Holy Roman EU

The European Union has been steadily expanding eastwards since the Berlin Wall came down. It has recently incorporated Bulgaria and Romania, and has been lapping up against Ukraine's borders for some time. It was the EU's attempt to suck the Ukraine into its orbit that has caused the civil strife now taking place there.

What is with the EU's need to expand? Is it the need to acquire Eastern Europe's resources?

Uh, what resources?

Perhaps it is the economic potential of these partners.

Yeah, right. Bulgaria and Romania are basket cases, as is the Ukraine, and they only thing they've provided so far is cheap labour immigrants and extra votes for far-right parties in France, Holland, etc.

Viewed on the map, it looks like empire building. But it's an empire without an army - remove the US from NATO and what is left is not impressive. Or even united. But Europe's military has played no part in the EU's expansion. The only other empire that expanded like this was the Holy Roman Empire.

The Holy Roman Empire was created by the Catholic church in Rome, virtually picking up from where the collapsed Roman empire left off, hence the name. It was essentially a cabal of popes and cardinals in Rome calling on European leaders to act on its behalf, rather like the EU bureaucracy in Brussels. And like the EU, it had no army of its own. Yet it controlled much of eastern Europe and later, via the Habsburgs, much of the world (as it was known then).

Quite why the EU wishes to emulate the Holy Roman Empire (whose remnants only disappeared with Austria's defeat in WW1) is not really clear, any more than why the popes felt the need to copy the Roman emperors. But the parallels between the EU and the empire of the popes are striking. Including, curiously enough, religion.

On paper, the EU is about trade, right? Which is to say, its all about business and the bottom line: profit. That makes sense. So why is the EU hoovering up all these poor eastern European states (and retaining poor southern European states) which will cost the EU a lot but contribute little? And why did the EU keep turning down Turkey for EU membership, even when it was being labelled as a rising player in the world markets?

Because eastern Europe is Christian and Turkey is Muslim.

That answer may not make sense in these modern, secular times, but it is essentially what we have. The EU rebuffed Turkey several times, yet has sent its envoys to court the Ukraine and encourage the toppling of its elected anti-EU government, even though Ukraine has a declining population, few resources and economy that makes Greece look solvent, with a debt to match. Without Russian assistance, the country will be bankrupt in months.

But still the EU considers it worth provoking Russia for.

The popes and the Habsburgs over-reached, draining their resources on expansion, wars and maintenance of territory. It fell into decline in the face of its rivals in England and Holland, was torn apart by protestant challenges and eventually faded from history.

One wonders what will become of the EU and its cardinals in Brussels. It already faces growing demands for autonomy within its provinces, its prosperity depends almost entirely on the German economy and it is unable to project itself militarily to protect its interests unless it aligns itself with the US. It depends on Russia for its energy and on African and Asian immigration to prop up its aging population.

The popes used to pray. EU bureaucrats might also want to pray, but they need to be careful of what they pray for.

Best Actor

And the Oscar for Best Actor 2014 goes to... US Secretary of State John Kerry, who said, "You just don't invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests."

You couldn't make it up, really.

Libya, Syria... and now Ukraine

Western hypocrisy has gone into overdrive. And the media are in lockstep with their governments. We've had a 'humanitarian' intervention into Libya that toppled a government (still illegal under international law, by the way, without a specific UN resolution) and left a country in chaos, then we had a cheering of Egyptian 'activists' while the Western paid military toppled another government (elected, this time) and massacred civilians without a single sanction being imposed by the US or Europe (and with US politicians talking about the military 'restoring democracy'). We had Syria being stirred into civil war by outside hands, but again described as a 'people's uprising', with the West immediately recognising the opposition as the legitimate government (shortly before they fragmented). And now we have the Ukraine, with EU and US dignitaries repeatedly visiting the demonstrators in Kiev and offering encouragement and support (can you imagine Russia and China coming to New York or London to encourage the Occupy protesters? No, me neither), referring to them as the 'people of Ukraine' (never mind the East Ukrainians), with the Western media gushing over their demands (to topple an elected president) while failing utterly to mention the far right groups within the protester camps, and with everyone in the West referring to the parliament that formed afterwards under the occupation of the protesters as 'the interim government'. When the Ukrainian president was in power, the media here quoted the protesters. Now that the president has been ousted and the Eastern Ukrainians are starting to protest, the media here now quote 'the interim government'.

