Immanuel Wallerstein • 2007 | Center for a World in Balance

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Immanuel Wallerstein - 2007

Immanuel Wallerstein is a sociologist, historical social scientist, and world-systems analyst.

Wallerstein began as an expert of post-colonial African affairs, which he selected as the focus of his studies after an international youth conference in 1951, and which his publications were almost exclusively devoted to until the early 1970s, when he began to distinguish himself as a historian and theorist of the global capitalist economy on a macroscopic level. His most important work, The Modern World-System, appeared in three volumes in 1974, 1980, and 1989.

Wallerstein rejects the notion of a Third World, claiming there is only one world connected by a complex network of economic exchange relationships — i.e., a world-economy or world-system, in which the dichotomy of capital and labor, and the endless accumulation of capital by competing agents (historically including, but not limited to, nation-states) account for frictions. This approach is known as the World Systems Theory.

What New Strategy in Iraq? (1 January 2007)

President George W. Bush has been proclaiming for a month now that he is in search of a "new strategy" for "victory" in Iraq, and that he is consulting far and wide about what this strategy will be. Given all the hints and leaks, there are few people waiting breathlessly for the presidential speech in which he will reveal his decisions. The new strategy promises to be the old strategy, with perhaps an additional small number of U.S. troops in Baghdad.

The president did admit for the very first time that the United States is not winning in Iraq yet, but it is not losing either, says he. The number of people, in the United States and elsewhere, who are convinced of this grows ever fewer. A poll taken in early December in six Western nations shows that 66% of Americans are in favor of withdrawal of coalition forces, and in Italy, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, and France, the figures ran from 73 to 90 percent. As the Financial Times said in an editorial, "The United States has rarely been in greater need of friends and allies."

And on December 7, anniversary of Pearl Harbor, a Republican senator, Gordon Smith, who had supported the war from the beginning, announced he had changed position. "I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that any more."

So, why is Bush making a big show about a new strategy when he clearly intends to continue the old one? Two reasons: the November elections, and the Baker-Hamilton report. The elections showed Bush that the Iraq policy has caused serious inroads on the Republican party's electoral strength. It will clearly take more than firing Donald Rumsfeld to reverse the impending free fall for Republican candidates, particularly if 2007 brings increased casualty rates in Iraq, increased ethnic cleansing, a further decline in the dollar, and a further decline in the living standards of the bottom 80% of the U.S. population.

As for the Baker-Hamilton report, its opening sentence is "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating." Much of the discussion of this report has been about whether the Iraq Study Group could convince Bush to follow its numerous and not all that daring suggestions for change. But this was never its purpose. Neither Baker nor Hamilton is a fool. Both are old pros in U.S. politics. The purpose of the report was to legitimate criticism from the traditional Establishment center of U.S. political life, and it has clearly unleashed that. Witness Senator Smith's statement. Witness the increased boldness of military officers in making their deep skepticism public.

So what will happen now? Bush will push through the plan for more U.S. troops. As every serious commentator has pointed out, this will make no military difference. Of course, if the United States sent in 300,000 troops, it might quash both the insurgency and the civil war. But sending in even 30,000 troops will be an incredible strain on the viability and morale of the U.S. military. By June 2007, at the latest, it will be clear to even the most stubbornly blind, like George W. Bush and the surviving neo-cons, that the United States is in a dead end and bleeding badly.

Why doesn't Bush then cut his losses? He can't. His entire presidency revolves around the Iraq war. If he tries to cut his losses, he admits that he is responsible for a national disaster. So he has no choice but to try to bluff his way into 2009 and turn over the disaster to someone else. That is, he has no choice acceptable to him. But Bush is going to learn something in the next eighteen months. The situation is out of control and even the president of the United States can be forced to do things he finds abhorrent.

First of all, there is the pressure of the U.S. electorate, and therefore of the politicians. The number of rational Republicans and timid Democrats who are willing to move away from the war is growing daily. We already see this in the statement of Senator Joseph Biden - one of the Democrat's more conservative senators, and incoming chair of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee - that he will hold hearings (clearly hostile hearings) on the proposal of a troop surge in Iraq. My guess is that, in the heated Democratic in-fighting over the presidential nomination, there will be a thrust - slow at first and then very speedy - to an openly antiwar position. We see this in the positions being taken by presidential aspirants Barack Obama and John Edwards. Hillary Clinton will not be too far behind for long. And as that happens, either the Republican hopefuls match this or doom themselves to losing the election.

Then there are the generals. It seems that the new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, was given the job of bringing the dissenting military into line. General John Abizaid is 'retiring' in a few months and General George Casey has blunted his open opposition. Gates has probably put pressure on himself to go along as well. But how long will this last? Six months at the outside.

Life is difficult for a commander-in-chief who loses wars. That is true anywhere and everywhere. It will not be different in the United States of America.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by Agence Global. For rights and permissions, including translations and posting to non-commercial sites, and contact: rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.336.286.6606. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically, or e-mail to others, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To contact author, write: immanuel.wallerstein@yale.edu.

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Ethiopia Rides The Tiger (15 January 2007)

The Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, must have been studying the magnificent successes of the U.S. preemptive invasion of Iraq and Israel's recent foray into Lebanon. He has clearly decided to emulate them. His argument is exactly that which was given by George W. Bush and Ehud Olmert. We must attack our neighbor because we have to keep Islamic terrorists from pursuing their jihad and attacking us.

In each case, the invader was sure of his military superiority and of the fact that the majority of the population would hail the attackers as liberators. Zenawi asserts he is cooperating in the U.S. worldwide struggle against terrorism. And indeed, the United States has offered not only its intelligence support but has sent in both its air force and units of special troops to assist the Ethiopians.

Still, each local situation is a bit different. And it is worth reviewing the recent history of what is called the Horn of Africa, in which countries have switched geopolitical sides with some ease in the last forty years.

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Ethiopia was a symbol of African resistance to European imperialism. The Ethiopians defeated the Italian colonial troops at Adowa in 1896 and the country remained independent. When Italy tried again in 1935, Emperor Haile Selassie went to the League of Nations and pleaded for collective security against the invasion. He received no help. Ethiopia then became the symbol of Africa throughout the Black world. The colors of its flag became the colors of Africa. And at the end of the Second World War, Ethiopian independence was restored.

In the difficult genesis of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, Haile Selassie used his prestige to play a key role as intermediary between differing African states. The OAU established its headquarters in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa. But if Ethiopia served this symbolic role throughout Africa, it also had an oppressive and aristocratic state machinery. And when acute famines began to plague the country in the 1970s, internal discontent mounted rapidly. In 1974, an army officer, Mengistu Haile Mariam, led a revolution against the "feudal" monarchy and established a military government which soon proclaimed itself Marxist-Leninist.

Before Mengistu, relations between the United States and Ethiopia had been warm. Ethiopia's neighbor, Somalia, had strained relations with the United States. It also had a military government under Siad Barre. However, it called itself "scientific socialist" and had fairly close relations with the Soviet Union, offering it a naval base. After the 1974 coup, when Mengistu proclaimed his government Marxist-Leninist, the Soviet Union dumped Somalia and embraced the larger and more important Ethiopia. So the United States embraced Somalia in turn, and took over the naval base.

To understand what happened next, a few words of ethnic analysis of the two countries is needed. Ethiopia is an ancient Christian kingdom, long dominated by Amhara aristocrats. There is another large Christian group, the Tigre, who speak a different language. There are also two other quite large groups in the country - the Oromo (half of whom are Muslim) and the Muslim Somalis. In addition, at the end of the second World War, Ethiopia absorbed the coastal Italian colony of Eritrea. Under Haile Selassie, only the Amhara counted, and Eritrea was waging a war for its independence. Without Eritrea, Ethiopia is landlocked.

Somalia was quite different. There had been two colonies - Italian Somaliland and British Somaliland. Italian Somaliland became independent in 1960 in the course of liquidating Italian colonies, and British Somaliland was added onto it. In the 1960s, when ethnic conflicts began to plague many African states, it was commonly said that the one African country that would never know ethnic conflict was Somalia, since almost everyone in the country was ethnically Somali, spoke Somali, and was a Muslim.

People in both countries chafed under the respective dictatorships. And when the Cold War ended, neither government could survive. Both Mengistu and Barre were overthrown in 1991.

What replaced Mengistu was a Tigre liberation movement, which at first spoke a "Maoist" nationalist language. As a way of distinguishing itself from the Mengistu regime, it acceded to Eritrea's independence, only to regret this later. Christian (if not Amhara) dominance soon became the major theme of the new government and Oromo and Somali uprisings began. Human rights activists do not consider Zenawi's government much better than Mengistu's.

In Somalia, the "perfect" ethnic state fell apart, as Somali clans began to fight each other for power. After 1991, the United States began to embrace the new leader of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, who abandoned his "Maoism" altogether. Somalia was left out in the cold. When the United States sent in troops on a "humanitarian" mission to quell disorders, the United States got the brutal drubbing we now call "Blackhawk down," and it withdrew its troops. A long multi-sided civil war continued. In 2006, a group called the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) took over the capital, Mogadishu, and expelled the feuding clan leaders, restoring relative peace for the first time in more than a decade.

The United States saw the UIC as a replica of the Taliban and allied to Al-Qaeda. So did Zenawi. So Ethiopia decided to invade, oust the UIC, and prop up the powerless central government that had existed on paper since 2004 but had been unable even to enter the capital city. There we went again. Of course, Ethiopia (with the United States) has won the first round. The UIC has abandoned Mogadishu. But the Somalis aren't welcoming the Ethiopians as liberators. The clan leaders are fighting each other again, and Mogadishu is again in turmoil. The Ethiopia government is facing troubles not only in Somalia but now increasingly at home as well.

As Israel had to withdraw from Lebanon, and as the United States is going to have to do in Iraq, so Ethiopia will have to pull back soon from Somalia. The situation within Somalia will not have been improved because of its preventive attack. Preventive attacks are always a potential boomerang. Either one wins overwhelmingly or one loses badly.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

The World Social Forum: From Defense to Offense (1 February 2007)

The World Social Forum (WSF) met in Nairobi, Kenya from January 20-25. The organization, founded as a sort of anti-Davos, has matured and evolved more than even its participants realize. From the beginning, the WSF has been a meeting of a wide range of organizations and movements from around the world who defined themselves as opposed to neo-liberal globalization and imperialism in all its forms. Its slogan has been "another world is possible" and its structure has been that of an open space without officers, spokespeople, or resolutions. The WSF has been against neo-liberal globalization and the term alterglobalists has been coined to define the stance of its proponents - another kind of global structure.

In the first several WSF meetings, beginning in 2001, the emphasis was defensive. Participants, each time more numerous, denounced the defects of the Washington Consensus, the efforts of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to legislate neo-liberalism, the pressures of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on peripheral zones to privatize everything and open frontiers to the free flow of capital, and the aggressive posture of the United States in Iraq and elsewhere.

In this sixth world meeting, this defensive language was much reduced - simply because everyone took it for granted. And these days the United States seems less formidable, the WTO seems deadlocked and basically impotent, the IMF almost forgotten. The New York Times, reporting on this year's Davos meeting, talked of the recognition that there is a "shifting power equation" in the world, that "nobody is really in charge" any more, and that "the very foundations of the multilateral system" have been shaken, "leaving the world short on leadership at a time when it is increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic shocks."

In this chaotic situation, the WSF is presenting a real alternative, and gradually creating a web of networks whose political clout will emerge in the next five to ten years. Participants at the WSF have debated for a long time whether it should continue to be an open forum or should engage in structured, planned political action. Quietly, almost surreptitiously, it became clear at Nairobi that the issue was moot. The participants would do both - leave the WSF as an open space that was inclusive of all those who wanted to transform the existing world-system and, at the same time, permit and encourage those who wanted to organize specific political actions to do so, and to organize to do so at WSF meetings.

The key idea is the creation of networks, which the WSF is singularly equipped to construct at a global level. There is now an effective network of feminists. For the first time, at Nairobi, there was instituted a network of labor struggles (defining the concept of "worker" quite broadly). There is now an ongoing network of activist intellectuals. The network of rural/peasant movements has been reinforced. There is a budding network of those defending alternative sexualities (which permitted Kenyan gay and lesbian movements to affirm a public presence that had been difficult before). There is an anti-war network (immediately concerned with Iraq and the Middle East in general). And there are functional networks on specific arenas of struggle - water rights, the struggle against HIV/AIDS, human rights.

