in Russia Publication time: 23 June 2011, 23:07

On Thursday around noon, the German political police arrested in Berlin a native of Dagestan, Kamil Nadirov, born in 1976, who resides permanently in the Czech Republic, and immediately handed him over to Czech secret police. Nothing is known about his fate at the moment. There is a concern that the Czech spy services will hand him over to the mercy of the gristly Russian security services, reported the website VDagestan. Kamil went to a hospital to pick up his wife after surgery. When they left the hospital, police pounced on him and pinioned him. His wife was left alone with her belongings, although her stitches were not taken out after surgery. The brutal German police said it was her problem how she goes home. The police behaved very rudely. Czech spy services have demanded his extradition from Germany in a fabricated case of a so-called “terrorism”. On May 3, Muslims from the Caucasus were arrested in the Czech Republic for the sake of that case, but Kamil was in Germany at that time. Three weeks ago, his companion, Tagir Aliyev, born in 1981, was also arrested in Berlin. He was charged for the sake of the same case, fabricated by Democratic Czech and German spy services by agreement with bloody Moscow. Nothing is also known about his fate. Both Muslims, arbitrarily arrested by the servants of Democracy, are natives of Dagestan.

Department of Monitoring

For most Palestinians, leaving Gaza through Egypt is as exasperating a process as entering it. Governed by political and cultural sensitivities, most Palestinian officials and public figures refrain from criticizing the way Palestinians are treated at the Rafah border.

However, there is really no diplomatic language to describe the relationship between desperate Palestinians – some literally fighting for their lives – and Egyptian officials at the crossing which separates Gaza from Egypt.

“Gazans are treated like animals at the border,” a friend of mine told me. She was afraid that her fiance would not be allowed to leave Gaza, despite the fact that his papers were in order. Having

crossed the border myself just a few days ago, I could not disagree with her statement.

The New York Times reported on June 8: “After days of acrimony between Hamas and Egypt over limitations on who could pass through the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, Hamas said Egypt had agreed to allow 550 people a day to leave Gaza and to lengthen the operating hours of the crossing.”

And so the saga continues.

A few weeks after an official Egyptian announcement to “permanently” open the border – thus extending a lifeline for trapped Palestinians under siege in Gaza – the Rafah border was opened for two days of conditional operation in late May, and then closed again for four days. Now it has once more “reopened”.

All the announcements are proving to be no more than rhetoric. The latest “permanent” reopening has come with its own conditions and limitations, involving such factors as gender, age, purpose of visit, and so on.

“Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country,” states Article 13 (2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This universal principle, however, continues to evade most Palestinians in Gaza.

I was one of the very first Palestinians who stood at Rafah following the announcement of a “permanent” opening. Our bus waited at the gate for a long time. I watched a father repeatedly try to reassure his crying six-year-old child, who displayed obvious signs of a terrible bone disease.

“Get the children out or they will die,” shouted an older passenger as he gasped for air. The heat in the bus, combined with the smell of trapped sweat was unbearable.

Passengers took it upon themselves to leave the bus and stand outside, enduring disapproving looks from the Egyptian officials. Our next task was finding clean water and a shady spot in the arid zone separating the Egypt and Palestinian sides. There were no restrooms.

A tangible feeling of despair and humiliation could be read on the faces of the Gaza passengers.

No one seemed to be in the mood to speak of the Egyptian revolution, a favorite topic of conversation among most Palestinians. This zone is governed by an odd relationship, one that goes back many years – well before Egypt, under Hosni Mubarak, decided to shut down the border in 2006 in order to aid in the political demise of Hamas.

The issue actually has nothing to do with gender, age or logistics. All Palestinians are treated very poorly at the Rafah crossing, and they continue to endure even after the toppling of Mubarak, his family and the dismissal of the corrupt security apparatus. The Egyptian revolution is yet to reach Gaza.

When the bus was finally allowed to enter about five hours later, Palestinians dashed into the gate, desperately hoping to be among the lucky ones allowed to go in. The anxiety of the travelers usually makes them vulnerable to workers at the border who promise them help in exchange for negotiated amounts of money. All of this is actually a con, as the decision is made by a single man, referred to as al-Mukhabarat, the “intelligence”.