The bias is so obvious, I don't know how any news reader can keep a straight face on the TV anymore.

But the other thing to mention here is the sheer incompetence of Western meddling (I can't dignify it by calling it diplomacy). Libya is reeling (as is Iraq, that other 'successful intervention'), Egypt is a military state and Syria is so bad that even the liberal and neo-con interventionists hesitated to demand more intervention.

The West has been encouraging the separation of Ukraine from Russia (like they did with Georgia, and look how that turned out), and now they are surprised that Russia has mobilised to support ethnic Russians in Ukraine and the strategically vital zone of the Crimea.

Western commentators are currently bleating about Russia crossing red lines, threatening stability in the Ukraine, and threatening the Ukraine itself.

The US backed Georgia not so long ago and hinted that they might lend it NATO support. Russia struck across its border, and US promises never materialised. Now the EU is promising Ukraine entry into its market and the US (via the IMF) is promising loans. Meanwhile the Russian army has mobilised on the border and 'armed men' have seized control of airports in the Crimea. What do you think will come of the West's promises now? Hmmm?

Western hubris, arrogance and sheer stupidity have pushed Russia into a corner and forced it to act. Russia was never going to abandon either its ethnic population in Ukraine nor it's vital Black Sea base in the Crimea. The Ukrainian economy was in meltdown, and the EU was never going to give it the money it needed to avoid crashing, and neither will the US. What an earth were these people hoping to gain from this? The US have warned Russia against military action, but there are no NATO forces nearby that can make that threat credible. They can't threaten Russia with sanctions, because it's too big, supplies Europe with most of its gas and oil, and is a UN security council member.

Both halves of Ukraine are going to come to blows, and Russia will not let its side fall. If the tension is not resolved in the next couple of days, then the only way to prevent civil war on a Syrian scale will be to partition the country, with Russia getting Crimea and the industrial east, and Europe (and NATO) getting the EU-friendly west. And this partition would have to be done pretty quickly.

And what is the West going to do with its side of the Ukraine (apart from complain about Ukraine immigrants flooding into the EU as cheap labour)? Does it even really want it?

They said the world changed after 9/11. It did. The leaders of the US and the EU, both on the left and the right, got a whole lot more stupid, infinitely more arrogant and a whole lot more hypocritical. And they also forgot all the most basic rules of diplomacy.

Diplomacy is about the art of the possible, not the fulfilment of ideological fantasies.

You know, if you stripped away all the ideology, all the rhetoric, and just concentrated on the actions, you'd think the West was already at war with Russia - or rather, that the Cold War never ended. Because they're not treating it as another sovereign nation in a global forum - they're treating it as an enemy that must be outwitted, outmanoeuvred and defeated. They think that Russia must step down and surrender its interests or be considered an irrational enemy, regardless of its case. And all this while both NATO and the EU blatantly expands towards Russia's borders.

And after Russia, China is next.

What are our leaders (and the idiot media commentators who cheer them on and deliberately misreport on their behalf) thinking?

Weren't two world wars enough?

Getting hot in the Middle East

Some interesting news recently: France has agreed to supply the Lebanese army with weapons, and Saudi Arabia has agreed to pay for it.

On the surface, this looks like just another arms deal in a world of arms deals. One commenter went so far as to suggest that this was an anti-semitic plot against Israel, but frankly, that's unlikely.

Make no mistake; this deal will have been done with Israel's tacit agreement.

The target of this deal is not Israel, but Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, supplied and supported by Syria and Iran, is a major force in Lebanon. An unofficial but very heavily armed and organised political and military force, it's proven too strong for Israel to unseat without getting stuck in an occupation quagmire, and the Lebanese army is too weak (deliberately kept weak by Hezbollah's involvement in the political process) to assert its authority over the entire country.

But the wind has been blowing against Hezbollah lately, with Iran feeling the squeeze of sanctions and strike threats, and Syria, its most immediate ally, now reeling in a Western-initiated, Saudi financed civil war. The fact that Hezbollah felt the need to intervene on the battlefield on Assad's behalf is a measure of how worried they are, and of how high the stakes are.

And, at this moment of turmoil and weakness, Saudi Arabia just happens, for no apparent reason, to open its generous cheque book to the Lebanese Army.

