One of the best reasons to recognize Palestine as an independent state is that it is an independent state. It has an independent government, its own institutions, a flag, a diplomatic corps, a people that seek and deserve independence and its own borders. Some of those borders are disputed but that's the case with many other states around the world.

This could be the reason that 126 U.N. member states already grant formal diplomatic recognition to the Palestinian state. Or to put it another way, this could be why fully three-quarters of the world's countries, according to an analysis by the Britains's Guardian newspaper, have concluded that Palestine has enough of the attributes of a state to be treated like one.

It is certainly no small obstacle that the Palestinian's immediate neighbor with whom it shares most of those disputed borders, Israel, does not yet recognize it as a state. Having said that, Israel itself has managed to function pretty well for the past six or so decades and still today only 105 countries acknowledge its statehood.  

This is not to minimize the very real and vitally important issues associated with reaching agreements between the Israelis and Palestinians to assure their successful co-existence. Direct negotiations are the only way to achieve this. It is however, to say that on the one hand, the Palestinian statehood debate in the United Nations is a superfluous sideshow and on the other that opposing statehood should not have been made such a big deal by the United States and Israel because they appear deeply out-of-touch with reality.

Wouldn't it have been much easier and smarter for the Israelis and the U.S. to embrace rather than fighting the obvious and to attempt to use that stance to advance negotiations rather than, as they have, take a strong stand against and indisputable reality and thus appear out of touch and on the wrong side of history while doing absolutely nothing to advance their own position or standing? Hasn't this been especially damaging for the Israelis since in so doing, they have given the Palestinians greater leverage in the equation?

For President Obama, the position with regard to Palestinian statehood also undercuts the efforts of his administration to date to move the United States away from the tired old formulations of the past that have clearly not worked. From his Cairo speech onward there was a sense he could find a different approach, reposition the United States in a way that was both still supportive of Israel and that recognized both the shifts on the ground in the Middle East and America's evolving interests in the region. But that sense is now gone or unrecognizably muddled by this stance on this fake issue.

Once again, the transformational Obama has been sold out by the political Obama. The fact that the President is unlikely to receive credit for his stance with Jewish voters might be seen as a bitter irony associated with the calculated shift. But it's not. It's a recognition that Jewish voters ... like healthcare reform advocates and those hoping for a break from Washington business as usual and those seeking true financial services reform and those seeking economic policies that can produce growth for all segments of American society ... are not suckers. They recognize when they are being played and pandered to and they distrust leaders whose most dependable trait is their willingness to shift their positions to suit their momentary political needs.

Enough is enough. After remaining divided on this issue for too long, it is time to take a stand regardless of the political consequences.

It is time to join with those who have already had the courage to weather the inevitable criticism from a biased, bought, and paid for press corps that is part of the greater problem we face.

It is time to end the double standard that for far too long has guided and distorted America's policies in the Middle East.

You all know the story: For decades, special interest-driven ties have enabled a small lobby in Washington to embrace policies that have cost America dearly and today, increasingly put our national security and national prestige at risk. We have for too long supported Middle Eastern political leaders who themselves represent comparatively small populations with dubious historical claims on the land they control and extreme religious agendas. These so-called allies have not only implemented unfair policies that have earned criticism around the world, they have actually implemented apartheid-like segregation of the people they govern. Minority interlopers have unjustly appropriated power, held it by force, and often brutally oppressed majorities that deserve better.

While this is our policy for a subset of the Middle East, for others in the region we are much less accommodating. We are constantly haranguing them, criticizing, demanding that they achieve an ever-higher standard of behavior … even though their historical claims on the region are every bit as great as those we coddle, even though in many ways they have served America more reliably than those we prop up with our military aid, even though they are in many ways the source of the region's vitality and have the clearest vision as to how it might break out of the economic and political crises that torment it.

The cost of this double standard is painfully apparent today. Just look at the headlines. In Syria, all America can do is make earnest but impotent shows of solidarity with opposition leaders and search for new adjectives to add to our denunciations of the illegitimate Assad regime. But because of our double standard, because of the fact that we dare not call out the Arab nations we have supported for so long at such a high cost, because we can't count on them as our allies to do the right thing and add pressure on Assad to go, we are forced to treat this grave humanitarian crisis as though it were happening on the moon, far from any real ability of us to influence it.

Yes, the Syria crisis does, as is often noted, illustrate the greatest of the many follies associated with the frustrating saga of Western intervention in Libya. That is, of course, that by intervening in Libya ineffectively, we have now made it impossible for anyone to believe we will intervene anywhere else, even when, as in Syria's case, more credible threats of punishing Assad would have been helpful arrows to have in our quiver.

Read on

A Pew Poll released this week shows that more than half of all Egyptians would like to see the peace treaty with Israel annulled. Almost two-thirds indicated that they thought that the country's laws should be based on the Koran and about half felt it was "very important" that religious parties be part of the next government. It is further evidence that Egypt's push for democracy has been fueled as much by its decades-long conservative shift as it has been by its decades long exploitation by the Mubarak regime. It is a reminder that small-"l" political liberalism does not always beget the big-"L" Liberalism that many in the west had been hoping for.

It is also a reminder that for all the constant attention that the wave of unrest has attracted in the Middle East, we know as little or less today about what will happen next in Egypt or in Libya or in Tunisia or Yemen or in Syria or anywhere else in the region as we did when all this started in January. That's almost true anyway. We know two things. One: This is a watershed in the history of the region. And two: while we can't say who is likely to prevail, we can say with a fairly high degree of certainty that the governments in each of the affected countries in the region will be considerably weaker going forward.

Governments that change will -- whether they embrace democracy or successor autocracies -- be weaker than the strongmen they succeeded. Governments that hang on will be battered and weakened and made permanently uneasy by the unrest.

This will make it harder to get things done in the region, to hammer out deals with the West except those that involve essentially one-way hand-outs. But tough as it may be for Western diplomats, it is going to be much tougher for the Israelis.

