Middle East

The most-high-profile news relating to the Middle East this week centered around the Arab-Israeli peace talks at Annapolis, Maryland. Unsurprisingly, the outcome was an agreement to hold more talks: bi-weekly meetings between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

With full details of the conference yet to be disclosed, the Annapolis summit and the lead-up to it did, however, highlight several significant trends, a primary one being the growing divide between the United States and Israel. Besides an Iranian bomb, the greatest threat to Israel’s existence is diminished support from its long-time ally, the U.S. The dangerous erosion of U.S. support for Israel was revealed in the joint statement on where negotiations should head that was prepared immediately before the conference. Caroline Glick, writing for the Jerusalem Post, said, “The draft document shows that the Palestinians and the Israelis differ not only on every issue, but differ on the purpose of the document. It also shows that the U.S. firmly backs the Palestinians against Israel.” The strain on U.S.-Israeli relations has never been greater.

The presence of certain Arab countries at Annapolis also highlighted a dangerous trend in the Middle East: the growing Iranian threat. “The Arabs have come here not because they love the Jews or even the Palestinians,” said one Palestinian official who attended the summit. “They came because they need a strategic alliance with the United States against Iran.” In particular, the attendance of Syria revealed cracks in the alliance between Iran and Syria.

Saudi Arabia released 1,500 al Qaeda members on the eve of the conference, showing that its involvement in Annapolis was not quite the diplomatic coup the White House had hoped for.

In other Mideast news, the Turkish military build-up along Turkey’s border with Iraq continued in response to increased attacks on Turkey by Kurdish rebels from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (pkk). The U.S.’s lack of options in containing this situation highlights America’s growing geopolitical impotence.

Meanwhile, the crisis in Pakistan continues, with political instability combining with the rise of radical Islamist movements to endanger the whole region and potentially make things far more difficult for Washington. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf stepped down as military chief on Wednesday and assumed his civilian presidency role. General elections are scheduled for January 8 and Musharraf has promised to lift the state of emergency in Pakistan in December. However, the widespread political division of the country may give Islamic extremists the chance they need to increase their power if free elections are indeed held. If the political scene undergoes an Islamic shift and if the army divides, which is a distinct possibility, the situation in the Middle East could go from American headache to nuclear nightmare.

Adding to the endemic instability in the Middle East, Lebanon’s parliament has postponed for a sixth time the selection of the country’s next president, following Lebanese President Emile Lahoud stepping down last week and the imposition of a state of emergency. Politicians from various factions, however, have endorsed Gen. Michel Suleiman—Lebanon’s army chief and Syria’s choice of candidate.

President Bush met Iraqi Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim at the White House on Tuesday to discuss the importance of starting formal negotiations over a long-term relationship between the two countries, according to the White House. Al-Hakim is the leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which has close ties to Iran. A day earlier, Baghdad and Washington signed a “Declaration of Principles” to define long-term relations between Iraq and the U.S., specifically calling for a security pact between them. The implicit purpose of the declaration was to guard against Iranian ambitions in the region in the wake of an anticipated U.S. military drawdown in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Iran has agreed to another round of talks with Washington. Tehran made attempts to bolster its negotiating positioning this week by announcing several defense-related developments including a new medium-range ballistic missile and the expansion of its navy’s capabilities. Taken together, these developments show that the U.S. is still pursuing a path of accommodation with Iran over the future of Iraq.

Developments in the Middle East this week bring to the fore the reality of America’s increasing need to compromise in order to keep its balance in this unstable region.

Europe

Plans to increase Europe’s power militarily and strategically have been among the highlights of the news in Europe this week. Taken as a whole the EU members have a combined defense budget of $234 billion, second only to the United States. European militaries, however, overlap each other and lack important capabilities including rapid response, precision ordinance and real-time telemetry. The European Defense Agency (eda) is in charge of fixing this and forging Europe’s fractured militaries into a cohesive whole; any money spent on the eda, therefore, could go a long way in strengthening Europe’s armed services. The European Union just increased the eda’s budget from €22 million to €32 million (us$32.7 million to $47.6 million), an increase of nearly 50 percent.