The implications are obvious - Saudi Arabia is looking to provoke a civil war, this time in Lebanon itself, with the aim of crushing or weakening Hezbollah.


Turning up the heat

In the war for geopolitical influence in the greater Middle East, and in the conflict between Sunni and Shia, Saudi Arabia is winning. And it is doing so without the deployment of a single Saudi soldier.

Well, if you don't count the ones they sent to Bahrain to stamp on the embers of the so-called 'Arab Spring' there.

But with the retreat of, first, the USSR, then the US, from the region, Saudi Arabia is emerging as a colossus.

It was involved, along with Qatar, in the removal of Gaddafi and his meddlesome, pro-African revolution, anti-oil dollar ways. He's gone now, and Libya is in turmoil, but no matter. It is no longer a threat to Saudi Arabia, and it can stay in turmoil for all the Saudis care - it's one less oil producer to compete with.

The Saudis were also involved, this time snubbing Qatar, in bringing down President Morsi in Egypt and returning the country to military rule. The grinding down of the Muslim Brotherhood (Saudi Arabia's most hated enemy) that is currently going on will be much to Saudi Arabia's liking.

Saudi Arabia, of course, has been instrumental in keeping the Syrian civil war going, doing all it can to knock out Iran's last ally in the Middle East. And it has been making sure that the Saudi backed militias prevail over the ones backed by the US, EU and Qatar. The Syrian Opposition is a mess of competing loyalties, and while it appears to be losing against Assad's forces on the ground, it nonetheless continues to keep the country in an unstable state. If Assad is busy handling problems on his doorstep, then he will have less time to meddle with Saudi Arabia's plans in the rest of the Middle East.

And so we come to the next domino: Lebanon. You see, the real war in the entire Middle East is between (Shia) Iran and (Sunni) Saudi Arabia. And Iran is having its tentacles in the Gaza Strip, Syria and Lebanon slowly snipped off. Turmoil in Lebanon will look terrible in the Western media, but for the Saudis it will be a welcome message to Iran: Look at what is happening to all your friends.


Try the Falafel

So how do other countries feel about this? Well, Israel is happy, as it has been quietly allied with Saudi Arabia ever since the Saudis requested (and paid for) their help a couple of decades ago to solve a problem in the Yemen. With the British no longer willing to fight in Aden or the Arabian Peninsula, the Saudis needed other soldiers to fight their wars. Pakistani mercenaries are useful, and America's willingness to stamp on Saddam Hussein proved very useful, but nothing is as useful as Israel's vociferous anti-Iran stance and its willingness to ignore international law to enforce its interests. So Saudi Arabia can use Israel's help, and it can provide a useful service in return.

It can make sure Egypt honours its peace deal with Israel and maintains its side of the Gaza blockade (which Morsi's government had gone soft on). It can keep Syria, Israel's old enemy, destabilised and no threat to anybody anymore.

And it can kick the legs out from under Hezbollah and leave them too busy fighting for their own survival to bother Israel any more.

So Israel is happy.


Non?

Then there is France. Now what France is up to in all this is something of a mystery to me. Just lately France has gone interventionist mad, with robust insertions into Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic. When you consider that they were once mocked as being Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys for not getting involved in the Invasion of Iraq, you can see that this is quite a change for the truculant Gallic nation that prefers to say 'Non'. And having just lost their triple-A rating on the world finance markets, you'd think the French would be more cautious about getting into expensive interventions.

Then again, that may be why it is happy to boost its defence industry with Saudi money. And who wouldn't? And France remains a staunch ally of Israel anyway, in spite of the EU's weak finger wagging over the Palestinian issue.


You're either with us and against us?

And how does the US feel about this? Well, that's a difficult one too, as the US has long since ceased to pursue a rational foreign policy, mixing as it does its geopolitical interests with its humanitarian interests - feeling sorry for downtrodden people while supporting Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Since its disastrous venture into Iraq, where it was forced to leave empty handed, the US has declared its intention to pivot towards the Far East (and antagonise China instead). It committed aircraft to Libya but declined to do so in Syria, even as the CIA trained anti-Assad militias in Jordon and unleashed them across the border in a major offensive (which failed). And while backing Israel and the Sunnis in the west, and maintaining its hostility against Shia Iran in the east, it offers drones and missiles to the Iranian backed Iraqi government in the centre.