Read on

While it is too early to assess the long-term outcomes of the uprising in Egypt, there are nonetheless a number of important conclusions to which we can reasonably come.

First, something profound has changed. It did not change because of the uprising in Tahrir Square. It changed and the uprising was the result; the power has shifted in the region. We have passed a generational and technological tipping point. While the dinosaurs cling to the levers of power in virtually every country in the greater Middle East, the under 30 majority is now the great force to be reckoned with. While the establishment has done almost everything conceivable to keep them down from denying them education to curtailing the spread of information technologies to gutting the economies, nonetheless, new information sources and technologies and ways of connecting and collaborating seeped in to these societies through every one of the cracks spreading across the Ozymandian edifices of the elite.

These changes are irreversible. They are seen in the cell phones that even the poorest carry with them, in the broadcasts of Al Jazeera, in the burgeoning Twitter feeds, the apps young Arabs create to provide work-arounds every time a government tries to curtail Internet access, and even in the technological use of some of the region's worst players.

These changes have remade the social and political fabric of the region. What they have yet to do is what they have done everywhere else in the world and that is to fuel economic change.

That is the second inescapable conclusion we need to consider. The great challenges before this under-30 majority are economic, they are about opportunity. They are not about Israel or battles between Shiites and Sunnis or tribal divisions. Those problems still fester, but the unifying challenge for this generation is even more basic: They need jobs. They crave opportunity. And the failure of their leaders to provide them with these basic sources of sustenance and dignity is what has fueled the revolutions of 2011.

A corollary to this conclusion is that we in the United States have been sending the wrong people with the wrong approaches to solve the wrong problems in this region for decades. The problems of this region will not be solved by negotiators or generals. They require investors and entrepreneurs and educators. To the extent that we can contribute, we must do so by supporting the creation of economic opportunity. It is a massive undertaking but it is the only true peacemaker.

A third conclusion is related to the second, however. The role for the U.S. government in all this is very, very limited. We would do well to redirect what aid we provide to address this core challenge of creating jobs for the under-30s. We would do well to put our best economic minds in charge, perhaps even appointing a special economic envoy of real stature. But the only people who can ultimately solve this problem are in the Middle East. In fact, in the hierarchy of those who can help, if the people of the Middle East are first and by far foremost, it is the people of Europe, not the United States who must be second. They are the natural economic neighbors of the region and they must answer the question whether they want those under-30s employed in the Middle East or seeking employment in Europe. After the Europeans, it may even be the Chinese or Indians and others dependent on oil in the region and closer to its problems who should take more prominent roles in helping to solve the problem than the United States, which is a lightening rod and has problems of our own at home.

A fourth conclusion is that the hardest part is clearly still ahead of us. Egypt must make the transition to democracy and that means the military must really step aside after six months. Friends of mine who have met with them believe they understand the implications of the political earthquake that has taken place during the past month and that they will do so. But there are dinosaurs among their leaders so it is by no means a sure thing. Even beyond establishing a democracy is actually keeping one, and beyond that is addressing successfully the economic challenges alluded to above. Further, there are the problems of all the other countries of the region. They will be difficult to handle but we in the United States need to be confident enough in our core beliefs to let them work them out among themselves. There will be fights and setbacks and people we don't like will periodically gain the upper hand. But give me a duel between two guys armed with the Internet, Facebook, and Twitter feeds and let one offer the people the 11th Century and another offer the 21th and I know who I will bet on.

Finally, my fifth conclusion is that of all the big challenges ahead for U.S. foreign policy associated with this period of upheaval, the greatest by far lies with Israel and the Palestinians. Personally, I am not sure why the Palestinians have not yet unilaterally declared independence. The world would surely support them. But imagine what would happen if, perhaps on the road to such a declaration perhaps following it, a hundred thousand Palestinians took to the streets peacefully demanding real self-determination. With memories of Tahrir Square fresh in the minds of the world, how could the Israelis respond as they might have in the past? On what side of history would they appear to be as President Obama might put it? And in that vein, on what side of that history would President Obama and the United States want to be?

Until now, the fact that Israel was the region's only democracy was its "get out of jail free" card. It was used to excuse ... or attempt to excuse ... a multitude of sins. For this reason, no Arab military offensive could be as effective in undermining Israel's strategic advantages as real democracy taking root elsewhere in the region. The Netanyahu administration would be flummoxed if people power came to the West Bank and Gaza. They would be cast involuntarily with the dinosaurs. They would have no pages in their playbook indicating how to handle this. They would have very few good choices.

Actually, they would have only one. They would have to get out of the way. They would have to do what Mubarak did. They would have to step within the 1967 borders and let the Palestinians begin the job of building Palestine. And they would have to hope that the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world helped the Palestinians do it because once that happens, it will be of the utmost importance for Israel that its new neighbor produce real opportunity for its people ... because we have seen the alternative and it, for this generation who have both nothing and nothing to lose will not be contained by the tactics or the rhetoric of the past.

While the political earthquake rumbling through the Middle East began in Tunisia, when the people took to the streets in Egypt, unrest became a trend rather than an isolated event. In addition, Egypt's unique role among states in the region -- historically and due to the size of its population -- amplified the importance of the demonstrations that have filled the streets of Cairo, Alexandria, and the rest of the country for this past week.

Even before President Mubarak's decision to end his 30-year rule, Egypt's crisis had earned the undivided attention of leaders across the Middle East. King Abdullah of Jordan's sacking of his cabinet and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh's announcement that he too was not going to seek to extend his three-decade-long tenure in office indicated that both men recognized the fuse that was lit in North Africa was connected to stacks of dynamite on which they were sitting.

But it could well be that the forces unleashed by these unlikely people-power revolutions are just starting to be felt. Countries and leaders around the world are wondering aloud what this means for them. Some more than others. Here are the 10 people (outside Egypt and Tunisia) most unsettled by the past week's developments.

