The six biggest myths currently confusing policymakers

Tue, 05/19/2009 - 1:40pm

There are some really big myths currently distorting the world's view of itself...that we can clear up right now. Here are a few of the biggest:

  • Solving the Israeli-Palestinian issue is the key to Middle East peace. 

It's important. It even has broad repercussions. But neither of these things mean that solving it will actually make the Middle East broadly more stable than it is today. First, there is no such thing as an Israeli-Palestinian issue. The Palestinians are divided and the wing with the greatest allergies to peace, Hamas, is actually Iranian/Hezbollah sponsored. Their involvement does not however, mean that arriving at the two state solution that is the only answer for Israel and the Palestinians will instantly reduce tensions between Iran and Israel...especially given Iran's views objections to Israel on grounds that have nothing to do with the Palestinians. Further, will solving the Arab-Israeli issue reduce tensions between Shiites and Sunnis, Turks and Kurds, Iranians and Saudis, extremists and moderates throughout the Arab world, the Taliban and the Afghan government, the Taliban and the Pakistani government, al Qaeda and the west, etc.? Will it bring a halt to the Iranian nuclear program or stabilize oil supplies? No. 

  • Wall Street will never be the same.

Really? In the past week I have had conversations with senior Obama administration economic officials and prominent former Democratic cabinet and sub-cabinet members and the theme from all of them was the same. The reports of Wall Street's demise as a center of obscenely high-paid, risk taking, politically influential, high-rollers are vastly overstated. To be sure we are in a downturn of historic portions and many big institutions have disappeared or been wounded. Further, new regulations like those associated with derivatives will be put in place. But some promised changes -- like making it impossible for banks to grow "too big to fail" and containing executive compensation in meaningful ways -- just can't be done. Global corporations need global institutions of great scale to service them. Put limits on executive compensation in certain classes of companies and the best executives will move to others where they can make the dough. The firms within the TARP will skedaddle out as fast as they can and the firms left standing will have a great competitive position in global markets. There may be enduring caution on some level, but if you think that this recession is enough to crush the superclass on Wall Street (or their enduring hold on Washington policy makers) then you haven't read enough about how cockroaches and other similar creatures can survive nuclear war.

  • Capitalism is dead.

The bias of the Reagan-Thatcher era to always push for smaller government and to leave as many decisions as possible to the markets may have been brushed away. The needle has moved toward more government-market balance. But the reality is that the rise of China as a market economy and the expansion of basic market principals to essentially every country of the world prompting the rise of a new class of economic heavyweights is a far bigger, more important story than this downturn. The world is becoming more capitalist not less, more integrated and thus more dependent on a similar set of rules. As in the preceding case, the efforts of most leaders in the public and private sectors are focused on restoring conditions much like those that preceded the crisis and massive, fundamental changes are being resisted and repelled. Sooner or later more significant global regulation and institutions for that regulation will be needed. But my sense is that this crisis has not thus far been enough to motivate such fundamental changes (which require ceding sovereignty which is always anathema to national governments.)

  • The War on Terror is Over.

No. It has gone from being overstated to, in the minds of some commentators and policy-labelers to being over. But it is not going away.  Threats remain and are actually growing that sometime in the not too distant future a terrorist group will unleash weapons of mass destruction somewhere in the world. The war in Pakistan and Afghanistan is a war against terrorists on the one hand and a war to ensure the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenals against terrorists on the other. Indeed, it's the fact that it is not a conventional conflict between nations that makes it so hard to fight as to act against our adversaries we must take steps that appear to be actions against our allies (violating sovereignty, attacking their soil, etc.) The Bush War on Terror, mismanaged, bloated, confused by other agendas, was a failure. It is too early to say whether the Obama version of the war, whatever it is called, is more successful or not.

  • Barack Obama will shift U.S. policies far to the left and be the U.S. President the world has been fantasizing about.