The WSF is also spawning manifestos: the so-called Bamako Appeal, which expounds a whole campaign against capitalism; a feminist manifesto, now in its second draft and continuing to evolve; a labor manifesto which is just being born. There will no doubt be other such manifestos as the WSF continues. The fourth day of the meeting was devoted essentially to meetings of these networks, each of which was deciding what kinds of joint actions it could undertake - in its own name, but within the umbrella of the WSF.

Finally, there was the attention turned to what it means to say "another world." There were serious discussions and debates about what we mean by democracy, who is a worker, what is civil society, what is the role of political parties in the future construction of the world. These discussions define the objectives, and the networks are a large part of the means by which these objectives are to be realized. The discussions, the manifestos, and the networks constitute the offensive posture.

It is not that the WSF is without its internal problems. The tension between some of the larger NGO's (whose headquarters and strength is in the North, and which support the WSF but also show up at Davos) and the more militant social movements (particularly strong in the South but not only) remains real. They come together in the open space, but the more militant organizations control the networks. The WSF sometimes seems like a lumbering tortoise. But in Aesop's fable, the glittering speedy Davos hare lost the race.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Bush's Headlong Rush Into Iran? (15 February 2007)

The French have an expression fuite en avant, which the dictionaries translate as "headlong rush." But the translation loses the real meaning. A fuite en avant is something one does when one is in a losing situation, and one hopes to salvage it by doing more of the same or worse, thereby creating a situation in which one hopes people will feel they have to support you. Is this what Bush intends to do in Iran?

We know two things about the Bush regime. Its position in Iraq is impossible and is now very widely contested even in the United States. The call for withdrawal grows daily and coming from everywhere. And we know that, since 2001, the neo-cons and Cheney have been pushing for a military attack on Iran with the objective of regime change. So, this could be the moment.

The United States has sent its fleet into the region, and placed an admiral known for his competence in sea-air attacks in charge. The United States is issuing statements virtually daily about alleged Iranian misdeeds. In short, the United States is saber-rattling. Furthermore, a very large number of people seem to take this very seriously. Three of the highest-ranking retired United States military have publicly warned against the folly of attacking Iran. So has Zbigniew Brzezinski, who scarcely qualifies as a dove. So have countless politicians and diplomats from around the world. But Cheney has made it clear that the United States government will do what it pleases, no matter how many the opponents, or who they are.

Will anyone support the United States in such an adventure? Very few indeed. Not the United States Congress, although Bush and Cheney may be counting on the fact that it is harder for the Democrats to oppose them on Iran than on Iraq. They will have the support of the Israeli government. And they seem to be counting on the support of the Saudis. But this is to misunderstand the Saudi position. The Saudis are of course concerned to limit Iranian pretensions to hegemony in the region as well as to contain the possibilities of Shia militancy in Sunni-dominated states, and first of all in Saudi Arabia. But the Saudis also have made it clear that a military attack on Iran will harm rather than help Saudi political objectives. Saudi active mediation of the Hamas-Fatah dispute in Palestine indicates they are seeking to distance themselves clearly from United States strategy in the Middle East. And in Europe even the British are voicing their distaste for the idea of an attack on Iran.

So, let us suppose that, despite all this, Bush and Cheney decide to make their headlong rush into war, their fuite en avant to try to salvage their disastrous situation. What would happen, and why would they do this? What would happen seems clear. An air attack on Iran will not achieve the objective of dismantling the Iranian nuclear program, although it may damage it. Sending in troops, if the United States could find any to send in, would lead to a very high United States death toll. The Iranian government would be strengthened politically - at home and throughout the Islamic world. The Russians and the Chinese would de facto support Iran.

And worst of all for the United States, those in Iraq it considers its closest allies would start calling quite vociferously for the United States' immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has already started down this road. Nobody in Iraq, nobody, wants the United States to attack Iran, and nobody emotionally sides with the United States on this question.

Now Cheney is an intelligent politician, and he can see all this, I think. If so, why would he be pushing nonetheless for war? Could we entertain the idea that creating an even greater disaster for the United States seems to him the best option available for achieving his real political objectives?

Cheney (and Bush) know that they will control the United States government only for two more years. After that, they don't know who will be in power, but they have every reason to doubt it will be their clones. The last thing they want is a peaceful transfer of power to anyone who might dismantle what they have constructed and try, even try, to move the United States back to where it was - domestically and internationally - in the Nixon to Clinton years.

They are looking forward to increasing, not decreasing, internal strife in the United States. They are looking forward to further dismantlement of the civil liberties framework, one that was never perfect but did afford some constraints on governmental power. They are looking forward to further regression in the arena of social rights. They are looking forward to a darker United States in a darker world.

Can anyone stop them? Possibly. There is the now widespread and quite vocal resistance within the armed forces. For the first time in my lifetime, I have seen speculation in the press about a military coup. I doubt it would occur, but the very speculation shows how extensive are the misgivings. And there is the resistance of the politicians who are essentially for the most part moderate centrists whose major concern is to keep their elected positions and who blow with their constituents' wind. Will this be enough? It is hard to tell, but we shall see more clearly in the next two to three months.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Charade or First Step? The United States-North Korea Agreement (1 March 2007)

On Feb. 13, the United States, North Korea, and the four other powers in the six-party talks (China, South Korea, Japan, and Russia) issued a joint statement, which the U.S. State Department calls a "denuclearization action plan." John Bolton, a leading neo-con and Bush's former United Nations ambassador, immediately denounced it as a "charade" that "sends exactly the wrong signal to would-be proliferators around the world." President Bush described the agreement differently. He said that the talks represented "the best opportunity to use diplomacy" and that the agreement was "the first step" towards a "nuclear weapons free [Korean] peninsula." Who is right?

First of all, what is the agreement? The agreement has several components. North Korea agreed to "shut down and seal for the purpose of eventual abandonment the Yongbyon nuclear facility" and invite back IAEA personnel. It agreed further "to discuss [only discuss] with other parties a list of all its nuclear programs." In return, the United States agreed to start bilateral talks about full diplomatic relations, removing the designation of North Korea as a state-sponsor of terrorism, and terminating the Trading With the Enemy Act in relation to North Korea. Japan also agreed to bilateral talks "on the basis of the settlement of unfortunate past and the outstanding issues of concern" - a somewhat vague agenda. And everyone agreed to provide emergency energy assistance to North Korea within 60 days.

Why did the United States sign it? The New York Times said that the agreement "marks a major change of course for the Bush administration" and clearly Bolton agrees. So do most other commentators. It has been pointed out that the agreement is quite close to that reached by the Clinton administration and denounced by the Bush regime. Most commentators also agree that this agreement could probably have been reached five years ago, at a moment when North Korea had not yet tested nuclear weapons, had the Bush regime been willing.

So, what has changed? The reality of declining options seems to have hit decision-makers in Washington. The fact is that North Korea now has some weapons and it is doubtful they will give them up. The fact is that the United States is bogged down in Iraq and is concentrating its other immediate political energies on Iran. The fact is that the Republicans lost the last election, largely over foreign policy issues. The fact is that its allies become less amenable to United States policies as each day goes by. From a United States point of view, the agreement removes the issue from the front of the geopolitical scene temporarily. There will be ample opportunity for the United States to backtrack later.

And why did North Korea sign? For one thing, it was under heavy Chinese pressure to sign something. And it may have seemed unwise to the North Koreans to push China too hard at this time. More importantly, it did get something it has long wanted and which the Bush regime has long refused - the promise of bilateral talks with the United States concerning full diplomatic relations. And it did get some urgently needed energy assistance. It did this without giving up too much. To be sure, it has to close down the Yongbyon reactor. But beyond that, the rest is open to "discussion" and no mention is made of actually dismantling existing nuclear weapons.

From China's point of view, this agreement reduces United States diplomatic pressure on it to "rein in" North Korea. From South Korea's point of view, this permits the pursuance of its slightly tarnished sunshine policy. Only Japan is grumbling, and has indicated that it will not contribute to the energy assistance, which means that South Korea has to pick up Japan's share - not something that will reinforce already shaky Japan-South Korea relations.

So, is it a charade or a first step? I am inclined to believe it is certainly the first and only possibly the second. What the agreement brings to the forefront once again is the declining ability of the United States to achieve its primary goals in the geopolitical arena.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Climate Disasters: Three Obstacles to Doing Anything (15 March 2007)

Scientists have been warning us about the dangers of human-caused transformations of the earth's climate for about fifty years now. But in the last two to three years, there have been two important changes in the situation. First, there have been a series of very authoritative reports by different scientific groups, which assert not merely that these dangers are real but that they are occurring at a pace far faster than scientists believed even five years ago. As Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said recently, "It's not five minutes to midnight; it's five minutes after midnight."

The second change is the degree to which these changes have become visible to ordinary people. There has been the tsunami in the Indian Ocean. There has been the increase in the frequency and ferocity of hurricanes in the Caribbean, culminating in the notable disaster of Katrina. Pictures of the break-up of ice zones in the Arctic have been widespread in the press. And this year, the meteorologists in London who have been measuring temperatures for over three centuries announced that this was London's warmest winter since they have been measuring. The counterpart of the warm weather in Europe has been the tornados and other wind-driven disasters elsewhere.

So, why is so little being done? It is clearly not for lack of awareness of the problem, however much some persons try to deny its existence. Yet, the degree to which the political leaders of the world are ready to do something about it, and indeed the degree to which there is public pressure that they do something, is remarkably low. When there is such a clear disjunction between knowledge and action, there must be obstacles in the socio-political arena to explain this. In fact, there are three quite powerful obstacles to action: the interests of producers/entrepreneurs, the interests of less wealthy nations, and the attitudes of you and me. Each is a powerful obstacle.

Producers/entrepreneurs are concerned first of all with the profitability of their activity. If one asks them to internalize costs that they presently do not have to pay (the amelioration or clean-up of their polluting processes), this affects seriously their profits in two ways. First, it forces them to raise their prices, and they may find that this eliminates certain customers. And if they internalize their costs but their competitors do not, then they can lose sales to their competitors.

This is why, as a general rule, voluntary actions are unlikely to work, since voluntary actions are rarely unanimous. In this case, the virtuous producer/entrepreneur will lose out to competitors. The solution to this is government-mandated compulsory internalization of costs. Even if this solves the national competitor problem, it still leaves open the loss to international competitors as well as the fact that, over a certain price, there is a decline in customers.

The second problem is precisely that of international competition. Countries that are poorer seek to improve their ability to compete in the world market. One of the ways in which they do this is by producing given products at a lower cost level and hence items that can be marketed at a lower price level. If one mandates (say through an international treaty) certain shifts in the process of production (say, the reduction of the use of coal for energy), this requires expensive restructuring of the industries of these countries as well as the potential loss of their competitive price advantage. This is the argument currently of such very large countries as China and India, but also of East/Central European countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic.

There is of course a partial solution to this problem. It is a massive funding of the costs of restructuring of the industries of these countries by the presently wealthy countries (the United States, western Europe). But such transfers of wealth - for this is what it is - have always been unpopular, and have little political support within these wealthier countries. In any case, this doesn't affect the potential loss of price advantage, so important to these less wealthy countries.

You and I constitute the heart of the third obstacle. It is called consumerism. People have always liked to consume. But in the last fifty years, the number of people who could consume beyond a certain minimum level for survival has increased notably. If one calls upon individuals to consume less electricity or less power, or consume fewer of the products that require these inputs, one is calling on individuals who are presently consumers to change their style of life, often in significant ways. And for those who are presently not wealthy enough to engage in such consumption, one is calling upon them to renounce powerful aspirations to have access to the consumption they have been historically denied.

This too can be solved. People can reeducate each other. People can bring to the forefront of their value-system other things than more consumption. We can all accept the necessity to achieve more equal living standards across the globe, even if for some it may mean lowering their own advantages.

Fifty years ago, scientists first produced the evidence that consuming tobacco products had the consequence of an increased cancer rate. Doing something about it met all the same obstacles which doing something about climate dangers presents today. After fifty years, worldwide, the rate of smoking has gone down considerably, in part because of forcing tobacco companies through legal suits to reimburse the social costs of their previous actions, in part because of reeducated individuals, and in part because of government-mandated restrictions on locales in which one is permitted to smoke. So, something can be done, it is clear.

But do we have fifty years?

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Is Afghanistan Next? (1 April 2007)

Everyone knows that the United States has lost the war in Iraq. The politics of Washington, DC today is simply a series of maneuvers between Republicans and Democrats to position themselves so that the other party pays the electoral price for the fiasco. Will Afghanistan be the next defeat? Six years ago, Osama bin Laden predicted that the United States would suffer the same defeat as the Soviet Union. Was he right?