10. Xi Jinping
China's vice president and the anointed successor to China's president, Hu Jintao, is a princeling, a son of the country's revolutionary leadership who has worked himself up through Fujian, Zheijang, and Shanghai provinces to be on the verge of taking over a rising superpower. Looking to Egypt he must wonder, however, whether that will be a blessing or a curse. Will he lead the next chapter of China's emergence, or will he be faced by popular resistance to a political structure that is incompatible with the openness and freedoms required of a burgeoning modern economy? Street demonstrations are nothing new to China … the question is whether street demonstrations plus new communications technologies plus growing aspirations are a formula for unrest in the world's most populous nation. ...

For the rest of: The Really Bad Week: Egypt Edition

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad triumphantly tours southern Lebanon and says to cheering crowds of thousands, "The occupying Zionists today have no choice but to accept reality and go back to their countries of origin." He predicts Israel will disappear. Not too far away, families enjoy the happy diversions of the latest tourist attraction, the Magic Kingdom of sectarian warfare called, "Tourist Landmark of the Resistance" in South Lebanon. There they play on captured Israeli weapons and buy souvenir caps and T-shirts.

Earlier this week, the New York Times ran a column by Roger Cohen, in which he asserted that however odious Ahmadinejad may seem, he's really nothing to worry about. Why? Because Cohen doesn't think he is, that's why. Surely, one must conclude, he would dismiss these Lebanon antics -- rabble-rousing at one of the world's most dangerous frontiers -- as more showboating from his favorite "all hat and no cattle" "paper tiger." Pshaw. Silly frivolous Hezbollah-sponsoring Mahmoud.

And then, in the midst of this, comes a rather different New York Times op-ed, this one from Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, who offers a calm, well-reasoned, and compelling argument as to why the Palestinians should recognize Israel's identity as a Jewish state. But for all Oren's heartfelt and coolly-argued reason, even coupled with his exceptionally well-turned phrases, nothing he writes makes his case as persuasively as the combination of the provocations of the president of Israel's most dangerous enemy and the efforts by glib U.S. elites to shrug him off.

As unproductive as the Israeli stance on settlements has been the Palestinian stance on the nature of the Israeli state, and its ability to continue operations as conceived and sanctioned by the United Nations nearly six and a half decades into its modern existence is just as unconstructive and indefensible. The core concept of the existence of two states, central to any real and lasting solution of the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma, requires acceptance of the sovereignty and self-determination of those states. Neither side can expect a hand in the shaping of the societies within their neighbor's borders.

Indeed, the concept of accepting Israel involves accepting its Jewishness or, as Oren points out, it invites the demographic negation of virtually everything associated with Israel's own concept of itself thanks to Israel's commitment to democracy. To fail to acknowledge this would be the same as accepting the idea of a Palestinian state, but then imposing upon it borders that made its economic self-sufficiency impossible.

Peace requires moving past such destructive argumentative approaches. Clearly, we are not near to that point. Which is why Mr. Ahmadinejad is hardly "all hat and no cattle." His grandstanding and inflaming crowds on Israel's borders with the language of obliteration is not just rhetoric. It is part of a systematic and thus far effective effort to exacerbate dangers and, not secondarily, to prolong the misery of the Palestinian people whose right to a free, independent state created in their own image is, of course, every bit as great as that of the Israelis.

With the expiration of the settlement freeze in Israel, the Netanyahu administration faces one of the greatest challenges of its tenure in office. That it is a challenge that comes primarily from within Israel reflects the fact that -- as has been the case for some time now -- the most acute struggles associated with achieving a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinian people are the internal battles within each group.  

Indeed, the Israeli-Palestinian stand-off is one of those instances in which the outcome is much better known than the path which will get us there. Sooner or later -- hopefully sooner -- there will be an independent Palestinian state. We even more or less know its borders and what must be done to secure them. 

For the Palestinians, the question will be can the current government negotiate effectively on behalf of all the Palestinian people? Will the more militant elements of Hamas support the outcomes negotiated on their behalf or will any agreement or near approach to any agreement produce greater division at just the moment where greater unity would provide the Palestinian people with the state and the security and the dignity to which they have long been entitled?

On the Israeli side, there are several ways to look at the settlements question. On the one hand, there is the formal debate around it that pits Zionist zealots who seek to expand or more deeply entrench the Israeli state in disputed lands versus the very substantial portions of the Israeli populace who see the settlements as an unnecessary impediment to a peace process they would like to see progress.

Another way to view it is through the eyes of negotiators for whom succumbing to the pressure from the settlement advocates creates a new set of negotiating chips and a political screen behind which to maneuver. 

Read on

Today, President Sarah Palin convened a meeting of Middle East leaders to resume the search for a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine. "It has been President Palin's knowledge of the players, the issues and her exceptional diplomatic skill that has made this event possible," said Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. 

There is a reason you will never see the preceding paragraph written in a news report. Hint: It has nothing to do with Palin's commitment to seeking peace.

It is precisely because it is unimaginable that Sarah Palin could play the role of honest broker on the international stage on an issue such as Middle East peace that she will never be president. For better or for worse, being president of the United States requires individuals who can assume such a role. Indeed, the success or failure of many American presidents has turned on whether or not they have risen to the challenges of international statesmanship. The American people recognize this fact and with very few exceptions look for character traits in winning candidates that translate into presidents who can hold their own with top leaders on vital issues (although sadly, international experience is not one of them).

This week, with the renewal of direct talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, President Obama's test in this defining crucible will begin. There have been hints of his aptitude for such challenges before -- in the late night session at the global climate talks in Copenhagen, for example, during which he showed skill and drive. But there have also been warning signs, such as his comparatively weak showing when confronted with tough Chinese leaders in Beijing. Nothing he has yet done, however, will be as important as his role in these upcoming talks in revealing to observers around the globe whether he is the real thing or a pretender when it comes to being in the first ranks of world leaders for any reason other than the title he holds.