Barack Obama is a pragmatist. He and those around him are from the enduring centrist traditions of U.S. foreign policy. Whether it is positions on detainees or terror files, how he handles trade issues or how he balances interests among our allies, he may be very different from his predecessor in his rhetoric, in his background and especially in his competence, but he will increasingly seem to the world very much like what they have come to expect from American presidents over the years (as disappointing as that may be to some and as reassuring as that may be to others). Where he advocates big changes it will be because he is reflecting a majority opinion in the United States (get out of Iraq, wind down the embargo on Cuba) or for reasons that are easily misinterpreted (he will be much more multilateral in his impulses but in large part this is due to a need for enhanced burden sharing rather than any view that widely varies from the traditional U.S. views on ceding our prerogatives to others.) Right now, he has that quality many popular leaders do which is that people see in him what they want. Bush was country and western. He is world music. But that's not the case, he is simply the latest iteration of a rapidly changing U.S. establishment.

  • The Recession is the Biggest Problem the World is Facing and It's Almost Over.

First, of all, huge imbalances in wealth, deprivation that claims the lives of 40,000 children under five a day from causes that could be prevented, global warming, and other chronic problems are much bigger in human terms and in terms of geopolitical consequences. The recession is a big issue because it is impacting the rich as well as the poor and hence getting the attention. Further, the recession may be bottoming out but it may not be, secondary dips due to further crises (commercial real estate, emerging markets debt crunches, etc.) are possible. But for many economists, the problem may not be the recession as much as it is the recovery. If the recovery is very slow, if the United States struggles to get past 2 percent growth, and this endures for years (viz. Japan) it could put major new stresses on the global economy and on leaders fumbling for answers as to what to do to jump start the U.S. which remains for many, the world's market of first choice and last resort.

I would have added "there is a way for the United States to win in Pakistan" since I think our best outcome there is likely to be avoiding a catastrophe. But you may have others. Please add them to the list.

MAX AVDEEV/AFP/Getty Images

David Rothkopf | Permalink | | Comments? Login or register
( filed under: )


Advertisement

 

Solving the

by J Thomas on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 2:07pm

Solving the Israeli-Palestinian issue is the key to Middle East peace.

What a silly idea. That's almost like saying that flying pigs are the key for a universal cure for cancer.

"Oh, if only we had flying pigs then a cancer cure would just happen with no effort!"

There's no possible way to prove or disprove this, because you can't get a flying pig. You could claim that solving israel/palestine would fix the US budget deficit, or maybe that some israeli reservist would then have the peace of mind to invent antigravity. Say anything you like. You won't be proven wrong, because it isn't going to happen.

I don't think you can argue

by Dave123 on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 3:56pm

I don't think you can argue with this

Solving the Arab-Israeli issue [will not]reduce tensions between Shiites and Sunnis, Turks and Kurds, Iranians and Saudis, extremists and moderates throughout the Arab world, the Taliban and the Afghan government, the Taliban and the Pakistani government, al Qaeda and the west, etc.? Will it bring a halt to the Iranian nuclear program or stabilize oil supplies? No.

Dave123, by formal rules of

by J Thomas on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 7:30pm

Dave123, by formal rules of logic, if you start with a false premise anything you say as a result is formally true.

By that rule, you can say "We can solve the israel/palestine issue and that will immediately bring the Second Coming and also will cure everybody's dandruff" and the conclusion is formally true.

You can say "We can solve the israel/palestine issue and that will make everybody in the world's ears turn to delicious chocolate" and the conclusion is formally true.

Because the premise is false. We cannot solve israel/palestine and we will not. So whatever you say will happen as a result of doing that is not a statement about reality.

1. Cap and Trade/Carbon Tax

by blue13326 on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 8:54am

1. Cap and Trade/Carbon Tax will help solve global warming.

2. Alternative Fuels will significantly reduce our dependence on foreign oil anytime in the next generation.

3. GM and Chrysler will ever repay the money US taxpayers have given them.

4. Iran will ever willingly give up its quest for nukes.

5. Government-run health care will save taxpayer money.

6. Massive deficit spending will help the economy.

7. California is 'too big to fail.'

- As is the US.

