Immanuel Wallerstein • 2009 | Center for a World in Balance

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Immanuel Wallerstein - 2009

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.

Cuba is Back! (1 January 2009)

Amidst a world economic/financial crisis that seems to worsen day by day, continuing political and military meltdown throughout the Middle East, and the global anticipation of Obama's presidency, little world attention has been given to a major geopolitical event in mid-December, 2008. Cuba is back! Four Latin American meetings were held successively in Salvador de Bahía, Brazil. In order of the number of countries involved, they were meetings of Mercosur, Unasur, the Grupo de Río, and the First Summit of Latin America and the Caribbean (CALC in its Spanish initials). The impresario was Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and the "hero" of the meetings was Cuba. Lula called it an "ideological hurricane."

Let us review what happened. Mercosur is a common market arrangement of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, which Venezuela is joining. The presidents of these five countries announced that they would absorb all the exports of Bolivia, which had its preferential tariffs cancelled by the United States in September on the specious grounds that Bolivia was not doing enough to combat drug traffic.

This action was endorsed by Unasur, the union of all 12 South American countries (plus Mexico and Panama as observers). Even more important, Unasur agreed to Brazil's proposal that it create a South American Defense Council. Given that just last May Unasur had tabled this proposal (about which the United States had been unhappy) the Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Celso Amorim, hailed the decision as a "good surprise." He said that it incarnated the idea of Latin America for the Latin Americans, a pointed rejection of the classical Monroe Doctrine slogan of "America for the Americans."

The truly major event however occurred on December 16 in the meeting of the Grupo de Río. The Grupo de Río, a Latin American political forum created in 1986, which in 2008 included 22 countries, "unanimously" admitted Cuba to membership. Mexico's President Felipe Calderón, who was presiding at the session, welcomed the "brother people" of Cuba, represented by President Raúl Castro, to a standing ovation. The forum promptly condemned the U.S. embargo against Cuba, and demanded that it end forthwith.

Calderón and Castro held a private meeting designed to overcome the "rough edges" of the relationship of the two countries that had been brought about by the actions of Calderón's predecessor, Vicente Fox. After the meeting, Castro said the relations were now "magnificent." The two announced that they would exchange official visits to each other in 2009.

The culminating meeting was the summit of all 33 Latin American and Caribbean presidents, the first ever held. The only three presidents not to come themselves but to find excuses to send substitutes were Colombia's Alvaro Uribe, Peru's Alan García, and El Salvador's Elias Antonio Saca - the last firm friends of the United States in Latin America. Brazil was so intent on getting maximum participation that it sent military planes to transport the presidents of poorer countries in Central America and the Caribbean to the meeting.

The significance of this meeting was in the exclusions. Neither the United States nor the former colonial powers, Spain and Portugal, were invited. Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, said that the meeting marked the end of "puppet governments" in Latin America.

The timing of this meeting was no accident. The Fifth Summit of the Americas is scheduled for next April in Trinidad. This is a structure launched by President Clinton in 1994. The same heads of state and government will be invited, except that there will be two more - the United States and Canada - and one less, Cuba.

Presumably, Obama will be faced there with the arguments and proposals put forward at the meeting in Brazil. The first is to include Cuba by revoking its suspension from the Organization of American States. Lula stated that, in order to improve the relations of Cuba and the United States, it is the United States that must take the first step by lifting the embargo. A second is to review outstanding national debts. Ecuador has already announced a moratorium on further debt payments, saying that, after paying the debt for 28 years, it still owes the same amount - a "dismal story" said President Correa.

Castro said he is ready for direct talks with Obama. "If he wants to have a discussion, we will. It's increasingly difficult to isolate Cuba." Lula actually went further in his challenge to Obama. He said that his presidency would become truly historic only when he lifts the Cuban blockade. In the meantime, what used to be the backyard of the United States - Latin America - is increasingly open to other world powers. Russia, China, and Iran have all increased their role in Latin America in significant ways.

The latest entrant is France. President Nicolas Sarkozy paid an official visit to Brazil on December 22-23. The two countries not only agreed to increased commercial links but to very important military ones. France will now assist the Brazilian navy to build five "new generation" submarines, including one that is nuclear-powered, the first such submarine in Latin America. Furthermore, France agreed to turn over to Brazil the necessary technology so that, in the future, Brazil can build more submarines on its own. France will also aid Brazil to build so-called heavy helicopters, of which Brazil intends to become an exporter.

The Cuban ball, the Ecuadorian ball, and the Brazilian ball are now all in Obama's court. He has till April to let us know how he will respond.

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.]

Chronicle of a Suicide Foretold: The Case of Israel (15 January 2009)

The state of Israel proclaimed its independence at midnight on May 15, 1948. The United Nations had voted to establish two states in what had been Palestine under British rule. The city of Jerusalem was supposed to be an international zone under U.N. jurisdiction. The U.N. resolution had wide support, and specifically that of the United States and the Soviet Union. The Arab states all voted against it.

In the sixty years of its existence, the state of Israel has depended for its survival and expansion on an overall strategy that combined three elements: macho militarism, geopolitical alliances, and public relations. The macho militarism (what current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert calls the "iron fist") was made possible by the nationalist fervor of Jewish Israelis, and eventually (although not initially) by the very strong support of Jewish communities elsewhere in the world.

Geopolitically, Israel first forged an alliance with the Soviet Union (which was brief but crucial), then with France (which lasted a longer time and allowed Israel to become a nuclear power), and finally (and most importantly) with the United States. These allies, who were also patrons, offered most importantly military support through the provision of weapons. But they also offered diplomatic/political support, and in the case of the United States considerable economic support.

The public relations was aimed at obtaining sympathetic support from a wide swath of world public opinion, based in the early years on a portrait of Israel as a pioneering David against a retrograde Goliath, and in the last forty years on guilt and compassion over the massive Nazi extermination of European Jewry during the Second World War.

All these elements of Israeli strategy worked well from 1948 to the 1980s. Indeed, they were increasingly more effective. But somewhere in the 1980s, the use of each of the three tactics began to be counterproductive. Israel has now entered into a phase of the precipitate decline of its strategy. It may be too late for Israel to pursue any alternative strategy, in which case it will have committed geopolitical suicide. Let us trace how the three elements in the strategy interacted, first during the successful upward swing, then during the slow decline of Israel's power.

For the first twenty-five years of its existence, Israel engaged in four wars with Arab states. The first was the 1948-1949 war to establish the Jewish state. The Israeli declaration of an independent state was not matched by a Palestinian declaration to establish a state. Rather, a number of Arab governments declared war on Israel. Israel was initially in military difficulty. However, the Israeli military were far better trained than those of the Arab countries, with the exception of Transjordan. And, crucially, they obtained arms from Czechoslovakia, acting as the agent of the Soviet Union.

By the time of the truce in 1949, the discipline of the Israeli forces combined with the Czech arms enabled the Israelis to win considerable territory not included in the partition proposals of the United Nations, including west Jerusalem. The other areas were incorporated by the surrounding Arab states. A large number of Palestinian Arabs left or were forced to leave areas under the control of the Israelis and became refugees in neighboring Arab countries, where their descendants still largely live today. The land they had owned was taken by Jewish Israelis.

The Soviet Union soon dropped Israel. This was probably primarily because its leaders quickly became afraid of the impact of the creation of the state on the attitudes of Soviet Jewry, who seemed overly enthusiastic and hence potentially subversive from Stalin's point of view. Israel in turn dropped any sympathy for the socialist camp in the Cold War, and made clear its fervent desire to be considered a full-fledged member of the Western world, politically and culturally.

France at this time was faced with national liberation movements in its three North African colonies, and saw in Israel a useful ally. This was especially true after the Algerians launched their war of independence in 1954. France began to help Israel arm itself. In particular, France, which was developing its own nuclear weapons (against U.S. wishes), helped Israel do the same. In 1956, Israel joined France and Great Britain in a war against Egypt. Unfortunately for Israel, this war was launched against U.S. opposition, and the United States forced all three powers to end it.

After Algeria became independent in 1962, France lost interest in the Israeli connection, which now interfered with its attempts to renew closer relations with the three now independent North African states. It was at this point that the United States and Israel turned to each other to forge close links. In 1967, war broke out again between Egypt and Israel, and other Arab states joined Egypt. In this so-called Six Day War, the United States for the first time gave military weapons to Israel.

The 1967 Israeli victory changed the basic situation in many respects. Israel had won the war handily, occupying all those parts of the British mandate of Palestine that it had occupied before, plus Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and Syria's Golan Heights. Juridically, there was now a state of Israel plus Israel's occupied territories. Israel began a policy of establishing

Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

The Israeli victory transformed the attitude of world Jewry, which now overcame whatever reservations it had had about the creation of the state of Israel. They took great pride in its accomplishments and began to undertake major political campaigns in the United States and western Europe to secure political support for Israel. The image of a pioneering Israel with emphasis on the virtues of the kibbutz was abandoned in favor of an emphasis on the Holocaust as the basic justification for world support of Israel.

In 1973, the Arab states sought to redress the military situation in the so-called Yom Kippur war. This time again, Israel won the war, with U.S. arms support. The 1973 war marked the end of the central role of the Arab states. Israel could continue to try to get recognition from Arab states, and it did succeed eventually with both Egypt and Jordan, but it was now too late for this to be a way to secure Israel's existence.

As of this point, there emerged a serious Palestinian Arab political movement, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which was now the key opponent of Israel, the one with whom Israel needed to come to terms. For a long time, Israel refused to deal with the PLO and its leader Yasser Arafat, preferring the iron fist. And at first, it was militarily successful.

The limits of the iron fist policy were made evident by the first intifada, a spontaneous uprising of Palestinian Arabs inside the occupied territories, which began in 1987 and lasted six years. The basic achievement of the intifada was twofold. It forced the Israelis and the United States to talk to the PLO, a long process that led to the so-called Oslo Accords of 1993, which provided for the creation of the Palestinian Authority in part of the occupied territories.

The Oslo Accords in the long run were geopolitically less important than the impact of the intifada on world public opinion. For the first time, the David-Goliath image began to be inverted. For the first time, there began to be serious support in the Western world for the so-called two-state solution. For the first time, there began to be serious criticism of Israel's iron fist and its practices vis-à-vis the Arab Palestinians. Had Israel been serious about a two-state solution based on the so-called Green Line - the line of division at the end of the 1948-1949 war - it probably would have achieved a settlement.

Israel however was always one step behind. When it could have negotiated with Nasser, it wouldn't. When it could have negotiated with Arafat, it wouldn't. When Arafat died and was succeeded by the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas, the more militant Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006. Israel refused to talk to Hamas.

Now, Israel has invaded Gaza, seeking to destroy Hamas. If it succeeds, what organization will come next? If, as is more probable, it fails to destroy Hamas, is a two-state solution now possible? Both Palestinian and world public opinion is moving towards the one-state solution. And this is of course the end of the Zionist project.

The three-element strategy of Israel is decomposing. The iron fist no longer succeeds, much as it didn't for George Bush in Iraq. Will the United States link remain firm? I doubt it. And will world public opinion continue to look sympathetically on Israel? It seems not. Can Israel now switch to an alternative strategy, of negotiating with the militant representatives of the Arab Palestinians, as an integral constituent of the Middle East, and not as an outpost of Europe? It seems quite late for that, quite possibly too late. Hence, the chronicle of a suicide foretold.

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.]

Remaking America: The Ambiguities of Obama (1 February 2009)

Barack Obama was inaugurated president of the United States on January 20, to the cheers of a vast majority of both the American people and the people of the rest of the world. In his inaugural address, he promised to "begin again the work of remaking America."

In this short phrase, which was picked up by the world press in their headlines and analyses, Obama captured all the ambiguities of his presidential promises. The verb "remake" can mean quite different things. It can mean returning to a previous state that was better. And Obama seemed to indicate this possibility with another phrase, calling on American citizens "to choose our better history." But "remaking" can also mean more fundamental change, creating a quite different kind of America than the one the world presently knows. The ambiguity is whether Obama proposes merely to tinker with the structure and the institutions of the United States and the world-system or to transform them fundamentally.

What should be clear to everyone by now is that the United States has not elected a Che Guevara as its president, despite the hysterical fears of the unreconciled rightwing of the Republican Party. Nor, however, has it elected another Ronald Reagan, despite the hopes of some of those who voted for him and the fears of his more intransigent left critics. What then has the United States elected? The answer is not obvious yet, precisely because of Obama's style as a politician.

There are two questions to parse. One is what Obama would actually like to achieve as president. The second is what he can possibly achieve, given the realities of geopolitics plus a worldwide depression. Vice-President Biden described the latter on January 25 as "worse, quite frankly, than everyone thought it was, and it's getting worse every day."

What do we know, at this point, about Obama? He is unusually smart and well-educated for a political leader, and he is a poised, prudent, and very successful politician. But where does he really stand in the large gamut between wishing merely to tinker and fundamentally to change? Probably somewhere in the middle of this range. And probably what he will really do and achieve will be more a function of the constraints of the world-system than of his own choices, however intelligent they may be.

Up to now, we have had hints of where he is presently heading in five arenas: inclusive participation, geopolitics, the environment, internal social questions, and how to handle the depression. The initial verdict is very mixed.

Obviously, where he shines best is in inclusive participation. His own election is a measure of that. To be sure, electing an African-American president is merely the culminating act of a steady trend in the United States since 1945 - from President Truman's integration of the armed forces to the Supreme Court's decision on school desegregation, to Thurgood Marshall's appointment to the Supreme Court, to Colin Powell's appointment as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Powell's and Condoleezza Rice's successive appointments as Secretary of State. Still, it marks a breakthrough that few expected two years ago. And it matters.

Obama will continue these efforts of inclusive citizenship. He, however, faces a major political test on the question of immigration. There is no indication yet as to how forcefully he will tackle this issue. He would have to struggle with a large part of his own political base. Given the extent of current and expected levels of unemployment in the United States, he may postpone doing anything. But the issue will not go away, and it will only get harder to resolve. Furthermore, not resolving this issue will have negative effects on the world's ability to come through the depression with less pain.

Obama's geopolitical posture is far less promising. The Israeli/Palestine conflict is probably unresolvable at the moment. The absolute minimum that needs to be done is to include Hamas in the negotiations. Quite possibly George Mitchell's appointment as U.S. special representative presages doing that. But that will scarcely be enough to obtain a viable political solution. The Israelis are entrenched in their bunkers and not ready even to think about anything that Palestinian nationalists could accept.