While the odds are against a breakthrough in these talks, any hope of progress is likely to be directly linked to whether President Obama becomes directly engaged, places his political capital on the line, and is willing to work the issues and the other leaders participating in the talks.

Read on

Today is yet another primary day in America. Some of the biggest decisions the country faces will be left to the tiny handful of voters who show up to vote. And once again the results will remind us of one of the enduring truths of democracy: The majority is often wrong.

This fact is as true today on global issues as it is on domestic ones. Blame it on ignorance. Blame it on the distorting lens of the media. Blame it on the spinmeisters and snake oil salesmen. But the reality is that more often than we care to admit, the people are dopes.

I know this will outrage some. But they are among the dopes. And as usual, a careful analysis of the facts undercuts their position. (But facts are to these people as my advice is to my cats -- just ambient noise that they ignore on their way to a sunny spot on which they can curl up and sleep. Which is why, as Soren Kierkegaard put it, the "public is everything and nothing...the most dangerous of all powers and the most insignificant.")

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that contrary to the populist liturgy the world would be an even bigger mess than it is if public opinion guided every major decision. And that's saying something.

For example, in July 1941, polls indicated only 17 percent of Americans supported the idea of intervening in the war in Europe. Or consider that 68 percent of Americans believe that "angels and demons are active in the world." (If you are one of them, please stop reading this.  We could get to some big words later and the rest of this is just going to make your head hurt.)  Or that George W. Bush was elected not once but twice to be president of the United States.

Now, we shouldn't be surprised. The reality is that the majority of the people haven't the slightest idea as to what they are taking about most of the time. In a 2007 poll it was found that more than two-thirds of Americans couldn't name the president of Russia and eight out of ten couldn't name the Secretary of Defense (while almost two thirds could identify Beyonce Knowles). In 2006 only just over a third of Americans between 18 and 24 could find Iraq on a map and fewer than three in 10 thought it was important to know the location of countries in the news.   

Everybody is entitled to their opinion. But not everyone deserves to have their opinion garner the same amount of respect. If you don't know anything about a subject, why should your viewpoint matter? It's why the founders of the republic opted for representative democracy -- the people should have a voice ... which would allow them to pick professionals who would study the issues to make their decisions for them. It's a better idea than the alternatives but you have to admit, even it hasn't worked out so well if our elected officials are the metric we're going to use to judge.

There are plenty of issues in the news right now where it is absolutely clear the public and the truth are on different sides of the argument. Take just these five:

• U.S. Immigration Law
  America was built by immigrants. Vast swaths of the economy depend on labor by illegal immigrants. The influx of (often young) legal and illegal aliens to the United States actually has helped make us the only major developed economy that is not suffering the burdens of a population whose average age is dramatically rising. And there are plenty of ways to deal with real problems associated with illegal immigrants that do not actually involve the constitutionally dubious practice of letting police stop people based on the (entirely racially motivated) "suspicion" they are immigrants. Yet, 60 percent of all Americans currently favor letting police stop and verify immigration status and a majority of Americans who have heard of the Arizona immigration law support it. Two thirds of all American believe U.S. military should be deployed to the border to prevent illegal immigration. Better there, I suppose, than Afghanistan but two exercises in futility do not make a right.

• Off-shore Drilling
  Something like a third of U.S. energy comes from offshore drilling. Something like 80 percent of that comes from deep water drilling. Much of the most important new sources of off-shore oil are in deep water. A moratorium on new off-shore and deep off-shore will cost billions (almost three billion next year if the current hold on activities is kept in place.) What's more much of that money goes to regimes that don't much like America increasing our dependence on a bunch of bad guys. Further, despite this year's catastrophe, off-shore drilling has a great track record (and would have a better one if we had better regulatory enforcement...as opposed to a shutdown.)  Still 51 percent of Americans now feel off-shore drilling is too risky (a big swing from two years ago when 70 percent supported it).

• Anything That Has to do with Israel
  A majority of Americans believe Israel should allow an international investigation of the flotilla fiasco. Well, that seems reasonable...unless you take into consideration that a 2007 BBC poll of 27 countries showed 56 percent of respondents believing Israel was a negative influence.  Or that within that poll, Israel was regarded unfavorably in 23 countries, worse than Iran which was seen as unfavorable in 21 and North Korea which is seen as unfavorable in 20. Think Israel-the only democratic, successfully non-resource-based economy in the region -- could get a fair hearing on this planet? (Viz. the Goldstone report, a deeply flawed and biased analysis from a guy with a very dubious background.) Seems unlikely...but a change of venue is beyond our technological capabilities at the moment. (I noted The Economist critiqued Israel's "siege mentality" in the current issue. But I think the critique overlooks the fact that Israel is actually under siege and has been since its founding. Doesn't that excuse something?)

• Global Warming
  While the vast majority of the world's scientists believe that man made global warming is a major and imminent threat and despite the data they cite on rising global temperatures, accelerating polar ice and glacial melting and changing weather patterns...and while 73 percent of people surveyed worldwide want their governments to prioritize climate change, only a minority (44 percent) of Americans felt this way. Further, percentages of those who believe global warming has begun are dwindling and the number who see it as a serious problem has slipped to 35 percent from 44 percent. Almost half of all Americans, 48 percent, believe that the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated.

• Women's Rights
  According to a Pew poll, the majority of those polled in Mali (65 percent), the Palestinian Territories (64 percent), Kuwait (62 percent), Pakistan (54 percent) and Ethiopia (51 percent) said that men make better political leaders than women. Which is something considering the history each of these countries has had under male leadership. Further in Jordan, Nigeria and Russia almost equal numbers says men are better leaders as who say men and women make equally good leaders. A different perspective: almost 8 out of 10 American women say that we still don't have equal pay for equal work while only just over half of men feel that way. (The facts say we don't.)