Some are sent back while others are allowed entry. Everyone is forced to wait for many hours – sometimes even days – with no clear explanation as to what they are waiting for, or why they are being sent back.

The very ill six-year-old held on his dad’s jacket as they walked about, frantically trying to fulfill all the requirements. Both seemed like they were about to collapse.

The Mukhabarat determined that three Gazan students on their way to their universities in Russia were to be sent back. They had jumped through many hoops already to make it so far. Their hearts sank when they heard the verdict. I protested on their behalf, and the decision was as arbitrarily reversed as it was originally made.

Those who are sent back to Gaza are escorted by unsympathetic officers to the same open spot, to wait for the same haggard bus. Some of those who are allowed entry are escorted by security personnel across the Sinai desert, all the way to Cairo International Airport to be “deported” to their final destinations. They are all treated like common criminals.

“I can’t watch my son die in front of my eyes,” screamed the father of 11-year-old Mohammed Ali Saleh, according to Mohammed Omer for Inter Press Service (June 10). He was addressing Egyptian troops days after the border was supposedly “permanently” reopened – for the second time in less than a week.
Such compelling needs as medical treatment, education and freedom keep bringing Palestinians back. The Israeli siege has choked Gaza to the point of near complete strangulation. Egypt is Gaza’s only hope.

“I beg you to open the crossing … You brothers of Egypt have humiliated us for so long. Isn’t it time we had our dignity back?” said Naziha Al-Sebakhi, 63, one of the many distressed faces at the Rafah border, according to Mohammed Omer.

As they crossed into Egypt, some of the passengers seemed euphoric. The three students and I shared a taxi to Cairo. A tape of Umm Kulthum’s Amal Hyati – Hope of my Life – played over and over again. Despite everything, the young men seemed to hold no resentment whatsoever towards Egypt.

“I just love Egypt …I don’t know why,” said Majid pensively, before falling asleep from sheer exhaustion.

I thought of the six-year-old boy and his dad. I wonder if they made it to the hospital on time.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), available on Amazon.com.

(Copyright 2011 Ramzy Baroud.)

The Birth of Israel, was a plan, long written by Theodre Herchel in 1895, a plan to steal the land Of PALESTINE from the Arabs. His plan was just the blue-print but the story grows richer. At the same time of Theodre Herschel, another Jew was dismayed by the Jewish lack of Power in Europe, and he hatched a plan to steal the Power from Christians in the name of the Worker.

Who was he? why, of course Karl Marx, the hero champion of the Worker. Herschel and Marx were contemporaries, and another man rose in New York, another Jew called Leon Bronstein, or Trotsky. He wanted to put in power the policies of Karl Marx. He flew in from New York to Russia, and plotted on how to take over power form the Christian Romanov Czar Nicholas II. the writings of Karl Marx were adapted in simple formulas for the common Worker. Billions of dollars were poured in by Jewish American, Jewish German Bankers to finance the Bolshevik revolution, all across Europe including Germany and Russia.

The Jews stabbed Russia in the back in 1917, when Russia was fighting for its life, against the German Army, Lenin, the Jew, decided to make unconditional peace with the Germans so that the  Bolshevik Jews could finally deal with the White Christian Russians led by the Romanovs. The Red Jewish Army with thousands of “brainwashed Workers” turned on the Imperial Christian White Army, and eventually defeated the White Christians. Yakov Yuronovsky, the leader of the Jewish secret Police, the Cheka, slit Anastassia’s throat, and killed her Czar and Czarina Parents.