I have no doubt that the Iraqis will make Obama keep his promise of withdrawal in 16 months. And I do not believe that Obama will do more than jostle verbally with the Iranians. But he has started down the path to disaster in Pakistan, seriously undermining its government in his first week in office. Pakistan's government is weak and may soon fall. And, if it does, Obama will have no defensible options.

The basic problem is that Obama has not renounced the inflated language of a former hegemonic power. In his address, he said to the world: "Know that America is...ready to lead once more." The world wants the United States to participate. It precisely does not want the United States to lead. I don't think that Obama really understands that yet. Pakistan could well be his undoing.

In addition, he has started off on a bad foot in Latin America. He has played to the gallery on Chavez and, worse, he has not heard President Lula's challenge that Latin America will not believe he stands for change until he lifts unconditionally the Cuban embargo.

His first steps on the environment are positive - in his appointments, in his executive decisions, and in his indications to other states that the United States is ready to take part in the collective measures that the scientists indicate are necessary. But here, as in other domains, the question is how boldly and rapidly he is ready to act.

The policy on internal social questions is again an uncertain mix. Obama has restored the policies on abortion that were those of the Clinton administration, and this clearly distinguishes him from the Reagan/Bush policies. He has decreed the closure of Guantánamo and the secret CIA prisons, while postponing for up to a year some decisions about what to do with those who are presently imprisoned. The degree to which he will revoke the vast network of government invasion of privacy within the United States is still a very open question. Nor is it yet clear to what degree he will fulfill his promise to the unions to undo the serious constraints the previous administrations had put on their ability to organize.

Finally, we come to the arena in which he has least leeway, the world depression. He is obviously ready to increase vastly government involvement in the economy. But so is virtually every other political leader throughout the world. And he is obviously ready to augment what might be called social-democratic measures to reduce economic pain to the working strata. But so is virtually every other political leader throughout the world.

The question here too is how bold the measures. He has nominated a bunch of very cautious Keynesians to all his key positions. He has not included any of the U.S. economists who are the left Keynesians - Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Alan Blinder, or James Galbraith. They are all saying that cautious measures won't work, and that precious time is being lost. Maybe one year from now, Obama will reshuffle his team to include those who are calling for bolder action. But maybe too that will be a little late.

Obama is anxious to pull the Republicans in Congress along in his economic proposals. Partly this is his passion for choosing "unity of purpose over conflict and discord," in the words of his inaugural address. Partly, it is clever politics, in the sense that he doesn't want to be out on a limb as the economy further deteriorates. But the Republican leadership is shrewd enough to understand this, and will give him their votes only in return for gutting much of his program.

Obama is off to a very shaky start. The belief that he is ready to push for a fundamental remaking of America has weak evidence in its favor, despite his intelligence and his intellectual openness. The United States is getting good grammar. It needs bold remaking.

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 Politics of Economic Disaster (15 February 2009)

Every day, I read another economist, journalist, or government official opining on how best to achieve economic recovery in this country or that. Needless to say, the remedies all contradict each other. But almost all of these pundits seem to me to live in fantasyland. They actually seem to believe their remedies will work in some relatively short period of time.

The fact is that the world is only at the beginning of a depression that will last for quite a while and will get far worse than it is now. The immediate issue for governments is not how to recover but how to survive the growing popular anger they are all, without exception, facing.

Let us start with the economic realities of the present. Just about everybody throughout the world - governments, enterprises, individuals - has been living above their income for the last 10-30 years, and doing it by borrowing. The world went giddy with inflated earnings and inflated consumption. Bubbles have to burst. This one has now burst (or actually several bubbles have burst). The impossibility of continuing on this path has sunk into consciousness, and suddenly everyone has gotten scared that they are running out of real money - governments, enterprises, individuals.

When that fear takes over, people stop spending, or lending. And when spending and lending declines significantly, enterprises stop producing or slow down. They may close down entirely, or at least fire workers. This is a vicious cycle, since closing down or firing workers leads to lower real demand and causes further reluctance to spend or to lend. It's called depression, and deflation.

For the moment, the United States government, which is still in a position to borrow money and print money, intends to throw some new money into circulation. This might work if the government threw an awful lot, and threw it wisely. But quite probably, it won't do it wisely. And quite probably throwing the amount that might work amounts to little more than creating another bubble. And the dollar might then really fall much faster than other currencies, pulling down the last important prop to the world-economy.

In the meantime, there is less and less money for daily consumption of all kinds for the bottom 90% of the world's population (and it's not so good for the top 10%). People are getting restless. Just in the last month, we have seen people in the streets protesting economic difficulties in a growing number of countries - Greece, Russia, Latvia, Great Britain, France, Iceland, China, South Korea, Guadeloupe, Reunion, Madagascar, Mexico - and probably a lot more that haven't been noticed by the world press. In fact, it's been relatively mild up to now, but the governments are all on edge.

What do governments do when their primary concern is dealing with internal unrest? They really have two choices - shoot the protestors, or appease them. Shooting works only up to a point. For one thing, the agents of force must themselves be well-enough paid to be willing to do it. And when there is a serious economic downturn, arranging this is not all that easy for the regimes.

So the regimes begin to appease their populations. How? First of all, by protectionism. Everyone has begun to complain about the protectionism of other countries. But the complainers are all practicing it themselves. And they will do a lot more of it. The free market economists all tell us that protectionism makes the overall economic situation still worse. That's probably true, but politically quite irrelevant, when there are people in the streets wanting jobs - now!

The second way governments appease when there is unrest is by social-democratic welfare measures. But to do that, governments need money. And governments get money from taxes. The free market economists all tell us that raising taxes (of any kind) during an economic downturn makes the overall economic situation still worse. That may be true, but in the short run that's also irrelevant. As it is, in a downturn, tax receipts fall. Governments can't keep up even with current expenditures, not to speak of paying for increased expenditures. So they will tax in one way or another. Or they will print money.

Finally, the third way they appease is by a healthy dose of populism. The real income gap between the top 1% and the bottom 20% both within countries and worldwide has grown enormously in the last thirty years. The gap will now be reduced to the more "normal" gap that existed in 1970, which is still very large, but somewhat less scandalously large. Hence, you have governments talking now of "income caps" for bankers, as in the United States and France. Or you can prosecute people for corruption, as in China.

It's a bit like being in the path of a tornado. The worst can come upon governments suddenly. When that happens, they have only minutes to take shelter in their cellars. The tornado then passes, and if one is still alive, one comes out to survey the damage. The damage will turn out to be very extensive. Yes, one can rebuild. But then the real argument begins - about how one rebuilds, and how fairly one shares the benefits of rebuilding.

How long will this gloomy picture prevail? No one knows or can be sure, but it will probably be a good number of years. In the meantime, governments will face elections, and voters will not be kind to the incumbents. Protectionism and social-democratic welfare serve governments the way the cellar does during a tornado. The quasi-nationalization of banks is another way of taking shelter in the cellars.

What we the people have to think about and prepare for is what we do when we emerge from the cellar, whenever that is. The fundamental question is how are we going to rebuild. That will be the real political battle. The landscape will be unfamiliar. And all our past rhetorics will be suspect. The key thing to realize is that rebuilding can take us into a far better world - but it can also take us into a far worse one. In either case, it will be a far different one.

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.]

Guadeloupe: Obscure Key to World Crisis (1 March 2009)

Guadeloupe is a tiny island in the Caribbean, the size of greater London. It has a population of about 400,000 persons. The world press hardly ever mentions it. Since January 20, it has been the site of an ongoing general strike, which has managed to get 10% of its population actually marching in the streets, which must be a world record. The strike has been called by Liyannaj Kont Profitasyon (LKP), whose name translates from Creole as "Collective Against `Profitization' (or outrageous profit)."

The LKP is a collective of 31 trade unions, political parties, and cultural associations, who represent just about the entire civil society. The leadership comes from the UGTG, an independent local trade union that received a majority of the votes in the last trade-union elections (in an official French system called élections prud'hommales).

The LKP issued a list of 126 demands addressed to four groups - three levels of the French state (the national government, the region, and the department) plus the employers. Most of these demands concerned economic matters. But as the French minister in charge of dealing with overseas zones of France, Yves Jego, said, beyond these economic demands there is a "societal" crisis. This is a polite way of saying that the strike is not merely about bread and butter. It is also a profoundly anticolonial movement. And it is this combination that makes what is going on in this small and obscure part of the world a key to the world crisis in which we all find ourselves.

Guadeloupe may be obscure today but it has been an important locus of the capitalist world-economy since 1493, when Columbus first set foot there. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it became one of the principal centers of world sugar production, one of France's prized sources of wealth along with Haiti. Of course, the sugar plantations used slave labor imported from Africa, the indigenous population having been wiped out.

In 1763, when France and Great Britain were negotiating the Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years' War, one major question was the fate of French Canada and Guadeloupe. The British had seized both from France during the war, but it was agreed that they could keep only one of them, whichever they preferred. At the time, both countries considered tiny Guadeloupe a rich prize, a major source of world wealth. Canada, by contrast, suffered from Voltaire's depreciation of it as "quelques arpents de neige" (a few acres of snow).

It was precisely because Guadeloupe was so valuable that Great Britain decided to keep Canada. The sugar planters in the British West Indies did not want the competition. In addition, the British government wanted to economize on troops in Canada, which they felt they could do if the French no longer had a foothold.

The French Revolution brought turmoil to France's possessions in the Caribbean, and notably in Haiti and Guadeloupe. In both territories, there were slave uprisings. In both territories, the French plantation owners panicked, especially once the French ended slavery in 1794. The plantation owners turned to the British to save them. In both territories, the French ousted the British, quashed the rebellions, and in the process reinstated slavery. Unlike Haiti, however, Guadeloupe remained a French colony. Business as usual.

Then came 1848 and another revolution in France. And another end to slavery, whose great protagonist was Victor Schoelcher, a minister of the provisional government. Like Lincoln in 1863 in the United States, Schoelcher abolished slavery by decree, because he knew that he could not win a vote in the legislature. This time, however, the juridical abolition of slavery was not repealed, even though the provisional government of which Schoelcher was a minister was replaced by a much more conservative government.

Slavery was outlawed in Guadeloupe (as elsewhere) but for almost a century after that very little changed in the economy. The plantations still produced sugar, the White owners still garnered the profits, and the former slaves were still very poorly paid. To make it worse, their miserable pay had become too expensive for the plantation owners and they were partly replaced by new Asian imported labor. Unemployment became rampant, and has remained so to this day.

After 1945, in the wake of the anticolonial movements everywhere, the French government incorporated Guadeloupe as an overseas department, presumably the equal of every metropolitan department. But economically, they were more dependent than ever on the largesse of Paris. Sugar had exhausted the land and the new base of the economy became the tourist trade. The people of Guadeloupe lived in an economy in which their pay was far below metropolitan French standards but the cost of living was far higher, because of the control of imports and exports by a few large White-owned quasi-monopolies.

This is what caused the double explosion - against "profitization" and against what is still perceived as de facto slavery. What do the people of Guadeloupe want? Their very first demand on the list was for another 200 euros monthly to those receiving the minimum wage plus the old-age pensioners. Given the strength of the strike, it seems they may get the 200 euros, despite the ferocious opposition of the large-scale employers. They are being asked to contribute 50 of the 200 euros and have offered 10. The French government will probably force the employers to join in meeting this demand, although probably not the long list of other demands.

But what about the "societal" crisis? One historic mode of pursuing the anticolonial quest for dignity has been to demand formal independence. In Guadeloupe, the popular movements have been reticent to make this demand. They have seen the limited real power of the independent states around the world and above all those nearby. The fate of Haiti is not attractive. But they do want a profound social transformation - the end of the social and economic power of the small White minority, a practical form of equalization.

If one links economic demands with "societal" demands in the midst of a world economic disaster, one is launching a powerful whirlwind. It is one that a few nationalizations of a few banks in a few wealthy countries will do nothing to stop. So far, Guadeloupe (and elsewhere) have been relatively peaceful in their protests. But whirlwinds have a way of becoming far more severe.

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.]

Civil War in the United States? (15 March 2009)

We are getting accustomed to all sorts of breakdowns of taboos. The world press is full of discussion about whether it would be a good idea to "nationalize" banks. None other than Alan Greenspan, disciple of the superlibertarian prophet of pure market capitalism, Ayn Rand, has recently said that we have to nationalize banks once every hundred years, and this may be that moment. Conservative Republican Senator Lindsay Graham agreed with him. Left Keynesian Alan Blinder discussed the pros and cons of this idea. And while he thinks the cons are a bit bigger than the pros, he was willing to spend public intellectual energy writing about this in the New York Times.

Well, after hearing nationalization proposals by arch-conservative notables, we are now hearing serious discussions about the possibilities of civil war in the United States. Zbigniew Brzezinski, apostle of anti-Communist ideology and President Carter's National Security Advisor, appeared on a morning television talk show on February 17, and was asked to discuss his previous mention of the possibility of class conflict in the United States in the wake of the worldwide economic collapse.

Brzezinski said he was worried about it because of the prospect of "millions and millions of unemployed people facing dire straits," people who have become aware "of this extraordinary wealth that was transferred to a few individuals without historical precedent in America."

He reminded the listeners that, when there was a massive banking crisis in 1907, the great financier, J.P. Morgan, invited a group of wealthy financiers to his home, locked them in his library, and wouldn't let them out until they all kicked in money for a fund to stabilize the banks. Brzezinski said: "Where is the monied class today? Why aren't they doing something: the people who made billions?"

In the absence of their doing something on a voluntary basis, Brzezinski said, "there's going to be growing conflict between the classes and if people are unemployed and really hurting, hell, there could even be riots!"

Almost simultaneously, a European agency called LEAP/Europe that issues monthly confidential Global Europe Anticipation Bulletins for its clients - politicians, public servants, businessmen, and investors - devoted its February issue to global geopolitical dislocation. The report did not paint a pretty picture. It discussed the possibility of civil war in Europe, in the United States, and Japan. It foresaw a "generalized stampede" that will lead to clashes, semi-civil wars.

The experts have some advice: "If your country or region is a zone in which there is a massive availability of guns, the best thing you can do...is to leave the region, if that's possible." The only one of these countries which meets the description of massively available guns is the United States. The head of LEAP/Europe, Franck Biancheri, noted that "there are 200 million guns in circulation in the United States, and social violence is already manifest via gangs." The experts who wrote the report asserted that there is already an ongoing emigration of Americans

to Europe, because that is "where physical danger will remain marginal."

