American support for Israel

Here are a few interesting charts from Gallup, showing how the support of the American public for Israel has varied throughout the years.

A conservative blog points out that the support is lowest in the periods when Israel has engaged in negotiations with the Palestinians, and makes the claim that the "peace process" undermines the Israel's relation with the American public.

Despite my reservations about the "peace process" as we know it, I tend to think that the reason for a higher support during the years of no peace negotiations has to do not with the hard line of the Israeli government, but with the Palestinian terrorism - the tactics which contradicts to the very basic western values (regardless of how pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli advocates justify it.) Had the Palestinians resorted to a peaceful resistance, the Israeli government would have no insensitives for a hard stance.

Money, money, money...

A big piece by Washington Post about bi-partisan corruption in the United States Congress. This will probably dominate the American news for teh week to come.

On this background the decision by President Obama to start taking the money from the rich in order to help fund the class war that he is fighting against them looks like a minor hypocrisy.

Parenting in US and France

Here is a good comparative analysis of parenting in US in France. If you are interested in parenting or psychology, then you will be interested in the points that this article makes about delaying gratification, self-sufficiency and parental authority.

"Are we sliding toward war with Iran?"

"Are we sliding toward war with Iran?" - a good question to ask
"Amid all of this, the one place that the United States has resolutely marched forward—or perhaps been dragged by the Congress and our European allies—has been in applying ever greater pressure on Iran. But if the Obama administration’s forward progress is clear enough when it comes to its Iran policy, its ultimate destination is not. The sanctions against Iran may well succeed on their own terms while producing regrettable, if unintended, consequences.

[...]


Doubtless such a war would leave Iran far, far worse off than it would leave us. But it would be painful for us too, and it might last far longer than anyone wants because that is the nature of wars, especially wars involving this Iranian regime. Thus, if we continue down this path, we had best be ready to walk it to its very end. And if we don’t have the stomach to realistically prepare for war, we should seriously reconsider our current embrace of sanctions."

 My comments:
1. If not war and not sanctions, what does the authors of the article suggests? Allowing Iran to have nuclear arms might be "fair" from the "progressive" point of view, but it also would be irresponsible from the point of view of the Worldwide safety (ironically, this is very similar to the claim that making guns freely available for self-defense would reduce the number of violent deaths - something with which the "progressive" community correctly disagrees.)

2. The next legitimate question to ask is why US is sliding into war, rather than preparing to have it on its own terms and at the time of its own choice? Isn't such a hands down approach the most certain way to maximize the damage that the eventual war will cause?

Washington Post's political cartoons

Since my random selection of old Soviet political cartoons turned out unexpectedly  and undeservingly popular - here are more of the modern American ones (admittedly with anti-Republican bias - just count how many of them make fun of GOP - but still funny.)

Middle-East re-alighnment

Alain Juppe has made some strong statements about Syria and Hezbollah:
"French foreign minister says he believes roadside bomb which injured 5 French UNIFIL peacekeepers in southern Lebanon carried out by Hezbollah at Syria's urging."

There are two reasons why traditionally pro-Arab French come forward with such sharp criticism:
1. They believe that the Assad's days are counted and prepare the ground for military or, at least, diplomatic (for example, in the form of strong sanctions and recognizing alternative government) intervention a la Libya, which would guarantee France a greater diplomatic and economic role in post-Assad Syria.

2. This is part of the re-alignment in the Middle East that I believe has been happening for some time: the Arab-Israeli conflict is superseded by pro-Iranian and anti-Iranian coalitions. The pro-Iranian force has been already well defined: Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, enabled by political backing from Russia and China. On the other hand, the anti-Iranian force is forming slowly due to the traditional antagonism among its partners: Israel and Saudi Arabia with other oil-rich states wary of the Iranian interference. In addition, the anti-Iranian coalition lacks the necessary political backing from the nowadays passive United States. The last circumstance gives France and other European states a good opportunity for a greater role in the Middle East (such as: cheaper and more secure oil supply, more contracts for oil-exploring European companies, broader markets for European companies, particularly where it comes to the arms sales... and more arms sales. All of these, by the way, are very useful for overcoming the economic crisis.)

UPDATE 12/12/11: No less harsh condemnation of Syria from the German foreign minister:
""I am really shocked about what I heard about the atrocities in Syria. Five thousand people were killed, civilians, people who ask for their freedom and civil and human rights," he told reporters."

