Ten Amazing Predictions for 2006
1. Al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri, whom the Bush administration has failed to capture after all this time, and who was probably responsible for the July 7 bombings in the London subway and the bombings in the Sinai in Egypt, will strike at US allies again in 2006.
2. Saudi Arabia will use the $160 billion windfall from high petroleum prices to strengthen its military and security forces, and to spread its rigid Wahhabi form of Islam.
3. Iran's clerical elites will use the $36 billion windfall from high petroleum prices to strengthen their military and security forces, and to spread their radical Khomeinist form of Islam. The US, even if it takes some desperate step, will prove unable to shake the regime in 2006.
4. The Iraqi government, on which the US is placing its bet, will limp along with less than $19 billion a year in petroleum income because of sabotage and guerrilla war, along with long-neglected fields and dilapidated plants and equipment. Most of that money will be absorbed by the need for internal security, reconstruction and paying off past reparations and debts, as well as by large-scale corruption and embezzlement (billions of dollars went missing during the government of Iyad Allawi in 2004).
5. The Iraqi parliament will pass fundamentalist Muslim legislation. Sometime in 2006, a majority of Iraqi parliamentarians will call for the withdrawal of US troops. The Iraqi government will have warm relations with Iran, but strained relations with Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The guerrilla war will continue.
6. The Israeli-Palestinian struggle will continue in staccatto fashion, because the Israeli government remains expansionist and land-hungry. Because the Sharon government refused to negotiate with real live Palestinians over the Gaza withdrawal no framework for peace was erected. Israeli troops will go back into Gaza from time to time. Israel will settle thousands of colonists on Palestinian land in the west and will blame Palestinians as irrational and bigotted for objecting. The subtle forms of ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Jerusalem will continue or accelerate. Fifteen percent of Palestinian children will continue to suffer from malnutrition, a result of the poverty that derives from having been put since 1967 in a large Israeli jail.
7. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization composed of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan as members and India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan as observers, will follow up on its success in getting US troops out of Uzbekistan and on strengthening energy cooperation between Kazakhstan and China on the one hand, and Russia and Kazakhstan on the other, as well as security cooperation between Russia and Uzbekistan. The conjuncture of gas, petroleum, Islam, terrorism and great power jockeying will keep the new Great Game going, this time with Russia, China and the United States all playing. The US hand is weak.
8. The US attempt to isolate Iran by putting boycotts on Chinese and other companies that deal with it will only prove effective for those companies that do a lot of business with the US. Moreover, it is easy enough for a company to hive off a de facto subsidiary to deal with Iran (ask Bechtel and Halliburton). And, rising powers like India that have relatively little trade with the US will tempted to choose energy from Iran over good diplomatic relations with the US.
9. New Orleans will for the most part not be rebuilt and will increasingly be eclipsed by Baton Rouge. Louisiana as a result will become a solid Red State. The Republican Party has no particular reason to rebuild a predominantly African-American city that reliably voted Democrat, just as its leader, George W. Bush, apparently had no particular reason to implement relief work there with any urgency or efficiency after the flood. Most of the $25 billion in reconstruction aid promised by the Federal government will never arrive.
10. The United States will continue to lose global political influence because its government is running large deficits and going ever deeper into debt. In the 1950s, President Eisenhower routinely used the threat of calling in loans from war-devastated Europe to get his way. He threatened UK Prime Minister Anthony Eden with loan cancellations if the latter did not get back out of the Suez in late 1956. He threatened DeGaulle with loan cancellations if the latter didn't get France out of rebellious Algeria before it went Communist. Nowadays the US is a massive debtor nation, and has lost that kind of leverage with all but the poorest and most beaten-down countries. The US nuclear arsenal is relatively useless because it cannot actually be used, and the US military is bogged down in Iraq. America remains a superpower for the third and fourth worlds, but is often a helpless, pitiful giant as far as places like Western Europe and China are concerned.
[Caveat emptor: The author, a historian, has a fair amount of expertise with the past, but knows nothing out of the ordinary about the future.]
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/01/2006 06:37:00 AM
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38 Comments:
Emptor or lector?
11. American bribes for favorable media coverage in the Arab world will be undercut by heavy-handed tactics used against those who are not on the dole.