If Brzezinski hopes for the emergence of another J.P. Morgan in the United States to force sense upon the "monied" class, the LEAP/Europe report sees a "last chance" in the April 2 London meeting of the G20, provided the participants come forward with a "convincing and audacious" plan.

These analyses are not coming from left intellectuals or radical social movements. They are the openly expressed fears of serious analysts who are part of the existing Establishment in the United States and Europe. Verbal taboos are broken only when such people are truly fearful. The point of breaking the taboos is to try to bring about major rapid action - the equivalent of J.P. Morgan locking the financiers in his home in 1907.

It was easier in 1907.

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.]

Af-Pak: Obama's War (1 April 2009)

Af-Pak is the new acronym the U.S. government has invented for Afghanistan-Pakistan. Its meaning is that there is a geopolitical concern of the United States in which the strategy that the United States wishes to pursue involves both countries simultaneously and they cannot be considered separately. The United States has emphasized this policy by appointing a single Special Representative to the two countries, Richard Holbrooke.

It was George W. Bush who sent U.S. troops into Afghanistan. And it was George W. Bush who initiated the policy of using U.S. drones to bomb sites in Paklstan. But, now that Barack Obama, after a "careful policy review," has embraced both policies, it has become Barack Obama's war. This comes as no enormous surprise since, during the presidential campaign, Obama indicated that he would do these things. Still, now he has done it.

This decision is likely to be seen in retrospect as Obama's single biggest decision concerning U.S. foreign policy, one that will be noticed by future historians as imprinting its stamp on his reputation. And it is likely to be seen as well as his single biggest mistake. For, as Vice-President Biden apparently warned in the inner policy debate on the issue, it is likely to be a quagmire from which it will be as easy to disengage as the Vietnam war.

There are therefore two questions. Why did he do it? And what are likely to be the consequences during his term of office?

Let us begin with his own explanation of why he did it. He said that "the situation is increasingly perilous," that "the future of Afghanistan is inextricably linked to the future of its neighbor, Pakistan," and that "for the American people, [Pakistan's] border region [with Afghanistan] has become the most dangerous place in the world."

And why is it so dangerous? Quite simply, it is because it is a safe haven for al-Qaeda to "train terrorists" and to "plot attacks" - not only against Afghanistan and the United States but everywhere in the world. The fight against al-Qaeda is no longer called the "war on terrorism" but is hard to see the difference. Obama claims that the Bush administration had lost its "focus" and that he has now installed a "comprehensive, new strategy." In short, Obama is going to do this better than Bush.

What then are the new elements? The United States will send more troops to Afghanistan - 17,000 combat troops and 4000 trainers of the Afghan forces. It will send more money. It proposes to give Pakistan $1.5 billion a year for five years to "build schools and roads and hospitals." It proposes to send "agricultural specialists and educators, engineers and lawyers" to Afghanistan to "develop an economy that isn't dominated by illicit drugs." In short, Obama says that he believes that "a campaign against extremism will not succeed with bullets or bombs alone."

However, implicitly unlike Bush, this will not be a "blank check" to the two governments. "Pakistan must demonstrate its commitment to rooting out al Qaeda and the violent extremists within its borders." As for Afghanistan, the United States "will seek a new compact with the Afghan government that cracks down on corrupt behavior." The Afghan and Pakistani governments are pleased to be getting the new resources. They haven't said that they will meet Obama's conditions. And Obama hasn't said what he will do if the two governments don't meet his conditions.

As for the way forward, Obama asserts that "there will be no peace without reconciliation with former enemies." Reconciliation? Well, not with the "uncompromising core of the Taliban," or with al-Qaeda, but with those Taliban "who've taken up arms because of coercion, or simply for a price." To do this, Obama wants assistance. He proposes to create a new Contact Group that will include not only "our NATO allies" but also "the Central Asian states, the Gulf nations and Iran, Russia, India and China."

The most striking aspect of this major commitment is how little enthusiasm it has evoked around the world. In the United States, it has been applauded by the remnants of the neo-cons and McCain. So far, other politicians and the press have been reserved. Iran, Russia, India, and China have not exactly jumped on the bandwagon. They are particularly cool about the idea of reconciliation with so-called moderate Taliban. And both the Guardian and McClatchy report that the Taliban themselves have reacted by creating unity within their hitherto divided ranks - presumably the opposite of what Obama is trying to achieve.

So, where will we probably be six months from now? There will be more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and the U.S. commanders will probably say that the 21,000 Obama is sending are not enough. There will be further withdrawals of NATO troops from there - a repeat of the Iraq scenario. There will be further, perhaps more extensive, bombings in Pakistan, and consequently even more intensive anti-American sentiments throughout the country. The Pakistani government will not be moving against the Taliban for at least three reasons. The still very influential ISI component of the Pakistani army actually supports the Taliban. The rest of the army is conflicted and in any case probably too weak to do the job. The government will not really press them to do more because it will only thereby strengthen its main rival party which opposes such action and the result may be another army coup.

In short, the "clear and focused goal" that Obama proposes - "to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future" - will probably be further than ever from accomplishment. The question is what can Obama do then? He can "stay the course" (shades of Rumsfeld in Iraq), constantly escalate the troop commitment, while changing the local political leadership (shades of Kennedy/Johnson and Ngo Dinh Diem in Vietnam), or he can turn tail and pull out (as the United States finally did in Vietnam). He is not going to be cheered for any of these choices.

I have the impression that Obama thinks that his speech left him some wiggle room. I think he will find out rather how few choices he will have that are palatable. I think therefore he made a big, probably irreparable, mistake.

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 Was the Point of the G-20 Meeting? (15 April 2009)

Almost everyone took the meeting of the G-20 in London on April 2 too seriously. Pundits and critics have been analyzing it as if it had been designed to accomplish some change in policies by the states which participated. The fact is that everyone who went knew in advance that nothing of any significance would change as a result of the meeting, and that the few minor changes that were adopted could easily have been arranged without the meeting.

The point of the meeting - for the United States, for France and Germany, for China - was to show their internal publics that they were "doing something" about the calamitous world economic situation when in fact they were doing nothing that would in any significant way save the sinking ship.

The meeting was perhaps most important for President Obama. He went to demonstrate three things: that he was personally popular around the world; that he would present himself in a radically different diplomatic style from that of George W. Bush; that the two together would make a difference.

Obama certainly demonstrated the first two. He was acclaimed by the crowds everywhere - in London, Paris, and Strasbourg, in Germany, Prague, and Turkey, as well as by U.S. soldiers in Iraq. So was Michelle Obama. And he certainly employed a different diplomatic style. His interlocutors all said he took them seriously, listened to them attentively, admitted U.S. past errors and limitations, and seemed open to compromise solutions of diplomatic disputes - nothing of which they might have accused George W. Bush.

But did this make any difference in achieving U.S. diplomatic objectives? It is hard to see in what way. The debate between, on the one hand, the U.S. approach to reigniting the world-economy (more "stimulus"), an approach supported by Great Britain and Japan and, on the other hand, the Franco-German approach (more international "regulation" of financial institutions) was in no way resolved. Whatever the merits of the two arguments, both sides stuck to their guns, and the communiqué simply papered over the differences.

It is true that the G-20 agreed to put together a package of 1.1 trillion dollars to be given to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to issue so-called Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) as part of a "global plan for recovery on an unprecedented scale." But as many commentators have pointed out, the scale of the effort is far less than is implied. First of all, part of this is not new money. Secondly, this is financing and not necessarily spending. Thirdly, 60% of the SDRs will go to the United States, Europe, and China, who do not need them. And fourthly, 1.1 trillion isn't all that much, when placed beside the 5 trillion already being provided in the fiscal stimulus plans around the globe.

Everyone came out against protectionism, and proposed to do things about it. But there were no enforceable measures adopted. In addition, there are three different kinds of protectionism in question. The first is protecting one's own industries, something which virtually all G-20 members are already doing and most probably will continue to do. The second is regulating hedge funds and rating agencies. The Chinese cheer this on, while the United States and western Europe are hesitant. The third is regulating tax havens. The Europeans are pushing for this, the Chinese are very cool on the idea, and the United States is somewhere in-between. Nothing changed at London.

The French and the Germans seemed to use the London meeting more to demonstrate that the geopolitical commitments they refused to make for Bush they would continue to refuse to make for Obama. The German newspaper, Der Spiegel, was harsh in its judgment. It said the cause of the financial disaster is that George W. Bush had been a "poppy farmer" who had "flooded the entire world [with cheap dollars],...creating sham growth and causing a speculative bubble...." Worse still, "the change in government in Washington has not brought a return to self-restraint and solidity. On the contrary, it has led to further abandon." Its conclusion: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel is right. The West may very well be giving itself a fatal overdose."

In the geopolitical arena, the Franco-German approach to Afghanistan is unchanged - verbal support for U.S. objectives but no more troops. Would they receive prisoners released from Guantanamo? Germany continues to say absolutely not. France magnanimously agreed to receive one - yes, one.

Obama gave a major speech in Prague outlining a call for nuclear disarmament - presumably a big change from the Bush position. The French conservative newspaper, Le Figaro, reports that the diplomatic cell in Sarkozy's inner circle took a very "abrasive" view of the speech. Just public relations, they said, masking the fact that the negotiations of the United States with Russia on this question were getting nowhere. Furthermore, France was not about to take moral lectures from the Americans. So much for Obama's new diplomatic style appeasing the West Europeans.

Elsewhere, it didn't seem to work too much better with the East-Central Europeans, where the outgoing conservative Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek of the Czech Republic denounced Obama's stimulus proposals as "a way to hell." Obama's speech to the Turkish parliament did get him great applause from all factions (except the proto-fascist right) for its concrete and modulated approach to Turkish questions. But observers noted that the language on Middle Eastern questions was both traditional and vague.

What China seemed to want from the G-20 meeting was for it to occur. China wanted to be included in the inner circle of the world's decision-makers. Holding a G-20 meeting displayed this new reality. When the G-20 decided to meet again, it thereby confirmed China's place. Will the G-8 ever meet again? That said, China showed its reserve about the actual decisions in many ways. It offered a derisory amount to the new IMF package. After all, it got no guarantees that there would be a real reform of IMF governance, which might accord an appropriate role to China.

What we can say in summary is that the principal actors strutted on the world scene. Did they ever intend to do something that was more than that? Probably not. The world economic downturn continues to wend its way, as though the G-20 meeting never occurred.

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.]

Cuba and the United States: The Slow Thaw (1 May 2009)

After nearly 50 years of unremitting hostility to Cuba's revolutionary government, the United States has taken its first steps towards a thaw in relations. The Cuban government has responded cautiously and skeptically, but has kept the door open to this possibility.

Some commentators have attributed this new situation to a change in leadership in both countries. The real explanation lies much more in the changed geopolitical situation - in the world-system as a whole and in Latin America in particular.

The Cuban revolutionaries came to power in January 1959. Relations with the United States deteriorated badly within a year. In March of 1960, President Eisenhower ordered the preparation of an invasion by Cuban exiles to overthrow the Cuban government. Shortly after John F. Kennedy became president, he approved a revised version of the Eisenhower plan in March of 1961. One month later, the plan was implemented. It is known as the Bay of Pigs (Playa de Girón) invasion. It lasted a very few days and was a military fiasco for the U.S.-supported invaders.

In January of 1962, the United States proposed at the meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) that Cuba be suspended from membership. The United States proposal was supported by 14 of 21 members, the bare two-thirds needed to pass it. Cuba voted no and six Latin American countries abstained. The principal ground for the suspension was the fact that Cuba had announced its adherence to Marxism-Leninism, which was deemed incompatible with membership. The United States in addition launched a total embargo on trade relations with Cuba and sought to get acquiescence in this boycott from its NATO allies in western Europe and from Latin American states.

October of 1962 marked the very dramatic Cuban missile crisis. The Soviet Union had placed nuclear missiles in Cuban sites. The United States demanded they be withdrawn. The world feared it was on the brink of a nuclear war. In the end, the Soviet Union withdrew the missiles, presumably against a secret pledge by the United States that they would not support a further invasion of Cuba. The Cuban government indicated its disagreement with the Soviet Union's decision, but maintained its good relations with that government.

As is evident, the main element in U.S. hostility to the Cuban government was Cold War considerations. From that point on, the U.S. government placed constant pressure on its NATO allies and Latin American states to cut all links with Cuba, which one by one most of them did.

At the same time, there were an increasing number of Cuban exiles in the United States. These exiles were determined to overthrow the Cuban government, and organized politically to ensure very strong support for this idea by the U.S. Congress and government. Over the first thirty years, this effort was increasingly successful.

Against this hostility, the Cuban government sought alliances not only with countries in the so-called socialist bloc but with revolutionary governments and movements in the so-called Third World. It "exported" to Third World countries its human capital in the form of well-trained physicians and schoolteachers. It offered crucial military assistance to the government of independent Angola, when it was fighting against invaders from the apartheid government of South Africa. Cuban troops helped defeat the South Africans at the crucial battle of Cuito Carnavale in 1988.

The entire situation changed in the 1990s in three crucial ways. The first new element was the collapse of the Soviet Union. This meant that Cold War considerations had now become irrelevant. It meant also that Cuba suffered great economic hardship in the 1990s because of the ending of Soviet/Russian economic assistance, and had to adjust its internal program.

The second new element, especially evident under the presidency of George W. Bush, was the acute decline of U.S. geopolitical power. This unleashed a serious reversal of Latin American politics, with the coming to power, in one country after another, of left-of-center governments. One by one, these countries all began to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba and to call for both the ending of the U.S. boycott and Cuba's reintegration into the OAS.

The third element was a marked transformation of the U.S. political scene. For the first time, there began to be serious talk about the "failure" of U.S. policy towards Cuba. There was pressure from farm interests to gain the right to sell their products in Cuba. This gained support from many Republican senators, including notably Richard Lugar, the senior Republican on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Even more important perhaps was the fact that, after fifty years, the Cuban exile community had evolved in its political views. Large numbers of younger Cuban-Americans began to argue for the right to travel to Cuba, to send money there, and to have free and open exchange.

