Creepy as
HELL
Jet Airways grounds its operations in Abu Dhabi airport.
All flights cancelled!!
https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/55/555105_-custom-intelligence-services-re-obama-s-foreign-policy.html
It says
:
Date
2008-09-24 16:20:12
From raymond_turney@yahoo.com
To service@stratfor.com
[Custom Intelligence Services] RE: Obama's Foreign Policy Stance (Open Access)
Raymond Turney sent a message using the contact form at
https://www.stratfor.com/contact.
In the interests pf full disclosure, I support Obama and am probably a moderate leftist. I think th impact of the US on the rest of the world is at best complicated, with the balance of good vs. evil more likely to tilt evil than to tilt good. That said, on to commenting on the analysis.
This analysis of Obama's foreign policy would seem to underestimate two issues. The first is reality on the ground in South Asia. Politically, the US program is encountering strong sales resistance in Pakistan.
Strategically, the current supply lines to Afghanistan run through
Pakistan. This means that increasing our commitment in Afghanistan will require one of the following: a willingness by the Pakistanis to increase their commitment to the US policy; a reconciliation between the US and Iran; or a de facto alliance with the Russians. The first is unlikely; the second would be strongly opposed by several lobbies in the US; and the last is unlikely because the Russian resurgence is a strategic problem for the US, making a US+Russia de facto alliance unlikely. This will likely doom any proposed expansion of the US effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The second issue, which is ignored, is the likely knock on effect of the banking crisis. US preeminence since WWII has been based in part on the leading role of its capital market, popularly referred to "Wall Street".
Paulson and Bernanke have just claimied that Wall Street has lost so much money that the Fed and Treasury combined cannot bail them out without going to Congress for more money. Their claim that the US banking system couldstart to collapse in a matter of days if Congress does not come up with a
bailout authorization may be less than reassuring to foreign investors. When you combine the two, investment mediated by the US financial system is starting to look much less safe and profitable than it did a month ago.
This will likely lead foreigners to search for alternatives to the US
financial system for their investments. It may also lead to an intensified search for an alternative to the dollar as a reserve currency. Since the US elite {and to a much lesser extent other US citizens} profit from the leading position of Wall Street and the status of the US dollar as a reserve currency, the US will try to fight this. This will both complicate efforts to enlist Europe in support of US policy and create issues which will distract attention from containing Russia. What form this fight will
take and who will win are beyond my ability to predict at this point.
In short. there will more strategic problems facing Obama and they will be harder to solve, than George Friedman's analysis predicts. Containing Russia's resurgence may end up being less important to an Obama administration than defending the financial leadership of the US.
I maintain a blog on events in Pakistan at:
http://www.rememberjenkinsear.blogspot.com/
Good luck,
Ray,
Princess Al-Bandari bint Abdulrahman dies