What is the US trying to achieve? Quite honestly, I don't know. It could be a plan so cunning that mere mortals like myself cannot understand it. Or it could just be foreign policy incompetance on a grand scale.

Either way, it looks a million miles away from what Saudi Arabia is doing.

So keep an eye on Lebanon. If those arms get delivered, and if the conflict next door is unresolved, it could blow up.

Why do men fight?

In an age where masculinity appears outmoded - where masculinity is in fact mocked and derided, the issue of why men fight becomes a vexing question.

And there have been many answers to that one question - or perhaps questions raised by that one question.

Is it that men are inferior to women? Surely if they were not so egotistical or vain, if they were more able to empathise and cooperate, then they would see there was no need to fight? The pen is mightier than the sword, good deeds are better than bad, we are one species and only have one planet to live on. If men could learn to share, then they would no longer need to destroy.

Or perhaps it is masculinity, that cult that is supposed to direct us and tell us what to do? Perhaps it is simply a mistaken cult, one that can be shaped to be different? For is not masculinity just an idea? And cannot ideas be changed?

Maybe it's the system? The capitalism that pits one against the other, that competes for resources, that demands a loser for every winner? Perhaps it is civilization itself - that monstrous entity that corrupts us, that consumes us and uses us as fuel to maintain itself?

Or perhaps it is God who makes us do this, because He made us in his own image? Or even the Devil, who hates what God made and therefore whispers temptations into our ears and leads us to our doom?

But consider this. We have a common ancestor with chimpanzees. We share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees. We don't really know much about that common ancestor, but genetically we do know that the chimpanzee is our closest relative. A brother. And chimpanzees fight too. Viciously and frequently.

Ah, but that is different, you say. Men fight for causes, for honour, for flags, for pay, for the motherland, for family. Or for stupidity, and the lies of other men. Take your pick.

But at the point of fighting, at the point when a man engages his opponent, whether in a bar or a battlefield, does any of that other stuff really matter? At the point of death, at the point of driving home the blade, charging the blood soaked horse or crashing the burning plane into the enemy's ship, are any of those causes really thought about? Pondered over? Repeated to one self?

Or, at the point of naked aggression, is there something else? Something we dare not speak of? Something that those who do not fight will never understand? Or would prefer to not understand?

Now ask the question: Why do chimpanzees fight?

When you can answer that question - truly properly answer that question - then we can answer the question of why men fight, and therefore dispense with all that philosophical, theological or ideological nonsense that we currently fill our heads with.

Empire and Colonialism

 I found an interesting article on what a Chinese superpower might look like. The main premise of the article wasn't that illuminating - it was fairly lightweight and quite childlike. What I found interesting however were the comments that betrayed a common worldview here at home:

"China has never colonised any overseas territories. Overseas empires were a European speciality,"

"Europe, I would argue, has historically been an extremely aggressive and expansionist continent."

"Military might, the projection of power around the world, and the desire if necessary by force to impose our way of life on others, have been fundamental to the European story."

"China won't be like this. It is not in its DNA."

"Instead the quintessential forms of Chinese power will be economic and cultural."

I have often been baffled by the odd views of Empire and Colonialism that have become so fashionable among the left. Basically the narrative goes: White Europeans and Americans were racist, exploitative and sought to conquer brown and black people. You get the impression when reading views linked to this narrative (especially on forums and comments pages) that it was the white West that invented Imperialism, Colonialism and exploitation. Indeed, a parallel is often drawn between whites exploiting coloured people, and western industry raping the planet. Capitalism, rather than being a mere form of market exchange, is instead elevated to being an extension of white imperialism. And it's all our fault.

Never having been fashionable, I've long had a hard time swallowing this mickey mouse cartoon version of history, and I remain astonished that people better educated than me glibly believe it. Maybe I'm just a bit thick, because when I look at history itself, I just can't see this strange narrative. As a soft left liberal myself, or at least someone who fits the profile, I find this view absurd.