The list goes on and on, a poll this month showed that only 37 percent of Americans favor more government regulation of the financial system despite all obvious evidence to the contrary. And a poll last month showed that 53 percent of Americans believe same sex marriages should not be recognized.

Why raise this? Because people too often confuse majority opinions with what is right and too often suggest that it is the responsibilities of leaders to heed the majority. It clearly is not. In fact, often what has distinguished great leaders is their ability to actually lead people away from the problems to which they, left to their own devices, might have been heading. 

Finally, is this an argument for elites? Heck, no. (Unless you mean should people with the education and experience to make decisions actually be listened to more carefully than say, I don't know, radio talk show hosts or movie directors who don't know the slightest thing about geology?) Elites get it wrong as often as the majorities do. For years they thought Pluto was a planet.  Few predicted the fall of the USSR. Few predicted the market collapse of a couple years ago. Heck financial markets assume that half the elite will be on the opposite side of any deal from the other half. No, this is just an argument for giving the facts and the experts a bit of a listen when it comes to really important decisions because believe what you may about angels, it is generally not a good idea to make plans based on their intervention.

In yesterday's post, I noted some of the most relevant developments in the political world that've occurred recently. But we're hardly out of the neck of the woods. The summer of 2010 promises to be an ... interesting time.

As promised, here's an idea of the potential Black Swans to come:

1. Wars of Summer, Part I: The Koreas

As we've seen just in the past couple of days, "engagement" doesn't seem to be doing the trick with North Korea. When you have two countries that have been pointing guns at each other for half a century and one of them is run by the kind of guy who makes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad look like Albert Schweitzer trouble is always just a Dear Leader moodswing away. When one of those countries starts firing torpedoes at the other, that raises the temperature a bit ... and when that same country has a diplomatic tantrum because its neighbor actually doesn't like having its ships sunk, you get a sense of how off-balance and dangerous the whole thing is. (You also get dictionary editors everywhere rushing to insert North Korea's reaction into the official definition of chutzpah right where "burying your husband in a rented suit" used to be.) While most people assume this is just one of those periodic Korean peninsula hiccups, you never know.

2. Wars of Summer, Part II: Somalia, Yemen, etc.

These places are just two examples of plenty where conditions are chronically horrible and getting worse. If you're going to worry about the Koreas where the stakes are high and both sides would pay an unimaginable price for a conflict, don't rule out conflicts in places where everyone has a gun and life is cheap.

3. Wars of Summer, Part III: Israel, Syria, Lebanon

Speaking of places not to rule out, over the years few places have proven themselves more reliable breeding grounds for warfare than the borders of the state of Israel. And tensions are rising along the most northern of these as we speak. The Israelis are worried about growing stockpiles of missiles being deployed in Lebanon, new missile capabilities in Syria and Iranian mischief in both places. Of all the possibilities for tensions turning to a shooting war this summer, this one may top the list. And, what a great distraction it would make from Iran's nuclear issues (or what great cover for an Israeli strike against the Iranians who are paying for the missiles and underwriting Hezbollah trouble-makers in Lebanon and elsewhere).  

4. The Other "Big Spill"

While Washington works itself up into a lather over the spill in the Gulf, it effectively ignores a much bigger catastrophe. A recent NPR report indicated that the amount of man made pollutants that have flowed into the Gulf during the current crisis flow into the air every 2 minutes or so. That's 30 crises like this an hour. 360 a day. Over 1,000 a month. That means this summer there will be 3000 crises like this offshore drilling calamity ... and throughout this period the likelihood that the U.S. government or the world move any closer to addressing this much larger, much less photogenic disaster is pretty close to zero.

5. The Financial Crisis They Call "The Big One"

Remember the financial crisis that took down Bear Sterns? Now we look at that as only prelude. Remember the one that took down Lehman, Merrill and AIG? Perhaps we'll look at that as just the appetizer. Because with the world economy now trembling at the thought of further deterioration in the Eurozone, it wouldn't take much to send us into territory that was unimaginable even two years ago. Likely? No. But possible? Well, let's see, Japan has a debt to GDP ratio that is worse than most of Europe's. What if the markets sour on lending them any more money? What if that takes down some of their banks and they start calling in IOUs and cut lending in places like China? Tim Geithner said this week that overall China's economy is not a bubble. Maybe so. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have some pretty big bubbles in it (see: real estate). 

6. The Dem Rebound

The big political story in the United States is supposed to be the losses Dems will suffer in mid-term elections in November. Big time members of the punditocracy are calling for a big swing to the right, a likely Republican take-over in the House and even the possibility of one in the Senate. But by the end of the summer, once campaigns have started in earnest, the loony, fringy, dysfunctionality of the "just say no" party will be revealed and the big surprise U.S. political story of the year will start to take shape. The Dems may have modest losses in November, but it won't be anything like the washout the chattering classes expect.

7. Argentina's Surprise Victory

Despite Lionel Messi's dominance on the soccer field, Argentina won't win the World Cup this year. That'll be Spain. But maybe as the summer ticks on a few more people will start to realize that having done everything wrong and utterly alienated the financial system by telling the big banks to take a hike a few years ago, Argentina is actually having something like a recovery worthy of a tango. Oh, all is not rosy to be sure, but take a look at its per capita GDP in purchasing power parity terms. It just passed Chile to be number one in Latin America (according to Latin Business Chronicle). Between this and the U.S. dollar strengthening despite the fact that the U.S. has also done practically everything wrong (and China's flourishing for years despite its penchant for, how shall we put it, well, communism) who knows... this could be the summer that moral hazard makes its long awaited big comeback.

