The Week in Review

The new American administration makes nice with Iran, takes a threat from Russia and grapples with job hemorrhaging, all in business casual.
 

Middle East

On Monday, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, reiterated President Barack Obama’s new approach to dealing with Iran: “direct diplomacy.” “We look forward to engaging in vigorous diplomacy that includes direct diplomacy with Iran,” Rice said in the UN chambers. Though behind-the-scenes diplomacy has been going on for some time, the U.S. now wants to hold public direct talks, and the State Department is considering opening a diplomatic office in Tehran. At the same time, the Pentagon is drawing up plans to pull out the majority of troops from Iraq a year ahead of the agreed date in order to concentrate on Afghanistan. As we have indicated before, the U.S. may actually do a deal with Tehran to assist in its war in Afghanistan. Stratfor reports: “There is no love lost between Tehran and al Qaeda or the Taliban, but Iran has been heavily involved in arming the jihadist insurgency in Afghanistan—hoping to keep the United States too preoccupied to think about regime change in Tehran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (irgc) also has plenty of intelligence that the United States would appreciate concerning the movements of al Qaeda operatives who travel in and out of Iran under the irgc’s watch. U.S. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus indicated recently that Afghanistan is an issue of mutual interest for Washington and Tehran. And with the U.S. military focus shifting from Iraq to Afghanistan, there is strong potential for a meeting of the minds between these two on how to contain the Taliban and eradicate al Qaeda” (January 27). This of course would boost Tehran’s position in the region, a trend to watch closely due to its prophetic significance.

Moscow continues to lay down the gauntlet to the new U.S. administration. On the eve of President Obama’s inauguration, Kabul released a letter from the Russian president stating Moscow’s readiness to provide military assistance in Afghanistan. The letter—and the timing of it—was a deliberate message from Russia to Obama that the United States had better not stand in the way of Moscow’s expansionist moves or else it will face trouble in Afghanistan. Moscow’s implied threat is not empty: The U.S. is looking to establish alternative supply routes—which require Russia’s cooperation—to decrease its reliance on an increasingly unstable Pakistan. As we wrote on January 16, “Any sort of agreement whereby the U.S. became reliant on Russia to get supplies into Afghanistan would limit America’s ability to curtail Russian ambitions elsewhere” (“U.S. Searches for Alternative Supply Routes to Afghanistan”). In addition, Russia has a great deal of influence within Afghanistan still. “Russia has enough of a foothold in Afghanistan,” says Stratfor, “to make things difficult for Washington should the need arise. … Russia has issued a veiled threat for Obama to ponder in the early days of his presidency. It is a threat that deliberately lacks details about what the Russians can or plan to do in Afghanistan, but it will make Washington think twice about moves that would impede Moscow’s resurgent path” (January 20). This scenario is symptomatic of the great global power transfer that is underway.

Turkey again this week demonstrated its hostility toward supposed ally Israel when its prime minister delivered a lengthy condemnation of Israel at the World Economic Forum in Davao, Switzerland. While Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s speech may be dismissed by some as a personal tirade, it is part of a growing trend in Turkey. During the Gaza conflict, Turkish leaders were some of the most vocal in criticizing Israel. Turkey’s growing hostility toward Israel should not be dismissed. Turkey’s geographic location and military power make it a pivotal country in the Middle East and give it the potential to cause great harm to Israel. Bible prophecy reveals a critical role for Turkey in the end time. Read “The Israel-Turkey Alliance Is a Trap” in the March Trumpet for more on this.

Europe

This week was a stormy one for Vatican-Jewish relations. In order to foster church unity, the Vatican lifted its excommunication on a group of bishops from the “Society of St. Pius x” (sspx). One of these bishops, Richard Williamson, denies that there was a Holocaust. “Historical evidence is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy by Adolf Hitler,” he said last week. Because of this, the chief rabbinate of Israel broke off all ties with the Vatican, as did the Central Council of Jews in Germany. After some consolatory remarks from the pope, these groups are considering reversing their decision. Holocaust denial in not a policy of the sspx, but it does disagree with the modernization of the Catholic Church. The fact that the Vatican is courting this group shows it is willing to shift to the right. For more information, see our October 2007 Trumpet article “Why the Pope Offends Muslims, Jews and Protestants.”

Violent protests and growing dissatisfaction with the government’s handling of the economic crisis have brought down Iceland’s government. On Friday, January 23, Prime Minister Geir Haarde called for early elections due to mass protests. Then, the next Monday, the coalition completely collapsed. Iceland’s President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson asked the Social Democrats to form a new government, ending nearly 20 years of right-wing rule. This new coalition will lead the country until new elections are held in May. Social unrest caused by the credit crisis is certainly a trend to watch. A whole swath of right-wing parties took power in the wake of unrest and economic collapse in the 1929 Depression.

The European Constitution, currently known as the Treaty of Lisbon or the reform treaty, is in the news again. Ireland is having trouble ratifying the treaty, and Poland and the Czech Republic also have reservations about signing it. Now Germany is investigating the impact the EU reform treaty will have on its own national sovereignty. Last week, the EUobserver reported that Germany’s constitutional court is preparing to hear a case brought by Peter Gauweiler, a member of Bavaria’s Christian Social Union, who claims the Lisbon Treaty not only infringes the rights of German citizens by allowing the European Court of Justice to supersede Germany’s court system, but also that the treaty allows for the German parliament, the Bundestag, to be trumped by the European Parliament. This week, the court was handed a second complaint, which threatens to delay Germany’s ratification even further. The imperialist EU vision, a German idea from its beginning, is now stalled awaiting the judgment of a German court charged with assessing its legality within Germany itself. Still, as British political economist Rodney Atkinson has said, the Germans are experts at creating a crisis, then posing their own solution to solve that crisis. With the fate of the Lisbon Treaty hanging in the balance, the term crisis may just be one that we hear mentioned more often in coming months.