When Barack Obama became president, he was thus under some pressure to launch a "thaw" in Cuban-American relations. He did this by various initial gestures, undoing the restrictions on family remittances and travel imposed by his predecessor. How far Obama is ready to go to improve relations is as yet unknown. But whereas a mere ten years ago, the internal U.S. political pressure was overwhelmingly in favor of the economic boycott, the public and the politicians are now divided. And given the evolution of Latin American opinion and the growing size of the Latino population in the United States, it is likely that U.S. public opinion will evolve further in the coming year or two.

Cuba's reaction has been prudent. Fidel Castro explained it well on April 5. He said that Obama's gestures and statements were destined primarily to a U.S. public and expressed the view of a U.S. president. He then said two things: "Undoubtedly he is much better than Bush and McCain" (something many left critics of Obama are unwilling to admit) but Obama is constrained by the realities: "The empire is much stronger than he and his good intentions are."

So, Cuba is tentatively exploring how far the United States is ready to go. There are "low-level" diplomatic discussions currently going on. The Obama government is under internal pressures towards a "thaw." The Castro government is under Latin American pressures in favor of a "thaw." If geopolitical realities continue to evolve in the direction they have been heading in the last few years, it is not impossible that Cuba and the United States can achieve "normal" diplomatic relations. No doubt, both would continue to have different perspectives on the world, and pursue somewhat different objectives, but that is true of most bilateral relations. A situation in which the relations between Cuba and the United States were ones of dignity and mutual respect would be a great improvement over the relations of the past 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.]

The Sinking Dollar (15 May 2009)

When Premier Wen Jiabao of China said in March of 2009 that he was "a little bit worried" about the state of the U.S. dollar, he echoed the feelings of states, enterprises, and individuals across the world. He called upon the United States "to maintain its good credit, to honor its promises and to guarantee the safety of China's assets."

Even five years ago, this would have seemed a very presumptuous request. Now it seems "understandable" even to Janet Yellen, the President of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, although she considers China's proposals concerning the world's reserve currency "far from being a practical alternative."

There are only two ways to store wealth: in actual physical structures and in some form of money (currency, bonds, gold). They both entail risks for the holder. Physical structures deteriorate unless used and using them involves costs. To utilize such structures to obtain income and therefore profits depends on the "market" - that is, on the availability of buyers willing to purchase what the physical structures can produce.

Physical structures are at least tangible. Money (which is denominated in nominal figures) is merely a potential claim on physical structures. The value of that claim depends on its exchange relation with physical structures. And this relation can and does vary constantly. If it varies a small amount, hardly anyone notices. But if it varies considerably and frequently, its holders either gain or lose a lot of wealth, often quite rapidly.

A reserve currency in economic terms is really nothing but the most reliable form of money, the one that varies least. It is therefore the safest place to store whatever wealth one has that is not in the form of physical structures. Since at least 1945, the world's reserve currency has been the U.S. dollar. It still is the U.S. dollar.

The country that issues the reserve currency has one singular advantage over all other countries. It is the only country that can legally print the currency, whenever it thinks it is in its interest to do so.

Currencies all have exchange rates with other currencies. Since the United States ended its fixed rate of exchange with gold in 1973, the dollar has fluctuated against other currencies, up and down. When its currency went down against another currency, it made selling its exports easier because the buyer of the exports required less of its own currency. But it also made importing more expensive, since it required more dollars to pay for the imported item.

In the short run, a weakened currency may increase employment at home. But this is at best a short-run advantage. In the middle run, there are greater advantages to having a so-called strong currency. It means that the holder of such currency has a greater command on world wealth as measured in physical structures and products.

Over the middle run, reserve currencies are strong currencies and want to remain strong. The strength of a reserve currency derives not only from its command over world wealth but from the political power it offers in the world-system. This is why the world's reserve currency tends to be the currency of the world's hegemonic power, even if it is a declining hegemonic power. This is why the U.S. dollar is the world's reserve currency.

So, why is Premier Wen "a little bit worried"? It is clearly because over the past few decades, the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar has been fluctuating a great deal but on the whole slowly declining. One of the main factors has been the incredibly rising global debt of the U.S. government. There are two main ways in which the United States has been able to balance its books. It prints money and it sells U.S. treasury bonds, primarily to other governments (so-called sovereign wealth funds).

It is no secret that in recent years the largest single buyer of U.S. treasury bonds has been China. It is not the only one. Japan and South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, India and Norway have all bought U.S. treasury bonds. But China today is the biggest buyer, and given the present credit contraction, China is one of the few likely buyers in the immediate future.

The dilemma for China, as for others who have invested in U.S. treasury bonds, is that if the dollar declines further or if there is significant inflation because of the printing of money by the United States, their investment in treasury bonds may lose them money. On the other hand, what alternatives do China or the others have?

The policy conclusion that China (and other buyers) are drawing is steady low-key divestment. They want it to be not so fast as to cause a "run on the bank" but not so slow as to be the last one out the door - "before the stampede" as W. Joseph Stroupe entitled his article in the Asia Times.

China is reducing the amount of U.S. treasury bonds it is buying, and now prefers to buy shorter-term ones rather than longer-term ones. China is entering into "currency swaps" with other countries, such as Argentina, so that neither has to use dollars in their transactions. And China is calling for the creation of an alternate reserve currency based on the Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) created by the International Monetary Fund, which are based on a basket of currencies. Russia has endorsed this call.

The United States is not sure how to respond. When Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that the U.S. government is "quite open" to China's proposal to increase the use of SDRs, the dollar immediately went down in the currency market. So Geithner then "clarified" what he had said. The dollar remained the world's "dominant reserve currency" and this is "likely to continue for a long period of time." He asserted that "we will do what's necessary to make sure we're sustaining confidence in our financial markets, and in the productive capacity of this country and in our long-term fundamentals."

Is Geithner just whistling in the dark? More important, who believes that what he says is plausible? The key to a currency's strength is not so-called fundamentals but "faith" in the reality of these fundamentals.

All the main actors are hoping there can be a soft landing, an orderly transition away from the U.S. dollar. No one wants to precipitate a free fall, because no one is sure to come out ahead if that happened. But if the U.S. stimulus turns out to be the last of the bubbles, the dollar could very suddenly deflate in a most chaotic fashion. The way you say "stampede" in French is "sauve-qui-peut," which translates literally as "let him save himself who can."

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.]

Obama versus Cheney, Center versus Right (1 June 2009)

On May 21, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama gave a major speech outlining his administration's views on national security. Minutes after he completed his talk, former Vice-President Richard Cheney gave a major speech that essentially denounced Obama's positions on national security. Both speeches were widely covered by the U.S. press, which termed this pair of speeches as a fundamental conflict of values.

In his speech, Obama set out what he presented as a "nuanced" (or "balanced") centrist position on all the most controversial issues, such as the closing of the Guantánamo prison, the use of waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation procedures" on prisoners, and the degree of transparency about present and past decisions concerning the treatment of prisoners. Cheney charged basically that Obama's centrist positions endangered national security. He did this despite the fact, as many commentators noted and Obama himself noted a few days later, Obama was taking positions close to those that President Bush had embraced in his last two years in office.

So, what was going on? Both Obama and Cheney are highly intelligent people, and highly sophisticated political actors. They both knew exactly what they were doing. Politics, as the saying goes, is a tough game. Politicians normally do what they do with two considerations in mind: the search for continued support by the voters in future elections; and the achievement of specific policy objectives. I do not doubt that both Obama and Cheney had this twin pair of concerns in mind. Each obviously felt that his tactics were potentially winning ones. So, in order to understand what was going on, we have to try to discern how each of them analyzed the political situation.

Let us start with Obama, since he obviously has the most immediate power and authority. Obama won the election with the support of almost all voters on the left and a large majority of voters in the center. He won it because of his stand on two basic issues. In 2007, the prime concern of U.S. voters was the war in Iraq. Obama presented himself as a staunch opponent of that war. This was the issue that gained for him support on the left. In 2008, the prime concern of voters shifted to the serious economic downturn. Obama presented himself as a steady hand on the tiller who could restore the U.S. (and the world) economy to a new upturn. This was the main issue that attracted him support in the center.

Since his election, Obama has approached both the issues of foreign policy/national security and the issues of the economy in the same fashion. He has appointed key figures drawn from the center who have recommended centrist policies. He has exuded both prudence and involvement in all the major decisions. In the arena of social issues (the environment, health, education, labor), he has not invested (perhaps not yet invested) the necessary political energy to obtain the legislation that would make possible the major social change he promised his supporters on the left.

Obama seems to think this overall stance will win him (and the Democratic party) the congressional elections in 2010 and then his own re-election in 2012. He is counting on what seems to be Republican disarray and the continuing alienation from the Republican party of centrist voters (principally those who are called "moderate" Republicans). From this perspective, the unremitting far right positions of Cheney are thought to be a great plus for Obama.

As for achieving policy goals, Obama seems to believe that he can tilt U.S. policy in all arenas back from far right to center or even left of center incrementally. He seems to be saying to his voters and the world: Trust me and come back in eight years and look. You will see that things have changed (the mantra of his electoral campaign). My political tactics will obtain the maximum change that is politically possible in the United States at this time. He seems also to be saying that, in order to achieve this incremental change, he can never be brusque in anything he does because, if he is, he will alienate centrist voters and even more important centrist Democratic legislators, without whose support he cannot obtain his incremental goals.

Cheney reasons quite differently. The first thing to notice about Cheney is that, from 2001-2009, he was seldom in the forefront of public debate. The major public figures of the Bush era were Bush himself and Condoleezza Rice. (It is true that Cheney's ally, Donald Rumsfeld, was also a major voice, but Bush fired him in 2007 over Cheney's vociferous objections.)

Cheney preferred to work quietly, behind the scenes, in pushing very aggressively his policy objectives. Cheney's views largely prevailed within the Bush administration from 2001 to 2006. When the Republicans suffered a big defeat in the legislative elections of 2006, Bush shifted position and allowed Condoleezza Rice, aided by Robert Gates, to set the pace - much to the dismay and disgust of Cheney.

Since the election of 2008, both Bush and Rice have been extremely quiet, deliberately. So, to a remarkable degree, has been John McCain, the defeated presidential candidate. Cheney, on the other hand, has become a constant public speaker. He has assumed the role of the leading public voice of the Republican party. More than that, he has called upon the faint of heart to leave Republican ranks. He has applauded the decision of Sen. Arlen Specter to shift his affiliation from Republican to Democrat. He has publicly encouraged Colin Powell and even McCain to do the same. Perhaps George W. Bush will be on this list next.

Most commentators seem to think that, by doing this, Cheney is ensuring the permanent decline of the Republican party. Many Republican politicians, especially the "moderates," are saying so as well. Doesn't Cheney realize this? To think this is to miss the essence of his political strategy.

Cheney believes the odds are that Republicans are going to fare badly in elections for the next four to six years. He thinks the most urgent task is to stop Obama incrementalism from working. The way to do this, he thinks, is to turn U.S. public debate into a center versus (unremitting) right debate. Cheney reasons that, if he does this by shouting loudly and unreasonably, he can force policy outcomes to become a compromise between the already centrist position of Obama and his own. He thinks that this way if we come back in 2016 and look at the outcome, things won't have changed that much at all. He counts on the likelihood that, with a Republican victory in 2016, the country can then resume the ultra-right wing paths Cheney has long advocated and pushed during his years as Vice-President.

Who is right? Obama's incrementalist strategy depends on his continuing popularity. And that in turn depends on the wars and the economy. If the United States policy in the Middle East begins to seem to the American people like a losing quagmire, the left will abandon him. And if the U.S. and the world fall further into depression, and especially if unemployment figures go up considerably, centrist voters will begin to abandon him.

Both negative outcomes are possible, very possible. If either of them happens, and especially if both do, all of Obama's social change policies will go down the drain. And Cheney will have won, hands down. Of course, it is also possible that on the Middle East front and the economic front, results will be more ambiguous - neither great success nor obvious catastrophe. In that case, we may get the social change incrementally, but at best in a watered-down fashion. This is because, by situating himself in the center instead of on the left or at least on the center-left, Obama's tactics have given away a good part of the demands at the outset.

Politics is a tough business. It is also something else. His close political advisor, David Axelrod, recently acknowledged some of these possibilities of negative outcome. He told the New York Times that Obama is "willing to take his chances with the American people." And then he added, "I think he also knows that sometimes you prevail in your arguments and sometimes you don't." When it was suggested to Axelrod that the patience of Americans may not last, he admitted, "That may be. Politics is a fickle business."

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 Kind of Two-State Solution? (15 June 2009)

Now that President Obama has put his weight so openly and publicly behind the concept of a two-state "solution" for the Israel-Palestine controversy/struggle, such a "solution" may well be achieved in the coming years. The reason is simple. Stated abstractly, such a solution has overwhelming support in world political opinion. Polls show a majority of Jewish Israelis favor it, as do a majority of Jews elsewhere in the world. Support among Arab leaders is strong and wide. Even Hamas indicates it is willing to accept the concept of two states on the basis of an indefinite "truce" in the struggle. Some "truces" in the modern world have lasted four centuries. And more recently, there has been "truces" on the Korean peninsula and in Kashmir for more than a half-century. Some "truces" seem pretty permanent.

What seems to be left out of the discussion these days is what does the expression "two states" mean? Quite diverse definitions exist. We should remember that the last real negotiations, those between Yasir Arafat and Ehud Barak in 2000, foundered at the last minute at Taba over diverse definitions.

What are the issues in these contrary definitions? There are at least six different issues which the mere slogan of "two states" hides. The first issue is the definition of sovereignty. The Palestinians of course think that sovereign means sovereign - a state with the same powers as any other sovereign state. Even those Israeli political leaders who have accepted the terminology of two states have been thinking of a limited version of sovereignty. For example, what kind of military apparatus would such the Palestinian state have? Would it control completely overflight permissions? Would it have unlimited control of its borders?

The second issue is of course the borders of such a state. Both the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas feel that accepting the 1967 borders is already an enormous concession on their part. They certainly do not expect to obtain anything less. But such borders of course do not include the post-1967 Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories, nor east Jerusalem. Tiny adjustments in these borders might be acceptable. But tiny means truly tiny.

The third issue is internal democracy in Israel. Will non-Jewish Israelis continue to have fewer rights than Jewish Israelis? This is a central and very little discussed question.

The fourth issue is whether the two states will be defined as secular states or religious states. Will the Palestinian state be a Muslim state? Will Israel continue to be a Jewish state?