8. Someone Writes the Truth About Financial Reform

This is the least likely black swan on this list. But it is possible that once financial reform passes later this summer and is signed into law that someone will note that "the most sweeping financial reforms since the Great Depression" actually don't amount to much when it comes to fixing the problems we face. Mortgage defaults, unregulated global derivatives markets, unintended consequences of interconnectivity of markets, lack of global regulatory mechanisms, failure to address the trading culture's perversion of finance, etc... this is like the health care bill and Beatlemania: not the real thing, just an incredible simulation.

9. The White House Gets Humble

Ok, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is the most improbable of the Black Swans. But the folks in the White House are good people at heart and smart ones. Sooner or later they will realize that their mixed, incomplete record in office trumps the historic nature of their victory and that a little humility is in order ... if not because they feel that way then because by alienating even their most enthusiastic supporters they are doing themselves great political damage. As for the American people, they would do better with more realistic expectations. We all want Washington, Lincoln or Roosevelt whenever we elect a president. But the vast majority of the time we get Chester A. Arthur. Bush was Chester A. Arthur. Clinton was Chester A. Arthur. And in all likelihood Obama will end up being Chester A. Arthur.

10. Iran Cooperates

Ok, never mind. This one is most likely. But the dangerous twist here is that cooperation from Iran is actually just them buying time to move toward their goal of possessing nuclear weapons technology. The only thing that will stop them from such a stalling course is if they are much further ahead of schedule than we think and that the big black swan of this summer will be the announcement that the world's largest state sponsor of terror will actually have gone nuclear.

What would the world do without Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? While it may be pleasing to contemplate, the reality is that Iran's leader has become the one nut job that many of the world's other leaders can't do without.

Consider for a moment the following cases:

• Benjamin Netanyahu's apparent vision of himself turns on his role as protector of Israel in the face of the existential threat posed by the Iranians. And while the Iranians have long been seen as posing such a threat, with a front man like Ahmadinejad who denies the Holocaust, defies international law when it comes to nuclear weapons development and regularly calls for the destruction of Israel, it makes Bibi's job that much easier.
• The Iranian religious elite, paradoxically, also must thank goodness for their country's president on a regular basis because he often makes them look thoughtful and reflective by comparison. The reality of course, is that many of them live further down toward the end of Insanity Lane than Ahmadinejad, but he is an ideal front man, a limit-tester who can take matters to the brink and then be dialed back when it suits the real regime, the clerical inner circle.
• The Iranian opposition, of course, is delighted to have a thug like Ahmadinejad in power -- at least for the moment. Because he is the kind of callous, brutal, crude politician that does more to stir up his enemies than he does to effectively unite his allies. He is a big part of the reason that thoughtful observers like the CFR's Richard Haass believe that regime change is actually a plausible alternative in Iran. (Although it is unclear who we would get after Ahmadinejad or whether they would actually change some of the policies that make the West most uncomfortable.)
• The Saudi leadership and others from throughout the Arab world have been worried about Iranian hegemony (or Iran's hegemonic aspirations) for years. But thanks to the little guy in the tan windbreaker, they are now increasingly gaining the support of the rest of the world in their efforts to isolate and contain the country. He is also giving those that seek it, a good excuse to cultivate their own nuclear weapons program.
• Hugo Chavez loves his BFF in Tehran because mere association with him makes Hugo seem larger and more dangerous than he really is. Talk of a "mysterious" daily flight from Caracas to Tehran is all the rage among the anti-Chavistas carrying with it the most sinister sort of implications. Will Venezuela go nuclear if Iran does? Is Venezuela a partner in a new kind of axis of crackpots that will work to be destabilizing in a variety of situations worldwide? By making people ask these questions, the five foot two Ahmadinejad is like a pair of elevator shoes for the five foot eight Chavez.
• The government of Brazil has also embraced Iran as a way of sending the message to the world that it is charting its own course, that it is not in the thrall of U.S. or Western views. It sends a message of solidarity with the new non-aligned without really having much impact except irritating the U.S. government (which is a plus in many political circles in Brazil). Lula hugs Ahmadinejad and says, we are a rising major power that will be quite different from the 20th century-variety of major powers. Is it a responsible stance? Not if it gives cover to dangerous Iranian programs or legitimizes repulsive Iranian policies... but Brazil now also gets to offer itself up as a channel to the bad guys, a useful middleman role that makes it relevant in two different worlds.
• Ahmadinejad also is helpful to the Russians and the Chinese. While both dither over sanctions, they also both remain close to Tehran in important ways -- from Russian security cooperation to Chinese dependency on Iran for 20 percent of its oil. The United States is distracted and bears a huge cost through the need to maintain militarily present in the region... and again, two rising powers get to send a mixed message that well suits their domestic and international objectives.

While this list goes on, however, there is another dimension to the festering tensions with Iran over its nuclear program that may not, as of yet, be fully understood. This relates specifically to Netanyahu's framing of Iran as an existential threat. It may be just that, but not in the way he was envisioning.

Because over the past several years, growing concerns over Iran and its nuclear program have come to trump most others in the Middle East proper. They have transcended in terms of the security threat involved those associated with either the Israeli-Palestinian issue or those associated, at least for now, with al Qaeda (thanks in part to defeats for al Qaeda like today's killing of its leader in Iraq, and thanks in part to the fact that Iran seems to be, in the words of a former colleague of mine who was a career naval officer and Jack London fan, the wolf closest to the sled). Is a potentially nuclear Iran more dangerous than an unstable Pakistan? Probably not... but that's like saying you have two forms of cancer. You want to treat both, but the one that is most threatening at the moment will dominate your attention.

The Israeli government has played up this threat for completely legitimate and understandable reasons. Getting Iran's nuclear program just a little bit wrong might be minor for the world but a really big deal for Israel. However, having thus framed the issue, the Israelis have to live with the consequences... and the consequences are not what they intended.