Hundreds of thousands of French workers went on strike Thursday as unions and opposition leaders protested their government’s handling of the economic crisis. Train drivers, air traffic control operators, teachers, postal workers, bank employees and ski lift operators, to name a few, refused to work. Hundreds of thousands marched on streets, protesting in 200 cities across France and causing massive disruption. In some places, only one in five trains was operating. Despite this, the general strike was very popular. One poll found that almost 70 percent of those surveyed supported, or sympathized with, the strike. More and more, the economic crisis is causing civil unrest, especially in Europe. In the past, such a trend has led to the rise of extremist groups.

Asia

North Korea was clamoring for attention this week as it threatened strong military steps to wipe out South Korea. “Now that traitor [South Korean President] Lee Myung Bak and his group opted for confrontation, denying national reconciliation and cooperation, backed by foreign forces, our revolutionary armed forces are compelled to take an all-out confrontational posture to shatter them,” said a statement from the Korean People’s Army, released Saturday. North Korea also claims to have weaponized enough plutonium to create four or five nuclear bombs. The United States has been engaged in talks with North Korea for five years, yet the Communist nation has shown that it will not give up its nuclear weapons program easily. With a new president in the White House, North Korea is hoping to win economic concessions from America by making more false promises. America simply does not have the will to stop North Korea from developing nuclear weapons.

Africa

Acknowledging the failure of its economic practices, Zimbabwe’s finance minister announced January 29 that Harare has dropped its control over foreign currencies, allowing businesses to accept and use U.S. dollars, South African rand and currencies of neighboring countries. The finance minister also announced that Zimbabwe would drop price controls that have forced shop owners to sell staples at unsustainably low prices. According to a United Nations report, also released on January 29, only 6 percent of the population is employed, and over half need emergency food aid. This has forced aid agencies to cut cereal rations in half so more people can receive aid. Many citizens—including doctors, teachers, government workers, and bus drivers—went on strike to gain the ability to receive payment in foreign currencies, but the government had held out against the measure until now. The Associated Press reports that Zimbabwe’s leadership will buy foreign currency at a low government rate, then sell it at its inflated black-market value. With the entire country broke and hungry, its “elected” officials continue to drain whatever value the once-prosperous country known as Rhodesia has left.

Anglo-America

Amid the flotsam and jetsam of a national economy broken by greed, state governments are turning to a shady source of funds: gambling. The AP reported Sunday that lawmakers in at least 14 states are now considering proposals to expand slots or casinos. While income and sales tax revenues have fallen, overall gambling revenues have remained comparatively steady, even during the recession. Casinos impoverish lower-income households, provide no long-term economic growth, foster crime, take money from other businesses, and cause gambling addiction problems. Turning to gambling to solve economic problems will only make the problem worse. But, given the state of the economy, some lawmakers think it is worth the gamble.

Monday started a bad week for jobs in the United States when firms including Caterpillar, Sprint Nextel, Home Depot and Texas Instruments cut 60,000 jobs. Tuesday brought pink slips for another 10,000 employees. On Thursday, more than 15,000 more jobs disappeared. Reuters reports that more than 210,000 jobs have been slashed this month, coming on top of 524,000 job losses in December. In all, 11 million U.S. workers are unemployed (more than 7 percent), up 48 percent from a year ago. On Friday, the government reported that the economy has now chalked up its fastest decline in 26 years.

One of President Obama’s first executive orders was to close Guantanamo and the cia’s secret prisons. However, two former Guantanamo detainees have appeared in a video posted to a jihad website. “By Allah, imprisonment only increased our persistence in our principles for which we went out, did jihad for, and were imprisoned for,” Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri, who is the number-two al Qaeda terrorist in Yemen, taunted, identifying himself by his Guantanamo prisoner number. His companion in the video, Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, another prisoner, is an al Qaeda field commander. On Tuesday, the humiliation continued when Saudi Arabia announced it had rearrested nine Islamist terrorists, including at least two former Guantanamo inmates.

In figures that border on making quantification obsolete, the total cost of the U.S. economic stimulus plan is now $819 billion. President Obama and Congress’s plan includes lower tax withholding for some American workers, more unemployment benefit checks, more food stamp money, and aid to states in the form of public works, plus other spending.

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was tape-recorded trying to sell Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat, was finally impeached and removed from office on Thursday, bringing a closure of sorts to a scandal that has revealed the ugly underbelly hiding under even democratic governments.

The International Herald Tribune reported Thursday an item that is at once diminutive and significant: President Obama’s approach to his office. In “Obama settles into a more informal White House,” the Tribune noted that his predecessor required a coat and tie to be worn in the Oval Office at all times. Bush did not allow aides and counselors to enter the office, even on the weekend, wearing khakis, button-downs, jeans or other business casual attire. Former President Bush arrived at the office around 7 a.m., and began and ended meetings on time. According to the Tribune, Obama takes a different approach. He wears a sweater and slacks to the office on the weekends and nixes the coat in the Oval Office during the workweek, where he arrives at 9.