A Jewish reign of terror fell on Russia, and the land trembled at the sight of the Red Jewish Star of David on every “RED” soldier. The Jewish Cheka killed tens of millions of Christians and Muslims. The first Jewish Death Camps were opened, and operated by the Jews. Then the First Israel was FOUNDED in the USSR…thats right folks,,,inside the USSR called the “Jewish Autonomous Republic or Oblast” . that was the first Israel, then since that wasn’t SEXY enough, the Jews came to steal Palestine. The story is long and interesting but it s too long for over here. Google the rest…
Welcome to Israel!
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*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I am usually a fan of comic turned movies, but I have grown old and weary over the Proverbial Nazi bad guy…I’m tired off yet another Holocaust themed movie. Are there no other villains? And is the Jewish sob-story required to wrench out the last Holocaust tear an older generation can produce,,,and brainwash another whole young-adult Generation in Holocaust and Jewish suffering?….”Never Forget” is the theme, and tinged with it, though cleverly overturned at the end, as the Jewish “Magneto”.

The movie was beyond slick, clever special effects that only “Banking” big money can provide. It was well acted, edited, superbly crafted, directed…the only problem for me was the “Story-line”. I give this movie only one star, because I dislike politically themed movies being dished out to our young adults…especially comic book story impressionable audiences. I heard stories, that the Jewish authors wrote the Marvel comic books, as a response to the Holocaust, but we are now in the 21st century. Enough with the past…we can dig up Hundreds of Millions of Christian, and Muslim victims slaughtered by entities worse than the other.

The Mongols, Jews, Hindus, Germans, Russians, Africans have all killed and been murdered in our Earth’s glorious time-line. Is this more evidence of a particular race/faith’s domination of Hollywood? “Inglorious Basterds” and a whole host of Jewish-Nazi themed movies are coming our way. Must we see these tired stories time and again?.. no wonder people are moving to European and Indie cinemas, for Those Who Know. However wisdom comes too late in our lives,,,and our young adults are already in the theaters and being sub-consciously brainwashed… The theme of “revenge” and “killing” versus the Forgiveness, was there in the end, but the sub-conscious effect of “revenge” and killing was glorified and even savored, and shown as more powerful than ordinary pathetic and mistaken “forgiveness”. X-professor, realizes the dangers of Forgiveness…”better to destroy first and think later” is the dominant theme, and carried forcefully by Magneto.

These are not Christian themes, but here a lust for revenge is clearly put forward, as we see too well in the World today with the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the ADL, JDL, all specialists in hunting 90+ year old Nazis. There is no forgiveness being taught here,, only murder and more murder…and Endless War… Small wonder that even with Mr Bin Laden dead, we are stuck in an Endless war with Islam, and with anyone who disagrees. It is movies like these that re-enforce Palestine and Israel issues,,,and the endless cycle of Talmudic violence.

I find this a terrible movie, only bent of reinforcing the “Popular Notion”, to Prepare our Youth for Endless War. Endless Revenge, and the most pathetic of all, “Never Forget!” Impressionable minds are at stake here, and we have not seen the last of these Hollywood, funded by Mega Wall Street Shyster Hoodlums, bent on truly destroying Civilization. It is only with sadness that i write this review, on a so-far amazing franchise/series, with “Wolverine” being a clear favorite of mine.

Shahzad, who has been writing for Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online for nearly 10 years, failed to show up for a scheduled appearance on a television talk show in the capital Islamabad.

Police reported that his body was found in a canal in Mandi Bahauddin in Punjab province about 150 kilometers southeast of Islamabad and about 10 kilometers from where his car was found. They said that his body bore marks of torture.

Earlier, the International Federation of Journalists released a statement saying it “urgently appeals to the Government of Pakistan to order its security and police agencies to respond

 
immediately to find a senior journalist who disappeared in Islamabad on May 29″.

Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani expressed his “deep grief and sorrow” over Shahzad’s death and ordered an immediate inquiry into his kidnapping and murder, according to Associated Press of Pakistan.

Shahzad, 40, had on several occasions been warned by officials of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) over articles they deemed to be detrimental to Pakistan’s national interests or image. He leaves a wife, two sons aged 14 and seven, and a daughter aged 12.

Human Rights Watch researcher Ali Dayan Hasan earlier said he suspected ISI officials abducted Shahzad, possibly because of a recent story he wrote on al-Qaeda infiltration in the Pakistani navy. Authorities haven’t commented. (Al-Qaeda had warned of Pakistan strike.)