After September 11, 2001, the United States (and Great Britain) targeted the Afghan regime of the Taliban for regime change - a decision we now know had already been taken by the United States in July 2001, two months before 9/11. The main public argument was that the regime harbored Al-Qaeda's leaders and training camps. President Bush gave the Taliban an ultimatum on September 21, which they rejected, and on October 7 the U.S.-British forces went in.

At the time, almost the whole world was on the side of the invaders. The Taliban were the very model of a terrible and terrifying regime. They not only harbored Al-Qaeda (and proudly so) but they enforced an extreme version of Muslim Sharia law and were particularly harsh on women - denying them work, education, and the possibility to leave their homes except covered by a very extensive burqa and accompanied by an adult male relative. So when the United States invaded, most of the world applauded - not merely the Western allies of the United States, but also (let us remember) Russia and Iran. About the only resistance came from Pakistan.

Of course these reactions were not surprising. Russia had long been supporting an anti-Taliban group called the Northern Alliance, composed of ethnic groups different from the majority Pashtun who were the base of the Taliban forces. Iran similarly had been supporting an anti-Taliban group with whom they had ethnic ties. As for Pakistan, the Taliban were their proteges and the Pakistani intelligence agency (ISI) was the Taliban's principal supporter. Ousting the Taliban from power meant ousting Pakistan from its sphere of influence (a void into which the Indians hastened to rush).

To understand what has happened since 2001, we have to take the story back at least thirty years. Afghanistan in the nineteenth century was contested terrain between Russia and Great Britain. In the post-1945 period, it became contested terrain between the Soviet Union and the United States. In 1978, the (Communist) People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) overthrew the government - against Moscow's wishes. Since the PDPA was composed of two strongly competing factions (divided in part along ethnic lines), there followed a period of internal strife among the Communists, into which the Soviet Union was drawn. Finally in December 1979, Soviet troops entered Afghanistan to try to stabilize the situation.

Zbigniew Brzezinski revealed years later that the United States did everything to draw the Soviet Union into Afghanistan, anticipating that it would become their "Vietnam." The United States (and Pakistan) meanwhile supported very actively the training and arming of Islamic mujahidin who sought to overthrow the Communist regime. Osama bin Laden was one of those whose military training was a gift of the United States. The Communist regime was no idyll, but at least it both was secular and offered very extensive rights to women, neither of which has been true of any subsequent regime.

The Soviet invasion did turn out to be a Vietnam-like experience for the Soviet Union - costly in lives, money, and popular support at home, and under Gorbachev they began to withdraw. Civil strife did not however cease. Indeed it expanded. For now there were competing groups of ex-mujahidin seeking to install themselves in power in Kabul.

After years of a debilitating and destructive civil war, a group of "students" called the Taliban, and supported by the Pakistan army, swept the country, occupied Kabul, and to widespread relief established some kind of order. It soon turned out however that the "order" the Taliban had established was not to the taste of everyone. The Pashtun were the largest ethnic group but not the only one of importance, by any means. And the others felt excluded. In addition, the Taliban became more and more loudly Islamist, including the destruction of one of the archaeological wonders of Afghanistan - two enormous Buddhist statues. And the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, established a close relationship to Osama bin Laden. Hence the United States invasion in 2001.

At this point, the competing groups that the Taliban had ousted came back. And initially, a new order was established, with the military aid of the United States and the diplomatic intervention of the United Nations. A national government under Hamid Karzai was created, and established its authority - in Kabul, but not really in the rest of the country. Order deteriorated once again and in 2003 the military resurgence of the Taliban began, with the tacit tolerance of Pakistan.

Since the United States was now embroiled in Iraq, it appealed to NATO to help out. In January 2006, security was taken over by the NATO International Security Assistance Force (NISAF), with units from a large number of countries - Great Britain, Canada, Netherlands, Denmark, Australia, Estonia, Norway, France, Italy, New Zealand. However, most of these countries were skittish about the use of their troops - each establishing different rules of engagement and insisting on particular locations for them (often preferring Kabul, the safest place to be). And now in virtually each of these countries, there is active political debate about whether to maintain the troops there.

So, the Taliban are back, and in force. NISAF may not survive much longer. And it is unlikely that the secular modernizers who were the Communists could reemerge. Do we really think some angel is looking down upon the Western world, and saying "job well done"?

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Europe, 2057 (15 April 2007)

The European Union (UE) has just celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, dating it from the signing of the Treaties of Rome on March 25, 1957. Only one person who was at those signings, Maurice Faure of France, is still alive, and he sounded a bit dismayed at the state of Europe. The headline on this occasion in Le Monde spoke of "gloom" in Europe about Europe and the headline in the International Herald Tribune spoke of "disquiet." The immediate cause of this less than festive fiftieth anniversary was the referendum rejections in 2005 by France and the Netherlands of the proposed new European constitution.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who is the current president of the EU, sought to put a positive face on things, convened the member states to Berlin for the anniversary, and inveigled all of them into adopting a somewhat ambiguous proposal for renewing negotiations on further political steps forward. The question now is what Europe could look like, may look like, in another fifty years - in 2057.

Amidst the doom and gloom of the media and the politicians, Harris Interactive announced the results of a public opinion poll about the Europe of 2057 that was taken in five West European nations (France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and Spain) and the United States. The poll offered some surprises. Almost everyone was sure that the EU would still be functioning in 2057, and that the euro would have become the standard currency. Only a third thought Europe's relations with the United States would have improved.

But the most startling results came when the respondents were questioned about expansion. A third to a half (depending on the country) thought that Russia would be part of the European Union (something almost no one is advocating at the moment), and even more expected Turkey to be a member (something that is very controversial today). Given all the loud political cackling these days about what a bad idea either would be, it seems that Europeans, in their role of predictors of the future, do not agree, or at least expect other outcomes.

What this contradiction in position-taking reveals is the difference between politics and geopolitics. Politics is fundamentally the immediate interaction of multiple actors in the political arena, reflecting their short-term concerns. In this perspective, Europe could be said to be in a shaky state. But geopolitics is about the middle-run trends that constrain the short-run actors, and which reflect longer-term interests. Very few people, and certainly very few politicians, have geopolitical understandings/preferences/opinions. The geopolitical trends carry most people along without their being too aware of it.

The group that met in Rome in March of 1957 were exceptional in that they did have a particular geopolitical vision, and thus far they have been largely vindicated by the reality of historical trends. Chancellor Merkel has been trying to persuade her fellow heads of government to look at Europe in a geopolitical framework, one that is closer to the expectations of the west Europeans as reflected in the poll results.

What kind of Europe are we likely to see in 2057? There are three major elements in any response to this question. First of all, given the precipitate geopolitical decline of the United States, we are living amidst the creation of a truly multipolar world-system. The question for Europe is whether it can compete - economically, politically, culturally - not with the United States but with East Asia. This depends in part on whether or not East Asia (China, Japan, and Korea) will come together in a meaningful way. But it also depends on whether Europe is able to create a more politically cohesive structure and, on top of that, will be one that includes both Russia and Turkey.

The second consideration is whether or not Europe is able to transform itself from a Christian continent to a multireligious continent. Pope Benedict XV has made as the number one priority of the Catholic Church the "rechristianization" of Europe. He attributes Europe's "dangerous individualism" to its historic "secularization." Europe, he says, is "sliding into apostasy" and "losing faith in its own future," and he defines this as a veritable "cultural collapse."

The geopolitical trends don't seem to reflect the Pope's desires. The percentage of Muslims grows daily, and the number of Christian churchgoers diminishes daily. So, is the Pope right - that this implies the "cultural collapse" of Europe? Or can Europe evolve a new, forceful culture that actually thrives on its demographic recomposition? The answer remains open.

And finally, will Europe be in 2057 an island of relative internal stability, or a zone of acute internal conflict? This is the social question - the degree to which Europe is able to counter the increased internal polarization caused by neoliberal pressures. Up to now, Europe has been relatively resistant to the cry to dismantle its welfare state policies. But the pressures are growing, not lessening. A neoliberal Europe is unlikely to be a tranquil Europe. In a world-system in structural crisis, can Europe play rather the role of a positive force for transformation? That question too remains open.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Africa, 2057 (1 May 2007)

The year 2007 marks the fiftieth anniversary of African independences. I date this from April 6, 1957, when the British colony of the Gold Coast became the independent state of Ghana, the first colony in what was then called sub-Saharan Africa to achieve this status. The leader of the movement that succeeded in its struggle for this independence was Kwame Nkrumah. The world hailed this day as a major turning-point in the history of Africa, and sent their leaders to take part in the celebrations in Accra. Great Britain sent the Princess of Kent and its Prime Minister, Sir Harold Macmillan. The United States sent Vice-President Richard Nixon.

I was myself in Accra at this time, and I can testify to the very enthusiastic and positive quality of the festivities and to the general optimism about the future of Africa felt in Ghana and throughout the continent. Nkrumah had said: "Seek ye first the political kingdom, and all other things shall be added unto it." Here was the test.

The independence of Ghana was followed by Guinea's bold refusal to stay within the French orbit in 1958, and then by a cascade of independences in 1960, sixteen countries in all. The year 1960 got the sobriquet of "the year of Africa." The year 1960 was also the year of the Congo crisis. It was independent Africa's first civil war, the first post-independence reentry of European troops into Africa, and the first assassination of an African head of government - Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.

Nonetheless, what was called the "downward sweep of African liberation" continued several more years, until it hit the hard rock of mineral-rich, settler-dominated southern Africa - the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, the settler-controlled self-proclaimed independent state of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the South African-controlled state of Southwest Africa (now Namibia), and apartheid South Africa. It took another twenty years to achieve independent African governments in all these states, but it was done.

Meanwhile, the euphoria of 1957-1960 gave way to new realities - military coups, civil wars, even interstate wars, plus the severe economic difficulties of the 1970s and 1980s that were prompted by but not caused by the oil price rises. Afro-optimism gave way to Afro-pessimism. All other things were not being added unto political independence. Had Nkrumah been wrong?

Nkrumah himself had warned that the end of colonialism would be followed by neo-colonialism because of the continued economic dependence of African states on western Europe and North America. Nkrumah's remedy was African unity, for which he raised the standard high. He did manage to get the dimensions of Africa to be redefined to include North Africa. But the mountain that was the movement for African unity brought forth in the 1960s merely a mouse, in the form of the weak structure called the Organization of African Unity (OAU). The OAU was later renamed the African Union (AU) but it was not made any stronger.

In 2007, the overall political and economic picture of Africa does not at all match the hopes and expectations of 1957. Here and there, one can point to some small economic improvements. But overall, the statistics show that Africa has had the weakest performance of all the continents. And here and there one can point to some renewed vibrancy on the political scene. But overall, most states are in the hands of corrupt politicians who do not tolerate significant opposition to their regimes, and who do not do anything very much to improve the lot of their people.

What will Africa look like fifty years from now? Of course, no one can be sure. But one can have some reasonable expectations. First of all, it would be hard for things to get worse. In the international pecking order of states, African states are by and large at the bottom today. The younger generations react to this reality in two ways. Some emigrate, and some are beginning to structure new movements - trying to construct a second wave of national liberation struggles.

In the second place, the geopolitical scene will be very different in 2057. The ability of the United States and France to interfere directly on the African scene will almost surely have disappeared. Some say they may be replaced by new outside interferers, like China or some even suggest Brazil. This seems to me highly implausible, albeit not absolutely impossible. Rather, I believe that in the next twenty-five years, the relative geopolitical neglect of Africa will work in its favor, allowing neo-liberation movements to come into being and flourish. If these movements study well the history of Africa from 1957-2007, they may be able to forge movements that are more serious about what needs to be done to transform the economic structures, and what needs to be done to struggle against internal class polarization.

In the years before Nkrumah presided over the independence ceremonies in 1957, his more conservative internal opponents sneered at his supporters, calling them "verandah boys." This referred to the fact that many of the militants were relatively poor urbanites who had no permanent residence and had to sleep on the verandahs of other people's homes. It indicates the degree to which African nationalism in its heyday had an important class conflict element, something that has been obscured in much of the literature about Africa. Class consciousness may again become central to African politics. And if it does, given the structural crisis of the whole modern world-system and the chaotic geopolitical and world-economic conditions it is breeding, Africa's movements may play a much larger role in the outcome of the world political struggle than today most of us anticipate. Let us hope so.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

France: The End of Gaullism? (15 May 2007)

Nicolas Sarkozy, just elected President of France, asserted in his initial post-election statement that France has chosen change. To claim that one stands for change is not unusual among those who come to power. Did Sarkozy mean it, and if so, what did he mean by it? His election is being interpreted in the United States as that of the most friendly French president in the history of the Fifth Republic. No doubt he is, but does this mean that French foreign policy will change?