 Let's get a few facts out of the way first. Conquering and exploiting others is not a European invention. China may never have had overseas colonies, but it does indeed have a history of aggressive, military expansion. It's no accident that China is the size it is today, you know. Ask the Vietnamese what they think of the Chinese occupation that they fought against for centuries. Ask the Tibetans. The Mongols expanded (and contracted) a massive overland empire over the world's biggest land mass, ruling China and reaching the boundaries of Europe. The Islamic Empire conquered all of the Middle-East, North Africa, Spain and the Caucasus, finally stopping short of Vienna. And it expanded down the east coast of Africa and would have expanded further into the interior if the Tsetse fly hadn't killed their horses. Having laid the boundaries of Islam, they then set up a vast slave trade in Africa, long before the arrival of the Portugese. The Mughal empire expanded out of Afghanistan and made half of Indians its subjects before Queen Victoria was even born. The Aztecs expanded throughout Central America, conquering and enslaving every tribe it came across - the only reason the conquistadores were able to defeat the Aztecs was because the local tribes allied with them in order to topple their hated overlords.

Colonies are a way of establishing a presence somewhere. If you are the country right next door, then you don't need colonies. The threat of invasion will do just fine, and the subject nation will pay its tribute or give up its mineral wealth to you and not your rivals. If India had been on the Isle of Wight, and if it wasn't threatened by rivals looking to exploit it as well, then Britain wouldn't have had colonies in India at all. There would have been no need to rule it - a puppet ruler, as is traditional, would have done fine.

Prior to Europe's expansion, shipbuilding technology was still poorly developed. Zheng He's fleet, about which we know very little of, was created during the Ming Dynasty's declining years. The ships, we think, may have been impressive. They would certainly have been very expensive. Yet they stuck to conservative routes. And the Chinese Empire, wealthy already from its trade links with the Persian, Mughal and Islamic Empires, saw no benefit in exploring further. It had no need.

Portugal, blocked from the East by the Islamic Empire, had nothing to lose in trying to sail around the tip of Africa. They were attracted to the East by China's wealth. They wanted to trade with it. Their ships were used to the wild Atlantic, and so were tough. It was from there that Spain, Britain and the Netherlands, also facing the Atlantic and perched on what was seen as the 'edge of the world', also developed their maritime links and shipbuilding techniques.

If China had been in Ireland, they too would have done the same.

It was an accident of history that allowed Europeans to take advantage of long range maritime links, just as the technology to do so was emerging. The long distances involved and the lack of communications technology also meant that they had to rely first on garrisoned 'factories' (trading centres), then (when the Mughal empire imploded) on ruling areas that hitherto had been ruled by others. And that's it. It wasn't racism or militarism that produced Europe's domination of much of the world - just the usual human habits combined with lucky timing.

And they are human habits. It's fashionable, for instance, to blame the US's western expansion across America on some arrogant notion of 'Manifest Destiny'. But Manifest Destiny is just a made-up phrase, and nobody seems to know who said it first. Did Russians need that phrase in order to sweep across Siberia, Russia's 'Wild East'? No. They just did it. What the US did against Native Americans (taking their land, for gain, and killing them if they got in the way) was what all growing nations tended to do. The larger American Indian Nations did the same, eradicating smaller tribes as they expanded, and warring against those they couldn't destroy outright.

Will China, if it becomes a superpower, try to base itself overseas? Take a look at the furious row in the South China sea, where China, Japan and South Korea have been rattling sabres over a few uninhabited islands. With modern communications, ships and planes, such places suddenly assume strategic significance (as they did in WW2). This is why, for instance, America has an empire of bases, rather than colonies. Technology has shrunk distances further, so colonies are no longer needed (which is why 17th century European colonies looked obsolete in the 20th century). In the 15th Century, with China at the height of its power, occupying those islands would have made no sense. There was nothing there, they could not dominate the surrounding seas without the invention of radar, artillery or missiles, and a garrison stationed there would have starved to death. Now however, it is a different story, and again, not because of correct or incorrect attitudes, but because of circumstance.

If Chinese strategists see a real need to occupy a piece of land anywhere on this earth, they will pragmatically weigh up the costs and benefits, and if it was to their advantage - and they could get away with it - they would do it. They would not wring their hands in anguish, saying 'but we are not Europeans, it is not in our DNA'.

Chinese people are human people, and humans have always acted in this way, regardless of their skin colour, religion or ideology. To fail to see this is to succomb to the idiotic racialist theories that abounded in the last century - that, somehow, it is race that dictates a people's behaviour.

It is not.

It is circumstance that dictates a people's behaviour.

Syria

It's the truth, man.

