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Posted by admin in GLOBAL NEWS on May 25th, 2014
Powerful countries are alarmed by the threats against Russia as they see themselves as potential future targets.Last updated: 20 May 2014 10:56 |
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 At the Fourth Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) that opens May 20 in Shanghai, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will meet with both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Among other things, the summit will underscore how rising non-Western powers are playing ever more prominent roles on the global stage. However, Western elites remain stuck in a time warp, wherein the United States and its European partners are the imperial masters of all they survey.
In this regard, it is an interesting coincidence how mainstream Western media outlets consistently produce narratives that are almost indistinguishable from official government statements regarding countries and leaders with dissimilar worldviews from their Western counterparts. For instance, we repeatedly hear about the democratically elected “dictators” in Venezuela, yet we are assured that friendly dictators are “moderate reformers”. Another fascinating coincidence is that Western human rights organisations pursue initiatives and policies closely aligned with those of their own governments. When the US accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons against its own people – notwithstanding noteworthy evidence to the contrary and despite the fact that it was fine as far as Washington was concerned when former Iraqi president Saddam Hossein attacked Iran with chemical weapons – some human rights advocates stood shoulder to shoulder with President Barack Obama in advocating “shock and awe” in Damascus for humanitarian purposes. Contrary to what Saudi Princess Basmah Bint Saud states, Amnesty International’s soft spot for Saudi Arabia may be linked to more than just oil – for this renowned organisation is a true believer in promoting human rights through liberal imperialism. Until recently, Amnesty USA was led by a former senior US government official who is a leading “humanitarian interventionist“. On the side-lines of the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago, Amnesty International campaigned for NATO’s continued occupation of Afghanistan under the rubric, “keep the progress going”; Amnesty’s shadow summit for Afghan women was graced with the presence of none other than former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright known for commenting that over half million dead Iraqi children as a result of sanctions “was worth it”. Generous doses of hypocrisy It is refreshing to see such consensus at all levels of public discourse in the “Free World”. It seems that there is general agreement among European and North American elites that Western objectives are well-intentioned, even if highly generous doses of hypocrisy are administered on the way. Hence, the British foreign secretary, speaking on behalf of the so called Friends of Syria, just days ago welcomed “the fact that preparations for the presidential elections on May 25 are proceeding well” in violence-stricken Ukraine where roughly half the country rejects the Kiev-based coup regime. Then, literally a minute later (and with a straight face), he condemned the “Assad regime’s unilateral plan to hold illegitimate presidential elections on June 3. We say in our communique that this mocks the innocent lives lost in the conflict”. Apparently there has been no significant loss of innocent life as a result of illegal cross border support for extremists and al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria over the last three years. It is also remarkable that any perceived rival to Western power can almost immediately be compared to Adolf Hitler without raising many eyebrows. Benjamin Netanyahu and other Zionist advocates can repeatedly threaten the Iranian people with military strikes, yet simultaneously promote the false logic that the Islamic Republic wishes to create a holocaust by allegedly denying the Holocaust (whatever that means). In recent weeks, we have once again returned to 1939 as the bizarre Hitler analogy is now being used to describe Putin. The irony here is that the right wing neo-Nazi groups within the pro-Western Kiev regime consider themselves as the Russian president’s greatest foes. Indeed, for some, al-Nusra Front, Islamic Front in Syria or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant analogy would be somewhat more appropriate to describe the Ukrainian political party, Right Sector. Former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser was another one of many Hitlers in Western political discourse. When in 1956, he nationalised the Suez Canal, then British Prime Minister Anthony Eden viewed his actions as an insult to the British Empire. However, the “Suez moment” was a classic case of overreach for a rapidly declining empire that politicians in the US today should ponder. Winner-take-all worldview Their winner-take-all worldview, which has already resulted in widespread inequality and relative economic decline in the US, has also, since 2001, conditioned a series of “moments” whereby Washington’s arrogant zero-sum mentality has produced one strategic failure after another.
The US government is caught in a web of self-deception if it believes that its declining global influence has gone unnoticed among the world’s rising powers. Obama’s pivot to Asia is viewed with scepticism, as the US already has more than it can handle in Ukraine, west Asia and North Africa. The real Asia pivot is driven by rapidly rising economies, especially China, as countries with major oil and gas reserves such as Russia, Iran and Iraq are already turning eastward. In a 2012 report that some consider to be too conservative in its prognostications, the US multinational investment banking firm Goldman Sachs projects that by 2050 the US will be the only Western power among the top five global economies, with an economy much smaller than China’s. In addition, the World Bank predicts that the US dollar will lose its current global dominance in roughly a decade. Ironically, instead of attempting to build new bridges and forging new partnerships to stall their declining global status as the balance of power shifts away from Europe and North America, Western governments unwisely antagonise key powers. Spying on the Brazilian president does not help, denying a visa to the next Indian prime minister can spell trouble ahead, giving strong warnings to China can raise tensions – but threatening Russia with economic warfare may prove to be a game changer. Of course, the US and its allies have already engaged in inhuman economic warfare against ordinary citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The US has targeted the Iranian banking sector as well as the central bank and has threatened Iran’s trading partners with punitive sanctions if they do not abide by US laws. Many countries have protested against these US imperial dictates, but have so far largely abided by US demands in order to avoid its aggressive behaviour. However, with threats now being made against the Russian Federation, alarm bells have begun ringing, as powerful countries see themselves as potential future targets. Economic warfare against another major power will force emerging economic powerhouses to seriously think about the future of global financial and communications systems as well as the immediate need to enhance cooperation and to restructure the global political and economic order. During the CICA Summit in Shanghai, Presidents Xi Jinping, Rouhani and Putin definitely have a lot to talk about. Seyed Mohammad Marandi is professor of North American Studies and dean of the Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy. |
Posted by admin in POWER CRISIS on September 11th, 2013
To Ease Pakistan Violence, Turn on the Lights
By Michael Kugelman, Sep 9, 2013
It has been a bloody few weeks in Pakistan, even by the country’s violent standards. Sectarian extremists assaulted an open-air market. Separatist militants executed bus passengers. Terrorists bombed a children’s soccer game and a policeman’s funeral. A deadly jailbreak freed more than 200 jihadis. And the nation’s capital went on lockdown after rumors of impending high-profile attacks.