Because if, as seems likely, the ultimate result of the Iranian nuclear program is (after "engagement" and sanctions ultimately prove ineffective, as seems likely) that we accept the idea of a nuclear Iran and revert to a strategy of containment, paradoxically Israel may move to be less central to U.S. interests in the region, trumped by the urgent need for a strong alliance with Arab states like Saudi, the UAE, Iraq, etc. designed to contain the new Iranian threat. Further, if we create a "nuclear umbrella" for the region, it is hard to imagine treaty or diplomatic language that did not, of necessity, promise to protect those states from all nuclear threats including those posed by Israel.

We're already seeing signs that the risks of having to live with a nuclear Iran are sufficiently real that relations with anti-Iranian Arab states are becoming more and more central -- and thus are likely to give those states an ever greater voice in the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Hence all the buzz about seeking to set American terms for a peace, gain Arab support and then go to the Israelis and say, here's the deal: You want to contain Iran, you need to give this serious consideration. 

Israel felt compelled to sell the Iranian threat. But their pitch really only would work if they persuaded the world to preempt that threat. If Iran got the bomb, then the geopolitics change, U.S. interests align more closely with those of some historic enemies of Israel, and a difficult relationship becomes even more complex. (And it's not so good now. My bet is that if the Palestinians unilaterally declared independence tomorrow there would be two kinds of reaction worldwide: celebration and, perhaps in a few cases, effective silence. Another point the Israelis need to consider: in the 21st Century emerging powers that are less sympathetic to their case are playing an increasingly important role in shaping multilateral outcomes.)

Ahmadinejad may be the region's indispensable lunatic, but if things keep trending in the current direction, he may ultimately be one that the Israelis could well have done without.

The overblown non-crisis between the United States and Israel is, of course, settling down ... with both sides recognizing that the problem with rifts between vital allies is that both suffer from them. Israel screwed up ... and America almost made things worse by over-escalating. As it is, all sides are now heavily invested in showing they can move things forward at the negotiating table and, I predict, will do just that. Slowly. Frustratingly. But if I had to bet, I'd suspect we'll see more progress in this area in the next couple years than we have since the Clinton years.

If U.S. health care reform passes the Congress and is signed into law anytime soon, the bickering and hullabaloo over the process by which the bill was hammered out will be as relevant as Einstein's mother's morning sickness in light of her son's reimagining of the universe.  

Ok, perhaps that overstates it. But the inside-the-beltway food fight of the past few months will likely fade quickly from memory as Americans start to "own" the provisions of the bill. (If not, all of Washington is going to soon have to see what provisions the new law will make for people with cable news-induced post-traumatic stress disorder.)

And if it passes -- which, flawed as it is would be a landmark and long overdue revision to America's social contract -- White House health care czar Nancy DeParle's reputation would be made because she would be seen as a key player in advancing a long-elusive goal of progressives from coast to coast. Whatever missteps the White House may have made along the way, she will be among those redeemed by finally snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. (Of course, if the bill fritters out at the last minute, her career prospects will follow a different trajectory.)

This fact raises in turn another question. Just how are the rest of President Obama's Romanov dynasty full of 30-odd czars doing?

The answer is hard to tell judging from the newspapers. This is true in part because newspapers have devoted most of their coverage recently to Eric Massa's permanent tainting of the once wholesome sport of snorkeling. It's also true because there were so many darned czars created that it's hard to keep track of them all. But mostly it's true because the president's decision to appoint so many "czars" was a classic rookie mistake that has not really worked out very well for anyone.

Certainly, it did not work out well for the czars who came and went like "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones who was Glenn-Becked into oblivion or "Car Czar" Steve Rattner who is now trying to work a deal to avoid further legal headaches associated with his allegedly unsavory practices in winning business from the New York State pension fund back in his hedge fund days.

But most of the czars who were originally appointed are still in place. It's just that in most cases the only people who know it are their families or the bureaucrats they scuffle with every day. You see one of the big problems with the whole idea of "czars" is that on the day after their investiture each of them discovered that the government is full of other people who thought they had the same responsibilities.  

Just ask AfPak Czar Richard Holbrooke who has been largely overshadowed by the military's big man in the region, General Stanley McChrystal, and the State Department's other man in Kabul, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry. Some of this may be, according to reports, Holbrooke's own doing, due to rough patches in his relationships with the Afghans, the Pakistanis and some of his colleagues in Washington. (It was probably a miscalculation to try to apply strong-arm tactics with Hamid Karzai that were reminiscent of his very successful tough-guy confrontations with Slobodan Milosevic years ago. The problem being that whereas Milosevic was a bad guy who was going down, an enemy being defeated, Karzai was a bad guy who was our alleged ally, one who strongly believed we needed him more than he needed us.) Holbrooke has also, according to White House sources, not been a great favorite of Obama's. This is particularly bad in an administration in which seeking the favor of the president has taken on an importance that is in fact, much more reminiscent of the historical czars than is the role being played by anyone with this now devalued moniker.

This is a key point. Not only have the czars seen their role diluted by bureaucratic competition but they were never really given the authority their informal titles implied. This is a classic failure of government and business managers everywhere -- giving people responsibility for an issue without truly giving them the authority to manage or lead it.  

Does anyone for a moment think George Mitchell is really in charge of America's role in the Mideast Peace Process? Does anyone even really know what Mitchell is doing? In the State Department there is constant buzz that Mitchell is an inscrutable "black box"... and that people like Under Secretary Bill Burns, people in the regional bureau and, of course, Secretary Clinton can and should be playing a more central role in shaping strategy than Mitchell. Mitchell's team hasn't helped his standing with the White House much by going around taking shots at White House Middle East expert Dennis Ross in private meetings with Middle Eastern governments.  Which has led the White House ... both within the NSC and the Vice President's office to get more involved, etc. The point is ... there are lots of players and Mitchell is no more a czar than was Ingrid Berman playing Anastasia. 

