By Steve Hynd
Yet again, it's been a while since I did one of these. Mea culpa. But there's a bunch of fun and interesting stuff out there today that's worth noting even if I don't have a full post on any of it. So...
-- Obama's Nobel speech proves he's a neoliberal who believes in humanitarian intervention - human rights delivered at gunpoint - and is willing to gloss over many sins for that belief. Who's surprised?
-- The U.S. is busily saying that civilian rule isn't threatened in Pakistan. The heads of the Pak army, ISI, and the CJCS are all set to retire in 2010. Currently, it's still in Zardari's power to appoint their replacements. Will Kayani go quietly or will America end up supporting his being the continued power behind the curtain? But my understanding is that the military think Zardari got too big for his boots, thinking US support made him more than Kayan's puppet faux- democratic mouthpiece. So they are transferring power to Gilani who is to be their new favored faux-democratic mouthpiece. Zardari is toast and his supporters are worried.
-- Back in 2005 I suggested that India might be one of the world's new nascent superpowers in a multi-polar world, to widespread indifference. The Bush era was here and American hegemony would last forever. Now India's looking to join a rewritten NPT as a nuclear weapons state and planning a carrier strike force unequalled except by the U.S for service by 2017.
-- More than 100 nations are backing tougher climate goals in Copemhagen. Unfortunately, they're all the poorest ones. I'm guessing it's a bad omen that the 15 ft globe on display at the summit doesn't actually show the island states which are most at risk of flooding. Just blue sea where they should be.
-- Both Robin Wright in the Washington Post and Chris Luenen in the Guardian have articles today on "the real stakes in Afghanistan". Apparently, for America it's all about preserving its failing hegemony as long as possible and for Europe it's all about continuing to hitch itself, via NATO, to America's failing superpowerdom as a hedge against energy dictatorship imposed from Moscow. I see both articles as clutching at explanatory straws - just another pair of examples from the pro-war search for reasons that don't mean hyping the AQ threat beyond all logic. The tacit admission is that the Al Qaida threat simply isn't worth all that's been done and is going to be done.
thanks for the instant hoglets coupled with quick succinct analysis / summary. just what we need.
ReplyDeleteSteve,
ReplyDeleteA couple of comments.
1. In the article to link to I could not recognize Zardari. Mr. 10 percent is represented as valiantly battling the forces of extremism. This is a more than a bit of a stretch. From all indications Zardari's days are numbered but it has more to do with his incompetence and the breakdown of governance than with the unhappiness of the generals - though that might certainly be there. Zardari is in part caught by his (or rather his wife's) promise before the election that the president's powers would be curtailed and more power transferred to the prime minister - who happens to be Gilani.
2. Whether Kayani remains or not is irrelevant. The Pakistan army's involvement in the government is institutional. Individual actors, be they Musharraf or Kayani, are not that important. Things can change - witness Turkey - but I don't see much hope in the near future. The presence of the US is going to help preserve the military's position, as it has always done.