>US forces have arrested three Aljazeera employees for filming near a US base in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
According to Samar Allawi, the Aljazeera bureau chief, a three-man team comprising Waliullah Shaheen, a correspondent, Nasir Hashimi, a cameraman, and Mahmood Agha, the driver, were filming the removal of concrete block barriers which had been installed outside all military bases and offices of foreigners for protection.
On Sunday, Allawi said: "After the declaration of the Afghan Interior Ministry that all the cement blocks will be removed, our team went to film the removal and they were detained by US forces.
"We have not been given a clear answer so far about why they have been detained," he said.
Lieutenant Mike Cody, a US military spokesman, said security forces on contract to the coalition detained the trio, took control of their equipment and passed them on to the Afghan police.
He said the men were held after they were seen "filming security features in the vicinity of Camp Eggers in Kabul".
The Afghan police were not available for comment.<
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/851C5B58-2787-48BF-9FC8-92E30CFECFF1.htm
RE prediction 6, Israel/Palestine: your stacatto scenario is unlikely. A number of factors will make it impossible: the Palestinian elections in which Hamas are set to win; the Israeli elections in which Sharon is set to win. Dramatic things are happening at the moment on both fronts and this makes 'more of the same' an unlikely scenario.
Palestinian public opinion has favoured calm since Arafat's death, but unless things improve quite soon this calm will not last long. Too many things are making Palestinian life impossible (the Wall, esp. in Jerusalem, the seige on Gaza, the economic situation, the west bank checkpoints, the settlers....)
My own prediction: a Third Intifada around April, or (and this is far less likely, but Sharon is an unpredictable man) a Israeli overture towards the Palestinians immediately after the elections.
Republicans have done a great job creating cynicism and apathy. So many people have been turned off to the process by Bush and Co., that its created the perfect minority-rule opportunity. My bet is that people have just about had enough and the sleeping giant will awaken to cast a vote in 2006. Beware the populist backlash. Visit http://mymountain.blogspot.com for a Christian liberal perspective.
9. How's that for redistricting.
10. The megarich know better than to invest in America. No doubt their money is offshore in tax havens.
What an dreadful year! And with Poland and Ukraine feeling the pain of their attempt to sever the knot binding them to Russia. Uncle Sam is far, far away. Orange scarves, no problem. But for natural gas, they are on their own.
How about this one: As the October 2006 national elections approach in the tiny moderate Muslim state of Bangladesh , the nation will experience crippling national strikes, further political assasinations, and a general decline in in law and order. The nation's military leadership - frustrated by the ruling BNP's inability to control Islamic terrorists tied to their coalition partners - will be tempted to orchestrate a coup, which could return law and order but would put a quick end to the nation's fledgling democratic election process. Corruption will continue to flourish, obstructing aid efforts. The incessant fighting between the two leading parties - the Awami League and BNP - will handicap either organization's ability to do any good for the people of Bangladesh and further increase the nation's vulnerability to small but well-connected (and growing) radical Islamic groups that seek to overthrow the government and institute Sharia.
Apropos point two, about the Saudis spreading their influence, there is an interesting article in the current (Jan/Feb 2006) Foreign Affairs by Donald Evans. He argues that we are only now finally actually collecting decent data on madrassahs, and it seems to show that the established wisdom that Saudis spread Wahhabism through their funding isn't actually true. It seems the overwhelming majority of madrassahs that receive Saudi funding receive it with no strings attached even if their religious teaching is liberal and modern. And that the few dozen madrassahs that are radical incubators such as gave rise to the Taliban got that way pretty much entirely through focussing the local puritan strain, deobandism. Saudi funding supports them all indiscriminately. So if this is true, more Saudi funding could lead to more puritanism or more liberalism, depending on how the world engages with the madrassahs locally.
I just pass this along for its interest value and because it stands out from the current established wisdom. I have zero expertise on the subject.
A really brilliant analysis. Simple and true. Thank you.
Here's one.
It will be revealed that the reason Colin Powell was fired is related to his "Pottery Barn" based prediction that "if you break it you own it"
It turns out that Bush and the neocons were betting on Powell's experience and infinite gravitas. So when it turned out that after we "broke it" we didn't "own it", Powell had to go.
Some of the neocons are still convinced that the "Pottery Barn" theory will work - at least on a less ambitious scale - something on the scale of Grenada.