What is happening in Syria? Has civil war broken out between the ethnic and religious factions that make up the country, with some factions allying with others, and all trying to gain control of the country? Are Saudi Arabia and Qatar pouring money and arms towards their chosen factions? Is Turkey supplying, and giving safe haven, to one of the factions? Is the UN, under the guise of promoting peace, pushing for resolutions that, coincidentally, favour the factions chosen by the West? Are Jihadi fighters - Sunni mercenaries basically - pouring into Syria from Libya, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq? Is the most powerful country in the world, along with opportunistic allies, trying to destabilise Syria, and possibly the middle east?

Well apparently not. According to mainstream media like the BBC and Reuters, what is happening in Syria is that 'the people', led by young activists and rebels, are trying to topple a dictatorial regime, which is responding by unleashing its armed forces upon civilians. And massacring them.

Journalism, we are told, is about reporting the truth. Well, no it's not. It's about selling print and air time to customers, and you do that by giving them a narrative. The narrative being sold to us regarding Syria is, like most narratives, a good vs evil one. We like our dualities in the West, and there's always someone to demonise, whether it's Muslims, Jews, Liberals, Bankers, Capitalists, Climate Change Deniers, whatever. There's a narrative to suit every taste. So for your delectation, dear readers, in Syria it's about young hip radicals versus the ruthless, titanic monster dictator.

Remember Libya? Then, it was about Gaddafi versus 'the people'. One evil man and his black mercenaries against the freedom loving people of Libya. They would fight against overwhelming odds, and then celebrate in the streets when victory is won. Like in the movies.

Gaddafi's dead now, and the media couldn't wait to leave the subject behind. They left the country so fast that they left dust trails. The tribal factions involved in the war (not 'the people') carried on fighting anyway, each taking over a piece of the country and sidelining the West's chosen faction. The country may be about to split into two.

But that doesn't align with the narrative, so best not to report it at all. Wouldn't want all those highly paid reporters to look wrong, would we?

The 'Arab Spring' is another example of a narrative that bore little resemblance to reality. Most of our journalists and media commentators appear to be obsessed with the Sixties, because the various revolts were presented to us as youth revolutions shaking the stuffy, conservative dictatorships out of power, and demanding democracy, equality, social justice and freedom of speech. All on twitter and facebook.

The kids are alright, man.

The reality is that, in Tunisia and Egypt, the Islamists took the popular vote, and the nice looking liberals favoured by our journalists were ignored.

When we look at the world, it seems, we see only what we want to see.

So, what is going on in the middle-east?

The ending of the Cold War, that's what.


Jigsaw pieces.

The middle-east as we know it was formed after WW1, when the European powers divided it up among themselves. WW2 shattered this post-Ottoman entity and the European powers, weakened by the war, pulled out.

Into this void came the USSR and USA, claiming their prize as victors of WW2. The middle-east had oil. For Russia it was also a gateway to the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, bypassing potential NATO blockading of the Baltic. For NATO, the middle-east was a gateway to Asia, bypassing the Iron Curtain.

In strategic terms a clash was inevitable and the two regimes divided up the region along new lines, changing regimes they couldn't do business with and funding their own proxies generously.

When the Soviet Union imploded, this whole arrangement became obsolete and, for two decades, America dispensed with its odious allies and adopted a policy of impunity, doing whatever it liked and doing it directly, with its own forces.

The background to all this activity however is that, since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Islamism has bided its time in the region - often repressed, but never eradicated, and always close to its grass roots.


What now?

The Cold War is now over, but, so it seems, is America's attempt at direct hegemony. The debacle in Iraq ended in humiliation and the failure of every single one of its objectives. Islamism, repressed again, survived the attempt to eradicate it and now takes heart from seeing the giant stumble away.

America has switched back to more covert means of meddling. It is also switching its military emphasis towards the Pacific now, with a view to containing its new lukewarm war rival, China. This leaves a vacuum in the middle-east, into which lesser, local powers are rushing into.

Islamism, in all its various and often disconnected guises, has not been wounded by the 'war on terror'. In many ways it has actually been strengthened by it. In the middle-east Islamism is proving to be the soil that everyone must water or fertilise. Anything planted outside of Islamism withers and fails to grow.

