The Dog Factor

The Economist's Buttonwood has developed a new term:  "The DOG (Discount for Obnoxious Governments) Factor" as described in the Trillion-Dollar boo boo or Bad Government costs investors a fortune. Currently Russia is the top dog.  Remember how BRIC (Brasil, Russia, India and China) used to be touted as great investment opportunities? Well Russia's capriciousness with property rights and the rule of law kept it a seeming bargain all the time. Buttonwood figures a trillion in lost value for Russia because Putin is so obnoxious. The other three falter as well depending on their degree of noxious decision making.  

Let Sunnis Defeat Iraq's Militants

Rafe al-Essawi anf Atheel al-Nujaifi's  editorial in today's New York Times doesn't acknowledge the fact that it is too late to reverse the ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) incursion in North Western Iraq without a costly civil war. These two gentlemen obviously believe in the unity of Iraq as delineated by the British after World War I but that artificial goal will be a difficult rallying cry to follow into what is sure to be a vicious religious battle. Prime Minister Maliki is a partisan Shia who systematically broke down the hard won trust of the Sunni's bought at great expense by our troops and treasure during the surge and Sunni's aren't coming back to a unified Iraq again after that betrayal.

Let's not add to Egypt's Arsenal

President Obama should reconsider the recent release of military aid to Egypt because it is more important to be true to our core values of a free press and justice based on a rule of law rather than waste these convictions with a regime that gives no value in regional stability.  After this week’s rocketry and counter bombing in Gaza we find that General Sisi  is no man of influence.  That Hamas in Palestine chose to ignore a cease fire brokered by Egypt indicates that the Anwar Sadat peace keeping influence in the region is gone and so is the accord with Israel in the Sinai. Other factors leading to Egypt’s eventual blow up are it’s paternal crony capitalist denial of a prosperous future and a judiciary radicalizing political opposition.  The future for Egypt is one very similar to Syria but it will be our fighter jets and helicopters trying to quell the rebellion, so let’s not add to their arsenal.

Vietnam’s Overdue Alliance With America

My previous post called the Kurds our natural friends who we are about to betray if we insist that they self sacrifice themselves to the impossible task of holding Iraq together.  Now I see Tuong Lai's editorial "Vietnam’s Overdue Alliance With America" with a sense of guilt by a baby boomer who wondered why we fought Ho Chi Minh, a revolutionary leader who asked the Truman Administration for help to liberate Viet Nam from French colonial rule. Why was it again that we rejected our heritage and sided with the colonialist? The Domino Theory!

Senator Mike Lee

I must have been taking the New York Times too seriously when I developed a negative opinion on Utah's junior Senator.  After watching this Reason TV YouTube interview, I had a 180 degree turn around on my opinion.

The Kurds are an Oasis of Sanity not to be Squandered

In Iraq we support borders drawn in the sand by European colonialist close to a century ago. Now we ask the only sane actor in the region, the Kurds with aspirations for independence such as was ours, to throw themselves back into the boiling cauldron of Iraq. What is it with our foreign policy in my baby boomer lifetime that fails our natural friends and bolsters reactionary forces that deny our revolutionary heritage and ultimately fail us?

The U. S. should recognize that Iraq is broken and that we can’t afford to own it.  Our intervention did not produce an Iraqi Nelson Mandela willing to forgive and move forward with an enduring Sunni - Shia political union.  Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s current leader, extinguished the very slight flame of trust in the torch of unity that our blood and treasure ignited at great cost. Iraq would now require that we quadruple our previous surge and make generations long commitment to stay the course of holding together disparate sects.  Given that there is no such will,  there is no purpose to ask the Kurds to self sacrifice senselessly.  Contrary to Secretary of State Kerry’s statement “this moment requires statesmanship” when addressing the Kurdish president in Erbil last week the correct statesmanship it is not toward an Iraqi unity government but rather toward the independent state that they seek.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s recent and remorse free diatribe against President Obama’s conduct of foreign policy puts him back with King George III resisting our revolutionary forefathers. He does not distinguish between rebels, those working toward a sovereign state no matter how horrific such as the Taliban and now apparently ISIS - Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and terrorist, a band with no territorial agenda such as al-Qaeda.  Cheney spearheaded the breaking of Iraq without considering the cost of owning it as advised by Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State. Now he appears blind to what he has wrought and is full of bluster striking out in all directions trying to talk the genie back in the lamp. The most rational course is to let the internecine battle between the two quarreling sects of Islam burn out unattended in Iraq and to support a Kurdish state as the oasis of stability.      

Al-Assad’s, both father and son, held Syria, another artificial state drawn up by Europeans, with authoritarian treachery.  Now ISIS is fracturing Syria as well. President Obama is wrong to fuel the fire in Syria with military aid, especially since those elements with democratic leanings lack the cohesiveness of the Kurds and are sure to be wiped out.  He should settle on solely providing humanitarian assistance while the break up resolves into a new order.