The fifth issue is the so-called right of return. Israel was founded on the unlimited right of return of any Jew who wishes to come to Israel. The Arabs who fled from Israel (or were forced out) demand a right of return. This has been the knottiest issue in the entire historic debate. It is a question of both demography and land. The Palestinians might accept a merely symbolic gesture on this question, if all other issues were resolved in ways they considered appropriate.

Finally, of course, there is the question of what would happen with the existing Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories. It is conceivable that the Palestinians might say that some of them could remain where they are. But it seems hardly likely that the settlers would agree to stay in a Palestinian state, or would willingly accept evacuation to Israel.

Now what has Obama done? He has taken a strong position on two questions the present ultra-right Israeli government refuses to accept: no further expansion of any kind of the existing settlements and a commitment to a two-state solution. This is unquestionably positive and courageous in the context of U.S. internal politics.

However, it risks being dangerous in terms of any real solution. For consider the following possibility. Under severe twisting of the arm of Israeli Prime Minister Netanhayu by Obama, Netanyahu concedes both points, and reshuffles his cabinet in the light of this shift in position. Will he then not turn around and say to Obama that now the Palestinians must make comparable concessions? But he would not really be talking about "controlling violence" by the Palestinian Authority - the usual Israeli governmental mantra. He will mean concessions on all the issues I have listed above - on none of which any Palestinian leadership can today make any significant further concession.

Obama's courageous gestures will then turn out to be a mode of distraction from the real underlying issues.

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.]

Obama's Very Limited Options (1 July 2009)

For the past few weeks, the world's attention has been fixed on Iran, where there has been much public unrest about the contested presidential elections. It now seems fairly clear that Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad will be sworn in as the next president of Iran with the full backing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. President Barack Obama has been under considerable pressure, primarily from conservative forces within the United States, to take a "tougher" position on the Iranian election.

He has at the same time, it seems, been getting contrary advice from Beijing. M.K. Bhadrakumar has reported that Beijing warned about "letting the genie of popular unrest out of the bottle in a highly volatile region that is waiting to explode." Beijing's bad example is Thailand, a country that is not on the top of the radar screen for most American commentators and politicians.

In any case, it is not really clear what it means to take a "tougher" position, but it does seem clear that Obama has insisted on being cautious about his public statements. Notice what has been going on in this very same period. On June 24, the White House announced that it plans to return an ambassador to Syria, undoing a decision of President Bush four years ago. And on June 25, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela announced that Venezuela and the United States would restore their ambassadors, the very same ones who had been declared persona non grata in the last days of the Bush administration.

One wonders what Obama felt when he read the tapes of President Nixon that were released on June 23. Among other things, these tapes reveal a conversation Nixon had with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on January 20, 1973, about a settlement into which the United States was about to enter with the government of North Vietnam. Nixon and Kissinger saw this as a face-saving agreement that would allow the United States to withdraw "with honor" from the war, knowing that after a "decent interval," the agreement would result in a military victory for the Viet Minh.

They had one small problem. The agreement was being resisted, for obvious reasons, by President Nguyen Van Thieu of South Vietnam. The Nixon-Kissinger discussion was about how to handle this. Kissinger said the problem was whether Thieu "will concur in letting us initial" the agreement. Nixon said "Letting us...Ha ha." Nixon proceeded to say that Kissinger was to let Thieu know that the U.S. "would cut off assistance" if he refused to go along. He continued: "I don't know if the threat goes too far or not, but I'd do any damn thing...[I'd] cut off his head if necessary."

The one thing Obama knows is that it is no longer really possible for the President of the United States to cut off the heads of anyone, enemies or allies, who defy it. Obama showed his understanding of this new reality already in July of 2007, when he answered a video questioner during the presidential campaign. The question was "Would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?" Answer: "I would." He was immediately attacked by his Democratic rival in the primaries, Hillary Clinton, as "naive." Now Hillary Clinton, as Obama's Secretary of State, is carrying out his pledge.

The reality is that Obama doesn't have much choice. There seems no practical way he could "cut off the head" of Ahmadi-Nejad, Chavez, Assad, Castro, or Kim Jong-Il. Nor are these the only heads he cannot cut off. He cannot remove Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel from office. He also cannot make Hamas disappear from Gaza. Sarkozy, Merkel, Putin, and Hu Jintao all seem pretty secure in their positions. Indeed, he will soon find, if he doesn't already know it, that there's not much he can do about Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq, even though al-Maliki is likely to take greater and greater distance from U.S. policy.

So what's a poor president to do? He will take refuge in the famous quotation of President John F. Kennedy, a quotation Obama has cited more than once: "We should never negotiate out of fear, but we should never fear to negotiate." That doesn't mean that the president of the United States is powerless. It simply means that the best he can do is negotiate, while ducking the brickbats at home.

In the end, Obama shares the concern of Beijing - not to let the genie of popular unrest out of the bottle, for the world today is indeed highly "volatile" - and no government is sure what will happen. Governments, of all stripes, may make concessions to popular unrest. But governments, of all stripes, are not really ready to submit their policies and their power to popular demands.

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 Right Strikes Back! (15 July 2009)

The presidency of George W. Bush was the moment of the greatest electoral sweep of left-of-center political parties in Latin America in the last two centuries. The presidency of Barack Obama risks being the moment of the revenge of the right in Latin America.

The reason may well be the same - the combination of the decline of American power with the continuing centrality of the United States in world politics. At one and the same time, the United States is unable to impose itself and is nonetheless expected by everyone to enter the playing field on their side.

What happened in Honduras? Honduras has long been one of the surest pillars of Latin American oligarchies - an arrogant and unrepentant ruling class, with close ties to the United States and site of a major American military base. Its own military was carefully recruited to avoid any taint of officers with populist sympathies.

In the last elections, Manuel ("Mel") Zelaya was elected president. A product of the ruling classes, he was expected to continue to play the game the way Honduran presidents always play it. Instead, he edged leftward in his policies. He undertook internal programs that actually did something for the vast majority of the population - building schools in remote rural areas, increasing the minimum wage, opening health clinics. He started his term supporting the free trade agreement with the United States. But then, after two years, he joined ALBA, the interstate organization started by President Hugo Chavez, and Honduras received as a result low-cost oil coming from Venezuela.

Then he proposed to hold an advisory referendum as to whether the population thought it a good idea to convene a body to revise the constitution. The oligarchy shouted that this was an attempt by Zelaya to change the constitution to make it possible for him to have a second term. But since the referendum was to occur on the day his successor would have been elected, this was clearly a phony reason.

Why then did the army stage a coup d'état, with the support of the Supreme Court, the Honduran legislature, and the Roman Catholic hierarchy? Two factors entered here: their view of Zelaya and their view of the United States. In the 1930s, the U.S. right attacked Franklin Roosevelt as "a traitor to his class." For the Honduran oligarchy, that's Zelaya - "a traitor to his class" - someone who had to be punished as an example to others.

What about the United States? When the coup occurred, some of the raucous left commentators in the blogosphere called it "Obama's coup." That misses the point of what happened. Neither Zelaya nor his supporters on the street, nor indeed Chavez or Fidel Castro, have such a simplistic view. They all note the difference between Obama and the U.S. right (political leaders or military figures) and have expressed repeatedly a far more nuanced analysis.

It seems quite clear that the last thing the Obama administration wanted was this coup. The coup has been an attempt to force Obama's hand. This was undoubtedly encouraged by key figures in the U.S. right like Otto Reich, the Cuban-American ex-counselor of Bush, and the International Republican Institute. This was akin to Saakashvili's attempt to force the U.S. hand in Georgia when he invaded South Ossetia. That too was done in connivance with the U.S. right. That one didn't work because Russian troops stopped it.

Obama has been wiggling ever since the Honduran coup. And as of now the Honduran and U.S. right are far from satisfied that they have succeeded in turning U.S. policy around. Witness some of their outrageous statements. The Foreign Minister of the coup government, Enrique Ortez, said that Obama was "un negrito que sabe nada de nada." There is some controversy about how pejorative "negrito" is in Spanish. I would translate this myself as saying that Obama was "a nigger who knows absolutely nothing." In any case, the U.S. Ambassador sharply protested the insult. Ortez apologized for his "unfortunate expression" and he was shifted to another job in the government. Ortez also gave an interview to a Honduran TV station saying that "I don't have racial prejudices; I like the sugar-mill nigger who is president of the United States."

The U.S. right is no doubt more polite but no less denunciatory of Obama. Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, Cuban-American Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and conservative lawyer Manuel A. Estrada have all been insisting that the coup was justified because it wasn't a coup, just a defense of the Honduran constitution. And rightwing blogger Jennifer Rubin published a piece on July 13 entitled "Obama is Wrong, Wrong, Wrong About Honduras." Her Honduran equivalent, Ramón Villeda, published an open letter to Obama on July 11, in which he said that "This is not the first time that the United States has made a mistake and abandoned, at a critical moment, an ally and a friend." Meanwhile, Chavez is calling on the State Department to "do something."

The Honduran right is playing for time, until Zelaya's term ends. If they reach that goal, they will have won. And the Guatemalan, Salvadorian, and Nicaraguan right are watching in the wings, itching to start their own coups against their no longer rightwing governments.

The Honduran coup has to be placed in the larger context of what is happening throughout Latin America. It is quite possible that the right will win the elections this year and next year in Argentina and Brazil, maybe in Uruguay as well, and most likely in Chile. Three leading analysts from the Southern Cone have published their explanations. The least pessimistic, Argentine political scientist Atilio Boron, speaks of "the futility of the coup." Brazilian sociologist Emir Sader says that Latin America faces a choice: "the deepening of antineoliberalism or conservative restoration." Uruguayan journalist Raúl Zibechi entitles his analysis "the irresistible decadence of progressivism." Zibechi in effect thinks it may be too late for Sader's alternative. The weak economic policies of Presidents Lula, Vazquez, Kirchner, and Bachelet (of Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile) have strengthened the right (which he sees adopting a Berlusconi style) and split the left.

Myself, I think there's a more straightforward explanation. The left came to power in Latin America because of U.S. distraction and good economic times. Now it faces continued distraction but bad economic times. And it's getting blamed because it's in power, even though in fact there's little the left-of-center governments can do about the world-economy.

Can the United States do something more about the coup? Well, of course it can. First of all, Obama can officially label the coup a coup. This would trigger a U.S. law, cutting off all U.S. assistance to Honduras. He can sever the Pentagon's continuing relations with the Honduran military. He can withdraw the U.S. ambassador. He can say that there's nothing to negotiate instead of insisting on "mediation" between the legitimate government and the coup leaders.

Why doesn't he do all that? It's really simple, too. He's got at least four other super-urgent items on his agenda: confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court; a continuing mess in the Middle East; his need to pass health legislation this year (if not by August, then by December); and suddenly enormous pressure to open investigations of the illegal acts of the Bush administration. I'm sorry, but Honduras is fifth in line,

So Obama wiggles. And nobody will be happy. Zelaya may yet be restored to legal office, but maybe only three months from now. Too late. Keep your eye on Guatemala.

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 Left and the Iranian Elections (1 August 2009)

The recent elections in Iran, and the subsequent challenges to their legitimacy, have been a matter of enormous internal conflict in Iran, and of seemingly endless debate in the rest of the world - a debate that threatens to linger for some time yet. One of its most fascinating consequences has been the deep divisions in this worldwide discussion among persons who consider themselves part of the world left. They have ranged in their views from virtually unconditional supporters of the Ahmadinejad/Khamenei analysis of the situation to virtually unconditional opponents, with multiple positions in-between. This may be as much a commentary on the state of the world left as it is on the state of Iran.

What has happened in Iran? There was an election. It had seemingly a very large turnout of voters. The government announced a sweeping victory for the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Supporters of the three other candidates have charged that the figures were fraudulent. The two principal bases for these charges were the rapidity and closed nature of the counting process and the implausibility of some of the vote results when broken down by different areas of the country. The ultimate authority in Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, asserted in no uncertain terms that the voting results were essentially correct and that therefore the election was entirely legitimate. He has insisted that everyone acknowledge the validity of the results and cease contesting them.

Immediately following the elections, large numbers of persons descended into the streets to protest the reported results and to call for a recount or a new election. As these protests gained steam, Ahmadinejad/Khamenei responded with increasingly severe repressive measures. The Revolutionary Guards and the so-called Basiji (a sort of popular militia) used considerable force to drive protestors off the streets, killing some, and arresting significant numbers in the process.

As of now, the major figures in the opposition, the presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and two key supporters, ex-presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, continue to argue that the election did not produce a "legitimate" result. They are supported in this by the other two candidates in the race who received smaller votes.

What do these major figures want? They all claim to be faithful supporters of the revolution of 1978-79 and devoted to the preservation of the existing Iranian Republic. In short, they are not calling for regime change. On the contrary, they insist that they are more faithful adherents of the original spirit of the Iranian Revolution than the group presently in power.

How has the world left interpreted all of this? The present situation in Iran is by no means unique. After all, there have been massive popular protests in many countries across the world at one time or another for a very long time. So, the world left has endless analogies to which to compare the Iranian situation. There is, to begin with, the Iranian revolution of 1978-79. But there are also Tienanmen in China in 1989, the revolutions of 1968 in endless countries, the so-called color revolutions of recent vintage in ex-Communist countries, a large number of happenings in different Latin American countries, and the general strikes in France in 1995. One can go further back to the Russian and French revolutions, if one wishes.

To be sure, the "world left" - whatever that is - has no unified view of most of these popular protests. Indeed, one might say that one of the principal problems of the contemporary world left is its collective incoherence faced with the panoply and remarkable concrete variety of such popular protests.

The reason for the collective incoherence is threefold. First, there is the long history of disillusionments with the results of such popular protests, especially in the last fifty years. Secondly, there is the objective organizational weakness today of traditional left political movements in most countries. (The principal voices of the world left today tend for the most part to be primarily that either of free-standing intellectuals or of activists who are located in very small organizations.) Thirdly, there is the fact that so-called left analyses differ fundamentally in what they think one should look at when one analyzes concrete situations.