Paul Volcker was a "czar" with responsibility for advising the president on financial reform. But for most of his term he has been ignored, being rolled out periodically for photo ops to show him as a validating grey head. His Volcker Rule gained traction when it was clear many other reforms were faltering.  But the reality is Volcker, like the others is more a prop than a czar.  It's not that he or they are unwilling to work or even that they don't have a huge amount to contribute. (I suspect we'd all be better off if AfPak were really quarterbacked by Holbrooke or financial reform were led by Volcker. These guys are among the very best the Dems have and the way they are being treated is like turning Albert Pujols or Kobe Bryant into reserves, playing them off the bench.)

I suspect Holbrooke at the moment has to be wondering whether he actually had more influence ... or a higher profile ... as a private citizen who deservedly was seen as a Democratic Secretary of State in waiting. Volcker, I am told, knew what to expect and took on the job because he knew it would periodically afford him influence, that sooner or later he would be needed or heeded.  

"Green Czar" Carol Browner must feel the same way. Not only have her priorities faltered but she has been overtaken in traction by other members of the "Green Cabinet" and compromised by the fumbling on the Hill. On international matters, the State Department's climate negotiator had the clear lead although his efforts have encountered stiff headwinds, on other issues Science Czar John Holdren has won more traction, on others Steven Chu's team at Energy have. And while all this would be denied by the players in question if asked about it in public, you have to ask yourself why the experienced and respected Browner, in the middle of an issue the president has set as one of his priorities, would be on everyone's short list to be among those making an early departure from the administration?

Other czars have simply faced the bandwidth problem ... their issues have not risen to prominence in the midst of an agenda set largely by an economic crisis and a desire to move on a couple key issues such as health care and managing the revolving door that is our Middle East troop deployment strategy. Or alternatively, they just haven't been able to make much progress  or have faced unforeseen setbacks. Our Auto Industry Recovery czar, Ed Montgomery, and our manufacturing czar Ron Bloom, have seen their efforts remain hostage to the sluggish economy ... and it doesn't look like our bailout of Chrysler is, in the end, going to do much good. Our Guantanamo czar has found getting out of Guantanamo is tougher than expected. Our Wall Street Pay Czar has had influence over only a few companies and while he has tried to manage that the rest of the financial community has been thumbing their noses at any idea of bonus restraint. Dennis Ross who was designated as the "Central Region" (Iran) Czar has worked hard -- and he like Holbrooke is one of the very, very best out there -- but ultimately U.S. policy will cede nuclear weapons status to Iran and our earnest but likely-to-be ineffective sanctions efforts will be seen as futile.  

And so on. Admittedly our "Great Lakes Czar" can report that Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior are all roughly where we were when Obama came into office and Joshua DuBois our Faith-based Czar certainly has not seen a major fall in America's collective need or hope for some higher power to make sense of things. Because, as is almost always, the higher powers we create -- even when they are given grandiose titles like czars -- almost always disappoint for one reason or another. Hopefully, soon Obama will recognize this and make a long over-due return to the kind of simpler org chart that is almost always more effective.

So, here we are at last, the big ones, my choices for winners and losers of the decade on the global stage.

While these selections are slightly less subjective than, say, the Golden Globe nominations (which are, I believe, selected by three drunken expat Latvian critics in a bar in West Hollywood), they do represent just the views of one man. If you agree with those views, please post your congratulations below ... or go ahead and add a few other names. If you disagree, just remember, there will be other lists -- only I decide whether to include you among the global losers of tomorrow (alongside, say, the Tiger Woods of 10 years from now when he is running Tiger's "Just Do It" Mini-Golf Course in Melanoma City, Florida) or the global winners of the future (alongside, say, President Timberlake in 2030 or so).

The Losers

The People of Iraq: George W. Bush was our Washington loser of the decade, but all he lost was his reputation such as it was. He's still rich and will probably never pay for a round of golf again. But somewhere between 100,000 and 800,000 Iraqis are dead as a consequence of the war, the country is shattered, its government held together with chewing gum and bailing wire and the random killing continues. Oh, and there was absolutely no justification for going in and breaking up the place from the get-go. This isn't a tragedy ... it's a crime, as I suspect international courts will conclude in the years to come.

The People of Afghanistan and Pakistan: These countries are no playgrounds, they are home to plenty of bad actors and, as Barack Obama has demonstrated, no U.S. president, regardless of party, could stay disengaged from the festering political sore on the planet that is AfPak. But while the pursuit of al Qaeda and the Taliban is justified, the wars that continue to percolate here will kill countless thousands, impoverish hundreds of thousands more and at the same time, support for terrorists and other enemies of civilization will grow. That there are no good choices here is a cliché ... that there are going to be no winners is a related tragic reality.

The British Government (Lifetime Achievement Award): Well, let's book at the worst problems the world has faced during the past decade -- Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel-Palestine...what do these diverse countries have in common? They were all cooked up or stirred up by those fertile minds at the British Foreign Office and their colleagues elsewhere up and down Whitehall, either as they were dismantling their empire or fiddling with the region after one war or another. Thanks guys for your creativity...and for the foresight you showed by actually bequeathing your handwork to yet another remnant of your empire as you shuffled off the world stage so you could focus on counterbalancing your past contributions to global culture by producing Simon Cowell and the likes of Susan Boyle.

The U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Dollar, and American Capitalism: It was a tough decade for the pillars of U.S. society. We should have seen it coming when the decade began with the Supreme Court fiddling with an election and when a central theme of the Bush years became undercutting the Constitution. Thanks to the U.S. government's similar callous disregard for the laws of economics and fiscal responsibility the dollar began a downward spiral that many experts see as a semi-permanent feature of our future.

Democracy: Oh, yes, we know that Churchill called it the "worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried"... but as my grandma would have said, "there's democracy and then there's democracy." In other words, some forms of democracy are worse than others, and among those that that have flourished during the past decade are Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Zimbabwe, and, yes folks, Honduras -- where leaders took advantage of the common misperception that voting equals democracy.  

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