European debt crisis for... Americans

Apparently "European debt crisis for dummies" is a very popular search keyword nowadays, since my post with the same name scored at least eighty hits. At this link you will find a real analysis of the European debt crisis and its possible impact on the American economy. I abstain from quoting, since this is a serious and informative article - if you are interested in this problem, you would prefer to read it in full anyway.

Why Europe matters for America

Interestingly, the economic developments in Europe might have serious consequences for the American politics:
"If I understand the news coming out of Europe correctly, the new head of the European Central Bank is offering a simple deal: If fiscal policy becomes hawkish, monetary policy will be dovish.  In other words, as government spending is cut to put European governments on a sounder financial footing, monetary policy will do its best to ensure that any adverse impact on aggregate demand is kept to a minimum."

In simpler American English: Europe votes Republican. If this European policy succeeds, the American voters will have a reasonable question to Obama, as to why he advocates more stimulus spending. If, however, the policy fails - Obama's insistence on more spending will be effectively vindicated.

Income inequality: an intelligent look from the left

Here is a relatively balanced article on the growing income inequality. The author is left-leaning (you will agree with me , if you look into his recommendations), but he provides a fair analysis. If you want an intelligent look from the left rather than the usual "beat the rich/tax the corporate jets" stuff, then I recommend reading it.

I quote only one paragraph (that should make an intelligent liberal to think):
"The market system distributes rewards increasingly inequitably. On one side, the debate is framed in zero-sum terms, and the disappointing lack of income growth for middle-class workers is blamed on the success of the wealthy. Those with this view should consider whether it would be better if the United States had more, or fewer, entrepreneurs like those who founded Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook. Each did contribute significantly to rising inequality. It is easy to resent the level and extent of the increase in CEO salaries, but firms that have a single owner, such as private equity firms, pay successful chief executives more than public companies do. And for all their problems, American global companies have done very well compared with those headquartered in more egalitarian societies over the past two decades. Where great fortunes are earned by providing great products or services that benefit large numbers of people, they should not be denigrated."

At least two points that the authors omits:
1. There is no discussion of how the economic growth, prompted by reducing taxes on the highest earners could reduce the income inequality.
2. More importantly, he frames discussion as if "the rich" are only the 1% of the higher earners, whereas for the tax purposes they still remain all those who earn more than $250,000 a year, i.e. small business.

He does however stress the that the reason for the growing inequality might be precisely too much government interference into the free market:
"First, government must not facilitate increases in inequality by rewarding the wealthy with special concessions. Where governments dispose of assets or allocate licenses, preference should be on the use of auctions to which all have access. Where government provides implicit or explicit insurance, premiums should be based on the market rather than in consultation with the affected industry. Government’s general posture should be standing up for capitalism rather than for well-connected capitalists."

While the US sleep... Pacific countries prepare for wars

It was a subject of my recent post, (also here, here and here) that the unreliability of the alliances with the United States under the Obama Administration, has prompted many Middle Eastern countries (particularly Saudi Arabia) to change their defense policy - purchasing more arms and building closer alliances with their neighbors.

Apparently a very similar thing is taking place in the Pacific region, where the traditional wariness of the Japanese influence has been replaced by the fear of China, which prompts formation of new alliances (between Japan and Singapore, India, Vietnam and Philippines):
"Following decades of near-isolation under the American security umbrella, Japan had in recent years been gradually expanding its ties with neighbors, including many—such as Vietnam and the Philippines—that it invaded and occupied during World War II.

Japan signed its first defense memorandum in Southeast Asia with Singapore in 2009. The moves appear to have accelerated after a September 2010 standoff with Beijing over the contested archipelago known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China."

While the US sleep, Middle East arms to its teeth

A very informative article about the military build-up in Saudi Arabia, prompted by teh weakness of teh American policy in the Middle East and the United States's reluctance to confront the soon-to-be-nuclear Iran:
"Over this year of Arab Spring revolt, Saudi Arabia has increasingly replaced the United States as the key status-quo power in the Middle East — a role that seems likely to expand even more in coming years as the Saudis boost their military and economic spending. 

Saudis describe the kingdom’s growing role as a reaction, in part, to the diminished clout of the United States. They still regard the U.S.- Saudi relationship as valuable, but it’s no longer seen as a guarantor of their security. For that, the Saudis have decided they must rely more on themselves — and, down the road, on a wider set of friends that includes their military partner, Pakistan, and their largest oil customer, China."