Some look primarily at interstate relations. What would be the consequence, geopolitically, of a particular government being either replaced by a different set of leaders, or still more of a regime being changed to a regime of a different kind? In the case of Iran at the present moment, everyone knows that it is in strong conflict with the United States (and to a lesser degree with western Europe), primarily but not at all exclusively over nuclear issues. President Ahmadinejad is identified with a strong Iranian position vis-à-vis the United States. Both he and Khamenei have argued repeatedly that the United States and Great Britain have been behind the popular protests in order to have Ahmadinejad removed in favor of someone more pliable from a U.S. point of view. Hugo Chavez has offered his total support to Ahmadinejad primarily on these grounds. This is a plausible but limited way to analyze a situation. After all, few leftists would support the present regime in Myanmar, which recently brutally suppressed demonstrations by Buddhist monks, on the grounds that the U.S. government would dearly like to see a regime change in Myanmar.

Or one can look rather at class divisions within Iran. Some self-identified members of the world left argue that the supporters of Mousavi are largely middle-class and wealthy persons, whereas Ahmadinejad draws his supporters from the popular strata. Therefore, they say, a leftist should support Ahmadinejad. Some other leftists analyze the situation differently, arguing that this is merely a struggle between two varieties of privileged groups, and that Ahmadinejad's support in Tehran's poorer zones is largely the result of top down populism (or worse still, of bread and circuses à la Berlusconi). Still others point to ethnic realities among the poorer strata, arguing that the non-Farsi-speaking and/or non-Shi'a rural areas are left out of populist distribution, oppressed, and hostile to Ahmadinejad, who represents, they say, merely the dominant ethnic group.

In addition, many leftists are fundamentally anticlerical. They refuse to recognize the legitimacy of any regime that is based on a central role for the clergy. They also remind us that the present Iranian regime systematically eliminated all non-Islamic left parties from any role, even those parties that supported the overthrow of the Shah. Tudeh, the Iranian Communist party, has condemned the results of the election, and has supported the demands of Mousavi despite its reservations about Mousavi.

There are two things to be said about popular uprisings wherever they occur. The first is that it is never easy for people to go out in the streets to make demands on a government to change its policy. All governments are ready to use force against such demands, some more speedily than others. So when people do go out in the streets, it is never simply because "outsiders" are manipulating them. When the CIA arranged a coup in Iran in 1953, it did not do it by inducing Iranians to go out in the streets. It did it by working behind the scenes with military officers. One ought to respect the political autonomy of groups who actually risk going out in the streets. It is too easy to blame outside agitators.

On the other hand, the second thing to say about popular uprisings is that they are always and inevitably a coalition of many elements. Some of the demonstrators are those with specific immediate grievances. Some are aiming to change the personnel in the government but not the regime as such. And some want to change, that is, overthrow, the regime. Popular demonstrations have seldom been composed of an ideologically consistent group of persons. Uprisings normally only succeed when they are such coalitions. But this always means that the post-uprising outcome is inherently uncertain. So the world left has to be careful in offering moral and political support to popular uprisings.

We are living in very chaotic times. A coherent world left strategy is not impossible. But it will not be easy. And it has not yet been achieved. The world consequences of the struggle inside Iran are not crystal clear. The world left should not be mute, but it should be prudent.

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.]

Nuclear Proliferation - What If...? (15 August 2009)

At least since the 1990s, if not longer, a major and very public concern of the United States (and to a slightly lesser extent western Europe) has been the prospect of North Korea remaining and Iran becoming a nuclear power.

The only serious debate within the U.S. government has been on the tactics to use to achieve the objective of stripping both countries of any potential to be nuclear powers. The hard-liners have argued that both regimes are dissembling, have always been dissembling, and fully intend to achieve the objective of becoming established nuclear powers. This group has therefore advocated the use, sooner rather than later, of hard action against the regimes - if necessary military action.

Their internal opponents have argued for attempting a more diplomatic approach. They have emphasized the need to get other major powers to be in accord with U.S. pressures. In the end, this has meant getting China and Russia to agree to their diplomatic moves. This group has however always said that, if this were to fail, they could not rule out the ultimate use of military power.

The diplomatic camp has been able for twenty years to hold off the hard-liners, even during the presidency of George W. Bush. This is so for several reasons. The other powers - both on the one hand the close allies of the United States (western Europe and to a lesser extent Japan) and on the other hand Russia and China - have dragged their feet about the use of military force. So, in point of fact, have most of the U.S. military. The only non-U.S. unremitting voice in favor of the military option has been Israel (in the case of Iran).

What can be said after twenty years of the diplomatic tactic is that it hasn't been noticeably successful in getting either North Korea or Iran to agree to what the United States has been demanding. The hard-liners constantly point this out.

I have a fantasy. Let us play what scientists call a mental experiment. Suppose that the United States just dropped the issue, and made no further attempt to stop either North Korea or Iran from becoming an established nuclear power. Suppose the United States also made it clear to other powers - close allies or not - that they would not collude in or tolerate military action on their part. This of course means primarily Israel. What would then happen?

To answer that, we have to analyze the presently-predicted consequences of those who are insisting on the renunciation of nuclear power by North Korea and Iran. There are a number of different scenarios that have been put forth. (1) These two countries would threaten and intimidate their neighbors with these weapons. They might actually use them. (2) These countries would sell their technology to other countries. Worse still, they might sell it to non-state actors (for example, al-Qaeda). (3) If these countries become established nuclear powers, other countries will seek to follow suit. (4) The more countries that have nuclear weapons, the more likely accidents might happen. (5) The more countries that have nuclear weapons, the less likely there is to be any worldwide reduction of the present nuclear weapon stockpile.

None of these presumed consequences stands up very well under close scrutiny. North Korea has been threatening South Korea for some fifty years. Why would having a nuclear weapon or two make any real difference? The only countries Iran has ever threatened have been Iraq and Israel. In the case of Iraq, is an attack on an Iraq politically dominated by Shi'ite politicians really plausible? As to Israel, why would Iran bomb Israel and wipe out uncounted millions of Palestinians, knowing full well that Israel would retaliate, and wipe out millions of Iranians? To fear either of these scenarios is to presume that the present and future leadership of both these countries are totally irrational. Nothing they have done in the past gives any credence to this kind of assumption.

Would these countries sell their bombs and technology to other countries and, even worse, to non-state actors? Well, let's see. North Korea has done something of this sort. So has Pakistan. So have various actors in western Europe and the United States. If anything, state control over such actions seems to me tighter in North Korea and Iran than in most of the rest of the world's nuclear powers.

Would other countries follow suit? Of course. They are preparing to do so in any event. Does the United States seriously think it can hold on to a quasi-monopoly of nuclear weapons? It was unable historically to stop Russia, France, China, Israel, India, and Pakistan from acquiring nuclear capacity. Why do we expect it to do better with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, South Africa, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, or Canada? The very question indicates the absurdity of the expectation. In twenty years they will all have nuclear weapons.

May accidents happen? Of course. This is already a great possibility. Either true accidents or rogue military are very much to be feared - everywhere, and starting with the United States.

Will this slow down the reduction of nuclear weapons among those already holding them? There hasn't been much progress along these lines up to now. If anything, further proliferation might speed up disarmament.

As I said, this is a fantasy. The political likelihood of the United States simply shrugging its shoulders on this question is probably zero. Why is everyone so agitated? For one simple reason: acquisition of nuclear weapons by anyone does change the geopolitical balance. That's why everyone wants nuclear weapons. That's why no one wants anyone else to have them. So, those who have them threaten those who don't. If we're worried about accidents, we should be looking first of all at the countries who presently have nuclear weapons.

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 Firestorm Ahead (1 September 2009)

There is a firestorm ahead in the Middle East for which neither the U.S. government nor the U.S. public is prepared. They seem scarcely aware how close it is on the horizon or how ferocious it will be. The U.S. government (and therefore almost inevitably the U.S. public) is deluding itself massively about its capacity to handle the situation in terms of its stated objectives. The storm will go from Iraq to Afghanistan to Pakistan to Israel/Palestine, and in the classic expression "it will spread like wildfire."

Let us start with Iraq. The United States has signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Iraq, which went into effect on July 1. It provided for turning over internal security to the Iraqi government and, in theory, essentially restricting U.S. forces to their bases and to some limited role in training Iraqi troops. Some of the wording of this agreement is ambiguous. Deliberately so, since that was the only way both sides would sign it.

Even the first months of operation show how poorly this agreement is operating. The Iraqi forces have been interpreting it very strictly, formally forbidding both joint patrols and also any unilateral U.S. military actions without prior detailed clearance with the government. It has gotten to the point that Iraqi forces are stopping U.S. forces from passing checkpoints with supplies during daytime hours.

The U.S. forces have been chafing. They have tried to interpret the clause guaranteeing them the right of self-defense far more loosely than the Iraqi forces want. They are pointing to the upturn in violence in Iraq and therefore implicitly to the incapacity of Iraqi forces to guarantee order.

The general commanding the U.S. forces, Ray Odierno, is obviously extremely unhappy and is patently scheming to find excuses to reestablish a direct U.S. role. Recently, he met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq and President Masoud Barzani of the Kurdish Regional Government. Odierno sought to persuade them to permit tripartite (Iraqi/Kurdish/American) joint patrols in Mosul and other areas of northern Iraq, in order to prevent or minimize violence. They politely agreed to consider his proposal. Unfortunately for Odierno, his plan would require a formal revision of the SOFA agreement.

Originally, there was supposed to be a referendum in the beginning of July on popular approval of the SOFA agreement. The United States was afraid of losing the vote, which would have meant that all U.S. forces would have had to be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2010, one full year earlier than the theoretical date in the SOFA agreement.

The United States thought it was very clever in persuading al-Maliki to postpone this referendum to January 2010. Now it will be held in conjunction with the national elections. In the national elections, everyone will be seeking to obtain votes. No one is going to be campaigning in favor of a "yes" vote on the referendum. Lest this be in any doubt, al-Maliki is submitting a project to the Iraqi parliament that will permit a simple majority of "no" votes to annul the agreement. There will be a majority of "no" votes. There may even be an overwhelming majority of "no" votes. Odierno should be packing his bags now. I'll bet he still has the illusion that he can avoid the onset of the firestorm. He can't.

What will happen next? At the present, but this may change between now and January, it looks like al-Maliki will win the election. He will do this by becoming the number one champion of Iraqi nationalism. He will make deals with all and sundry on this basis. Iraqi nationalism at the moment doesn't have much to do with Iran or Saudi Arabia or Israel or Russia. It means first of all liberating Iraq from the last vestiges of U.S. colonial rule, which is how almost all Iraqis define what they have been living under since 2003.

Will there be internal violence in Iraq? Probably, though possibly less than Odierno and others expect. But so what? Iraqi "liberation" - which is what the entire Middle East will interpret a "no" vote on the referendum to be - will immediately have a great impact on Afghanistan. There people will say, if the Iraqis can do it, so can we.

Of course, the situation in Afghanistan is different, very different, from that of Iraq. But look at what is going on now with the elections in Afghanistan. We have a government put into power to contain and destroy the Taliban. The Taliban have turned out to be more tenacious and militarily effective than any one seemed ever to anticipate. Even the tough U.S. commander there, Stanley McChrystal, has recognized that. The U.S. military is now talking of "succeeding" in perhaps a decade. Soldiers who think they have a decade to win a war against insurgents have clearly not been reading military history.

Notice the Afghan politicians themselves. Three leading candidates for the presidency, including President Hamid Karzai, debated on television the current internal war. They agreed on one thing. There must be some kind of political negotiations with the Taliban. They differed on the details. The U.S. (and NATO) forces are there ostensibly to destroy the Taliban. And the leading Afghan politicians are debating how to come to political terms with them. There is a serious disjuncture here of appreciation of realities, or perhaps of political objectives.

The polls - for what they are worth - are showing that the majority of Afghans want the NATO forces to leave and the majority of U.S. voters want the same thing. Now look ahead to January 2010, when the Iraqis vote the United States out of Iraq. Remember that, before the Taliban came to power, the country was the site of fierce and ruthless fighting among competing warlords, each with different ethnic bases, to control the country.

The United States was actually relieved when the Pakistani-backed Taliban took power. Order at last. There turned out to be a minor problem. The Taliban were serious about sharia and friendly to the emergent al-Qaeda. So, after 9/11, the United States, with west European approval and United Nations sanction, invaded. The Taliban were ousted from power - for a little while.

What will happen now? The Afghans will probably revert to the nasty continuing inter-ethnic wars of the warlords, with the Taliban just one more faction. The U.S. public's tolerance for that war will evaporate entirely. All the internal factions and many of the neighbors (Russia, Iran, India, and Pakistan) will remain to fight over the pieces.

And then stage three - Pakistan. Pakistan is another complicated situation. But none of the players there trust the United States. And the polls there show that the Pakistani public thinks that the greatest danger to Pakistan is the United States, and that by an overwhelming vote. The traditional enemy, India, is far behind the United States in the polls. When Afghanistan crumbles into a full-fledged civil war, the Pakistani army will be very busy supporting the Taliban. They cannot support the Taliban in Afghanistan while fighting them in Pakistan. They will no longer be able to accept U.S. drones bombing in Pakistan.

So then comes stage four of the firestorm - Israel/Palestine. The Arab world will observe the collapse of U.S. projects in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The U.S. project in Israel/Palestine is a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Israelis are not going to budge an inch. But neither now, and especially after the rest of the firestorm, are the Palestinians. The one consequence will be the enormous pressure that other Arab states will put upon Fatah and Hamas to join forces. This will be over Mahmoud Abbas's dead body - which might literally be the case.

The whole Obama program will have gone up in flames. And the Republicans will make hay with it. They will call U.S. defeat in the Middle East "betrayal" and it is obvious now that there is a large group inside the United States very receptive to such a theme.

One either anticipates firestorms and does something useful, or one gets swept up in them.

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.]

U.S. Internal Politics and its Military Interventions (15 September 2009)

In the last few weeks, there has been a marked increase of calls, coming from both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, for some kind of early "exit strategy" from Afghanistan. This is coming at the very moment that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates are about to recommend formally to President Obama an increase in U.S. troop commitments there.

Nothing is certain, but the general expectation is that Obama will agree to this. After all, during the elections, Obama had said that he considered U.S. intervention in Iraq a mistake and wanted an early withdrawal. One of the reasons he gave was that it had prevented sending enough troops into Afghanistan. This was a version of the "bad war, good war" concept. Iraq was a "bad" war, Afghanistan a "good" one.