America funded Islamism in the Cold War against Russia (just as Germany and Britain did in WW1), then it went to war against Islamism, trying to crush it. Now it tries to crush it in Yemen and Somalia while funding it in Libya and Syria. Time will tell whether this is a good idea or not, but there is little doubt that, as the old map of the middle-east cracks up, Islamism will remain the dominant strand. Whether it becomes moderate or radical will depend on a whole host of unforeseen factors.

Qatar is the new rising power in the middle-east. It sent its special forces operatives and oil dollars into Libya and Syria. It broadcasts the narrative it wants to see on Al-Jazeera, the pseudo-radical news outlet that supports 'democratic revolutions' abroad while remaining quiet about the political situation back home. Is Al-Jazeera a Qatari government tool? Possibly.

Qatar is currently allied to Saudi Arabia. Whether the House of Saud can withstand the coming changes in the region is an open question, even as it actively funds Sunni Islamism. Both nations are actively supported by the same western countries that are targeted by such Islamism - an act of irony that only future historians will fully appreciate.

Iran is being systematically weakened by the West. This is to Qatar's benefit. Iraq however is divided between Sunni and Shia. If Syria falls, then the battleground may return there, with Qatar and the West (perhaps) funding the rise of the Sunnis and the attempt to humble the Shias once more in another attempt to isolate Iran, another historical cycle rich in irony.

If Iran falls or fails, the battle for dominance in the middle-east may well be between Qatar and Turkey, a country recently rebuffed by Europe and now becoming more Islamist and attempting to grow its influence in the region (another historical cycle?).

Russia and China both watch anxiously from the sides, cautiously moving a pawn here or a Go stone there.

And India? Conspicuously absent from much of the region, which might say something about its global diplomatic status - parochial, immature, or both.

Meanwhile, the cauldron of Syria boils, stirred by many new hands.

Who can say what kind of dish will be served up on the menu?

Libya - Lies, damned lies and our own Media.

I've got an itch that, no matter how I scratch it, just won't stop itching.

Libya - an open and shut case, right? A brutal dictator unleashes his forces upon his own people, besieging rebels in their last stronghold. The international community fears a massacre and calls for a ceasefire and a no-fly zone, and then decisively enforces it. To save innocent lives.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. Call it Liberal Interventionism if you like.

Maybe it's all about oil - no small thing since it actually underpins all modern civilizations. Rome fought for Grain, Spain fought for Silver, we fight for Oil. Business as usual, since even the most sentimental liberal needs it for their cosmopolitan, urban lifestyle. Tofu won't power ipads.

Or call it empathy. We can't just stand by and do nothing while a dictator suppresses freedom.

Media commentators of all stripes have had fun with all of the above. And yet too many details are still being missed.

• Politicians now over-use the phrase 'protecting civilians'. Yet the rebels are armed combatants, albeit incompetent ones. And the 'opposition' is not one opposition and has no apparent leader. Robert Fisk of The Independent has already identified the Benghazi rebels as warriors from the Senoussi Tribe.
• Gaddafi is said to have broken the ceasefire, thus warranting immediate military action. But the aircraft that was shot down graphically over Benghazi has been identified by The Guardian and Al Jazeera as a rebel plane. It is not clear who shot it down, but it is clear that the rebels, who called for and then cheered the no-fly zone yesterday, breached that no-fly zone today. But western forces have begun attacking Gaddafi's forces.
• French aircraft have already destroyed four Libyan government tanks. But France is not neutral in this - it has formally recognised the Benghazi 'opposition' as a defacto government. France is thus not enforcing a ceasefire - it is aggressively flying top cover for a recognised client. And it was France that led the charge to have this brought before the UN Security Council.
• Fears of a massacre by Gaddafi's forces have been cited as a motivation for protecting Benghazi. Yet Gaddafi's forces have already overrun several 'rebel held' towns, and yet nobody has even hinted at any massacres, ethnic cleansing or fleeing columns of refugees from those towns. And Benghazi is a big city, while Gaddafi's 'beseiging' forces are barely Brigade sized. Nor, according to footage so far, are they particularly well equipped, disciplined or anything like what one expects a militaristic dictator's army to look like. In fact, they don't look that much different from the rebels themselves.
• Aircraft and cruise missiles have already hit numerous targets all over Libya, including Tripoli. A curiously zealous way to protect a ceasefire in Benghazi, with little evidence of a ceasefire breach to prompt such haste. Serbia was given far more time to pull back before NATO was unleashed in Bosnia and Kosovo.
• The Arab nations have apparently given their assent to this. Yet where are they? Egypt has funnelled arms to the rebels, but will not take part in the enforcement of the no-fly zone. Egypt, among others, has benefited from billions of dollars of US advanced aircraft, Abrams tanks and training. Why so coy about enforcing a UN resolution right next door? Why is France so keen to jump in when it dragged its feet so famously over Iraq? Iraq had oil too.
• If it is about oil, why not let Gaddafi do what he has always done, and then just continue to buy the oil from him, just as we have always done? If it is about supporting democratic revolution, then who are the budding democratic parties and why have they not been more clearly lauded? If it's about civilian lives, why have we so clearly taken one side in what may be a tribal war and begun a 'Shock and Awe' air and missile campaign, with its attendant risks of collateral damage?