The Misah Ad-Dajjal and the Fall of the House of Saud

by unicorn144 on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 1:29pm

The Unicorn of the Holy City

With the radical anti-sufic impulse seen in Wahhbism as Saudia Arabia's chief and most subversive export along with Osama bin Laden's toxic Qutbism we have now come to a turning point in Islam the leading Sufic pillar has now addressed alonmg with his book about the End which presages the Last Judgement. In his new book "The Approach of Armaggeddon" our friend of the West Shaykh Muhammed Hisham Kabbani called upon those who can make a difference in stopping the Nation of the Shia as Khomeinist Iran ((as "Magog" with the backing of the Shia of Iraq or "Gog" in the Biblical sense )) in it's headlong rush to destruction against our other friend of the West: the nation of the regathered and prophetic Israel; which now stands as a wall and bulwark against the Wahhabist acolyte's of Jihad drunken Islam.

It is of little help in seeking the help of the president of Iran Ahmadinedad; he is obviously seeking to keep his position by feeding the fires of hatred and vengeance as the demagogue he is; yet it is this one name which casts the greatest light on what his role is in fulfilling the prophecy of Armegeddon in all it's self-fulfilled glory: as that of it's architecht: the "Mish Ad-Dajjal; the Judas of Islam we know of as the Antichrist of the Bible: Osama bin Laden and his use of the Qur'an against the Western Nations; which are all christian nations culturally; if not politically.

In seeing the Design of the Naqsbandi in Hisham Kabbani the "pet Sufi" of George Bush the proof is to be heard in the archetypal "Voice of Divine Reason" that is so lacking in the discourse which seperates the wheat from the chaff in this 7th of the 7 last days of Noah; this being the Final Trumpet; which I also write of; and which the Sufis see in response to the Wahhabi Champion of Intolerance and Ignorace that embodies Osama bin Laden's vision of a regressive Salafism bringing mankind back to a new dark ages.

Kabbani writes in that Prescence of his Master as in the revealing of the Unity as the Fruit of the Tree of Life which is only known to those who enter the eternal realm of the Kingdom: his influence from the 4th Order of the Sufis is Immense; reminiscient of Sayed Idries Shah.

Thus in dealing with Osama bin Laden as the Antichrist that Islam knows as the Misah Ad-Dajjal we have the controversy comes from conflict; and conflict can only be resolved when the actual causes are laid bare: for where the Shia and the Sunni have irrevocably split Islam we have the shifting balance of power going from the conservative Oil Rich Arabia to extremist Atomic Weapon Iran: and the rise of the Shiite Messiah that is the National Cult of Iran: Ali-ism; or Ismailism.

It is this that has been momentarily stopped in Iraq and Iran from fulfilling their roles as "Gog and Magog" from Khabbani's description in the Light of Islamic prophecy: but Israel will not hold it's breath forever: thus Armageddon looms large on the horizon. And Ahmadinejad is the dark legacy himself of the corruption of Ronald Wilson Reagan by which he richly earned the "666" which attends the 18 letters of his full name.

And now Iran will get the bom; another gift from Reagan; for in the old photo's of the hostages the current president of Iran can be seen with a pistol to the head of the Embassy chief. What has changed? Nothing.

To end the conflict between the supposedly spiritual east and the apparently materialistic west with the unrepentant middle ground of Judaism we need to find the hidden ground between the two religious spheres and their relationship to that of the first: that of Moses and the Law and the Jews who came out of Egypt to the Promised Land God gave to Abraham and his heirs. In their origin in Abraham Islam has always claimed that it brought nothing new to the earth but the original religion of Abraham; but Ishmael came from Abrahm; not Abraham; thus the iconoclastic nature of Islam has more to do with the idol-maker who was Abrahm's own father; only then he was not called Abraham: he was called "Abrahm".

