NYC Junta

The next Junta will take up the subject of Iran, and to focus the conversation, I’m asking the group to consider the possible scenarios five years from now. Things to consider:

• Will Iran have the bomb by then?
• Will the current ruling structures still be in power?
• What are the best/worst possible scenarios for US-Iran relations?
• What about China- or Russia-Iran relations?

We’ll talk about the effectiveness of sanctions and whether Obama might introduce new ones; compare the revolution of 1979 to the protests of 2009-10; and look for parallels in American and Iranian society. A number of us have strong views on the subject, and it should make for a lively debate.

Look for us to post details of the meeting soon – we’re thinking the second week of March. Meanwhile, I’ll expand on the above ideas in subsequent posts and provide some reading material. If you know people with particular interest or experience with Iran, please encourage them to join us.

UPDATE: The meeting will be held Tuesday, March 9, at 7:30pm. Location TBD.

UPDATE II: Location will be the Roebling Tea Room, 143 Roebling St, near the Bedford Ave stop on the L train, Brooklyn.

Meetings iran

There’s been a flurry of awful stories out of Africa about attitudes towards homosexuality. Uganda has been considering an anti-gay bill that would in some cases impose the death penalty on homosexuals.  In Kenya a gay wedding ceremony on the country’s more liberal coast-line almost resulted in a bloodbath with locals ready to burn the house down; the police intervened and shut the whole affair down. A similar case in Malawi resulted in the two men being arrested.  Check out the story in Malawi if you want a more human face on any of these instances, really sad story, the attached pic says it all though, these two guys being mocked and physically threatened just because of who they are. In each of these cases, but in particular in Uganda, these countries have faced strong criticism from western countries, which provide a large amount of aid and hence have some leverage over these countries. Obama has denounced the Uganda bill, and Gordon Brown and other top leaders have called Uganda’s powerful president, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, to express concern. The result has been bewilderment and anger on the part of Africans, who see their anti-gay views as part of their culture and expressions of concern as meddling in their affairs. I hope western leaders continue to hold the line on this issue and use the leverage they have appropriately to effect change. This situation reminds me of the debate about women in Islamic countries, which was much talked about in the soul-searching following 9/11, but which has generally subsided of late. Just as it is clear that is wrong that women in Saudi Arabia are treated like second-class citizens, we should be careful to avoid moral relativism when dealing with Africa on homosexuality. Their views are backwards and wrong and need to change. Some values are universal and right and tolerance is one of them.

Articles africa, gay rights, kenya, malawi, uganda, universal values

Good news out of the Afpak region, the Taliban second in command, Mullah Baradar, was captured in Karachi.  This is notable in itself, and comes as the US is leading an ambitious effort to capture the Taliban stronghold of Marja, but I was particularly happy to hear that the raid was a joint effort by Pakistan’s secret service, the ISI, and the CIA. The ISI has for a long time played both sides of the Taliban and the US for reasons clear in this article, and I think it’s critical to get the Pakistanis to abandon the Taliban as a client and work with the US to deny them sanctuary. That means attacking their strongholds in the tribal regions, which they’ve done in the last few months, and have the intelligence agencies work together to go after high-value targets.  Hopefully this raid is just the first wave of this. What if the next few months Marja falls and the Afghans seem to actually hold the city themselves and set up a semi-decent government while a joint US/Pakistan raid captures or kills Mullah Omar (who is said to be in Karachi)? That kind of thing could be a game-changer and would be some well-deserved good news for the Obama foreign policy team, which I think is actually doing a good job.

Articles afpak, foreign policy, mullah baradar, obama, taliban

Are the Greeks likely to secede from the EU because of their sovereign debt? John Mauldin, a financial investor and writer who claims 1 million+ email subscribers, says its not as fanciful as it sounds:

The third option is that they could vote to leave the European Union. While this is unthinkable to most Europeans, it is an option that may appeal to some Greeks. They could create their own currency and effectively devalue their debt. It would make their labor and exports cheaper…

Most people scoff at this notion, but money is flying out of Greek banks into non-Greek ones, and to my way of thinking that is a suggestion that some Greeks think secession might be a possibility. It is also causing severe stress at Greek banks.

Mr Mauldin’s letter is worth reading in its entirety (he requires an email address to access full letter). It’s a 20min read but explains the reasons behind the Greek financial crisis and the possible ways out, and along the way showing the parallels with the rest of Europe and America.

Greece is being told that it must cut its budget to an 8.7% deficit this year and down to 3% within three years.

For my American readers, let’s put that into perspective. That is the equivalent of a $560-billion-dollar US budget cut this year and another such cut next year. That would mean huge cuts in entitlements, Social Security, defense, education, wages, subsidies, and on and on. And repealing the Bush tax cuts? That would just be for starters. No “let’s freeze the budget” and try and grow our way out of it, as we effectively did in the ’90s, or gradually cutting the budget a few hundred billion a year while raising taxes. That combination of tax increases and budget cuts would guarantee a US recession. Unemployment, already high, would climb higher.

And yet, that is what the Greek government is being asked to do as the price for a bailout.

[...]

Whether it is Japan or Portugal or the US or (pick a country), the body of evidence clearly shows that there is a limit to the amount of debt a sovereign country can handle without a crisis developing. That limit is different for each country, but there is a limit that the bond market will impose. And there are many countries in the developed world that are approaching that limit.

I highly recommend subscribing to his newsletter. It’s free.

In the News financial crisis, greece, sovereign debt, usa

Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria

If you’re frustrated by political gridlock in the US, dumb-ass tea-party idiots carrying signs that say “gun control means being able to hit your target”, then checking in on the lovely state of Nigeria might make you glad that you live here and not there, despite our problems.

In case you’re not that familiar with Nigeria, Africa’s second biggest economy, it is basically a poster-child for corruption and “the oil curse” (the idea that countries with natural resources typically suffer from horrible governments).  It also has a nasty problem in it’s oil producing region, the Niger River Delta, which is an environmental catastrophe and has a native insurgency that kidnaps western oil workers and generally wreaks havoc at will. Oh, and Nigeria also has ethnic strife, with the predominantly Muslim northerners hating on the southern Christians, and sometimes horrible internecine fighting breaks out and hundreds die.

So, the President has been ill with a variety of problems and went to Saudi Arabia in late November. Aside from a sketchy audio tape released to the BBC early last month, no one has heard from him. He might be dead, no one can say for sure. So, the Nigerian parliment finally had enough and named the vice-president Goodluck Jonathan as interim President. Gotta love it, Goodluck’s wife is named Patience. So now that the Nigerians have Goodluck and Patience, I’m sure they’ll be in great shape in no time.

Articles corruption, goodluck jonathan, horrible governments, internecine fighting, nigeria