I feel I need to weigh in to mention something which has little to do with the Middle East (perhaps, or at least not geographically) but which you might add to your list of predictions for 2006. It isn't so much a prediction as an “issue” which I, for one, believe can only grow in importance (as you will agree it has been doing over years past) to surpass the Middle East as the main focus of US policy and public attention not in 2006 nor perhaps for what remains of this decade but definitely for the twenty first century. I am talking about the influx of Mexicans both legal and “illegal” to the US. The US INS estimated that the “illegal alien” population from Mexico grew by nearly 2.8 million in the final decade of the last century, accounting for 80 percent of the total increase in the “illegal” population within the US. As we all know, this issue is not new and has been around ever since the US notoriously appropriated Mexican lands in the mid 1800's. There are signs, however, that the situation is reaching a boiling point (my colleagues will scold me, saying it has been boiling over for some time already!).. I am not necessarily referring to President Bush's recently announced temporary worker or bracero proposal, that - by the way - included a multi-billion dollar authorization aimed at further militarizing the border through hiring additional border patrol agents and creating more jails for immigrants, among other measures. Instead I am talking about H.R. 4313 which was unveiled by Congressmen Hunter (R-CA) and Goode (R-VA) as "the border fence bill." There just might be an analogy here to that “other” wall over “there.” The otherwise pro-US Mexican gov't has called it “shameful” and has pledged to block the plan and organize an international campaign against it. Evidently this will be an issue to be watched closely in 2006.
Finally, I want to express my deepest thanks to Juan Cole for educating me about a part of the world that I am ashamed to admit I know very little of.
I'd like to second the thanks from Dr. Mathews and ask for more posts like this one and your excellent post on myths about Iraq.
Prediction 11: The CIA will close shop after realizing that reading "Informed Comment" in the morning gets you more intelligence (in both senses of the word) than the agency can ever hope to collect on its own.
Many thanks to Juan and happy new year to all!
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I read your postings every day. Your predictions are rational and logical.
The 9. New Orleans prediction seems a little extreme. I think Bush and the Republican Congress will unintentionally not fund an adequate restoration.
#10 the debtor nation - is only applicable if a nation-state is trying to force their will on other nation-states. If the US can become more cooperative and less confrontational, we can still have a major impact on the world (a Bushless world), In addition, in the shorterm we are the largest consumer of goods and services. That in and of itself is a source of power.
10a. US will also continue to lose influence because everyone increasingly hates them. Hate is expensive, whichever way it goes.
9. New Orleans will for the most part not be rebuilt and will increasingly be eclipsed by Baton Rouge. Louisiana as a result will become a solid Red State. The Republican Party has no particular reason to rebuild a predominantly African-American city that reliably voted Democrat, just as its leader, George W. Bush, apparently had no particular reason to implement relief work there with any urgency or efficiency after the flood. Most of the $25 billion in reconstruction aid promised by the Federal government will never arrive.
Ever been to Baton Rouge???
Vast swaths of New Orleans will not be rebuilt. With most of its old housing stock destroyed and no federal housing policy worthy of the name, new replacement housing in areas such as the Lower Ninth Ward, Gentilly, Carrolton, and Mid-City will eventually be built but it will not be affordable for the displaced residents for the most part.
Baton Rouge hasn't the infrastructure. That will be built in New Orleans, where land is suddenly very available. The Port of Baton Rouge cannot handle the larger ocean going vessels that the Port of New Orleans can. Doesn't have the culture, the class, the panache...
Minorities will repopulate New Orleans but there will be proportionately fewer African Americans, more Hispanics and East Asians.
Bush will not deliver all the reconstruction dollars he promised but funding will not be the main obstacle to reconstruction. Bush will keep the dollars flowing in order not jeopoardize GOP political prospects in the state or the Deep South. He won't provide what are most needed - a coordinated federal government led reconstuction planning process and creative housing and employment policies.
The federal aid as in Iraq will be wasted and for the next decade, I fear New Orleans will rather more rememble a DisneyWorld than a vital city.
The rich and the tourist areas untouched for the most part will thrive. Likewise, middle and upper middle class neighborhoods that were serverely flooded are even now being rebuilt. I have several friends in that category.
Der Spiegel says Bush will bomb Iran in the early part of the year. What's your take on that possibility, and what would the consequences be for the Middle East?
Bill R.