Tony Allison, the Editor of Asia Times Online, expressed his deep concern for one of the most fearless journalists with whom he had ever worked. “We will bring the utmost pressure to bear on the authorities over this case. We at Asia Times Online express our deepest sympathies for Saleem’s family.”

(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

There was also a sharp change in the US economy in the 1970s, towards financialization and export of production. A variety of factors converged to create a vicious cycle of radical concentration of wealth, primarily in the top fraction of 1% of the population – mostly CEOs, hedge-fund managers, and the like.

That leads to the concentration of political power, hence state policies to increase economic concentration: fiscal policies, rules of corporate governance, deregulation, and much more. Meanwhile the costs of electoral campaigns skyrocketed, driving the parties into the pockets of concentrated capital, increasingly financial: the Republicans reflexively, the Democrats – by now what used to be moderate Republicans – not far behind.

Elections have become a charade, run by the public relations

 
industry. After his 2008 victory, Obama won an award from the industry for the best marketing campaign of the year. Executives were euphoric. In the business press they explained that they had been marketing candidates like other commodities since Ronald Reagan, but 2008 was their greatest achievement and would change the style in corporate boardrooms.

The 2012 election is expected to cost US$2 billion, mostly in corporate funding. Small wonder that Obama is selecting business leaders for top positions. The public is angry and frustrated, but as long as the Muasher principle prevails, that doesn’t matter.

While wealth and power have narrowly concentrated, for most of the population real incomes have stagnated and people have been getting by with increased work hours, debt, and asset inflation, regularly destroyed by the financial crises that began as the regulatory apparatus was dismantled starting in the 1980s.

None of this is problematic for the very wealthy, who benefit from a government insurance policy called “too big to fail”. The banks and investment firms can make risky transactions, with rich rewards, and when the system inevitably crashes, they can run to the nanny state for a taxpayer bailout, clutching their copies of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.

That has been the regular process since the Reagan years, each crisis more extreme than the last – for the public population, that is. Right now, real unemployment is at Depression levels for much of the population, while Goldman Sachs, one of the main architects of the current crisis, is richer than ever. It has just quietly announced $17.5 billion in compensation for last year, with CEO Lloyd Blankfein receiving a $12.6 million bonus while his base salary more than triples.

It wouldn’t do to focus attention on such facts as these. Accordingly, propaganda must seek to blame others, in the past few months, public sector workers, their fat salaries, exorbitant pensions, and so on: all fantasy, on the model of Reaganite imagery of black mothers being driven in their limousines to pick up welfare checks – and other models that need not be mentioned. We all must tighten our belts; almost all, that is.

Teachers are a particularly good target, as part of the deliberate effort to destroy the public education system from kindergarten through the universities by privatization – again, good for the wealthy, but a disaster for the population, as well as the long-term health of the economy, but that is one of the externalities that is put to the side insofar as market principles prevail.

Another fine target, always, is immigrants. That has been true throughout US history, even more so at times of economic crisis, exacerbated now by a sense that our country is being taken away from us: the white population will soon become a minority. One can understand the anger of aggrieved individuals, but the cruelty of the policy is shocking.

Who are the immigrants targeted? In Eastern Massachusetts, where I live, many are Mayans fleeing genocide in the Guatemalan highlands carried out by Reagan’s favorite killers. Others are Mexican victims of Clinton’s North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), one of those rare government agreements that managed to harm working people in all three of the participating countries.

As NAFTA was rammed through congress over popular objection in 1994, Clinton also initiated the militarization of the US-Mexican border, previously fairly open. It was understood that Mexican campesinos (peasants) cannot compete with highly subsidized US agribusiness, and that Mexican businesses would not survive competition with US multinationals, which must be granted “national treatment” under the mislabeled free trade agreements, a privilege granted only to corporate persons, not those of flesh and blood. Not surprisingly, these measures led to a flood of desperate refugees, and to rising anti-immigrant hysteria by the victims of state-corporate policies at home.