We should start by analyzing what accounts for his election. In Western electoral systems, there usually are two principal parties, one more to the left and one more to the right. This is true of France as well, where the mainstream right is represented by the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), Sarkozy's party, and the mainstream left by the Socialist party, whose candidate was Ségolène Royal. Normally, in most elections, the base of each party votes for its candidates. In France, with a two-round system, this is surely the case. To win an election, there are three places to locate changeable votes in the second round - the further left, the further right, and the center. The center refers to those voters who are ready to switch between the two parties, and often do. The further left and further right normally choose between the mainstream party and abstention.

When François Mitterand won as the Socialist candidate in 1981 and again in 1988, he clearly drew his extra votes from the center. When Jacques Chirac won as the right-wing candidate in 1995, he ran on a "social" platform and thereby also drew his extra votes from the center. This is not what happened this time. The further left voted for Royal. The center seems to have split the way they usually do - two-thirds for the right and one-third for the left. Where Sarkozy got his extra votes was from the further right. Despite the explicit request of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the major candidate of the further right, that his voters massively abstain in the second round, they didn't listen to him. They voted for Sarkozy.

The question is why they voted for Sarkozy. Most of these voters are unconcerned with France's relations with the United States. And they are largely unconcerned with the kind of conservative economic measures Sarkozy has promised. They voted for him primarily because he represents in their eyes the kind of anti-Muslim position important to them. He did this in three specific ways. He promised to be tough on crime in the banlieues (the French ghettos). He promised to tighten controls on immigration. And he promised to stand strong against Turkish membership in the European Union. He will almost surely fulfill all three promises, and hence the further right voters will get what they wanted.

What, however, does this imply about the rest of his program? Not necessarily very much. The UMP is a party whose historic roots are primarily in Gaullism. What is, or was, Gaullism? Charles De Gaulle, in his first period of power, right after the Second World War, stood for three things: an assertion of France's right to a major, independent role in world politics; dirigisme, a kind of Keynesian economic policy with a major role for the French state; and internal anti-Communism.

When he returned to power in 1958, he still stood for the same three things. When he spoke about French nuclear weapons, he said they were designed to defend France tous azimuts, meaning in all directions. He withdrew France from the NATO command structure. He nonetheless always insisted that France was on the same global side as the United States, that is, anti-Communist. He remained committed to a French welfare state. France has had four other presidents since De Gaulle. None of them has really deviated fundamentally from this Gaullist trinity of positions - French independent power, pro-welfare state, anti-Communism - even though only two of the four claimed to be Gaullists.

Will Sarkozy's call for change really be a repudiation of this trinity of positions? I doubt it. On the United States, he has said that France was "arrogant" in the way it handled the U.S. demand for intervention in Iraq, but that he agreed with the basic position. This is rather akin to Angela Merkel's line - speak more politely to the United States, but nonetheless pursue a somewhat independent policy. Merkel has shown this most recently by using suave language with Washington but simultaneously expressing her strong opposition to the U.S. intention to locate nuclear interceptor devices in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Lord Palmerston, British Foreign Secretary in the middle of the nineteenth century, famously said: "Britain has no permanent allies; she has permanent interests." What are France's interests? In fact, France needs little from the United States. It is rather the United States that needs French support. France's primary interests are in the shape of Europe, and its relations with its former colonies in Africa. In Europe, France's interests are best pursued by a continuing close relationship with Germany. Merkel may well serve as a model for him, far more than Mrs. Thatcher. As for the former African colonies, they have openly shown their discomfort with Sarkozy's election, precisely because of his stands on the issues of concern to France's further right. Sarkozy's prime foreign policy priorities will be to work out his relations with Germany and to repair his image in the former French colonies.

Abandoning the Gaullist heritage will not help him do either. To be sure, he can be expected to put through some economic measures, such as eliminating the 35-hour work week, and enacting various tax reforms. But this is far from destroying the welfare state. He has also used as a theme in his election the repudiation of the heritage of 1968, which seems to be a 2007 way of being anti-Communist. What this means in practical terms is hard to see as yet.

In terms of internal politics, Sarkozy is moving to dismantle as much as possible of the organized group in the French center that wishes to take distance from the mainstream right by creating a "true" center party. He will probably succeed in this. And the disarray in the Socialist party will no doubt help him confirm his electoral base for future elections. All this, however, is far from a fundamental break with the political consensus on which France has operated since 1945.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Ending the Iraq War: Two Competing Plans (1 June 2007)

There are only two serious plans - or perhaps one should call them plots - to end the Iraq War. Many will be surprised to realize that one of them is being formulated by George W. Bush, the other by Moqtada al-Sadr. The two plans share the presupposition that the Iraq War is a quagmire in which the proponents of these plans are losing more each day. But otherwise the two plans/plots are quite in conflict one with the other.

When things are going wrong in every way, realists throw over maximum objectives and seek to settle for at least something crucial. So the analytic question to ask is what is absolutely crucial for George W. Bush and what is absolutely crucial for Moqtada al-Sadr?

If we start with Bush, first of all forget the rhetoric and forget what had been his objectives at the outset of the Iraq invasion. Think of where he is today. He has lost the majority of American popular support for the Iraq War (down to one-third, according to the latest polls), and all signs seem to indicate that unless there is a military upturn, the figures will be even worse at the end of the summer. As for the military situation, Gen. Petraeus, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, seems to be the brilliant captain of a sinking ship, and nothing the United States favors in terms of Iraqi politics seems to be happening. The Republican Party risks paying a very heavy price for this in the 2008 elections.

So, if you were Bush, what would you try to salvage? Of the long list of U.S. objectives in Iraq, the most important has been the establishment of a long-term U.S. military base in the country. In terms of U.S. politics, Bush would undoubtedly like to minimize the negative impact on the 2008 elections. And if these were the two things that took priority, how could you do it? A recent leak indicates what plot is being concocted.

If, in early 2008, the United States announced that it was reducing its troop presence by half, and that it was largely withdrawing its troops from frontline action, what would be the consequence? First of all, it would blunt the attack by the Democrats that nothing is being done to reduce U.S. casualties and involvement. Secondly, it would put the Democrats in the embarrassing situation of having to say whether or not they favor long-term bases in Iraq. Chances are that many, perhaps most, Democratic leaders favor this. Chances are also that even a Democratic president, if elected in 2009, would continue such a policy.

What would the United States lose in this? It would probably lose its ability to interfere on a daily basis in Iraqi politics. It might well lose the oil bill Bush (and the Democrats) want the Iraqi parliament to enact. It would probably lead to increased Iranian soft power in Iraq. But the United States would have the bases, and it would blunt blame on the Republican Party for the Iraq fiasco.

Can the United States do this? That is where the counterplan (or counterplot) of Moqtada al-Sadr comes in? Once again forget the rhetoric, and forget what al-Sadr might have wanted in 2003. Look at his dilemmas. He is strong politically and militarily, but he has powerful opponents within Iraq. He has an organization not entirely under his control. If the United States withdraws precipitately, it is not at all sure that, in the resulting greater chaos, he would come out ahead.

So what is his bottom line? He wants the United States to be fully withdrawn, and he wants a reasonably strong Iraqi central government. He is a Shia leader to be sure, but also an Iraqi nationalist. His base is in Baghdad, and too much federalism would create great problems for his survival. For what would he be willing to settle? What is his plot?

The plot seems clear, since the design is emerging so publicly. He wants to make a deal with the Sunni resistance. He and they share three interests: getting the United States troops to leave, curbing the Sunni-Shia violence which is now getting out of their control, and creating a relatively strong central government. The deal would have to involve greater Sunni (even Baathist) participation in government. But it would also involve a joint action to rid Iraq of al-Qaeda elements. And it would involve the defeat of the oil bill. This latter is probably easy since almost no one in Iraq favors the bill, albeit opposing it for different reasons. And they would oppose long-term U.S. bases.

What would al-Sadr be giving up? Primarily his deep antagonism to the Baathists. Could he pull this off? There are various internal obstacles: his Shia rivals, the Kurds, and the United States, maybe also the Iranians. But he would be holding high the banner of Iraqi nationalism, and that could in the end resonate deeply in Iraq.

These two plots will begin to clash openly in 2008 and 2009. It is not sure yet which will prevail.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

A Missile Defense Shield: Crazy Idea or Rational Objective? (15 June 2007)

George W. Bush has been pushing hard to establish what he calls a missile defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland. Very few people think this is a sane idea. While the two east European governments seem to support it enthusiastically, public opinion polls show that their own populations are against it. Russia has denounced it openly. Germany has been fighting it more quietly. Iran has shown total indifference. And Joseph Cirincione, who has devoted his professional career to fighting nuclear proliferation, says that Bush is pushing "a technology that doesn't work against a threat that does not exist."

So is this just a crazy idea, one more piece of evidence that the Bush regime is irrational and not very astute? Not really. There is a rational objective behind all of this, and it's hardly a secret. Start with the ostensible explanation. Bush says that the United States wants to protect against the deployment by a rogue state (read Iran) of a nuclear threat to Europe and ultimately even to the United States.

Russia says that these so-called defense shields are in fact aimed at Russia, to which Russia not only objects but against which Russia will counterdeploy missiles aimed at Europe. The Czech and Polish governments can't really get excited about the Iranian threat, but they do seem to think there is a Russian threat. So the reasons they are enthusiastic about the idea is that they agree with the Russians - that these are moves aimed at Russia. Actually, this is the German position in private as well. And in private again probably all other west European governments share this view.

George W. Bush insists that all this is untrue, that the Russians are friends, and that he is not intending to threaten them. He says that the Czechs and Poles don't have to choose between the United States and Russia. They can be (and should be) friends with both. He probably really believes all this, in the sense that neither Bush nor even the neo-cons are looking forward to taking on Russia as yet another enemy in the twenty-first century. So what is going on?

Donald Rumsfeld told us what is going on a long time ago. The policy of the present U.S. government is to use the so-called new Europe to constrain and limit the political role of the so-called old Europe - that is, use the east European governments against the west European governments. The United States, especially the Bush regime, does not want to see a strong Europe, one that would pursue a policy separate from that of the United States. And one could say that the Rumsfeld doctrine has been reasonably successful thus far. The point of erecting missile defense shields in east Europe is to protect the United States not against Iran and not against Russia but against west Europe, which explains the German attitude.

The period of Soviet domination of east Europe was a highly negative experience for the satellite countries as well as for the various ex-Soviet states that are now independent. They are all living through post-traumatic stress syndrome. Right-wing forces within each of these countries are exploiting this fear to push their internal agendas. These forces are not really afraid of direct Russian military or even political pressure. They are afraid that west Europe will make a political deal with Russia, and that they will not have very much say about the terms of this deal.

This is not entirely irrational on their part either. There have been such deals made several times over the last few centuries, and this is a serious possibility again. So the east European countries are proclaiming their undying love of the United States (displayed so incredibly effusively in Albania during George W. Bush's eight-hour visit on June 11).

The object of the gushing proclamations of friendship is twofold: to weaken the west Europeans, and to create a situation in which the United States is forced to support the east Europeans. This is a classic tactic of weaker countries relating to stronger countries that seem to be ideological allies. Cuba and Vietnam used it vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. North Korea used it vis-à-vis China.

It is a tactic that often works. But it has its limitations. The Achilles heel of such a tactic is that it depends on the continuing needs of the stronger country, in this case the United States government, to play the game. At the moment, the United States is quite ready to do so. But when the United States withdraws from Iraq and recalibrates its global stance to take account of its diminished geopolitical power, sustaining the Polish or Czech regimes may seem less useful, may even fade totally from importance. At that point, the east European governments would be on their own - dependent economically and militarily on the very west European powers they now disdain, even when, or especially when, there is a closer Paris-Berlin-Moscow rapprochement.

So, in the short run, construction of a missile defense shield in east Europe serves the needs of the United States and the needs of the east European governments. But in the longer run, it looks as though the east Europeans would be betting on a horse that is not likely to complete the race.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Winners and Losers in Palestine (1 July 2007)

It's easy to see who are the losers. It's harder to see if there are any winners. During June, there was a dramatic confrontation between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza. The sequence was as follows. President Abbas dissolved the Hamas-led government (of which Fatah was a part). Prime Minister Ismael Haniya said this was illegal and refused to recognize the dissolution. Each side used force against the other. Hamas won hands down in Gaza. All Fatah leaders left Gaza for the West Bank where Abbas named a new government led by Salaam Fayyad, a government without Hamas members. De facto, Hamas now controls Gaza completely. Fatah controls the West Bank, albeit a little less surely than Hamas in Gaza. In the West Bank, not only does Hamas exist, if somewhat underground for the moment, but the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, nominally affiliated to Fatah, acts autonomously and neither is really under the control of Abbas nor agrees with his current politics.