This unrelenting terror makes all the more striking a recent statement by Khawaja Asif, Pakistan’s water and power minister. Energy, he declared in an interview, is a greater challenge than terrorism. Asif’s statement is striking — and spot-on. Militancy grabs headlines internationally, and it’s undoubtedly of grave concern. But Pakistan’s energy crisis directly affects many more people than the Taliban. More than anything else — corruption, sectarianism, inadequate public services– a lack of power is destabilizing Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation of 193 million people.
Pakistanis — including those in the militant-choked northwest — suffer as much as 20 hours of daily power outages. Energy shortfalls have exceeded 40 percent of national demand and cost the country 4 percent of gross domestic product. Hundreds of factories, including those in the dominant textile industry, have shut down, leaving scores unemployed. Hospitals have had to curtail services, putting patients’ lives at risk. Doctors report the crisis is increasing stress and depression.
Militants have naturally exploited Pakistan’s energy insecurity. In April, the Pakistani Taliban destroyed the largest power station in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the restive province bordering Pakistan’s tribal belt. Half of Peshawar, the provincial capital, lost power. Power shortages have also sparked violent protest among ordinary citizens. Rioters have attacked utility offices,law enforcement, banks, shops, and the homes and offices of ruling and opposition party politicians.
The root cause of Pakistan’s power crisis is a dysfunctional energy sector that even Asif, the power minister, admits is a “nightmare.” With multiple ministries and agencies responsible for energy matters and no clear lines of authority, the policy-making process is wholly uncoordinated. Inefficiency is rife; transmission and distribution losses have approached 30 percent. Finally, the sector is burdened by so much debt that Pakistan literally can’t afford to provide energy.
These are big problems, and solving them will require big, politically risky moves: expanding Pakistan’s tax base, cracking down on theft and restructuring the power sector. Encouragingly, Pakistan’s new government has made energy its top priority, and proposed a new national policy.
Unfortunately, some of its correctives could be as destabilizing as the crisis itself. The new energy policy calls for emphasizing cheaper, unexploited indigenous reserves. These include coal in Thar, an impoverished desert region in Sindh province. For decades, Pakistan has extracted natural gas from another arid, poor, resource-rich region: Baluchistan. Over time, the fruits of this extraction have largely eluded locals, fueling an anti-government insurgency that blows up gas lines and severs electricity wires.
If Pakistan targets Thar’s coal fields, the consequences could be similarly explosive. Sindh is already embroiled in natural resource disputes, as locals blame their province’s water shortages on dams in upstream Punjab province. Islamabad’s plans to expand generation capacity by building more dams could drive up tensions between Pakistan’s fractious provinces. This all has troubling implications for the U.S., which has a strategic interest in a stable Pakistan. More unrest heightens the operational challenges of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which requires the use of Pakistani supply routes.
During his recent trip to Pakistan, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that U.S.-funded projects have added more than 1,200 megawatts of power to the national grid. This is a mere sliver of Pakistan’s daily demand, which averages 15,000 MW. It hardly makes up for the estimated 4,000 MW that would be generated by a proposed gas pipeline with Iran, which Washington staunchly opposes. There’s only so much $1.5 billion in annual economic assistance for Pakistan — authorized by Congress through next year — can do.
Still, modest efforts are better than none at all — and now is the right time to pursue them. Relations with Islamabad have softened, and a broad-based strategic dialogue, suspended for several years, is expected to resume. Washington should use this opportunity to supplement its financing of high-cost generation projects (such as dams) with cheaper, smaller projects that subsidize electricity costs for the urban poor.
President Barack Obama’s administration should also work with Pakistan to establish a more welcoming environment for American energy investors and entrepreneurs. A bilateral investment treaty, now under negotiation, would be an excellent start. This wouldn’t improve Pakistan’s security situation or tax-to-GDP ratio, but it could strengthen intellectual property rights. That would facilitate the entry of U.S. technology, including solar-powered lanterns and electricity-independent sterilization technology for medical equipment.
We have too often ignored the roots of instability in Pakistan. Any efforts to address its power crisis can only benefit us all.
(Michael Kugelman is the senior program associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.)
To contact the writer of this article: Michael Kugelman at Michael.Kugelman@
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