What is really going on, and if the majority of our media is truly not being so mendacious, doesn't that instead just make them look stunningly incompetent? We pride ourselves in the West on our free press on the assumption that it is more likely to tell the truth. But is it really impartial or even worth a damn?

On the subject of Egypt's uprising, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I put it to you that the fawning and narcissistic gushing of the western media on the subject have fallen short of reality, and that indeed they have overlooked some vital pieces of evidence.
Exhibit A: Many young demonstrators carried or painted on themselves the national flag of Egypt. Not America. Not Anarchism inc. Not trade union banners. These people are very, very patriotic. And Egypt has a young population, with a sizable proportion of young males. Patriotic young males.
Exhibit B: Egypt's economy was in the doldrums before the demonstrations and is in tatters now. The anger at Mubarak was stimulated by increasing poverty, the rising price of food and by the unemployment of a large number of young people. And this in a regime that already heavily subsidises bread and other vital foodstuffs. Being able to vote and air dissent in a free press does not in itself produce agricultural abundance and jobs. Freedom does not automatically produce prosperity.
Exhibit C: Egypt has no oil. Egypt is heavily reliant on aid. Egypt has a large deficit. Egypt has very little in the way of a manufacturing base. No democratic regime can conjure away the problems associated with these things, no matter how nice they are. Niceness produces neither competence nor wealth. It only pleases tender bourgeois hearts who watch from the comfort of their living rooms.
Exhibit D: The price of food is shooting up. The price of oil is going up. The price of metals is skyrocketing. Inflation stalks the world - because of population boom, a growing Chinese middle class, the US treasury's second round of quantitative easing and this year's droughts in Asia.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I put it to you that, while the Islamic Brotherhood may indeed be as tame and toothless as many claim, there are still other dangers surrounding the creation of a democratic government in a country that has never had a true democracy.
We may not see an Islamic Republic in Egypt.
But we may indeed see a Weimar Republic.

War in Afghanistan

For all the talk about the war in Afghanistan, it is important to understand that there are actually three wars in Afghanistan.
The first war is the Humanitarian war. This is the war to create stability, democracy, greater women's rights, strong economy, etc. This is the most visible of the three wars.
The second war is the War on Terror war. This is the war that hits the Taliban and conducts raids and drone strikes into Pakistan. This war is less visible and only mentioned when there are casualties.
The third war is the Bases war. This is the firm staking out of military bases to increase US influence and leverage in Central Asia. This war is all but invisible to the media, as it is the most complex but the least interesting to the casual viewer.

The Humanitarian war has already been lost. As an attempt at enlightened Liberal Imperialism it has foundered upon intractable realities and has absorbed billions to little effect. This war will soon be abandoned, taking most of the media journalists with it.
The War on Terror war failed in its initial aim of eliminating the Taliban, thus paving the way for victory in the first war. It now only aims to weaken the Taliban in order to preserve an imperfect pro-western regime. This will be scaled down to a Special Forces and Drone war and will become far less visible.
The Bases war is so far a success. Remote bases are easy to defend and only require the permission of the host government, whoever they are. They can also project future power when necessary, and serve as bases for Special Forces, Intelligence assets and cash outflows to bribe warlords and, if necessary, Taliban to allow gas pipelines going west to be left in peace. They serve as a strategic bargaining chip in The Great Game with China, India and Russia. They will remain largely invisible to a public who don't really care where their troops are stationed in the world, provided they're not dying.
Idealistic aims will give way to realpolitik and the original 'War in Afghanistan' will be forgotten.