Abbas is in a weak position. He has turned to the outside world - the United States, the European Union (EU), the "moderate" Arab governments (basically Egypt and Jordan), and Israel - for four things: love, money, arms, and substantial progress towards an independent Palestinian state. So far he has gotten lots of love, some but not all of the money Israel owes the Palestinian Authority, no arms (but they may be coming in limited supply), and nothing in terms of the so-called final settlement with Israel.

Abbas needs to establish his authority in the West Bank. Tony Blair's new job is to help him do this (and that is Tony Blair's only job). Given the very small likelihood of serious final settlement negotiations, Abbas will have a hard time doing so. And he has a major dilemma on his hands - what to do about Gaza. If he ignores Gaza entirely, and doesn't arrange for any food or humanitarian aid for Gaza, he will be in effect renouncing the unity of the potential Palestinian state. If he does give assistance, he may be hurting his chances to get further money (not to speak of arms) from his outside supporters, and particularly from Israel. I count Abbas and Fatah as a major loser.

While the United States, the EU, and both Egypt and Jordan are trying to recreate a situation in which Hamas is excluded from the government of the Palestinian Authority, they may soon regret their success. For unless Abbas pulls a miracle, more warfare is on the horizon with an unclear outcome. Since this is happening at the very moment that Iraq is finally really collapsing and the Republican voices for immediate reduction of U.S. troop involvement are substantially increasing (by such powerful Republican senators as Richard Lugar and John Warner), more warfare in Israel/Palestine is not at all beneficial to the interests of the United States, the EU, or Egypt and Jordan. So I count this group as losers too.

Then there is the really big loser - Israel. To be sure, Ehud Olmert and his cabinet do not seem to agree. They are so fixated on isolating Hamas for its presumed terrorist qualities that they are unable to appreciate even their own self-interest. But look at Israel's situation. They have been in a conflict with the Palestinians for a very long time. One can count this conflict as continual since 1987 (the first intifada), since 1967 (the Six-Day War), since 1948 (the creation of the State of Israel), since 1917 (the Balfour Declaration). This is not the only such long-standing conflict, but look at how others have been resolved more or less.

We could compare the Israel-Palestine conflict to the Afrikaner-Black African conflict in South Africa, to the Unionist-Republican conflict in Northern Ireland, to the United States-China conflict after 1949. In each of these cases, the two sides had diametrically opposing objectives and rhetoric. In each of these cases, each side had its "hardliners" who called the "hardliners" of the other side "extremists" (or "terrorists"). In each of these cases, it seemed virtually impossible to bridge the gap between the two sides. Yet, in each of these cases, a political settlement was finally achieved, one that at the minimum brought the violence to an end.

How was this done? A political settlement was achieved only when what the French call interlocuteurs valables came to power in each of the two camps. What is an interlocuteurs valable? It is a group, often incarnated in a particular leader, which has substantial support, is "hardline" in its politics, and therefore is in a position to guarantee a compromise settlement if they agree to it. In South Africa, the settlement was between F.W. De Klerk and the Nationalist Party on the one hand and Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress on the other. In Northern Ireland, the settlement was between the Rev. Ian Paisley and the Democratic Unionist Party on the one hand and Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein on the other. The U.S.-China tensions were brought to an end when President Richard Nixon went to Beijing to meet Mao Zedong.

Note something in each of these cases. Up to the very last minute, at least one of the two sides said that it would never compromise with the other because the other was untrustworthy and villainous. In each case, they both finally did just that. The reasons were manifold, but realism and exhaustion were major factors in the final agreement. And in each case, each side made painful compromises but was able nonetheless to keep their own followers in line.

Are there such interlocuteurs valables in Israel/Palestine now? On the Israeli side, Ariel Sharon could have played this role. Ehud Olmert is far too weak to do so. And for the moment, there doesn't seem to be a successor to Sharon. On the Palestinian side, Hamas could play this role now. Whether it could play it in the future is unclear. That is why it is hard to say that Hamas was a winner in the recent confrontation. And that is why it is hard to say that Saudi Arabia, which had engineered a joint Hamas-Fatah government just months ago, can be said to be a winner.

What now? We are not merely waiting for interlocuteurs valables but we are waiting for the players to recognize that nothing else will bring closure to the struggle. We may yet wait a while.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

The Putin Charisma (15 July 2007)

Vladimir Putin has not been getting good press in the United States or even Western Europe in the last year or so. He has been charged with being authoritarian, with attempting to recreate Russia's imperial control over its neighbors, and with reviving Cold War obstructionism in the United Nations.

So it is with some surprise that we read the remarks of Jean-Claude Killy, France's great Olympics champion and currently the French member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The IOC met on July 7, 2007 in Guatemala City to decide on the site of the Olympic Winter Games in 2014. There were three contenders: Salzburg in Austria, Pyeongchang in Korea, and Sochi in Russia. Salzburg argued that it was a safe, risk-free site. Pyeongchang argued that its choice would forward peace and reconciliation on the Korean peninsula. Sochi arranged for Putin to come in person to argue its case.

The Korean site was the favorite and did indeed lead on the first round. But with Salzburg eliminated, Sochi won the second and definitive round. To hear Killy tell the story, it was Putin's personal charisma that made the difference. He spoke both English and French, which he never does in public. And he used his charm, what Killy calls his charisma. To be sure, victories in IOC decision-making may be gratifying and symbolic, but they are after all a secondary matter, reflecting rather than creating political influence.

So one must ask, is this the only place where Putin has been exercising his charisma? And the answer has to be no. There is first of all his internal political strength in Russia. Yes, he has upset a good portion of the intelligentsia, but there is every indication that he is quite popular with most Russians, unlike some other presidents of major states today. It seems that Russians see him as someone who has done much to restore the strength of the Russian state, after what they see as its humiliating deterioration during the Yeltsin era. In general, we know that what one person calls authoritarian tendencies another often calls the restitution of order. This is a conflict of interpretation that is widespread, even in the North Atlantic countries. Nicholas Sarkozy has just recently profited from this double perspective.

Even more important however are Putin's political accomplishments on the world scene. He has resisted, so far successfully, any and all attempts by the United States to obtain United Nations authorization of real punitive action against Iran, North Korea, and Sudan. He has held up any moving forward to independence for Kosovo. To be sure, Russia's positions have been China's positions on these questions, so Russia is not alone. But in the 1990s, such strong and so far effective Russian political stands were not thinkable.

Then there are Russia's dealings with Europe. He has opposed United States plans to install antimissile structures in Poland and the Czech Republic, and has gotten support for his stand (if quiet support) from Western Europe. He has used control of gas and oil exports from Russia itself and from both Central Asian and Caucasian countries not only to obtain greater rent for Russia (and thereby greater world power), but more or less to impose his terms on energy issues on Western Europe.

If a neutral referee were to assign points for Putin's actions on some scale of positive/negative consequences for Russia, I think a fair observer would have to say that Putin has done well as a geopolitical player. Call it charisma, call it what you will, the victory of Sochi at Guatemala City reflects this positive rating and reinforces it.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Can Musharraf Survive? (1 Augustus 2007)

Poor Pervez Musharraf! He is not very popular, and is under pressure from just about everybody. Yet he labors on, seeking to maintain his equilibrium, and his power, while sitting on top of a seething volcano. He has in fact done better than one might have thought possible.

To start the story at the beginning, we have to remember the origins of the state of Pakistan. The principal nationalist movement in colonial India was the Indian National Congress, led by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a secular lawyer of Muslim origin, was an active member. But he increasingly came to feel that Muslims as a group (one might say as an ethnic group) were relegated to a second-class citizenship. He joined the Muslim League, a movement seeking autonomy/independence for a "Muslim" region. In 1934, Jinnah became its president, and in the final negotiations with the British for the independence of India, he succeeded in obtaining an independent and separate status for Pakistan.

On August 14, 1947, when Pakistan became an independent state, it consisted of several provinces in the northwest of colonial India and a Bengali province in the northeast, quite distant from the western sector. On August 11 of that year, Jinnah made an inaugural speech before the about-to-be legislative body of Pakistan, calling for an "inclusive and pluralist democracy," which would guarantee equal rights for all its citizens of whatever religion or ethnic group. Not only was the Muslim League essentially a modernist secular nationalist movement, but the armed forces that would be established drew its personnel from the old British military forces in India, and its officer corps was equally secular for the most part.

As we know, independence for India and Pakistan resulted immediately in terrible inter-group violence and, among other things, a struggle for the control of Kashmir. The net outcome of that initial struggle was not only a de facto (and to this day contested) partition of Kashmir but also a transfer of populations, such that Pakistan became overwhelmingly Muslim. In 2007, its population numbers 165 million, which makes Pakistan the sixth most populous state in the world, and one whose birthrate is among the highest. This population is today 97% Muslim, of which 20% are Shi'a.

The political history of Pakistan has been tumultuous. Its relations with its principal neighbor, India, have always been tenuous and conflictual. The eastern part of Pakistan seceded in 1971, with Indian encouragement, to become the state of Bangladesh. The first military coup occurred in 1958. Civilian rule, under a largely secular, urban party led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was restored in 1972, only to be overthrown again five years later. The coup was led by Gen. Zia ul-Haq who was a quite pious Muslim and installed sharia as the law of the land. He also had the country renamed the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Civilian rule was restored years later under the aegis of Bhutto's daughter, Benazir Bhutto, who then ceded place to Nawaz Sharif. In 1999, Sharif sought to arrest his chief of staff, one Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who succeeded in having Sharif arrested instead and being himself placed at the head of the government. He was proclaimed president in 2001, and elected to that post in 2002.

To make sense of this back and forth, we have to identify the principal political actors inside Pakistan and its geopolitical alliances. To start with the latter, Pakistan's biggest concern has always been India, and therefore logically it sought the support of two states whose relations were reserved towards India throughout the Cold War - the United States and China. These two states considered Indian foreign policy too close to that of the Soviet Union. The India-Pakistan military strains led both to refuse to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and to develop nuclear weapons, much to the chagrin of the United States.

Internally, the situation in 2007 is quite different from that in 1947. Islamism as a political force has become extremely strong and permeates large sectors of the armed forces. Islamists are unhappy about Pakistan's links with the United States, especially during the last five years. The urban, secular forces would like to force out Musharraf (as well as the armed forces) from political power and have recently shown their strength in their successful support of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court whom Musharraf had tried to fire. The armed forces, while Islamist, do not really want to cede their role to jihadist elements like al-Qaeda, and therefore attempt to play a bridge role - appeasing but trying to contain the jihadist forces.

When the United States was supporting jihadists in Afghanistan in the 1980s, its strongest ally was Pakistan, and in particular the intelligence units of the armed forces, the ISI. In the 1990s, the ISI helped the Taliban come to power in Afghanistan. Hence, the ISI was quite unhappy when the United States overthrew the Taliban and has not been very cooperative with regard to Afghanistan, something about which Afghanistan's current president, Hamid Karzai, complains to this day.

It seems quite clear that, when Osama bin Laden launched the attack against the United States on September 11, 2001, one of his major objectives, if not his principal one, was to bring down the regimes in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Why and how so? Bin Laden considered the regimes in both countries too accommodating to the United States behind their ambiguous language on Islamism. He expected the United States to put pressure on the Musharraf regime to engage his homegrown Islamists totally. Bin Laden's theory was that, if it did so, Musharraf's regime would fall.

Musharraf has resisted this pressure (as has Saudi Arabia), agreeing with bin Laden that it was politically suicidal to do what the United States wanted him to do. On the other hand, he had to keep the United States relatively happy lest Pakistan lose the crucial economic and military support of the United States. So, every once in a while, he throws a bone to the United States, as in the recent assault on the Red Mosque, a stronghold of Islamists. But he is careful not to go further.

And this contradiction is what brings us to where we are today. The jihadists are well installed in the so-called northwest frontier areas (which have always been de facto autonomous) and Musharraf does not dare to take real action against them. The jihadists denounce Musharraf for being too pro-American. The United States, on the other hand, considers him far too accommodating to the jihadists. The United States keeps mumbling about direct action. But the United States cannot really turn against Musharraf entirely, lest an even worse regime succeed his. Meanwhile, the urban secular classes are pressing a weakened Musharraf to step down and give way to a truly civilian regime.

