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6 October 2006.
- Today, the valuable Power and Interest News Report, familiarly known as PINR, has published an article by Dario Christiani on Sino-Iranian relations entitled China and Iran strengthen their bilateral relationship on its website. The general thrust of the article, which to my mind well repays reading, is made clear by its leading paragraph :
China's decision to send 1,000 soldiers to south Lebanon with the U.N.I.F.I.L. mission is the latest example of Beijing's increased involvement in the Middle East. The overall importance of the broader Middle East for China's geostrategy is growing. China is searching for new regional allies because it wants to pursue strategic aims such as gaining privileged access to crude oil reserves, finding new markets for its products and technology, and competing with the United States for supremacy in an area that is a fundamental part of the international system. Iran seems to be the best ally for such an approach, thus the strategic relationship between the two countries has increased strongly during the past few years.
All the points raised by Mr Christiani in his article invite further and more extensive analysis, but given the spatial limitations of the form in which it is presented, I found it an excellent synopsis of the motives which impel both parties to the increasingly close relations, examples of which we see almost daily in the quality media (see, e g, the article recently published in the Asia Times on China's involvement in the development of Iran's gas and oil fields and pipeline projects). Below, in any event, the response to Mr Christiani's article I posted to StumbleUpon :
Pointing to the recent and with regard to scale unprecedented decision on the part of the Chinese leadership to send a contingent as large as 1000 soldiers to participate in the UNIFIL mission in South Lebanon as further evidence of China's increasing involvement in Southwest and Central Asia, Dario Christiani here provides us with an, as far as I can judge, reasoned and accurate analysis of the relations now developing between Beijing and Tehran. A further plus is the dispassionate and unbiased nature of his analysis, which distinctly distinguishes it from the counterparts sometimes to be seen in the pages of journals like the New York times and the Washington Post, which, even at their best, are vitiated by direct allusions to the alleged «moral superiority» of the foreign policy manoeuvres of US administrations (given events these last few years in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is difficult to believe that journalists and/or editors really believe in these protestations of US innocence and good will, but they do seem to be necessary to establish credibility in the mainstream media, and besides, the human capacity for self-delusion when the latter ensures both prestige and income is not to be underestimated)....
7 September 2006.
Ever since St Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Marquis W Childs published his Sweden, the Middle Way in the 1930s, Scandinavia, and in particular Sweden has held a special place in the heart of liberals in North America and Western Europe, people who feared and abhorred Communists, but who worried that the cruelty and excesses of capitalism could lead to a Communist revolution, which could not be suppressed simply by calling out the police or the troops. That something of this attitude survives, 70-odd years later, is shown by Professor Joseph Stiglitz' commentary in the commentisfree section of today's Guardian, entitled Making globalisation work, and which discusses what needs to be done to make globalisation work for everybody, rather than just a privileged few. Whether or not this will happen depends upon whether that privileged few see to their long-term, rather than their short-term interests (but, citing Keynes, Professor Stiglitz points out that «in the long run, we are all dead»). In the US and the UK, of course, it is the short-term interests - not least of those who profit from (others) waging war, that have won the day, with the result that, in Stiglitz' words «the US and others following its example are becoming rich countries with poor people». Thus, once again, as in the 1930s when the Great Depression harried world economy (with one notable exception, the Soviet Union), liberals in the «West» look to the Scandinavian example to save the day. Alas, they rarely seem to note how contested this example is in the Scandinavian countries themselves, and to what a slight shift in the balance of power between the two blocs could lead. Below, my response to Professor Stiglitz' commentary, as posted to commentisfree :
«But the Scandinavian countries have shown that there is another way. Of course, government, like the private sector, must strive for efficiency. But investments in education and research, together with a strong social safety net, can lead to a more productive and competitive economy, with more security and higher living standards for all. A strong safety net and an economy close to full employment provides a conducive environment for all stakeholders - workers, investors, and entrepreneurs - to engage in the risk-taking that new investments and firms require.»
Alas, what Professor Stiglitz - who, of course, does not reside in a Scandinavian country - doesn't seem to realise is that the policies that have characterised these countries, and which, I agree, have been largely successful in countering the downside of globalisation, are not graven in stone. The local «winners» in the globalisation process know quite well, that they can «win» even more (at least for the short term), if they don't have to pay to help the «losers». If the political parties that represent these classes and groups come to power in Sweden in the general elections to be held here on 17 September, we are definitely not going to see more of the type of investment Stiglitz recommends - rather more and more segregation in the schools with the continued weakening of the public school system and a strengthening of the a private school system financed by a «voucher» system, and a drastic dismantling of the safety net which has made the risk-taking inherent in the creation of new enterprises possible and acceptable for large segments of the population. The «Swedish model» will be abandoned for a US/UK model which is seen as more dynamic - by those who stand to profit from it. In that event, we shall probably witness more back-lash and more «crisis-driven change», even in this hitherto fairly calm segment of the globe....
3 September 2006. 
- Yesterday, Global Research published an article entitled Behind the plan to bomb Iran by Professor Ismael Hossein-zadeh. As befits an economics professor, his analysis of a US foreign policy which on the surface seems so counter-productive (how much more democracy have you seen in Southwest Asia lately ?) is based upon tracing who they are that enjoy the profits which accrue from a policy of continual warfare. A better system for transferring wealth from the public domain to (certain) private pockets has, of course, never been devised than that of scaring the Hell out of people and convincing them that to remain safe, they require an ever more powerful military and ever better (dearer) armaments. And the nice thing about this particular device is that it doesn't seem to be limited by any negative feedback. Beyond a certain point, people learn that despite an inbuilt physiological need for food, eating more is not going to increase their well being, but even with a military budget (referred to, of course, as «defense») that far exceeds that of the rest of the world combined (and which is held artificially low by the use of such incredible tricks as not including the cost of on-going wars in the budget, but financing them separately by means of special appropriations), more security, which means a still larger military budget, is always needed. Below, my reflections on the article, as posted to StumbleUpon :
Professor Hossein-zadeh here provides us a well-reasoned and balanced analysis of why the present administration so egregiously pursues a policy which not only is not in the interests of a majority of people in the world as a whole, but also directly inimical to the interests of a majority of the citizens and residents of the United States itself. «Follow the money !» is always good advice in trying to understand the motives which underly the actions of the powerful ; indeed, it's almost as good a rule as «Cherchez la femme !»...