Much the same appears to be happening in Europe, where racism is probably more rampant than in the US. One can only watch with wonder as Italy complains about the flow of refugees from Libya, the scene of the first post-World War I genocide, in the now-liberated East, at the hands of Italy’s Fascist government. Or when France, still today the main protector of the brutal dictatorships in its former colonies, manages to overlook its hideous atrocities in Africa, while French President Nicolas Sarkozy warns grimly of the “flood of immigrants” and the leader of France’s far-right National Front Marine Le Pen objects that he is doing nothing to prevent it. I need not mention Belgium, which may win the prize for what Adam Smith called “the savage injustice of the Europeans”.

The rise of neo-fascist parties in much of Europe would be a frightening phenomenon even if we were not to recall what happened on the continent in the recent past. Just imagine the reaction if Jews were being expelled from France to misery and oppression, and then witness the non-reaction when that is happening to Roma, also victims of the Holocaust and Europe’s most brutalized population.

In Hungary, the neo-fascist party Jobbik gained 17% of the vote in national elections, perhaps unsurprising when three-quarters of the population feels that they are worse off than under communist rule. We might be relieved that in Austria the ultra-right J๖rg Haider won only 10% of the vote in 2008 – were it not for the fact that the new Freedom Party, outflanking him from the far right, won more than 17%. It is chilling to recall that, in 1928, the Nazis won less than 3% of the vote in Germany.

In England the British National Party and the English Defense League, on the ultra-racist right, are major forces. (What is happening in Holland you know all too well.) In Germany, Thilo Sarrazin’s lament that immigrants are destroying the country was a runaway best-seller, while Chancellor Angela Merkel, though condemning the book, declared that multiculturalism had “utterly failed”: the Turks imported to do the dirty work in Germany are failing to become blond and blue-eyed, true Aryans.

Those with a sense of irony may recall that Benjamin Franklin, one of the leading figures of the Enlightenment, warned that the newly liberated colonies should be wary of allowing Germans to immigrate, because they were too swarthy; Swedes as well. Into the 20th century, ludicrous myths of Anglo-Saxon purity were common in the US, including among presidents and other leading figures. Racism in the literary culture has been a rank obscenity; far worse in practice, needless to say. It is much easier to eradicate polio than this horrifying plague, which regularly becomes more virulent in times of economic distress.

I do not want to end without mentioning another externality that is dismissed in market systems: the fate of the species. Systemic risk in the financial system can be remedied by the taxpayer, but no one will come to the rescue if the environment is destroyed. That it must be destroyed is close to an institutional imperative. Business leaders who are conducting propaganda campaigns to convince the population that anthropogenic global warming is a liberal hoax understand full well how grave is the threat, but they must maximize short-term profit and market share. If they don’t, someone else will.

This vicious cycle could well turn out to be lethal. To see how grave the danger is, simply have a look at the new congress in the US, propelled into power by business funding and propaganda. Almost all are climate deniers. They have already begun to cut funding for measures that might mitigate environmental catastrophe. Worse, some are true believers; for example, the new head of a subcommittee on the environment who explained that global warming cannot be a problem because God promised Noah that there will not be another flood.

If such things were happening in some small and remote country, we might laugh. Not when they are happening in the richest and most powerful country in the world. And before we laugh, we might also bear in mind that the current economic crisis is traceable in no small measure to the fanatic faith in such dogmas as the efficient market hypothesis, and in general to what Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, 15 years ago, called the “religion” that markets know best – which prevented the central bank and the economics profession from taking notice of an $8 trillion housing bubble that had no basis at all in economic fundamentals, and that devastated the economy when it burst.

All of this, and much more, can proceed as long as the Muashar doctrine prevails. As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.

Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor emeritus in the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. He is the author of numerous best-selling political works. His latest books are a new edition of Power and Terror, The Essential Chomsky (edited by Anthony Arnove), a collection of his writings on politics and on language from the 1950s to the present, Gaza in Crisis, with Ilan Pappe, and Hopes and Prospects, also available as an audiobook. This piece is adapted from a talk given in Amsterdam in March.