I enjoy coming to read your insightful analysis. I would only take exception with your use to the word "amazing" to describe your ten predictions. The word "reasonable" seems more appropriate in labeling your predictions.
America prints $5.41 Billion a DAY in fiat (unbacked) money. This will rise in 2006 as it has every year for the last 10 years. US money no longer even has the "...pay the bearer upon demand..." quotation of money bills from the past. So think; Germany 1936. A wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread. Alarmist? Maybe... but I'm begging somebody to tell me the major difference...
Prediction 12:
The Kurds in Northern Iraq will anounce their independnance in October of 06...
"Some of the neocons are still convinced that the 'Pottery Barn' theory will work ..."
sherm:
powell's famous "pottery barn" statement was less a prediction (and certainly was not a plan of action) than it was a harsh warning to the administration NOT to invade iraq in the first place, meaning that if the iraq adventure (whatever that original plan may have been) were to fail ("break it"), bush would both pay a steep price and bear sole responsibility for that failure ("own it").
if anything, the administration was betting on powell's gravitas to lend credibility to their call for war, which is why they chose him to present their case before the united nations. when no wmds turned up in iraq, powell's credibility was spent, and there was little further use for him, especially since he was never fully supportive of their agenda.
What? No prediction on the outcome of the 2006 US congressional elections? Isn't that what matters most to Bush, Rove, and the prospective 2008 presidential contenders? If there is another terror attack on the US, will it again play in favor of the "don't tread on me" GOP? Will the Dems sink further into a voiceless rut?
11. The corporate media will once again turn a blind eye to massive election fraud in the mid term US elections, even as it slowly begins to acknowledge the fraudulent 2000, 2002, 2004, & 2005 elections. Gore won. Kerry won. Cleland won.
RE your point #9. 100,000 people may never return to New Orleans, but they haven't just disappeared off the face of the earth. Although Louisiana may become a solid red state, enough Democrat-voting people spread around the country could be significant in a number of swing states. You only need to win by a tenth of a percent to get 100% of the electoral votes. Republicans may have won one state and lost half a dozen others.
>Martin Striz: ... Although Louisiana may become a solid red state, enough Democrat-voting people spread around the country could be significant in a number of swing states. You only need to win by a tenth of a percent to get 100% of the electoral votes. Republicans may have won one state and lost half a dozen others.
Me: This doesn't seem that likely to me. Recently displaced people aren't likely to register and vote in large numbers, at least in the short run. Since many of them were struggling to begin with and have now lost much of what they had, they're going to be concentrating on getting housing and a job and making ends meet before they start paying attention to political life in their new communities. If the bulk of the resettled people wind up living in urban areas that already vote solidly Democratic it's not going to make a difference at all in state and local races and in Congress, though it could, as Martin suggests, tip a borderline state blue in the presidential election. Politically, driving Democratic voters out of Louisiana sounds like a plus for the Republicans, unless the remaining voters start to trend Democratic if they feel the Bush administration is turning its back on the state.
#7 is way off and written as though you just read a few passing headlines and made an elaborate, if wrong assumption. As someone who has spent several years in a few of the countries you mentioned I have a few corrections for you.
1) Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are staunch US allies. Both with high levels of Peace Corps Volunteers, and making many democratic reforms (if more slowly for Kazakhstan). Additionally Kyrgyzstan has a large US air base, and both have been training with NATO troops. At times they must play diplomatically nice with the bullies in their immediate vicinity, but their true allegiance lies staunchly with the west.
2) Kazakhstan's oil fields in the Northern Caspian are being developed by American and European oil companies despite the new deals with China. Kazakhstan would LOVE to sell its oil primarily to America if it had a tangible method to transit it to us (It’s in the planning stages). China and Russia happen to be right next door. For the record, during the cold war, China and the USSR had an, as-of-yet officially unresolved dispute over who actually should have sovereignty over the Central Asian Republics. Given China’s bad habit of rolling tanks into sovereign nations which it desires, i.e. Tibet, Kazakhstan’s agreeing to sell oil to the Chinese at a decent price isn’t just sound economics; it’s an excellent survival strategy.
3) Uzbekistan asked our troops to leave due to the suspected involvement of the US in Kyrgyzstan’s recent revolution and the protests in Uzbekistan (Which take it from me, we were). The regime decided that America in this case was more of threat to its sovereignty then Russia, which is buffered by Kazakhstan. In this case, it was more advantageous to the totalitarian Uzbek regime to have closer relations with the like minded Russians. Uzbekistan has no desire to make any of the democratic reforms other CIS members have made and is one of the only places where life was better under Soviet rule. The loss of their friendship is a very, very good thing for America.