There has apparently been much debate in the inner circle of President Obama about the wisdom of escalating U.S. military commitments in Afghanistan. It is reported that the leading opponent of troop escalation in Afghanistan is none other than Vice-President Biden. Biden has always been considered somewhat of a Democratic hawk. So how come he is now opposing troop escalation? The reported reason is that he now considers Afghanistan a hopeless quagmire, and that investing troops there will prevent the United States from concentrating on the really important zone, Pakistan. So we have a new version of the "bad war, good war" doctrine. Afghanistan has become a "bad" war; Pakistan is the "good" one.

Why is it so difficult for the United States to extricate itself from military interventions it is so patently losing? Some left analysts, in the United States and elsewhere, say it is because the United States is an imperialist power and therefore engages in such military interventions in order to maintain its political and economic power in the world. This explanation is quite insufficient, for the simple reason that the United States has not won a single major military confrontation since 1945. As an imperialist power, it has shown great incompetence in achieving its goals.

Consider the five wars in which the United States has committed large numbers of troops since 1945. The biggest - in terms of numbers of troops, economic costs, and political impact - was Vietnam. The United States lost the war. The other four were the Korean War, the first Gulf War, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the second invasion of Iraq. The Korean War and the first Gulf War were politically draws. The wars ended at the exact point that they began. The United States is clearly losing the war in Afghanistan. I believe that history will judge the second invasion of Iraq a draw as well. When the U.S. finally pulls out, it will be no stronger politically than when it went in - probably indeed the opposite.

So what drives the United States to engage in such politically self-defeating actions, especially if we think of the United States as a hegemonic power trying to control the entire world to its advantage? To answer that, we have to look at the internal politics of the United States.

All great powers, and especially hegemonic powers, are intensely nationalist. They believe in themselves and in their moral and political right to assert their so-called national interests. The overwhelming majority of their citizens consider themselves patriotic, and take this to mean that their government ought indeed to assert itself vigorously, and if necessary militarily, in the world arena. In the United States, since 1945, the percentage of the population who are principled anti-imperialists is politically insignificant.

U.S. politics is not divided between supporters and opponents of imperialism. It has been divided between those who are strongly interventionist and those who believe in "fortress America." The latter used to be called isolationists. Isolationists are not anti-military. Indeed, they tend to be strong supporters of financial investment in military forces. But they are skeptical about using these forces in far-off places.

Of course, there is a whole gamut of intermediate positions between the extremes in this cleavage. The crucial thing to see is that almost no politician is ready to call for a serious reduction in U.S. military expenditures. This is why so many of them engage in the "bad war, good war" distinction. They justify reducing the use of military in the "bad" wars by suggesting that there are other, better uses for the military.

At this point, we have to analyze the differences between the Republican and Democratic Parties on these questions. The isolationist wing of the Republican Party was very strong before the Second World War, but since 1945 it has become rather small. The Republicans since 1945 have regularly tended to call for increased investment in the military, and have usually argued that the Democrats have been too "soft" on military questions.

The fact that the Republicans have been very inconsistent in this matter hasn't seemed to affect their public image. For example, when President Clinton wanted to send troops to the Balkans, the Republicans opposed it. It didn't matter. The U.S. public seems to take the Republicans at their word as patriotic hawks, no matter what they do.

The Democrats have had the opposite problem. There have been large numbers of books arguing, credibly, that Democratic administrations have been readier than Republican administrations to engage in military interventions abroad (for example, in both Korea and Vietnam). Nonetheless, the Republicans have constantly denounced the Democrats for being "doves" in their military views. It is true that a large minority of Democratic voters have in fact been "doves," but not a large number of Democratic politicians. Democratic politicians have always worried that the voters will consider them to be "doves" and turn against them for that reason.

The Democrats have therefore almost always used the "bad war, good war" line. It hasn't done them all that much good. The Democrats seem to be stuck with the label of being less macho than the Republicans. So it's very simple. When Obama makes his decisions on these matters, it's not enough for him to analyze whether or not troop escalation in Afghanistan makes any military or political sense. He worries above all that he himself, and more broadly the Democratic Party, may be labeled once again as the "sell-outs," the "doves," the ones who "lost" countries to the enemies - to the Soviet Union in the old days, to the "terrorists" today.

Obama will probably therefore send in more troops. And the Afghanistan War will go the way of the Vietnam War. Only the outcome for the United States will be worse, because there is no cohesive, rational opposing group to whom to lose the war - one that will allow U.S. helicopters to withdraw the troops without shooting at them. When Bertold Brecht got cynical or angry at Communist regimes, he told them that, if the people were rebelling against their wisdom, they should "change the people." Perhaps that's what Obama needs to do - change the people, his people. Or maybe, in time, the people will change themselves. If the United States loses too many more wars, its citizens may wake up to the realization that U.S. military interventions abroad and incredibly large military expenditures at home are not the solution to their problems, but the greatest impediment to U.S. national survival and well-being.

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.]

Iran Again: Is Everyone Bluffing? (1 October 2009)

Iran is back in the forefront of public diplomacy. President Obama, jointly with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, held a press conference in which they seemed to give Iran one more ultimatum: conform to their demands, what they called the demands of the "international community," by December of this year or face new sanctions. Obama said that Iran is "breaking the rule that all nations must follow."

The immediate occasion was the fact that Iran has announced - or in the view of the three Western leaders, Iran has "admitted" - that it is constructing an installation near Qom in which there will be 3000 centrifuges to enrich uranium. According to Obama, this is far too small a number for the ostensible purpose - electricity generation - but of the right size to produce material for nuclear warheads. Ergo, Iran is lying about its intentions.

It seems that Western intelligence discovered the existence of the construction some time ago and feels it is now convincingly verified. The Western view is that Iran announced the existence of this construction only because it became aware that Western intelligence had uncovered it and was about to reveal this fact to the world. President Ahmadinejad says that, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran is only required to announce the existence of such construction six months before it becomes operational, and that is why he announced it only now.

In any case, Obama is making a big thing of it, and is using this new agreed-upon fact (the construction of the plant) as the basis on which to obtain further U.N. sanctions on Iran. It seems clear that Obama is hoping this new fact will be enough to persuade Russia and China into either supporting or at least not opposing a new sanctions resolution of the U.N. Security Council.

The U.S. right and the Israelis are saying in effect, "we told you so." In their view, Iran has always been lying, is lying now, and must therefore be seriously punished. They are obviously thinking not about mere sanctions but about bombing the plant (and no doubt other known nuclear plants).

So, are we on the verge of further sanctions? or even more, of bombing Iran, either by the United States or by Israel with the tacit consent of the United States? Possibly, but I don't really think so. I think that what is happening is a gigantic bluff by all and sundry.

Let us start with Iran. I have always agreed with the U.S. right and the Israelis that Iran intends to achieve the status of a nuclear power. My difference with them has simply been that this seems to me normal, inevitable, and not at all a geopolitical disaster.

From Iran's point of view, there are three nearby nuclear powers - India, Pakistan, and Israel - who not only have never signed the NPT but actually have nuclear weapons, many nuclear weapons. They are not however being accused of violating the norms of the "international community." So the Iranians say, why pick on Iran? Iran has, unlike these three nearby countries, signed the NPT, and has up to now not violated its specific provisions. Nonetheless, it is being publicly denounced for a far lesser violation of international norms than that of the three other countries. President Lula of Brazil points out that Brazil is also enriching uranium and sees nothing wrong with Iran doing that.

Why did Obama make his announcement just now if he has known for some time that Iran was building this plant? He claims he just wanted first to be absolutely sure of the quality of his intelligence. But it is also clear that announcing it at this very moment is quite helpful domestically. Obama is under attack from the U.S. right for his health care proposals and for his seeming hesitation to send more troops to Afghanistan. Talking tough to Iran protects his right flank a bit and may strengthen his hand politically for these other questions.

The same might be said for Iran. Ahmadinejad, like Obama, is having some internal political difficulties. Talking tough to the West is obviously something that enables him to consolidate Iranian nationalist sentiment for his regime, especially if the West obliges him by also talking tough.

Russia and China have always argued that tougher sanctions would be counterproductive. Both of them have both economic and geopolitical interests in maintaining their reasonably good relations with Iran. Of course, they also don't want to go too far in antagonizing the United States. So they will probably continue to move slowly and carefully, and ambiguously. President Medvedev of Russia may make a statement to Obama in September that is critical of Iran, one that makes Obama smile. But that doesn't mean that Russia will vote for a truly serious sanctions resolution in December. For one thing, the Russians (and the Chinese) don't really believe further sanctions will be effective in changing Iran's basic stance, and neither do a large number of serious analysts in the Western world.

As for military action, consider the following: Obama is being faced with a demand by General Stanley McChrystal for a significant escalation in U.S. military commitment in Afghanistan. The degree to which Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will endorse this is still unclear. There is already significant opposition among Democratic politicians. And the U.S. public seems to be extremely dubious. Obama is reflecting on long-term strategy.

I think Obama will probably give in, at least partially, and authorize further troops. I think also that it is extremely unlikely that there will be any similar increase in troops from other NATO countries. Indeed, further withdrawal seems to be far more likely on their part. Given the situation in Afghanistan, who in the United States is going to support real military action against Iran? Obama? The Joint Chiefs of Staff? The American public? I'd say such military action is extremely unlikely. And the Israelis, whatever their anxieties and wishes, will not be accorded the necessary overflight rights.

So, where does all this leave us? It leaves the world in a stalemate. Lots of words and very little action. Is that what Ahmadinejad wants? Probably. Will the U.S. right and the Israelis denounce it? Probably. Can Obama do anything to change the situation? I don't see what. This will be noted by future historians as just one more piece of evidence of the declining geopolitical clout of the United States. What future historians might also say is that Iran, in defying resolutions of the U.N. Security Council, is acting just like a large number of other countries have acted in the last fifty years. No more, no less.

Hype is not the same thing as reality.

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 Olympics and Geopolitics (15 October 2009)

The modern Olympics are supposed to be about two things: promoting peace around the world by non-violent competition that is above politics, and exalting athletic achievement. No doubt most athletes enter Olympic competition with the latter in mind. But promoting peace seems to be about the last thing on the minds of the governments whose support for their national athletic structures has always been crucial to the success of their national participants.

This has of course been true from the very beginning. The famed originator of the modern Olympics, Baron de Coubertin, was born in 1863. He is said to have been brought up meditating on the national trauma most of the French suffered as a result of their defeat by the Germans in 1871. It seems he decided the defeat was the result of the lack of emphasis in French education on the importance of athletic skills, unlike in Great Britain and Germany, and he set about to rectify this.

As the years have gone by, national expenditures on Olympic preparation have steadily increased. Both winning the choice of site for the Olympic Games and winning the games themselves became ever more an important objective of governments. Geopolitics has never been absent from the games.

Throughout the Cold War, the competition between the blocs was counted in the numbers of gold medals won. The boycott by the United States and other Western nations of the Moscow Olympics in 1980 was followed by the Soviet boycott of the 1984 games in Los Angeles. The list of countries that could compete was determined by Cold War arguments about the legitimacy of states and their boundaries.

So it is not surprising that the recent voting of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Copenhagen that decided the site of the 2016 games was interpreted by the world press through geopolitical lenses. Indeed the world press has been giving increasing attention to these quadrennial decisions of the IOC because of the fact that heads of governments have now taken to become direct lobbyists for their candidate for an Olympic site. So, given the presence of the leaders of Brazil, Spain, and Japan at the Copenhagen meeting, it was clear that Barack Obama had also to show up to put in his plea for Chicago.

The bookies who take bets on the outcomes of such contests had given odds on to Chicago, primarily on the basis of Obama's announcement that he would attend in person. On the first round of the secret voting, the results split four ways between the four candidates. But to the great shock of the U.S. press, athletic leaders, and politicians, Chicago came in not first but fourth, and was eliminated on the first round.

By the third round, Rio had emerged the victor with two-thirds of the votes, an unusually large margin. It is not difficult to discern why this was so. While Rio is no doubt an attractive site in itself, the IOC members were voting less for Rio than for Brazil. The three other candidates were all from the North - the United States, Spain, and Japan. Brazil represented the South.

President Lula had made as his principal public argument that South America was the only continent that had never hosted an Olympics Winter Games. This is true, but I think Fidel Castro was more correct when he exultantly described the vote as the "triumph of the Third World."

Nor was it just any country of the Third World that won the vote. It was Brazil, one of the rising giants of the South. Lula himself said after the vote: "(Brazil) went from being a second-class country to a first-class country, and today we began to receive the respect we deserve."

"The respect we deserve" - and haven't received in the past - this was Brazil's exultation, and it was shared by the rest of the Third World.

Was it a rebuff for Obama? Of course it was - not for him personally, but for the United States. However popular Obama is around the world, and he is popular, he remains president of the United States. The vote was a clear geopolitical put down. It isn't as though Obama could have done better. And had he not gone at all, the U.S. public might have blamed the loss on his absence.

Losing a vote on an Olympic site is not as bad as having U.S. bases in Afghanistan overrun by Taliban, but it's part of the same picture.

Now that Obama has received the Nobel Prize for Peace, will that change things for U.S. diplomacy? Momentarily, perhaps. But the underlying situation remains the same. Indeed, it will make Obama's position in some ways more difficult, because he will now be measured by a still higher standard.

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.]

Afghanistan: Heads You Lose, Tails You Lose (1 November 2009)

The war in Afghanistan is a war in which whatever the United States does now, or that President Obama does now, both the United States and Obama will lose. The country and its president are in a situation of perfect lockjaw.

Consider the basic situation. The Afghan government in Kabul has no legitimacy with the majority of the Afghan people. It also has no army worthy of the name. It also has no financial base. There is almost no military or personal security anywhere. It is faced with a guerilla opposition, the Taliban, who control half the country and who have grown steadily stronger since the Taliban government was overthrown by a foreign (largely United States) invasion in 2001. The New York Times reports that the Taliban "are running a sophisticated financial network to pay for their insurgent operations," which American officials are struggling, unsuccessfully, to cut off.

Pres. Hamid Karzai was reelected recently in a manifestly falsified election. The U.S. government was ready to swallow this because Karzai is the only major politician who is ethnically a Pashtun, the base of the Taliban support. He is therefore the only one who can even hope to enter into a political arrangement with some or all of the Taliban. The United States was embarrassed publicly into recognizing the electoral fraud and was pressured to put pressure on Karzai to accept a run-off second round election. Karzai will undoubtedly win the run-off. His political position, post-election, will be very weak.