Yet to see Muhammed we have to see the son of Terrah the idol-maker; and a son breaking away from his father the idolater cultivator. It is in this vein that one must approach the secret of Muhammed; and in this article the Day has become sufficiently visible to unveil this secret as the beginning of the healing of the nations; which originates in the leaves of the Tree of Life that currently reside in the pages of the Book of Life; for the names written in the Book's pages are the fruits from the Tree's leaves.

Those in the West who have never even opened a Qu'ran or even studied the culture which produced the Taliban and other regressive movements in the tribal patchwork which makes up the fabric of what is now a torn garment of the body politic in the theocratic and autocratic rulership of Sunni and Shia belief systems should perhaps take a look at some writer's whose prophetic understanding might cast some light on our friend; Osama bin Laden; the Global Terrorist: here revealed by St. Paul of Damascus.

If one reads Thessalonians II 2: 3-4 one will get what I call a "shock" of recognition. Here is the quote in full after St. Paul discusses the Day of Christ to come;

"Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the House of God, showing himself that he is God."

While some might be amused by such recondite blasphemy it certainly seems that Osama bin Laden has judged the West and, apparently with Allah's help, has carried out his judgment on the "great Satan" of the corrupt West as if he were, indeed; "God". By sitting on the throne of Mecca spiritually it is Osama who has done more than just begun World War III; he has made sure that it will be the last War; the Holy War; the showdown between what radical Islam calls "the people of God" and the fallen West.

While some might smile at such antics with the power the west possesses in it's arsenal we might look again at the prophetic core of belief that is driving the forces intent on their coming Armageddon. Can it be avoided? My answer is yes; we can bring about an "internal Jihad" which Muhammed always said was the true struggle as opposed to the frankly profane "external Jihad"; as can be seen in one of his most famous sayings, to wit;

"The ink of the learned is holier than the blood of the martyr".

This points out the actual dimension of what the true holy war really is; against the old ego; the "old serpent" itself, the enemy within; the real one. The heaviest authority of the one-eyed or "evil one" Muhammed saw in his vision of the Ad-Dajjal that Gabriel showed him is in this hadith where Muhammed described the one characteristic by which the "Ad-Dajjal" would be known: he would offer men "Jannat" or "Heaven"; but really deliver them into "Jahannah/ "Gehenna: the dung heap".

This sounds very much like Osama bin Laden's offers of virgins to those who die for him as the payment of the holy warrior as of the 7th heaven. But the hadith or "saying" of Muhammed further states that the Ad-Dajjal or Antichrist will try to put his enemies in the camp of "Satan" or even "Satan the Devil" as of "Jahannah": but they are actually the "peacemakers" that Lord Jesus said would be called "the children of the Most High".

It is these who Muhammed said would be saved and brought forth as the fruits of the Kingdom by those enlightened and true Sufis he called "his people: the People of Salvation". Thus they are all; Jew. Christian or Muslim who die for peace: but they will not kill for it. This is what Mansur el-Hallaj brought to the Table as the Truth of the Cross for which he died: the Cross of Christ is the Key of David; as he well knew.

It is those who are the meek of the earth who will die for peace yet not kill for: the diametric opposite of those who kill for peace but will not peacably die defending it: they in reality want to destroy peace itself: forever; to provide the eternal conflict which is the nature of hell on earth: the kingdom of the Antichrist.

Thus it is that the sheep fight for the Kingdom; for they are those whose Jihad is against the hatred within that breeds the violence of those externalists and literalists and fundamentalists who would take the kingdom by force: but who overcome within are indeed the People of Salvation; the Peacemakers; and thus those who will win as their Shepherd the Lamb once won for all true believers in Love and Peace.

The Sufis have said it:

He who lives by the Sword of Allah shall perish with it...."

It is they who know that Osama the son of perdition shall be killed: and with what; the sword named after he whose daughter Benazir died for it: the Zulfiqar; which we in the West call by another name; from another time; and yet our Day: and that sword is called: Excalibur.