugs trade. This is in line with the economic dissociation that has seen the decline of US influence in the region and the gains made by China as a result. Chile and Peru, along with Brazil, the economic powerhouse of the continent, now have closer trading links with the Chinese than the US, with Colombia and Argentina likely to follow suit. Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think-tank stated in a pre-summit report that ‘”Most countries of the region view the United States as less and less relevant to their needs and with declining capacity to propose and carry out strategies to deal with the issues that most concern them.”

For instance, South American leaders argue that the legalisation of drugs would put a large dent in the profits made by the trade and help to reduce drug related violence that has crippled South American economies and deprived them of much needed foreign investment. Predictably, any hopes of US enthusiasm for the policy were soon dashed, but Obama did concede that the United States is the region’s biggest consumer of illegal drugs and has a responsibility to reduce demand.

Also, on the 30th anniversary of the conflict, Argentina’s request for a negotiation of the Falkland Island’s sovereignty from Britain was supported by a handful of leaders including Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro who said ‘there should be no colonial possessions in our America’. Again, the US opposed this sentiment.

Perhaps most significant of all was the debate surrounding the makeup of the organisation itself. Rather unsurprisingly, Cuba was ostracised from proceedings as it has been since the birth of the OAS. A more surprising development was the Bolivian President Eva Morales’s claim that this ought to be the last OAS summit without Cuba. Latin America is largely united in their opposition to the US trade embargo of Cuba, and the absence of Castro provoked Ecuador to boycott the summit altogether. Read more of this post

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A message to President Santos: If it ain’t broke…

April 8, 2012 by 2 Comments

Daniel Crump 

Image © The Christian Science Monitor

Despite high approval ratings, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe was constitutionally barred from running for a third term in office in 2010, leading to his Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos being voted in off the back of a largely Pro-Uribe mood, nationwide. After an initial period of continuity, time seems to have polarized Colombia’s once popular political double act. A former Aide of Santos has even accused the President of camouflaging himself as an ‘Uribista’ to get himself elected and describes the last few months of the Presidency as a ‘great betrayal.’

It cannot be denied that Alvaro Uribe’s security drive, spread over his eight years in office, helped to transform Colombia from an almost failed state, riddled with civil war, drug cartels and regular kidnappings, into an international player experiencing huge economic prosperity. Uribe’s uncompromisingly tough stance towards the Left-wing FARC rebels paved the way for his pro-market economic policies and investor-friendly reforms, which helped reduce overall poverty in Colombia by 20% and unemployment by 25%. As a result, he has enjoyed approval ratings of between 70-80% making him the most popular Latin American leader of the 2000’s. The effects of Uribe’s tenure are still being felt today. The IMF forecasts Colombia’s GDP growth rate to be 4.5% for 2012, three times that of the US.

There are obvious differences, in both personality and political hue, between President Santos and his predecessor. The former, arguably less media friendly than the folksy former President has reversed a handful of Uribe’s measures, including the cancellation of tax breaks for companies designed to encourage investment and a move to de-criminalise the possession of personal amounts of recreational drugs. Santos is also one of many Latin American leaders leading the debate around de-criminalising the entire drugs trade in the region, a stance never adopted by Uribe.

Yet, it is in security that Santos’ reforms might touch closest to the nerves of many Colombians. The Presidency of the last six months can be described as an attempt to lay the groundwork for further peace talks with FARC. Santos has proposed the decreasing of prison terms for any FARC member who agrees to peace negotiations. He has also directed the Colombian army towards more mid-level attacks on guerrilla field units rather than directly attacking high level FARC commanders, a policy preferred by Uribe. A bill that aims to offer reparations to victims of violence at the hands of the Colombian security forces as well as the FARC has broken an eight year tacit agreement to frame Colombia’s troubles as a ‘terrorist threat’ rather than an ‘internal armed conflict.’  Read more of this post

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This Game Really Does Have New Rules

March 11, 2012 by Leave a comment

John Paul Shammas 

Image © Mamamia

In the voice-over introducing his video “Kony 2012,” narrator Jason Russell tells a worldwide audience, “The game has new rules”, and he’s right.

There was a brief lull around campuses and student bars this week when students had momentarily halted from watching a baby monkey ride a pig on Youtube. Instead, their internet activities had moved on to something else, and the conversation had moved towards the infrequently visited topic of African warlords. The Youtube phenomenon Kony 2012 is a short campaign film by Invisible Children that aims to make Joseph Kony famous. Not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent that through social media, we can mobilise our youth to influence our political discourse in order to bring bad guys around the world to justice. Sounds great, right?

The truth is that social media is an incredible mechanism for connecting ideas, including bad ones. Helping people is a complex business, something this viral video doesn’t communicate. Consequently, campaigns such as this one have a distorting impact which encourages the conversation (and the money) in the wrong direction. For example, 69% of the money received by donations and Kony 2012 related purchases aren’t going towards helping anyone. Instead, it is going towards Invisible Children promotion campaigns which ultimately perpetuate a self-promoting cycle for the company to go and make more viral hits without investing the bulk of their profits into local communities and aid. This fact is made even more repulsive when the content of the video is a journey with a self-absorbed narrator who unashamedly indulges in hero-worship of himself, attempting to seem paternalistic, but coming across as simply neo-colonial and deceptively populist.