The major U.S. political ally in the region, Pakistan, is clearly collusive with the Taliban - in large part to ensure its own internal survival. The U.S. military commander, General Stanley McChrystal, insists he needs 40,000 more troops right away, or it will be too late to win the war in Afghanistan. It seems unlikely he will get the full number of these troops, or fast enough, to meet his implicit deadline. There are many military figures who doubt that he is right in arguing that his 40,000 more troops, even if they arrive right away, will make the difference.

It doesn't seem very daring to suggest that the United States will have to withdraw from Afghanistan at some point. Who will really come to power in Afghanistan at that point is a very open question. There may well be civil war for a long time.

Within the United States, opinion about the "lost" war will be extremely divided. It seems clear that the Republican right is preparing the charge of a treacherous sell-out by the Democrats in general, and Obama in particular. Gen. McChrystal may well be their candidate for president, if not in 2012 then in 2016.

Obama will get no credit for anything he does. If he gives full backing immediately to McChrystal's requests, he will still be accused by the Republicans of having done it too late. At the same time, he will have angered deeply at least half, if not more. of those who voted for him in 2008.

The war in Afghanistan has become Obama's war. When the United States `loses' that war, it will be Obama who will be charged with having `lost' it. Even if he gets a health bill of some kind passed (possible), and even if the U.S. and world economic situation improves in the next several years (doubtful), the war in Afghanistan will still loom largest as the single most important element in judging his presidency.

Could Obama reverse this situation by moving dramatically in another direction - towards a rapid political deal with the Taliban and full withdrawal? Aside from the fact that there is no public evidence that he is seriously contemplating doing this, there is not yet the degree of public support within the United States to make this a feasible political option for him. He doesn't even have the necessary degree of support within his own administration for such a dramatic shift.

So the United States and Obama shall stumble on, for a year or two, while the general military and political situation deteriorates. For the United States and for Obama, it is heads we lose, tails we lose.

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.]

Obama, Bush and Latin American Coups (15 November 2009)

Something strange is happening in Latin America. The Latin American right forces are poised to do better during the U.S. presidency of Barack Obama than they did during the eight years of George W. Bush. Bush led a far right regime that was totally out of sympathy with popular forces in Latin America. Obama, on the other hand, is leading a centrist regime that is trying to replicate the "good neighbor policy" which Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed as a way of signaling the end of direct U.S. military intervention in Latin America.

During Bush's presidency, the only serious coup attempt supported by the United States was that against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 2002, and that one failed. It was followed by a series of elections throughout Latin America and the Caribbean in which left-of-center candidates won in almost every instance. It culminated in a 2008 meeting in Brazil to which the United States was not invited and in which Cuba's president, Raúl Castro, was treated as a virtual hero.

Since Obama became president, there has been one successful coup, in Honduras. Despite Obama's condemnation of the coup, U.S. policy has been ambiguous, and the coup leaders are winning their bet of staying in power until the coming elections of a new president. In Paraguay, the left Catholic president, Fernando Lugo, has just averted a military coup. But his right-wing vice-president, Federico Franco, is maneuvering to obtain from a Lugo-hostile national parliament a coup in the form of an impeachment. And military teeth are sharpening in an array of other countries.

To understand this apparent anomaly, we must look at U.S. internal politics, and how it affects U.S. foreign policy. Once upon a time, and not so long ago, the two major parties represented overlapping coalitions of social forces, in which the internal balance of each was somewhat right of center for the Republican Party and somewhat left of center for the Democratic Party.

Since the two parties overlapped, elections tended to force presidential candidates of both parties more or less to the center, in order to win over the relatively small fraction of voters who were "independents" in the center.

This is no longer the case. The Democratic Party is the same wide coalition that it always has been, but the Republican Party has moved far to the right. This means that the Republicans have a smaller base. They should logically be in a lot of electoral trouble. But, as we are seeing, it doesn't quite work that way.

The far right forces that dominate the Republican Party are highly motivated and quite aggressive. They seek to purge any and all Republican politicians whom they consider too "moderate" and they seek to enforce on Republicans in Congress a uniformly negative attitude to anything and everything that the Democratic Party, and in particular President Obama, may propose. Political compromises are no longer seen as politically desirable. Quite the contrary. Republicans are pressed to march to a single drummer.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is operating the way it always has. Its wide coalition runs from the left to somewhat right of center. Democrats in Congress spend most of their political energy negotiating with each other. This means that it is very hard to pass significant legislation, as we are currently seeing in the attempt to reform the health structures of the United States.

So, what does this mean for Latin America (and indeed for other parts of the world)? Bush could get almost anything he wanted from Republicans in Congress, in which he had a clear majority for the first six years of his regime. Real debates occurred in Bush's inner executive circle, which was basically dominated by Vice-President Cheney for the first six years. When Bush lost the Congressional elections in 2006, Cheney's influence declined and policy slightly changed.

The Bush era was marked by an obsession with Iraq and to a lesser extent with the rest of the Middle East. There was some energy left for dealing with China and western Europe. Latin America faded into the background from the perspective of the Bush regime. To their frustration, the Latin American right did not get the usual kind of engagement in their favor from the U.S. government that they expected and wanted.

Obama is faced with an entirely different situation. He has a disparate base and an ambitious agenda. His public stance wobbles between a firm centrist position and moderate left-of-center gestures. This makes his political position essentially weak. He is disillusioning the left voters he had aroused during the elections, who are in many cases retreating into political withdrawal. The reality of a world depression makes some of his centrist independent voters pull away from him out of fears of a growing national debt.

For Obama, as for Bush, Latin America is not at the top of his priorities. However, Obama (unlike Bush) is struggling hard to keep his head above political water. He is very worried about the 2010 and 2012 elections. And this is not unreasonable. His foreign policy is considerably influenced by its potential impact on these elections.

What the Latin American right is doing is taking advantage of Obama's internal political difficulties to force his hand. They see that he doesn't have the political energy available to thwart them. In addition, the world economic situation tends to redound against incumbent regimes. And in Latin America today, it is left-of-center parties that are the incumbents.

If Obama were to have some important political successes in the next two years (a decent health bill, a real withdrawal from Iraq, reduced unemployment), this would actually blunt the return of the Latin American right. But will he have such successes?

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.]

Western Europe and Russia - Coming Together (1 December 2009)

The slow process of creating a lasting geopolitical alliance of western Europe and Russia has a long history, which is slowly maturing. It may be traced to the visit of President Charles De Gaulle to the Soviet Union in 1944, where he signed the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance. It was a way to reassert France's centrality in European politics and to take his distance from his somewhat reluctant allies, the United States and Great Britain. For De Gaulle, geopolitical interests overrode ideological differences.

The next crucial moment was the pursuit by West Germany's Social-Democratic Chancellor, Willy Brandt, of the so-called Ostpolitik, after he came to power in 1969. It involved new diplomatic détente with the Soviet Union (as well as the opening of communications with East Germany).

The third crucial moment was the great debate in the late 1970s and 1980s about the construction of a gas pipeline (gazoduc) from the Soviet Union to western Europe, which was supported by Germany, France, and even Mrs. Thatcher's Great Britain.

The fourth crucial moment was the proclamation by Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 of the need to construct "a common European home."

What was common to all four moments was that they were all seen by the United States as at least dubious propositions and at worst initiatives that potentially undermined the global interests of the United States.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia under Boris Yeltsin shelved all these ideas, giving its priority to developing close relations with the United States. The post-Communist regimes in east-central Europe all were relieved by the decreased signs of closer relations of western Europe and Russia.

However, when Yeltsin was succeeded by Vladimir Putin, Russian policy reverted to seeking closer relations with western Europe, and with France and Germany in particular. This seemed to come to fruition in February 2003, when the three countries joined hands in defeating the attempt of the United States and Great Britain to get the U.N. Security Council to endorse the about-to-occur invasion of Iraq. This time, the United States quite openly defined this collaboration as hostile to U.S. global interests.

Since then, and somewhat under the world's radar, these relations have continued to advance, despite U.S. continued hostility and the general fear and opposition of the governments in power in the erstwhile satellite states of eastern-central Europe.

Putin continues to use the mechanism of one of his biggest trump cards, Russia's natural gas exports, as the mode of consolidating these links. The debate since the 1990s has been over the routing of new massive pipelines from Russia and Central Asia to western Europe.

The Russians have favored what are called the North Stream and the South Stream. The North Stream pipeline would go from Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany, circumventing Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and the Baltic states.

The South Stream would go from Russia via the Black Sea to Bulgaria, and then have two branches, one northwest via Serbia, Hungary, and Slovenia to Austria and one southwest via Greece and the Adriatic to Italy.

The United States has been pushing a third pipeline project called Nabucco, which seeks to circumvent Russia by getting gas from Turkmenistan. It would cross the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, continue through Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary to Austria and then from there to Germany and the Czech Republic. But since the gas supplies of Turkmenistan are limited, the gas would ultimately have to come from Russia, which diminishes the geopolitical utility of Nabucco.

In any case, in what Le Monde calls a "masterstroke," Putin came to Paris in late November to seal a deal with the French to work together to achieve both the North Stream and the South Stream pipelines. A key French figure, the CEO of GDF Suez, Gérard Mestrallet, said "Russia is an indispensable partner, for the future and for Europe." France's President, Nicholas Sarkozy, has called for "a space of common security" between Europe and Russia. This is the same Sarkozy who is hailed in Washington as the most pro-American French president since 1945. Once again, geopolitical interests are overriding ideological differences.

The eastern-central European states will probably fall in line, unhappily and fearfully. But geopolitical reality is that the United States can do very little now to slow down the approaching grand alliance.

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.]

Obama as a Black President (15 December 2009)

The Congressional Black Caucus has been growing impatient with President Obama, and this political strain is now leaking out to the press. The Caucus members feel that Obama hasn't paid enough attention to the fact that the current economic difficulties have had greater impact on African-American and other minority groups than on the rest of the population, and that therefore something extra needs to be done for them.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver is quoted as saying: "Obama has tried desperately to stay away from race, and all of us understand what he's doing. But when you have such a disproportionate number of African-Americans unemployed, it would be irresponsible not to direct attention and resources to the people who are receiving the greatest level of pain."

The role of Barack Obama as a Black man has been a major and much-discussed issue since he declared his candidacy for the presidency in 2007. At the beginning, Obama did not receive enthusiastic support from U.S. Black politicians. Many of them had publicly endorsed Hillary Clinton. There was some discussion in African-American media about whether Obama was "Black enough."

This hesitation changed radically after the Iowa caucuses in January 2008, which Obama won, to most people's surprise. Iowa is a state that is overwhelmingly White. The fact that Obama was able to get significant support there sent a message to African-American politicians that he was electable. The idea that, at long last, a Black man might become president of the United States proved to be the primary consideration for African-Americans - not only the politicians but the general African-American population.

By the time he was elected, he had received the enthusiastic endorsement of virtually all U.S. Blacks - rich and poor, young and old. The tears of joy were genuine, and African-American schoolchildren said it proved to them that it was possible for them to aspire to any goal they wished.

The question is, how did Obama get the votes to win? He could not have won with the votes of African-Americans alone, even if every eligible voter were to vote for him. In addition to the core of reliable Democratic voters, he obtained the votes of three groups whose votes were previously uncertain. The first group were those who normally didn't vote at all - many African-Americans (mostly those less educated and poorer) plus many young voters (both Black and White). The second group were middle-of-the road voters - located quite often in suburban communities, and largely White. The third group were White skilled workers who had in recent decades deserted the Democratic party because of their views on social questions (and who had often expressed openly racist sentiments).

If Obama obtained the votes of the latter two groups (middle-of-the-road suburban voters and the White skilled workers whom he lured back from the Republican party), it was precisely because they became persuaded that he was not an "angry Black man." He presented himself, as he really is - a well-educated, pragmatic, centrist politician, with a very "cool" demeanor. He maintained this persona not only during the campaign, but ever since his election.

What is happening now is that African-American politicians are realizing that they made a Faustian bargain. They got the symbolic value of breaking the race barrier for the highest elective post in the United States by supporting a Black candidate who "has tried desperately to stay away from race." Obama has done so for two reasons. In part, this is indeed his true persona and his lifelong commitment. But he also maintains this persona because, as a politician, he deems it essential to his own reelection in 2012 and to the continuing election of enough Democratic members of Congress to make it possible for him to achieve his legislative agenda.

If this were only the question of Obama and his relationship to African-Americans, it might be deemed of marginal importance in the long historical process. But this situation is in fact merely one instance of a more general political issue throughout the world.

Symbolic breakthroughs are a major element of world politics. The election of someone from a group that has not previously been allowed to aspire to such a post in any country is very important. Just think of the joy and progress entailed by the election of Nelson Mandela as the first African president of South Africa, of Evo Morales as the first indigenous president of Bolivia, of those women who became the first female presidents of Muslim countries. The election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president of the United States was the same kind of event. These were all major political happenings, and their importance should never be underestimated.

However, symbolic victories must translate into real change, or eventually they can leave a bitter taste. How much real change such a leader can bring about depends in part on his/her own priorities but it also depends on the particular political constraints of the country in question.

In the case of the United States, Obama's margin for maneuver is quite small. The few times he has reacted as a Black man, he immediately lost political support. This happened during the campaign when some "incendiary" statements of his pastor in Trinity Church, Chicago, Jeremiah Wright, came to light. Obama's initial reaction was to make a sophisticated speech about race in American life. In it, he said, "I can no more disown [Jeremiah Wright] than I can disown my white grandmother." But soon thereafter, Obama had to back down and indeed disown his pastor, resigning from his church.

This happened again after his election when Prof. Henry Lewis Gates of Harvard (an African-American) was arrested after entering his own home by forcing the lock that had become jammed. After he was in his home, he was challenged by a White police officer and, after some interaction, arrested for "disorderly conduct." Obama's initial reaction was to say that the officer had "acted stupidly." There was a political backlash and Obama then invited the two men to the White House for an amicable get-together.

The lesson for Obama was clear. He can under no circumstances afford politically to be seen as a "Black president." But this means that he is constrained from doing and saying things that a White president of the same political views might be willing to do. In the American context today, being an African-American president turns out to be a political handicap at the same time that it is a symbolic achievement. Obama realizes that. The Congressional Black Caucus recognizes that. The question is what, if anything, either Obama or the Caucus is going to do about it, or can do about 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.]

2011 Center for a World in Balance