America has a good, if not excellent position in this diplomatic gambit. China, Russia and to a lesser extent Iran are seen by other regimes in the region as having an invasive agenda which is detrimental to other sovereign nations.. America, despite what Bush has been up to in Iraq, is still seen as a beacon of hope in this region and very much as the least of the evils which could threaten their sovereignty.
Come to my new blog!
http://www.evilbobby.blogspot.com/
Death comes cheap
In imagination of Michael Moore's fans, Arab oil revenues must be closely linked with terrorist financing. In real life, the cost of London tube attack was just in the hundreds.
1. Michael Buchanan. London bombs cost just hundreds
An investigation by the BBC World Service into the cost of the London bombings last July has revealed that they cost no more than several hundred pounds to carry out.
As soon as Scotland Yard established the identities of the four men responsible for the London bombings on 7 July, they began investigating the financing of the attacks.
2. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
How about this one: As the October 2006 national elections approach in the tiny moderate Muslim state of Bangladesh, the nation will experience crippling national strikes, further political assasinations, and a general decline in in law and order. The nation's military leadership - frustrated by the ruling BNP's inability to control Islamic terrorists tied to their coalition partners - will be tempted to orchestrate a coup, which could return law and order but would put a quick end to the nation's fledgling democratic election process.
I don't think it will be that bad there. The western media overreacts to any bombing incidents in Bangladesh. Violence has been connected to JI, etc., but it's not a dangerous trend at this point. I think BNP will retain power in 2006, and there will be heightened violence during the elections but not enough to break up democracy.
Corruption will continue to flourish, obstructing aid efforts.
Yup.
The incessant fighting between the two leading parties - the Awami League and BNP - will handicap either organization's ability to do any good for the people of Bangladesh
Yup.
and further increase the nation's vulnerability to small but well-connected (and growing) radical Islamic groups that seek to overthrow the government and institute Sharia.
Perhaps, but the hardline Muslim political groups have never had broad support, and they are far from having it right now.
On Point 1. and apropos the question of whether the US will invade Iran in 2006, here's my prediction:
Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden will succeed in perpetrating another horrific terrorist attack, "9/11 Part 2," on US soil in 2006, owing to the US distraction in Iraq and failure to capture these two terrorist leaders in Tora Bora when we had a golden opportunity in 2001. However, rather than finally getting mad at the right people and at last taking down bin Laden and al-Zawahiri for good, the neocons in the Bush Administration will sense a golden opportunity, and divert attention away from al-Qaeda and to Iran. Thus, Iran will get blamed for 9/11 Part 2 despite having nothing to do with the attacks (al-Qaeda is convenient for the neocons), opening up the door to massive attacks on Iran possibly including those tactical nuclear weapons that Cheney has been itching to try out. Maybe a draft might even become more politically palatable.
Apropos Point 2: Saudi Arabia will indeed use their windfall to help fund expansion of existing madrassas and construction of new ones, though as another commenter suggested the funds will ultimately support a diverse collection of Muslim teachings running the gamut from Wahhabiism to more liberal, secular forms of Islam. Nevertheless, this will have some very important and underappreciated consequences:
(1) Sub-Saharan Africa will continue its shift to becoming a massive Muslim-majority region, in part thanks to conversion due largely to the efforts of Muslim community groups and local madrassas, underwritten by Saudi Arabia. Nigeria, which recently acquired a Muslim majority, will become even more solid in its status as a Muslim nation, while mixed nations like Kenya and Tanzania will also see increasing numbers of converts due to Saudi efforts.
(2) India, too, will see a sharp increase in its already growing and burgeoning Muslim population of approx. 180-200 million, again due in no small part to high numbers of conversions. Members of lower castes and tribal peoples will convert to a large extent to a variety of Christian evangelical sects (whose efforts are underwritten by US churches), but millions more will convert to Islam, whose mosques, madrassas and imams are newly flush with cash donated from Saudi Arabia.