In Adam Smith’s defense, it should be added that he recognized what would happen if Britain followed the rules of sound economics, now called “neo-liberalism.” He warned that if British manufacturers, merchants, and investors turned abroad, they might profit but England would suffer. But he felt that they would be guided by a home bias, so as if by an invisible hand England would be spared the ravages of economic rationality.

The passage is hard to miss. It is the one occurrence of the famous phrase “invisible hand” in The Wealth of Nations. The other leading founder of classical economics, David Ricardo, drew similar conclusions, hoping that home bias would lead men of property to “be satisfied with the low rate of profits in their own country, rather than seek a more advantageous employment for

 
their wealth in foreign nations,” feelings that, he added, “I should be sorry to see weakened.” Their predictions aside, the instincts of the classical economists were sound.

The Iranian and Chinese ‘threats’
The democracy uprising in the Arab world is sometimes compared to Eastern Europe in 1989, but on dubious grounds. In 1989, the democracy uprising was tolerated by the Russians, and supported by western power in accord with standard doctrine: it plainly conformed to economic and strategic objectives, and was therefore a noble achievement, greatly honored, unlike the struggles at the same time “to defend the people’s fundamental human rights” in Central America, in the words of the assassinated Archbishop of El Salvador, one of the hundreds of thousands of victims of the military forces armed and trained by Washington.

There was no Mickhail Gorbachev in the West throughout these horrendous years, and there is none today. And Western power remains hostile to democracy in the Arab world for good reasons.

Grand Area doctrines continue to apply to contemporary crises and confrontations. In Western policy-making circles and political commentary the Iranian threat is considered to pose the greatest danger to world order and hence must be the primary focus of US foreign policy, with Europe trailing along politely.

What exactly is the Iranian threat? An authoritative answer is provided by the Pentagon and US intelligence. Reporting on global security last year, they make it clear that the threat is not military. Iran’s military spending is “relatively low compared to the rest of the region,” they conclude. Its military doctrine is strictly “defensive, designed to slow an invasion and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities.”

Iran has only “a limited capability to project force beyond its borders”. With regard to the nuclear option, “Iran’s nuclear program and its willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a central part of its deterrent strategy.” All quotes.

The brutal clerical regime is doubtless a threat to its own people, though it hardly outranks US allies in that regard. But the threat lies elsewhere, and is ominous indeed. One element is Iran’s potential deterrent capacity, an illegitimate exercise of sovereignty that might interfere with US freedom of action in the region. It is glaringly obvious why Iran would seek a deterrent capacity; a look at the military bases and nuclear forces in the region suffices to explain.

Seven years ago, Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld wrote that “The world has witnessed how the United States attacked Iraq for, as it turned out, no reason at all. Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy,” particularly when they are under constant threat of attack in violation of the UN Charter. Whether they are doing so remains an open question, but perhaps so.

But Iran’s threat goes beyond deterrence. It is also seeking to expand its influence in neighboring countries, the Pentagon and US intelligence emphasize, and in this way to “destabilize” the region (in the technical terms of foreign policy discourse). The US invasion and military occupation of Iran’s neighbors is “stabilization.” Iran’s efforts to extend its influence to them are “destabilization,” hence plainly illegitimate.

Such usage is routine. Thus the prominent foreign policy analyst James Chace was properly using the term “stability” in its technical sense when he explained that in order to achieve “stability” in Chile it was necessary to “destabilize” the country (by overthrowing the elected government of Salvador Allende and installing the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet). Other concerns about Iran are equally interesting to explore, but perhaps this is enough to reveal the guiding principles and their status in imperial culture. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s planners emphasized at the dawn of the contemporary world system, the US cannot tolerate “any exercise of sovereignty” that interferes with its global designs.

The US and Europe are united in punishing Iran for its threat to stability, but it is useful to recall how isolated they are. The nonaligned countries have vigorously supported Iran’s right to enrich uranium. In the region, Arab public opinion even strongly favors Iranian nuclear weapons.