George Clooney features in the video briefly, calling for warlords and tyrants to be made as famous as he is. The sentiment here is basically calling for the many atrocities and injustices in the world to get increasing levels of exposure within the public domain, which is something we can all get on board with. The issue however, which is inherent throughout this Kony 2012 debacle is the misdirection of our discourse and the misdirection of our culture. We should be addressing why we value George Clooney as so essential and immediate to our consciousness, not calling on the media to equate his exposure with human rights violations – that’s a consumer choice issue of which the buck firmly stops with us, the consumer. Read more of this post

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For Afghanistan, Apologies are not enough

March 5, 2012 by Leave a comment

Dominic Turner

Image © U.S. Army

Last month saw a spate of terrorist atrocities in Afghanistan, a reaction to the unintentional burning of the Quran by American soldiers. I have no reason to cast aspersion on the claims this affront was entirely accidental. It seems it was, President Obama has apologised for the burning, and for this incident it should suffice. But the touch paper for this carnage was not lit merely by the destruction of Islam’s Holy book, however sacrosanct that is. The horror that has engulfed Afghanistan for the last ten years rises out of the fertile, festering swamp that we have created through occupying that land for over a decade. And for that, there is no apology great enough.

Make no mistake, these acts of extreme violence are obscene. But like all resistance to occupations, they are a cathartic endeavour against forces of aggression as we saw in India and Vietnam in the 20th century. It is hard enough for our own Government to cling to some far-fetched justification for the decade long occupation of Afghanistan.  Just think how hard it is for the Afghan people, 92% of them who do not even know of the events of September 11th. How would you react if an invading army occupied your country, flattened your town, and killed your family? This is without even considering the fact that the United States armed and funded Osama Bin Laden and the Mujahideen during the Soviet invasion of the 1980s, leaving the forces that they organised in power to slaughter and rape tens of thousands of civilians, a period that ‘Human Rights Watch’ characterises as the “worst period in Afghan history”.

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Greece: Shades of Weimar?

February 28, 2012 by Leave a comment

Nikhil Venkatesh

After the Treaty of Versailles, an unstable, war-wearied and poor Germany (with a new government based in Weimar) was made to pay £284 billion (in today’s money) to the Allied powers. Germany was humiliated; throughout the next decade its economy was run not in the interests of the German people, but in the interests of paying back its foreign creditors. This led to crippling hyper-inflation, an economy vulnerable to the Wall Street Crash (1929), an upsurge in nationalism and communism, and ultimately the rise of Hitler. Amazing as it may be, some people predicted that the harsh financial terms of the treaty would mutilate the German economy, endanger its fledgling democracy, and lead to another war in about 1940. JM Keynes wrote about it in The Economic Consequences of the Peace, and even the cartoonist in The Daily Herald had an inkling of a ‘second world war’ (see picture) – he was a year out.

The moral of the story is that if a country’s economy isn’t run in the interests of the people (what Chomsky calls ‘economic sovereignty’), the people will not be happy. They will revolt, riot, and go to war.

The most terrible thing about the bail-out agreement with Greece is that the Greek people do not feature in it. The policies are designed to stop (mainly French, German and British) banks from losing the money they rashly lent to the Greek government. Greece will be forced to impose austerity measures that may well make their citizens’ lives worse – but this is secondary to keeping the bankers afloat. Any money the Greek government has will have to go into paying off debt ahead of being spent on public services. Foreign economists, like the French troops occupying Germany’s Ruhr valley in 1923, will remain until the debtor country can be trusted to uphold its side of the bargain. The Greek people don’t get a choice; Greek economic policy is unaccountable to its own taxpayers; money will be transferred from some of Europe’s poorest people to some of its wealthiest. Read more of this post

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Realism and Religion

February 25, 2012 by Leave a comment

Andrew Calderwood

Image © Duke Human Rights Centre

For many people, religion will have a profound effect throughout their lives, often acting as a great healer of the soul. It will provide a positive influence in times of need and a rock of solace throughout times of pain and suffering. Equally, during periods of great plenty and fulfilment, the preaching of key messages, moral wisdom and the search for solidarity can be used as an unmatched medium in the step towards societal advancement.

Whether a fully fledged believer or an ardent atheist, the majority of society are likely to agree, that the cornerstones of religious preaching can set sound foundations when building towards a prosperous future in the pursuit of harmonious global relations. This positive underpinning, however, makes it an ever more bitter pill to swallow when recognising that the various religions that encompass our world appear inherently unable to co-exist side by side and assimilate themselves into a united society. Instead, radical religious leaders and sects appear intent on abusing religious ideology in the pursuit of objectives that are deemed as personally productive. Many demonstrate a lack of willingness to cooperate within the national and international arena and thus fail to contribute to the constructive progression of developments in cordial political dialogue.

Too often we see religious leaders or groups striving for dominance over another, or politicians using religious beliefs as a political vehicle to control the masses. We have also been witness to the oppression of groups and individuals who openly oppose the dogma of ruling political parties, or those who may be deemed undesirable or a danger to the status quo of power politics. Throughout history religion has been used as a tool to nurture the ‘Power Urge’ of groups and individuals, derived from the more basic urges of self-aggrandisement and self-assertion. The power urge can be translated through personal ambition, a quest for prestige or simply from a desire to profit from the work of others.[1)

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