Musharraf's key support, indeed sole support, remains the army. But as long as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue, Islamist political strength continues to grow. And Pakistan has many nuclear weapons. Should the Islamists come to unrestrained power, this would pose a real geopolitical threat to the United States, unlike the invented one of Saddam Hussein.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

RIP: Nonproliferation (15 Augustus 2007)

The concept of nuclear non-proliferation has been in trouble since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. If the initial shock led to much sentiment worldwide to banish somehow this weapon, this sentiment has been losing support ever since. The concept did limp along for 62 years, which is pretty long, considering how improbable it always was that any country would renounce access to powerful weapons that other countries possessed. However, the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative, officially announced on July 27, 2007, can be considered the final nail in the coffin of a hopeless idea.

The whole history of nuclear weapons has been one of fear of the others. In the summer of 1939, even before the Second World War had started, Leo Szilard, a leading physicist, was deeply concerned that Nazi Germany would build atomic bombs and do so far faster than the United States. He noted that Germany had already stopped the export of uranium from German-occupied Czechoslovakia. He persuaded Albert Einstein to write his famous letter to Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, in which Einstein brought this situation to the president's attention and suggested that the U.S. government urgently assist research in this field.

This led to the Manhattan Project, in which throughout the war nuclear scientists worked on the production of an atomic bomb. Germany never succeeded in solving the technical problems of doing this, but the United States did. On July 16, 1945, two months after Germany had surrendered, the Manhattan Project conducted the so-called Trinity Test at Los Alamos, the first controlled nuclear explosion ever. The United States had the bomb.

The United States was still at war with Japan. Japan was not at that time developing nuclear weapons. The question was whether or not the bomb should be used in the war with Japan. As we know, President Truman decided to drop two bombs, one on Hiroshima on August 6 and one on Nagasaki on August 9. The Japanese offered to surrender on August 10. There has long been debate as to why the United States dropped the two bombs. The official explanation is that it shortened the war and thereby saved U.S. lives. It is no doubt true that, by shortening the war, it saved U.S. lives - at the cost obviously of many Japanese lives.

The timing has always been suspicious. We know that the Soviet Union had pledged to enter the war against Japan exactly three months after the war with Germany ended. The Germans surrendered on May 8, and therefore the Soviet Union was scheduled to declare war on Japan on August 8, which it did. The bomb on Hiroshima was dropped on August 6. It seems plausible to suggest that one of the messages of the timing was from the United States to the Soviet Union: We have the bomb - which works - and you don't. So beware!

In his statement to the American people on August 6, Pres. Truman said that Roosevelt and Churchill had agreed in 1940 on a joint program of nuclear development, and therefore he was sharing technology with Great Britain about the atomic bomb. At this point, Great Britain became the second nuclear power. The United States sought to stop proliferation there. The Soviet Union obviously did not agree, and in 1949 it achieved its first atomic explosion and then a hydrogen bomb explosion in 1953. The world had entered into the period of MAD - mutually assured destruction. This "balance" between U.S. and Soviet capacities has been credited by many for the fact that the so-called cold war never became a hot war.

Both the United States and the Soviet Union would have been quite happy to have proliferation stop there. This did not at all suit the most rambunctious powerful ally of each one - France and China. They both thought it essential to obtain nuclear weapons as a mode of holding their more powerful ally in political check. France's first explosion was in 1960 and China's in 1964. The world had reached the point where all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council possessed nuclear capability. The five proceeded to try to stop proliferation there.

In 1968, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was signed by a large number of countries. The treaty "recognized" the five members of the Security Council as nuclear powers. It provided that it would come into effect when the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and 40 other countries ratified it, which occurred in 1970. Eventually France and China would ratify the treaty in 1992 and at its height a maximum of 187 countries ratified this treaty.

The NPT had three pillars: (1) The five "recognized" nuclear powers pledged not to help in any way any other country to become a nuclear power; (2) The same five countries pledged to take steps towards effective disarmament; (3) all other countries received the promise of assistance with the peaceful uses of atomic energy.

None of these provisions has been well-respected. First, while the "recognized" five may only occasionally have directly helped other powers to become nuclear states, these other states could and did seek to do it on their own. Secondly, no significant disarmament has occurred. Quite the contrary. The five "recognized" powers have expanded their nuclear arsenals, and in particular the United States. And the third provision about the peaceful uses of atomic energy has become extremely controversial, since the United States has come to consider this a loophole which permits "other" countries to proceed far down the path to nuclear development without impediment.

In any case, as we know, three countries refused ever to sign the NPT - India, Pakistan, and Israel. All three developed nuclear weapons. In theory, the United States took measures to punish India and Pakistan (which have never denied their nuclear development). It has always been silent about Israel (which has never admitted its nuclear development, although everyone is aware of it). In 2003, North Korea withdrew from the NPT and then admitted to being a nuclear power.

The United States claims that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, and there is much reason to believe this is so. There have been ambiguous statements in the past few years from a large number of other countries which seem either to be already in the process of developing such weapons or about to launch such projects. As for the latest treaty between the United States and India, it offers considerable assistance by the United States to India in the sphere of peaceful development, without however constraining India in any way from further development of nuclear weapons. In this way, it clearly is rewarding, as opposed to punishing, India. And the correct interpretation everyone is giving this treaty is that, when it suits its political objectives, the United States will not oppose proliferation. So why should anyone else restrain themselves?

The Romans had a saying: De mortuis nihil nisi bonum dicandum est. Speak not ill of the dead. Non-proliferation is dead - nihil nisi bonum!

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

The Vietnam Analogy (1 September 2007)

George W. Bush is showing both desperation and malignity by invoking the Vietnam analogy to justify the continuing presence of the United States in Iraq. For a very long time, the Bush administration has denied the analogy. They did this for obvious reasons. For most people, what they remember of Vietnam is that the United States was defeated, and this defeat resulted in a weakening of American power in the world.

There is however a significant group of people in the United States who believe that the United States could have won that war had the politicians not lost their nerve. The audience that George W. Bush used for his August 22 speech in which he made this argument was the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. It is safe to say that this particular audience was composed largely of people who share the view that Vietnam was a war that could have been won, and that therefore Iraq is a war that can be won. It is worthwhile reviewing the validity of Bush's arguments, and then the reasons why now, and only now, he has invoked the Vietnam analogy.

The argument is a strange one. Bush offered no evidence whatsoever about the military situation in Vietnam and why, had the United States persisted, the war could have been won. Instead, he concentrated entirely on the alleged consequences of withdrawal. He made his argument by using three slogans: boat people, re-education camps, and killing fields. Boat people refers to the fact that very many Vietnamese who had been supporters of the United States in the war sought to flee the country in boats and many of them died in the South China Sea. Re-education camps refers to the fact that the government of Vietnam, after the end of the war, sent many persons who had been opposed to their coming to power to so-called re-education camps. And killing fields refers to the fact that - in Cambodia not Vietnam - the Khmer Rouge government that came to power slaughtered a very large number of people in "killing fields." Supposedly, each of these consequences was the result of U.S. withdrawal, and each could have been prevented had the United States not withdrawn. Let us review them one by one.

That many United States supporters would wish to flee Vietnam after the withdrawal was of course both predictable and inevitable. Losers in a war usually seek to flee the group against whom they had been fighting. But the deaths of these boat people was not the responsibility of the Vietnamese government. It was the responsibility of the United States and its allies in refusing to open their borders generously to these persons. One has only to compare the fate of these boat people to that of those other boat people who have left Cuba over the years. The latter, unlike the former, have been welcomed with open arms in the United States.

The re-education camps were harsh. Many people died in them, and still more suffered grievously. The numbers who died were nonetheless far fewer than the number of Vietnamese who died as a result of the war, and probably less than those who might have died had the war gone on much longer. In any case, what is the evidence that, had the United States stayed in the war still longer than they did, it could have actually defeated the Vietcong? And what would have been the likelihood that the opponents of the Vietcong, had they won, would not have established their own re-education camps?

Finally, the killing fields. This is the most fantastic argument of all. The Khmer Rouge would never have been able to come into existence without the Vietnam war. It was the United States that deposed King Sihanouk, who had been the strongest barrier to the Khmer Rouge. Rather than Sihanouk who was critical of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the United States arranged to have Lon Nol, a general without popular support, overthrow Sihanouk, and then Lon Nol's government was in its turn easily toppled by the Khmer Rouge.

The most important thing that Bush left out of his analysis was the things that didn't happen. The main argument at the time for United States involvement in Vietnam had been the domino thesis - that if Vietnam fell to the Communists, the rest of Asia would follow. Not only did this not happen, but quite different things happened. Today, Vietnam and the United States are on very good terms, and Vietnam has a flourishing and growing economy. It may not be "democratic" by U.S. standards, but it is a "friendly" nation, not a hostile one.

So, given all this, why did Bush now for the first time invoke the Vietnam analogy, which he had sedulously avoided before? I said it was part desperation, part malignity. The desperation has to do with the enormous popular pressure to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible. Bush had already created a postponement of any decision by saying that Gen. Petraeus would report to him and to Congress on September 15 about how successful the "surge" in troops has been. He said he would make his decisions about Iraq on the basis of the general's report. However, now it turns out that the report that Gen. Petraeus will deliver to Congress will be written in Bush's office. So Bush is making a decision on Iraq on the basis of a report he will write to himself.

Bush has also been inviting "political tourists" to Iraq to get a guided tour of how well the U.S. armed forces are doing in Anbar province, where they have reached an accord with one set of Sunni insurgents to get them to fight another set. This has impressed a few Democratic politicians, who are now leery of denying the "success." The Bush people do admit that the overall political situation is terrible. The Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, doesn't like at all the deals that the United States has been making in Anbar, nor does he appreciate the pressure to take action against the multiple sectarian militias. Visiting Syria, he pointedly said that Iraq has other political options than the United States. Immediately, rumors have begun that the United States might be encouraging a military coup. Now that is a Vietnam analogy. The U.S. intervention began to go really sour once the United States had arranged a military coup against South Vietnam's Prime Minister, Ngo Dinh Diem. So, the desperation is in the fact that the case for staying in Iraq cannot stand up to the light of day. A recent poll by Foreign Policy magazine of so-called foreign policy experts shows that 80% rate the war in Iraq as having a "very negative impact" on U.S. national security goals. If one breaks this down according to self-labeling of the respondents, even 60% of those who call themselves "conservatives" give the same answer.

But why then malignity? George W. Bush is preparing the future. The president that withdrew from Vietnam was a Republican, Gerald Ford, and he did so after a long drawdown of U.S. troops by another Republican president, Richard Nixon. Bush is not going to withdraw the troops. But he's pretty sure that the next president will be forced to do so. And he's pretty sure that the next president will be a Democrat. So he's laying the groundwork for the "stab in the back" accusation. We shall be hearing a lot about this accusation in the decade to come.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Attacking Iran on the Agenda? (15 September 2007)

Iran is back at the top of the news. Almost every day, we hear denunciations by U.S. government officials of the misdeeds of Iran, with a clear subtext that the military option is near. We read of the increased readiness of U.S. air and naval forces for an attack. The blogosphere is replete with messages protesting against such an attack. Is it about to happen? And would it be "rational"?

Rationality depends on one's objectives. So let us analyze first what might be the objectives of those who seem to be proposing such an attack, as well as those in power who are against the idea. And then let us look at the probable consequences of an attack, were it to happen. There seem to be two principal groups of proponents of an attack - Vice-President Cheney and his friends; the present government of Israel and its friends.

The Israelis have made no secret of the fact that they have believed for a long time that Iran is proceeding rapidly to obtaining nuclear armaments and that this represents an enormous danger for the state of Israel. They wish someone to bomb Iranian installations. They would prefer that it be the United States that does this rather than they themselves, both because the United States has more airpower at its disposal and because this would be less damaging politically for Israel. But they have threatened to do it themselves, if the United States doesn't do it soon. From the Israeli point of view, this would be a repeat of what they consider their successful bombing of the Iraqi installation of Osirak in 1981. This objective is so important for the Israelis that it has come to public notice recently that, in 2002-2003, Israel was urging the United States to attack Iran before they attacked Iraq.

Cheney probably has a different objective. He and his friends may be less confident that an attack on Iran would be as successful as the Israeli attack on Iraq in 1981. Cheney's objective is less what would happen as a result in Iran than what would happen in the United States. Cheney probably expects that an attack on Iran would increase Republican prospects in 2009, advance the internal militarization of the United States, strengthen further the presidency, and weaken further civil liberties. If this is the objective, then limited advantage in Iran itself would be irrelevant.