Another important way Europe has laid plans to increase its power is in the area of satellite navigation. Power blocs around the world are trying to increase their proficiency in this area. The reason? As the Trumpet wrote in 2003, “Major wars will never be controlled from this Earth’s surface again! From now on, all major wars will be controlled from space.” A satellite navigation system is a strategic imperative for 21st-century warfare, and Europe knows this. This is why the EU has agreed to spend an extra €2.4 billion on it. The Galileo project has been delayed five years, and is now going to cost the taxpayer additional money—but it will soon be able to move forward again.

Everything has not been roses, however, for Europe’s inexorable march toward becoming a global power. Britain was put under even more pressure this week to hold a referendum; an event that would almost certainly lead to decreased UK involvement in the EU. France, while beset by union troubles, was also hit by a succession of violent riots, almost exclusively in its Muslim areas. This Muslim “problem” is not just an issue for France, nor is it one that will disappear in the future. Almost all Europe has its heavily concentrated Muslim areas. As Europe grows in military power, watch for it to become increasingly heavy-handed in its dealings with the British and Muslim “problems.”

Asia

The annual China-EU summit that took place in Beijing on Wednesday was dominated by increasing tensions between the two economic giants over Europe’s rising trade deficit with China. EU officials blamed their rising deficit on China’s managed floating exchange rate that keeps the yuan artificially low compared to the euro. Chinese officials insisted that the managed floating exchange system for the yuan was not the only reason for the trade deficit and stated that they would continue their currency policy reforms in a gradual, protracted, and manageable manner.

On the very day these tensions were building, China and Japan were improving diplomatic ties. For the first time since World War ii, China sent a warship on a diplomatic mission to Japan. Its naval missile destroyer docked in Tokyo Bay on Wednesday to a Japanese welcoming ceremony. As Chinese ambassador to Japan Cui Tiankai declared, “The visit is set to inject new vigor and impetus into the development of bilateral ties.”

Also on Wednesday, Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (asean) reached a final agreement on the asean-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. This agreement, expected to take effect next fall, will strengthen Japanese trade relations with the giant Southeast Asian regional bloc by setting tariff reduction policies in action that will create a single free-trade market by 2015. The agreement brings Japan one step closer to economic unity with Southeast Asia.

The major event in Russia this week has been the “campaign” for parliamentary elections this Sunday. Opposition leader Gary Kasparov was jailed last Saturday for organizing a thousands-strong rally against President Vladimir Putin’s administration. Although he only served a five-day sentence and was released on Thursday, his jailing reveals the power of Putin’s United Russia Party. On Thursday, Russian national television aired Putin’s remarks to the nation urging people to vote for United Russia and “cautioning” them against voting for the kinds of people who ruled Russia in the past. All views opposing the Kremlin are banned from national television. Clearly, Sunday’s elections will change nothing.

Anglo-America

The week has held precarious news from the financial world for the United States. One of America’s biggest banks has lost 42.5 percent of its market value in the past five months, primarily due to the subprime mortgage crisis. This has opened the door for Abu Dhabi, the largest emirate within the United Arab Emirates, to buy its way in as Citigroup Inc.’s largest shareholder. Reuters reports that “Investors from Dubai to China could be considering similar deals with cash-strapped U.S. banks ….” In the short run, this trend may prop up America’s flagging economy, but it also has dangerous long-term implications.

McAfee, an Internet security firm, released a report with dangerous inferences for American consumers, businesses and the economy as a whole. “An estimated 120 countries are leveraging the Internet for political, military and economic espionage activities,” the report states. “Cybercrime has expanded from isolated attacks initiated by individuals or small rings to well-funded, well-organized operations using sophisticated technology and social engineering. Are we in the midst of a cyber cold war?” Perhaps most significantly, this trend could threaten the U.S. military, as editor in chief Gerald Flurry warned in his June 1999 article “America’s Achilles’ Heel.”

On the other side of the Atlantic, personal debt has roughly doubled in Britain in only seven years, with the average Briton now owing £33,000 (us$68,000) in mortgages, credit card debt and personal loans. The accountancy firm that released the statistics predicts a sharp rise in insolvencies, slowed spending and a coming recession.

Meanwhile, counter-terrorism officials in Britain have said the government must abandon “offensive and inappropriate” language. MI5 officials say the term “war on terror” should never be used. The thinking is that politically correct language will make terrorist activities sound less evil and cause Islamists to become less extreme. Good luck with that.

In other news, Australian voters booted Prime Minister John Howard, a staunch American and British ally, for oriental-leaning Kevin Rudd.