The article is worth reading in a whole. Here is one of the most interesting paragraphs:
"The Saudi shopping list is a bonanza for U.S. and European arms merchants. That’s especially true of the air force procurement, with the Saudis planning to buy 72 “Eurofighters” from EADS and 84 new F-15s from Boeing. The rationale is containing Iran, whose nuclear ambitions the Saudis strongly oppose. But Riyadh has an instant deterrent ready, too, in the form of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal that the Saudis are widely believed to have helped finance. "

Europe: fatalism and reliance on government

Here is an interesting poll. Too many things come to mind when looking at the tables, so I limit discussion to quoting only the first two tables.

It is truly striking how much the population of the socialist countries relies on the state to solve their problems at the expense of their personal freedom.

The level of fatalism demonstrated by the table below, is less sharp, although surprizingly high in Germany.

US diplomatic failure vis-a-vis Iran

Mitt Romney provides a very lucid description of the Obama administration's diplomacy failures vis-a-vis Iran. Indeed, despite Obama's undoubtedly best intentions, it is his diplomatic failures that may eventually force Israel or the United States to resort to a war.

A quote:
"As a candidate for the presidency in 2007, Barack Obama put forward "engagement" with Tehran as a way to solve the nuclear problem, declaring he would meet with Iran's leaders "without preconditions." Whether this approach was rooted in naïveté or in realistic expectations can be debated; I believe it was the former. But whatever calculation lay behind the proposed diplomatic opening, it was predictably rebuffed by the Iranian regime.

After that repudiation, a serious U.S. strategy to block Iran's nuclear ambitions became an urgent necessity. But that is precisely what the administration never provided. Instead, we've been offered a case study in botched diplomacy and its potentially horrific costs.

In his "reset" of relations with Russia, President Obama caved in to Moscow's demands by reneging on a missile-defense agreement with Eastern European allies and agreeing to a New Start Treaty to reduce strategic nuclear weapons while getting virtually nothing in return. If there ever was a possibility of gaining the Kremlin's support for tougher action against Tehran, that unilateral giveaway was the moment. President Obama foreclosed it.

Another key juncture came with the emergence of Iran's Green Revolution after the stolen election of 2009. Here—more than a year before the eruption of the Arab Spring—was a spontaneous popular revolt against a regime that has been destabilizing the region, supporting terrorism around the world, killing American soldiers in Iraq, and attacking the U.S. for three decades. Yet President Obama, evidently fearful of jeopardizing any further hope of engagement, proclaimed his intention not to "meddle" as the ayatollahs unleashed a wave of terror against their own society. A proper American policy might or might not have altered the outcome; we will never know. But thanks to this shameful abdication of moral authority, any hope of toppling a vicious regime was lost, perhaps for generations.

In 2010, the administration did finally impose another round of sanctions, which President Obama hailed as a strike "at the heart" of Iran's ability to fund its nuclear programs. But here again we can see a gulf between words and deeds. As the IAEA report makes plain, the heart that we supposedly struck is still pumping just fine. Sanctions clearly failed in their purpose. Iran is on the threshold of becoming a nuclear power.

Recent events have brought White House fecklessness to another low. When Iran was discovered plotting to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador by setting off a bomb in downtown Washington, the administration responded with nothing more than tough talk and an indictment against two low-level Iranian operatives, as if this were merely a common criminal offense rather than an act of international aggression. Demonstrating further irresolution, the administration then floated the idea of sanctioning Iran's central bank, only to quietly withdraw that proposal."

A telling poll about the "Occupy Wall St. Movement"

I wrote previously about the ridiculous demands posted by the "Occupy the Wall St." protesters, as well as about the incoherence of the "Tent City" protests. Here is some statistics about the former. The main lesson is: although facebook and twitter have made it easier to bring a large number of people together for a protest, they do not substitute for intellegence and the serious political ideas, withiout which any protest is doomed to failure.

US congress raises taxes...

...on China. Indeed, the Senate is about to impose tariffs on the goods imported from China (i.e. a tax on Chinese produce sold in the US.)

The economists typically oppose such restrictions on the free trade, since such restrictions result in domestic consumer having to pay higher prices. The question is however complicated, with many strong arguments for protectionism, nicely summarized in Chapter 9 of Greg Mankiw's economics textbook. The argument used here is "The jobs argument", as well as "The infant industry argument", as some of the economists pointed out that "losing manufacturing meant losing our [US] edge in innovation."