(3) Perhaps most remarkably, both Britain and the United States will also see a sharp increase in Muslims via conversion, largely among the African-American and Latino (in the US) and Black Caribbean (in the UK) populations. Saudi Arabia has long supported local Muslim charities and community groups (as well as prison groups, though this segment is less important than the media often makes it out to be) that have successfully converted hundreds of thousands of Americans and Britons to Islam in recent years, and these efforts will redouble with all the new Saudi money.
As for the issue of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan which you raise, Dav-- I don't think you're seeing the big picture here. I don't think that Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are anti-Western per se, but they're hardly "pro-American" either. They're more neutral in all this, and I'm not so sure they see the US as the "lesser evil" here either-- with US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, they see the US as being at least as expansionist as Russia and China, and perhaps even more so since we're placing our military so far afield. I suspect that both nations will try to have what look like even-handed dealings with Russia, China and the US, but China will probably get the best oil deals not only because of geography, but since China now has so much to offer in terms of technical expertise for Kazakhstan.
BTW, in regard to China in Tibet these days-- a lot of Mexicans say the same thing about the US in regard to Mexico's "Northern Territory" vis-a-vis the US-Mexican War of 1848, after which the US got half of Mexico's territory (and the most resource-rich section, at that) and people in the Philippines certainly have bitter memories about the US Dirty War there in 1899-1902 that killed hundreds of thousands of Filipinos. So when it comes to invading countries with things they like, the US also has examples to choose from in recent history. I suspect that the Kazakhs have a jaundiced-enough view on this to stay on the fence, and supply oil to whoever needs it and can pay cold hard cash to acquire it.
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Prediction 11: Liberals will continue to lose as they remain pessimistic.
The insight into the Middle East situation is very helpful. I am not sure that the focus on the Middle East will continue if the ecomony of the US starts to falter. It really is all about the economy. My predictions include:
11. The popular use of home equity as an ATM will start to dry up and consumption will wither. The realization that a country that does not produce anything but paper receipts will sweep the prominence of the US under the carpet of debt. Debt that no one wants to buy.
12. The lack of credibility, leadership, and vision in the Republican and Democratic parties will provide no refuge for the elections of 2006. A group of noisy knee-jerk politicians will emerge to fill the gap that will turn the populous to new extreme ideals.
I am a citizen of Kazakhstan and here my comments:
#7 is way off and written as though you just read a few passing headlines and made an elaborate, if wrong assumption. As someone who has spent several years in a few of the countries you mentioned I have a few corrections for you.
1) Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are staunch US allies. Both with high levels of Peace Corps Volunteers, and making many democratic reforms (if more slowly for Kazakhstan). Additionally Kyrgyzstan has a large US air base, and both have been training with NATO troops. At times they must play diplomatically nice with the bullies in their immediate vicinity, but their true allegiance lies staunchly with the west.
It is true that Kyrgystan and Kazakhstan have interest in supporting good relations with the US, as with any other country. However, it is false that the true allegiance lies with the West. The west is way too democratic and besides some petty cash (on the state level) has little to offer, especially to Kazakhstan. Kazakhs needed the US 10 years ago when we did not have the money to develop our industries/infrastructure on our own. Since then things changed,- high oil prices mean than Kazakhstan is now capable (and actually doing so by buying back shares in oil fields sold decades ago) running their economy on their own. Given that the majority of population is happy with the current status quo, the only real threat of changing it is an external aggressor (at the present only the US fits this role).
2) Kazakhstan's oil fields in the Northern Caspian are being developed by American and European oil companies despite the new deals with China.
True
Kazakhstan would LOVE to sell its oil primarily to America if it had a tangible method to transit it to us (It’s in the planning stages).
False. Why the identity of the buyer matter? Further, the Kazakh oil will go to Europe, not the US (a waste of transportation money) but its sales will affect the global oil market.
China and Russia happen to be right next door. For the record, during the cold war, China and the USSR had an, as-of-yet officially unresolved dispute over who actually should have sovereignty over the Central Asian Republics. Given China’s bad habit of rolling tanks into sovereign nations which it desires, i.e. Tibet, Kazakhstan’s agreeing to sell oil to the Chinese at a decent price isn’t just sound economics; it’s an excellent survival strategy.
Unresolved dispute? Given the massive firepower dominance of the USSR, the only case in the past century which may be considered a "dispute" is the governance over Mongolia, which, as history shows, was under the full control of the USSR. The 10 inch dragon wisely knew not to mess with the 6 feet Bear.