The major regional power, Turkey, voted against the latest US-initiated sanctions motion in the Security Council, along with Brazil, the most admired country of the South. Their disobedience led to sharp censure, not for the first time: Turkey had been bitterly condemned in 2003 when the government followed the will of 95% of the population and refused to participate in the invasion of Iraq, thus demonstrating its weak grasp of democracy, Western-style.

After its Security Council misdeed last year, Turkey was warned by Obama’s top diplomat on European affairs, Philip Gordon, that it must “demonstrate its commitment to partnership with the West”. A scholar with the Council on Foreign Relations asked, “How do we keep the Turks in their lane?” – following orders like good democrats. Brazil’s Lula was admonished in a New York Times headline that his effort with Turkey to provide a solution to the uranium enrichment issue outside of the framework of US power was a “Spot on Brazilian Leader’s Legacy.” In brief, do what we say, or else.

An interesting sidelight, effectively suppressed, is that the Iran-Turkey-Brazil deal was approved in advance by Obama, presumably on the assumption that it would fail, providing an ideological weapon against Iran. When it succeeded, the approval turned to censure, and Washington rammed through a Security Council resolution so weak that China readily signed – and is now chastised for living up to the letter of the resolution but not Washington’s unilateral directives – in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, for example.

While the US can tolerate Turkish disobedience, though with dismay, China is harder to ignore. The press warns that “China’s investors and traders are now filling a vacuum in Iran as businesses from many other nations, especially in Europe, pull out,” and in particular, is expanding its dominant role in Iran’s energy industries.

Washington is reacting with a touch of desperation. The State Department warned China that if it wants to be accepted in the international community – a technical term referring to the US and whoever happens to agree with it – then it must not “skirt and evade international responsibilities, [which] are clear”: namely, follow US orders. China is unlikely to be impressed.

There is also much concern about the growing Chinese military threat. A recent Pentagon study warned that China’s military budget is approaching “one-fifth of what the Pentagon spent to operate and carry out the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” a fraction of the US military budget, of course. China’s expansion of military forces might “deny the ability of American warships to operate in international waters off its coast,” the New York Times added.

Off the coast of China, that is; it has yet to be proposed that the US should eliminate military forces that deny the Caribbean to Chinese warships. China’s lack of understanding of rules of international civility is illustrated further by its objections to plans for the advanced nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington to join naval exercises a few miles off China’s coast, with alleged capacity to strike Beijing.

In contrast, the West understands that such US operations are all undertaken to defend stability and its own security. The liberal New Republic expresses its concern that “China sent ten warships through international waters just off the Japanese island of Okinawa.” That is indeed a provocation – unlike the fact, unmentioned, that Washington has converted the island into a major military base in defiance of vehement protests by the people of Okinawa. That is not a provocation, on the standard principle that we own the world.

Deep-seated imperial doctrine aside, there is good reason for China’s neighbors to be concerned about its growing military and commercial power. And though Arab opinion supports an Iranian nuclear weapons program, we certainly should not do so. The foreign policy literature is full of proposals as to how to counter the threat. One obvious way is rarely discussed: work to establish a nuclear-weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the region.

The issue arose (again) at the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference at United Nations headquarters last May. Egypt, as chair of the 118 nations of the Non-Aligned Movement, called for negotiations on a Middle East NWFZ, as had been agreed by the West, including the US, at the 1995 review conference on the NPT.

International support is so overwhelming that Obama formally agreed. It is a fine idea, Washington informed the conference, but not now. Furthermore, the US made clear that Israel must be exempted: no proposal can call for Israel’s nuclear program to be placed under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency or for the release of information about “Israeli nuclear facilities and activities.” So much for this method of dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat.

Privatizing the planet
While Grand Area doctrine still prevails, the capacity to implement it has declined. The peak of US power was after World War II, when it had literally half the world’s wealth. But that naturally declined, as other industrial economies recovered from the devastation of the war and decolonization took its agonizing course. By the early 1970s, the US share of global wealth had declined to about 25%, and the industrial world had become tripolar: North America, Europe, and East Asia (then Japan-based).

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