It is clear that there are powerful forces opposed to such an attack. Within the U.S. government, the neo-con presence is much diminished. It seems that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff all think it is a bad idea. It is probable that important corporate leaders think so too, and that probably means that Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson also is opposed. United States allies, including the British, also seem to be opposed to military action. And it is obvious that the Iraqi government is opposed to the idea. So it is Cheney and the Israelis versus all the rest.

The reasoning of the opponents is largely based on an analysis of what would be the consequences of an air attack. The first question is how effective it would be. It is clear that the Iranians have drawn the lesson from the Israeli air attack on Iraq. They have dispersed their nuclear sites, which seem to be multiple, and placed them well underground. U.S. intelligence about the sites is probably quite limited, and it is not at all certain that U.S. aircraft could even locate all of the sites, or destroy all that they could locate. And if the United States can't send in ground forces, then it could be a military flop. But it can't send in ground forces because it simply doesn't have them.

Secondly, it is probable that the Iranians would engage in military/political action in response of some kind, either in Iraq or Afghanistan or both, which could be quite negative for the United States. In Afghanistan, the United States and Iran have been working more or less in tandem, and the United States is in no position to lose tacit Iranian support.

Thirdly, the impact on Iraq is hard to predict in detail. But it will surely not help the already weak political position of the United States in Iraq to force the al-Maliki government to take a position in this matter. If forced, it is highly unlikely that the main Shia parties would do other than support Iran, at least tacitly.

Fourthly, the reaction of the other world major powers would be at best reserved. Perhaps western Europe would say little publicly, but they surely would not acclaim a bombing. And Russia and China would probably denounce it. However much various so-called moderate Arab regimes might be fearful of Iranian strength, it seems unlikely that they could afford to applaud aggressive action against a Muslim country. For those with significant Shia minorities, there would be danger of popular demonstrations, which the governments might find it difficult to suppress.

Finally, it is probable that the present diplomatic negotiations between North Korea and the United States would fall apart as an immediate consequence of a U.S. bombing of Iran, because it would confirm North Korea's worst fears.

In short, it would be a diplomatic mess and a risk of extensive further violence in the Middle East. And if there were no clear military benefits, the advantage to Israel might be very limited indeed. All this is no doubt what people are saying in the debates within the U.S. government at the moment. The only weakness of the opponents to military action within the U.S. government is that all they have to offer instead is further diplomatic efforts and perhaps further economic pressures. Cheney is surely arguing that this won't work either. And he is probably right.

Would it be "rational" therefore for the United States to bomb Iran? Almost surely not, not only from the point of view of the present U.S. government but even from the point of view of Israel. It might be "rational" if the major objective is to change the present political atmosphere within the United States, but then at a very great price.

There are many commentators from the world left who are saying that the United States in the end could get away with a bombing, since the reactions of which I have been speaking would in the end be more languid than I have been suggesting. And some say that the actions of desperate people (which is what they consider both Cheney and the Israeli government to be) is not constrained by the kind of analysis of consequences that I have put forth here. Perhaps! But in my view the likelihood of such "desperate" action to prevail is quite low, if not entirely impossible.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Iraq and the US Elections (1 October 2007)

On November 4, 2008, the United States will elect a new president, a new House of Representatives, and a new third of U.S. Senate. The elephant in the room is the war in Iraq. Everyone knows it's there. Everyone knows it will be the biggest single factor determining the outcome of the elections. And no one is quite sure how to deal with it in terms of winning the elections.

Most politicians worry first of all about their own (re)election, secondly about their party's winning a majority, and only thirdly about ideological issues. Only a small number put ideological issues first. The main candidates for the presidential nominations, and most persons who will be running for seats in Congress are calculating where to place themselves in order to lose fewest voters who would normally vote for them, and attract as many voters "in the middle" as possible. Viewed by an analyst, the decisions are not easy to make, and this is reflected in all the hedging that is going on.

Let us start with the possible presidential candidates. It is commonly believed that the Iraq war has shifted votes towards the Democratic candidate, whoever it may be. This seems to be confirmed by the constant polls. But what does a potential candidate conclude from this? It seems the principal Republican candidates are all concluding that they cannot afford to be less than hawkish, lest they turn off their last reliable voters, the so-called base. But they also seem to conclude that they should take some distance from Bush, in effect blaming him not for a wrong position but for incompetence in implementing it. And they are obviously hoping that the main Democratic candidates will do or say something that they can pounce on as "unpatriotic" and thereby win back voters "in the middle." They may also be counting on some dramatic event that might rekindle popular angers against the "enemy" and thereby win back disaffected Republicans and independents to the Republican camp. As Sen. Chuck Hagel, himself a disaffected Republican, has said, "the Republican party has won two elections on the issue of fear and terrorism [and] it's going to try again."

It is very clear that the main Democratic candidates are making more or less the same analysis. They want to sound mildly dovish on the war in order to appease their base, but not so much so that they can be tarred effectively as somehow "treasonous," lest they lose the disaffected Republicans and independents. They are being cautious, feeling that the election of a Democratic president and Congress is theirs to lose, not theirs to win. In any case, taking a much stronger line in Congress seems to most of them pointless, since they don't really have the votes to pass anything. They don't have the 60 votes in the Senate even to get a formal vote on their proposals, and they certainly don't have the 67 to override a certain presidential veto. In the latest debate among the Democratic candidates, none of them was ready to pledge a total withdrawal of all troops by 2013. Clearly, this cautiousness is increasingly irritating their more militant base. Still, thus far there is no sign that the strong antiwar sentiment among these more militant voters will lead to a serious defection from the Democratic candidate for president.

The real issue is in the congressional elections. Already in 2006, the Democratic strategists were deeply divided between those who were sure that the more "moderate" the Democrat, the more likely the local victory, and those who argued exactly the opposite, that only an ideologically-bold candidate could rally the voters. The actual 2006 results seem to indicate that neither argument was correct for all districts. And so we may expect the tactical debate to continue.

In two-party (or even multiparty) elections, the important tactical question is not whether being more "centrist" or being more "radical" is more likely to be effective. The real question is what is being defined as the "center." In the last 25 years in the United States, the Republicans have been able to push the definition of "center" further and further to the right. In 2006, the curve swung slightly back. The undecided question is whether between now and the 2008 elections, what is defined as "center" in the United States moves still further left. This is where the public rhetoric plays a key role, as well as the "unexpected" political happenings. In a sense, it is Cheney versus MoveOn in hand-to-hand rhetorical combat.

Were MoveOn to prevail, even somewhat, it would not matter much how "centrist" a line the Democratic presidential candidate put forward in the campaign. The election results would largely determine the post-election political stance. But if Cheney were to prevail in the rhetoric, it might not keep a Democrat from becoming president, but it would make it very difficult for this president to withdraw quickly from Iraq.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Japan, the United States, and the World-Economy (15 October 2007)

Sometimes startling and revealing news items are buried in the back pages of the news media. On October 3, The New York Times ran a small table in its business section about access to the internet. It listed ten countries with strong economies and showed two figures for each: average speed of broadband connections in megabits a second, and price per month of service (one megabit a second). The country that was fastest and cheapest was Japan (61.0 and $0.27). The runner-up was South Korea (45.6 and $0.45).

What was interesting about this table was how the United States stood in relation to Japan. The United States at 4.8 was fourteen times slower than Japan and at $3.33 twelve times more expensive. It is piquant to note that France, so frequently scorned in the United States for its economic backwardness, while not up to Japan's level, was over three times faster than the United States (17.6) and half as expensive ($1.64).

The explanation of this enormous discrepancy is the relation to the capitalist market of enterprises in Japan and in the United States. For Japan to be what the Times calls a "broadband paradise," Japanese enterprises have had to make heavy investments and give deep discounts to customers. They do this on the theory that disregarding short-term profits and pouring billions into long-term projects will pay off eventually. This was the philosophy that allowed Japan to create one of the two fastest railway lines in the world - the Shinkansen. Its only competitor in this field is France's TGV. The United States, as everyone knows, has a miserable train system known as Amtrak, which hardly anyone uses and is always losing money.

The two crucial differences between Japan and the United States is that U.S. corporate executives are under great pressure to justify any capital expenditures that might eat into this year's returns, and that the U.S. government is unwilling to give financial incentives to companies to help finance long-term investment.

The reasons for both are obvious. U.S. corporations today are dominated by a speculative ethos, in which top personnel turnover is constant and buyouts ever on the horizon. This year's bottom line is all that matters to a CEO who may not be in a position to profit from next year's bottom line (not to speak of next decade's bottom line). And the U.S. government is spending all its money on military investment and tax breaks for the very wealthy. There is nothing left over for long-term capitalist investment. The Japanese are instead investing in a "once-in-a-century transformation," according to Kazuhiko Ogawa, general manager of the network strategy section at Nippon Telegraph & Telephone.

The bubble in U.S. stocks may possibly continue for a little while longer. But in a decade, the United States may be embarrassingly far behind the Japanese (and the South Koreans, and even the French) in informatics, which everyone is always saying is one of the key sectors of today's capitalist economy.

This is the way that hegemonic decline builds on itself. The leading country concentrates on the short-term situation, and overinvests in unfruitful military expenditure. Speculation replaces innovation as the source of profits. And before one knows it, the others (in this case the Japanese, but not they alone) speed ahead controlling the technology of the future. This is what the United States did when it was, oh so long ago, an ascending economic power.

The only way to turn this around, even partially, is a major cultural shift in the United States. George W. Bush is not at all ready even to think about it. Are Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama ready to exert their leadership in this direction? Nothing is less sure.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Last Call for a Two-State Solution? (1 November 2007)

The prevailing worldwide view of how to resolve politically the conflict of two nationalisms in Israel/Palestine is the so-called two-state solution - that is, the creation of two states, Israel and Palestine, within the boundaries of the onetime British Mandate of Palestine. Actually, this position is not at all new. One might argue that it was the prevailing worldwide position throughout the twentieth century.

The Balfour Declaration of the British government in 1917 called for the establishment of a "Jewish national home" within Palestine, which implied the idea of two states. When the United Nations passed its resolution in 1947, it called explicitly for the establishment of two states (with a special status for Jerusalem). The partition was supported at the time by both the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as by the social movements everywhere that followed their lead. The Oslo accords of 1993 called for two states. And today Condoleezza Rice insists that a final agreement on two states is an urgent matter that she hopes to see implemented at a conference to be convened in Annapolis, Maryland (at an as yet indefinite date, presumably in November of this year).

What was the historic reaction of the Zionist movement (and the state of Israel) on the one hand and of successive representatives of the Arab Palestinians on the other hand to the idea of a permanent partition - that is, two states? In practice, neither side ever liked the idea. Among the Zionists/Israelis, there were originally three different positions, none of them favorable to partition. There were the so-called Revisionists (and their successor groups such as the Likud today) who called outright for an exclusively Jewish state (indeed, originally including Jordan). For many of their advocates, this included the need to expel non-Jews from the land. There was at the other end of the spectrum a small group of intellectuals (such as Judah Magnes and Martin Buber) who called for the establishment of a unitary Arab-Jewish binational state, a position that died out after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. And then there were the mainstream Zionists who became the mainstream political leaders in Israel. They accepted the idea of partition as a necessary reality, while seeking to foster a creeping expansion of the frontiers of the Jewish state, hoping one day to occupy most or all of the country. This was essentially the position of such major figures as David Ben-Gurion, and later of Ariel Sharon.

The only Zionist/Israeli groups that ever called for two states as a permanent and definitive solution were movements such as Peace Now, which emerged after 1967, which proposed to exchange "land for peace." These groups were never able to win a clear majority in Israeli elections, and today their position is more than ever a minority one.

On the Arab/Palestinian side, the resistance to the idea of two states has always been great. At first there were no advocates whatsoever of the idea. This is why, when the United Nations decided on partition in 1947, there were no takers on the Arab/Palestinian side. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was created in 1964 as an organization specifically opposed to the idea. The PLO did slowly change its position in the 1980s and, as part of the Oslo accords of 1993, formally accepted the idea of two states. For many Israelis, nonetheless, this change of position was merely tactical and not genuine - a sort of mirror image of the Ben Gurion-Sharon pragmatic acceptance of partition as the realism of the present, while always hoping to move from there to a later one-state solution. Today, however, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority is a loud and strong proponent of a two-state solution. And the Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, are clearly ready to endorse this position. On the other hand, today, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel seems at best a very lukewarm proponent of actually creating a Palestinian state.