The preservation of the manufacturing has been a hot topic lately, due to the apparently quick surge from the recession by the countries with a strong manufacturing base, most notably Germany.

The emphasis on manufacturing explains why the higher tariffs have bi-partisan support: while it is usually the Democrats who favor higher taxes and oppose free trade/free market, it is the Republicans who are most concerned about the manufacturing and the workers employed in the private industry.

Waning American influence in the Middle East

Here is a nice article discussing waning American role in the Middle East. Regardless of your attitudes to the Arab-Israeli conflict and the George Bush foreign policy, anyone who is not blind to the facts would acknowledge that the decline of the American influence is due to the inefficient management of the foreign policy by Washington in the past two and a half years.

The quoted article points out the shocking truth - even Israel can afford to care about the US policy much less than it used to:
"In addition, from the Israeli government’s perspective the United States is a less useful ally in the new Middle East that is emerging, analysts say.
“Why does the U.S. have less influence with Israel right now? In part because the U.S. has less influence with the Arabs,” said Robert Malley, a special assistant to President Clinton on the Arab-Israeli conflict."

The article however focuses on teh Arab-Israeli issue, whereas the scope of the US failures in the Middle East is much broader. These include:
1. Alienating Israel and Israelis by consistently picking fights with the Israeli prime minister and reneging on the promises of the previous US administrations. In particular, it includes Obama's overexaggerated focus on the settlements, his insistence on the "1967 borders" (1949 armstice lines), and the policy of linkage (nowadays quietly forgotten), which made Israel responsible for all of the Middle East problems.

2. Failure to exert any preassure on the Palestinians, which allowed their leaders to disregard the US opinion altogether.

3. Failure to influence Turkey and prevent the break of the diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel, both of which are US allies.

4. Failure to stop Iran nuclear program. The biggest achievement in this field were weak sunctions adopted by the UN Security Council. The recent reports suggest that Iran might have past the "point of no return" in its progress toward nuclear weapon, and, if necessary, can produce such a weapon within a few weeks.

5. Failure to support anti-Ahmadinejad protests that followed the rigged election in Iran.

6. Failure to oppose transition of power in Lebanon from the democratic government to Hezbollah, and failure to promote the international court indictment against the Hezbollah members indicted over the asassination of the Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri.

7. The multiple failures to take a clear and strong position during the Arab spring:
 a) the US attitude to the Egyptian protests went through a full 180 degrees turn;
 b) US allowed brutal suppression of the protests in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia;
 c) US "led from behind" in Libya, calmly watching the mutual slaughter, showing no indication that it wants  Gaddafi gone till the very last moment, and ridiculously refusing to call the events in Libya a "war";
 d) no action in respect to the continuing mass murder in Syria, which has already claimed thousands of human lives.

"Right of free movement" or privilege to enter a country without visa

Here is the recent news about "flightilla", i.e. the plan by several hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists (mainly Europeans and Americans, i.e. holding European and American passports, allowing them visa-free entry to Israel) to arrive simultaneously to the Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport and hold there a protest.

I have already written elsewhere about the common misconception among the Western "liberals", who do not realize that their well-being and the very ability to hold and practice their liberal views are guaranteed by their governments imposing restrictions on access by non-Westerners. This misconception is on full display in relation to the "flightilla" - as one American activists said:
“I have been using my name, because I do not have anything to hide. I am hoping that my right to free movement will be allowed by all the countries through which I am traveling,”[Emphasis mine]

This person, obviously accustomed to freely traveling with her American passport, appears to be ignorant of the fact that any country has a right to deny access to unwelcome individuals. And this right supersedes these individuals right to free movement (whatever it means). Indeed, this activist's own country, the United States, exercises this right in respect to many foreign nationals by requiring them to obtain visas before visiting the US and often refusing to grant the requested visas. Indeed, had the Palestinians decided to arrive "en mass" to a US airport, this attempt would be countered in the very root by the US embassy. 

Moreover, the ignorance about the US denying (rightfully) access to may foreigners becomes even more striking when we think about the millions of illegal immigrants living in the US, and the ongoing national debate on this issue, and the possibility of the immigration reform. In the World where the "right to free movement" were supreme, the illegal immigrants would not exist.

Finally, I would like to stress that, although I use the US as an example, all countries concerned about the well-being of their citizens practice similar harsh measures. There is no "right of free" movement between the countries - but there is a privilege to enter a country without visa.