As for selling oil to China, the reason, in my mind, is not survivability, but rather economics. The Chinese economy grows at 10% per annum and energy consumption at 25% per annum. They know very well that without Kazakh oil they might suffocate and are willing to pay the premium (see the latest news on purchase of Canadian oil company that derives 100% of its money from Kazakhstan). Further, it was also a strategic diversification decision in which Chinese not only buy oilfields and oil, but also build multibillion dollar pipelines (similar to diversification in stock market).
3) Uzbekistan asked our troops to leave due to the suspected involvement of the US in Kyrgyzstan’s recent revolution and the protests in Uzbekistan (Which take it from me, we were). The regime decided that America in this case was more of threat to its sovereignty then Russia, which is buffered by Kazakhstan. In this case, it was more advantageous to the totalitarian Uzbek regime to have closer relations with the like minded Russians. Uzbekistan has no desire to make any of the democratic reforms other CIS members have made and is one of the only places where life was better under Soviet rule. The loss of their friendship is a very, very good thing for America.
It is true that UZ asked the US to leave, but your reasons are dubious. The US did not say a word after Andizhan rising and even went so far as to block the UN resolution regarding the matter (of course, at the time the US was still a friend). It is only after the Shanghai cooperation meeting UZ decided to kick out the US, quite some time after Andizhan. And then the US spilled it criticism (there was no outrage, even to this day; killing an Israeli settler creates 100X more press and government coverage than the killing of 600 people in UZ). Except for a constant whining about democratic reforms in UZ, the US could do little (the army is stretched, budget is overblown, no nuclear/chemical/biological weapons in UZ). The president of UZ, Karimov, knows this very well. The US could offer little to UZ and for this reason UZ turned away (or I forgot that the Congress suspended $50M in aid to UZ, now Karimov will have to miss 2 lunches,- a serious blow to his regime).
America has a good, if not excellent position in this diplomatic gambit. China, Russia and to a lesser extent Iran are seen by other regimes in the region as having an invasive agenda which is detrimental to other sovereign nations.. America, despite what Bush has been up to in Iraq, is still seen as a beacon of hope in this region and very much as the least of the evils which could threaten their sovereignty.
Come to my new blog!
http://www.evilbobby.blogspot.com/
The US is still a beacon of hope for the people of the region? Are you serious. I can't even say who does not like the US more, the people of Central Asia or their governments. The US is respected for its rights/freedoms/democracy/economy but its foreign policy blunders, in the mind of an average citizen, overshadow its goodness.
So, the predictions of Juan Cole are about right.
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You forgot maybe the most important one: The US is going to suffer the most imprtant economic crises in its history. The huge bubble will pop up.
Re: Baton Rouge vs. New Orleans: True, Baton Rouge cannot handle the largest ocean-going ships. But ports nowdays are highly automated and require few workers, so the Port of New Orleans doesn't *need* a rebuilt New Orleans.
That area is my old stomping grounds. Baton Rouge may not have the infrastructure *now*, but Baton Rouge is on high ground and basically in the middle of cow pastures and pine forests. Businesses with the resources to rebuild that were once based in New Orleans (i.e., most Louisiana-based businesses other than oil, which is scattered across southern Louisiana) are likely to rebuild in Baton Rouge rather than in New Orleans, since there are no guarantees that the Corps of Engineers will ever build the levees up to a level that would make it worthwhile to build in New Orleans (why rebuild in New Orleans just to get flooded out again?). And where businesses go, the people follow.
Already, Baton Rouge is the largest city in Louisiana -- it has around 500,000 people right now, while the unflooded parts of New Orleans would hold maybe 150,000 people. Granted, the infrastructure of Baton Rouge is groaning under the load (probably a majority of homes in Baton Rouge have multiple families living in them at the moment). But infrastructure is easy to build when you're in the middle of a freakin' cow pasture rather than in the middle of a swamp with inadequate levee protection.
So I'm with Juan Cole on this one. New Orleans is not going to be rebuilt -- because nobody in their right mind would rebuild when the Corps of Engineers can't even provide the protection they're legislated to provide, much less the protection that would suffice to make it reasonable to rebuild in New Orleans.
- Badtux the Louisianian in Exile
I have a hard feeling that ME is essentially unpredicatble. Am I right ? :-(
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