So, what are the prospects of arriving at an accord? Not very strong, as is acknowledged in the statement of eight heavyweight U.S. public figures who have just published in The New York Review of Books what might be termed a last call for a two-state solution. They entitle this statement somewhat ominously "Failure Risks Devastating Consequences." Who signed this statement? The first name is Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Jimmy Carter's national security advisor and is a key advisor of Barack Obama. There are three other Democratic notables: Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the Iraq Study Group; Thomas Pickering, Bill Clinton's Under-Secretary of State; and Theodore Sorenson, special counsel to John F. Kennedy. The Republican side is equally eminent: Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to both Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush (who is often considered to be the unofficial voice of the first President Bush); Carla Hills, U.S. Trade Representative for George H.W. Bush; former Senator Nancy Kassenbaum-Baker; and Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

This very distinguished group share one feature in common: They have had nothing to do with the current administration of George W. Bush. Their letter was sent to President Bush and to Condoleezza Rice. They offer a detailed proposal - the one that everyone knows is the only plausible two-state solution: two states based on the 1967 frontiers, two capitals in Jerusalem with special arrangements for the holy places, and "a solution to the refugee problem that is consistent with the two-state solution, addresses the Palestinian refugees' deep sense of injustice, as well as provides them with meaningful financial compensation and resettlement assistance." They also call for including both Syria and Hamas in the settlement negotiations, and an immediate freeze on Israeli settlements. This was the proposal almost adopted at the Taba meetings in December 2000 in the last days of the Clinton administration. But almost is not good enough. This proposal is one that is no doubt acceptable to Abbas, and even quite possibly to Hamas. But it is one that has long been publicly and strongly excluded by Olmert's government.

Why the tone of desperation? Because the authors know that it is unlikely that the proposal will be accepted either by the Israeli government or by George W. Bush. The Israeli Knesset has clearly been dragging its feet on any agreement, and there are no signs it is ready to shift position. Nor is there any sign that the Bush administration is ready to think about really twisting their arm to do so. Quite the contrary.

Why then do the eight signatories bother to make this last call? Because the twentieth-century international consensus on the two-state solution is fading away. Sympathy for Israel, once so strong, is declining even in quarters once strongly sympathetic to the Israeli position, and with this there are coming increased calls for a unitary state. Given the present state of mutual fear and antagonism, the Israelis will never accept a one-state outcome. They would no doubt rather continue the cycle of unending violence. What Brzezinski and the other seven are implicitly warning is that failure of the Israelis (and of the U.S. government) to accept this proposal right now would have the devastating consequence of a much-escalated civil war that could go on for another thirty years, with a very uncertain outcome for the very survival of the state of Israel. It is a gloomy picture for one and all.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

What Does Putin Want? (15 November 2007)

Is the question, what does Putin want, the same question as what does Russia want? I think the answer is that the answers to the two questions are fairly close. In any case, Putin has not been at all shy about telling us what he wants on behalf of Russia. He used two high-level European conferences recently to spell out exactly what his concerns are. The first was his speech at the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy on October 2, 2007, in the presence of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. And the second was at a press conference following the Summit of the European Union in Lisbon on October 26.

He opened his remarks in Munich by saying that he would avoid "excessive politeness" and "say what I really think about international security problems." He started the talk by an appraisal and critique of U.S. foreign policy. He called the idea of a unipolar world "pernicious" not only for others but for the "sovereign itself." The unipolar model was not only "unacceptable but also impossible in today's world."

He talked of the increasing disdain for the basic principles of international law, and said that "first and foremost the United States has overstepped its national borders in every way." He said this was "extremely dangerous." He insisted that the use of force can be justified only if "sanctioned by the UN" and one cannot "substitute NATO or the EU for the UN." He specifically warned against the "militarization of outer space." He reminded everyone of a speech of then NATO Secretary-General Manfred Woerner on May 17, 1990, in which he gave Russia "a firm security guarantee" that NATO would not place a NATO army "outside of German territory." Putin asked: "Where are these guarantees?"

Then he turned to the question of the struggle against poverty in the world. He asserted that resources that are being allocated for these purposes are tied to development of the donor country's companies. "And let's say things as they are - one hand distributes charitable help and the other hand not only preserves economic backwardness but also reaps the profit thereof."

Putin was even more provocative in Lisbon where he said that the U.S. policy in Europe, and specifically its proposals about missile installations, was analogous to the Cuban missile crisis. "A threat is being set up on our borders." Having made the analogy, he said that there was no such crisis now because of Russia's changed relations with the European Union and the United States. He added (with a smile?) that "with President Bush, this is a relationship of trust. I think I have the right to call him a personal friend, as he calls me."

Putin has clearly said to the United States and to Europe that if they want a renewal of military buildup in Europe, they can have it. But if not, then they have to reconsider their present policy. Putin however did not put his eggs in that basket. For he is confident that the geopolitical situation is rapidly changing, because of the transformation of the world-economy.

Putin pointed out that the combined GDP in purchasing power parity of India and China is already greater than that of the United States. And if one does the same calculations for the so-called BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India, and China - they surpass the cumulative GDP of the European Union. And he added, "according to experts this gap will only increase in the future." As Putin said, it is obvious that this economic potential will "inevitably be converted into political influence and will strengthen multipolarity."

Putin even held out the economic carrot. He pointed out that "foreign companies participate in all our major energy projects." In oil extraction, 26% is done by foreign capital. "Try, try to find me a similar example where Russian business participates extensively in key economic sectors in western countries. Such examples do not exist! There are no such examples."

Putin wants, as Russians have wanted for centuries, to be accepted as a principal player in the world-system. He obviously feels that the United States, and even western Europe, used the Yeltsin interlude to ignore Russia. He seems confident that the tide has turned, primarily because of changes in the world-economy. And, confident of the future, Putin lays down his conditions. He appears to be appealing to Europe for active cooperation and to the United States for a de facto military truce. We shall see in the next decade how successful such policies will be.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

False Choices, or Media Traps (1 December 2007)

The United States is going through two sets of debates among presidential candidates, one set each for Democrats and Republicans. These debates usually have journalists as conveners and questioners, and the journalists seek to force the candidates to commit themselves on supposedly difficult choices. These "difficult" choices are regularly formulated in ways that they are media traps, sometime maliciously so.

A typical example occurred on Nov. 14 at a Democratic debate presided over by Wolf Blitzer. He posed the question, "Are human rights more important than American national security?" Obviously, the answer Blitzer was forcing was the pseudo-patriotic one that national security took precedence over everything else. Bravely, Richardson voted for human rights. But Dodd, Biden, and Clinton all said it was obvious that national security was the primary consideration. And Obama said the two considerations are complementary. Kucinich was cut off from answering.

No one said the question was an absurd one, in two different ways. First of all, was it a question about foreign policy? Or was it a question about U.S. internal policy? Blitzer and the candidates assumed it was a question about foreign policy, at the moment a question about U.S. policy in Pakistan. One person tried to shift the ground to internal policy, but he was not allowed to do this.

Yet, the question is of course primarily one about U.S. internal policy. George W. Bush has been persistently engaged in diminishing human rights in the United States on the grounds that something called "national security" requires this, and on the grounds that national security always comes first. Most Republican politicians and presidential candidates endorse this position enthusiastically, and most Democratic politicians and presidential candidates are intimidated into agreeing, lest they seem weak or unpatriotic.

But there is an obvious question to which almost no one alludes. What is it that the nation is trying to "secure"? The standard answer, on the rare occasions that this question is explicitly posed, is that the nation is trying to secure "liberty" or "freedom" or "human rights," which the United States is said to enjoy and which is the source of its national pride.

The illogic of seeking to "secure" freedom or human rights by diminishing freedom or human rights seems to escape attention, as it did when Wolf Blitzer posed his unhelpful, not to say malicious, question. The Obama answer, that the two are complementary, is meaningless. The logically necessary answer is that it is freedom or human rights that the government, the media, and the people should always be trying to "secure." There is nothing else to secure. It is surely not "life" that one is trying to secure. If it were, why would we make of Patrick Henry an American cultural hero because he said "Give me liberty or give me death"?

If one poses this pseudo-question as a question of foreign policy, it is equally a trap. Is the United States government, or any government, in fact able to "secure" human rights in Pakistan, or any other country? And if it does undertake actions with these ostensible objectives, does it, as a result, "secure" these human rights in these other countries?

The clear answer of five hundred years of history of the modern world-system is that such interventions occasionally have positive results but most frequently make the situation worse, from any middle-run standard. The Iraq invasion surely provides confirmation of this elementary observation. The primary historical observation we can make about the geopolitics of the modern world-system is that major powers have almost never engaged in interventionist action for any other reason than preserving their power position and advantages over the middle run. The rhetoric they employ - either of human rights or of national security - is vacuous for the most part, and is used primarily to throw dust in our eyes. Unfortunately, throwing dust to blind us to reality is most often a successful tactic in the short run.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

A Major Reversal? The NIE Report on Iran (15 December 2007)

The Director of National Intelligence of the United States released on December 3 a declassified version of a report, called a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), concerning Iran and nuclear weapons. The New York Times headlined it as a "major reversal." It "reversed" a previous NIE made in 2005. It signaled a shift in official U.S. policy. In 2005, the NIE "assess(ed) with high confidence that Iran is determined to develop nuclear weapons." In 2007, the NIE "judge(d) with high confidence that in fall 2003, Teheran halted its nuclear weapons program."

Most of the press and public analysis of this report presumes that this assessment was made by the Director of National Intelligence and that it is being read by the Bush administration and the Congress who are only now taking it into account. Some have even called it a "coup" against Bush and/or Cheney and the neo-cons. I do not believe this sequence for a moment. I assume that the assessment has already been discussed within the Bush administration. After all, the report is said to have been written as much as a year ago. I believe that the report is the outcome of the discussion within the Bush administration, which made the decision with the knowledge and assent of George W. Bush that the report should be released to the public. The report will not lead to a reversal. It signals that the reversal has already occurred.

What may we infer from this? We can infer that the long ongoing debate between the faction that favored immediate military action against Iran (Cheney and his friends, the Israeli government and their friends) has lost out to the much larger faction that, for various reasons, thought such military action unwise. I am not surprised at this outcome, since I have long been arguing that the anti-immediate war faction was much stronger within the U.S. administration than the Cheney faction, particularly since the anti-immediate war faction includes the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

What will happen now in relation to Iran? Probably nothing very much. Russia, China, and Germany were already dragging their feet very obviously on further sanctions against Iran. There are unlikely to be further sanctions. Iran has persisted in its argument that it has the right to continue the development of its uranium enrichment program, while at the same time freezing its nuclear weapons development program. It will continue to do this for the time being.

The basic fact that we should always keep in mind is that the present U.S. administration has a full plate - maintaining its presence in Iraq, maintaining its presence in Afghanistan, and worrying about the very real possibility of the breakdown of order in Pakistan. Even George W. Bush can appreciate that Iran's possible development of nuclear weapons a decade from now cannot displace these other concerns as a priority.

The United States will no doubt keep up a verbal facade of criticism of Iran. See the President's public comments about the report. This rhetoric is similar to the verbal facade of favoring the creation of a Palestinian state by the end of 2008. But nobody is paying very much attention - not even the presidential candidates in the United States (of either party). These statements are just that - verbal facades. Bush is falling into a weary pattern of attempting face-saving as he lives out what will no doubt be an unhappy last year in office.

In the meantime, every one else around the world is thinking of what they should be doing in the Middle East after 2009, with most probably a Democratic president in office in the United States. It should seem obvious to them all that, at the moment, the one stable state in the Middle East is Iran. Iran to be sure has its internal conflicts and the Ahmadinejad faction may well lose the next elections. But Iran - an oil power, a Shia power, a military and demographic power in the region - is a major actor that has to be taken into account. Countries will prefer to have Iran on their side than against them. Iran is not going to go away.

Iran has over time made several offers to the United States of a deal, proposing that they work together on Iraq and other issues. The Bush administration wouldn't even acknowledge the gesture. It is now probably too late for the United States to make such a deal - but it is not too late for China or Russia or even western Europe. It is not even too late for Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the two countries whose collapse would really unhinge the region in ways that would make the Iraq fiasco seem a petty annoyance.

Actually at this point I have the feeling that Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates understand all this better than Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, but maybe not. In any case, I have the sense that the NIE assessment is an elegant way of saying: the Bush doctrine, Requiescat in pace!

by Immanuel Wallerstein

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

2011 Center for a World in Balance