In this edition, some travel ideas, a good joke, a real nutty TV show from Japan making its way toward you and Predictions and Observations at Year’s End.

Here’s a good joke I heard at the Limmud Conference I attended at the University of Nottingham which featured almost 2,000 attendees. A text of my speech is available on Global Thoughts. It was well received; out of hundreds of speakers, I was the only person who had to do a repeat performance due to popular demand. Anyway, a guy is at the train station and looks lost. A man asks him “Where are you going?” “None of your business.” “I’m the station master; perhaps I can help you.” “OK, I’m going to Oxford.” “Platform 3.” The guy gets on the train to Oxford and just as the train is pulling out of the station, the guy leans out the window, sees the station master on the platform and yells at him, “Ha, ha...I’m really going to Stratford.” You can think of this next time you deal with some shmuck who thinks he is sooo clever that he holds the secret of the universe inside his little head only to be too clever by half.

Nuttiest thing I saw this month: In England, a TV network has spoofed this Japanese men’s TV show called “Bonzai.” They show video with Japanese characters but do English voiceovers. It is very tasteless humor geared toward Japanese men but it is funny. In case you were ever wondering what kind of strange stuff lives on Japanese TV now you know. They set up strange situations and then tell you to place your bets on the outcome. Every Oriental stereotype you thought existed is played to the hilt (funny Oriental names for each situation; martial arts displays at the end of every situation) – it is so funny that if it weren’t real you’d think they were making fun of the Japanese and doing a great job of it. (“Quick, quick, quick...bet bet bet...Finished. No more betting.”) Situations include: Attaching helium balloons to a chicken; how many balloons must you attach till the chicken is raised into the air? Men in underwear; which one’s crotch is real? Mr. ShakeHands shakes hands continuously with a famous lesbian and keeps talking to her – how long will she keep shaking hands with this guy? No doubt this show will wind up on the Comedy Channel in the US within a year!

OK, now to more serious stuff such as 21st Century Cowboys and Indians in the First War of the Third  Millennia  featuring Army Rangers on Horseback in the wilds of Afghanistan – can you believe this?

Predictions For 2002 and Beyond

USA

Economy – Moderate rebound in the second half of the year.  Will have positive effects on other countries such as Canada, Europe, Israel and Japan who have suffered pneumonia to the US’s influenza. Stock indexes will increase about 25%. Real estate values will continue to stagnate and in certain areas drop during the year because the real estate market lags behind. More conventional terrorism will not affect this however unconventional terrorism within the US (NBC / nuclear, biological or chemical) will prolong a recession. Oil prices and interest rates will continue to be low and this counts for more than any government stimulus package.

Terrorism – Odds continue to be 1:3 of an NBC attack within the US within the next year. However, the US will be better prepared to deal with it even though it will still not be enough. We are still on the learning curve – agents are poking around but still don’t know what they are looking for. But I was fully searched and interrogated last week when I flew out of the US – first time they’ve ever done it right here. Problem was it was a 2 hour line (except that I bypassed it).

Presidency – Bush will have a strong year taking credit for the economic rebound and continuing to stay above politics as a war president carrying the campaign into other countries; November elections will be dealt with on local issues and this is generally to the disfavor of the Republicans. 

RUSSIA

In this edition, some travel ideas, a good joke, a real nutty TV show from Japan making its way toward you and Predictions and Observations at Year’s End.

Putin continues to be strong and rather popular. As long as oil stays above $20 a barrel, Russia can continue to ride on oil; if it drops further, it will pick up more market share of the world’s petrol purchases. Either way it’s a winner. Putin and Bush have agreed to put the ABM issue to the side in return for more cooperation in other areas (i.e. the US ended tariff preferences to the Ukraine which pushes that country into the lock of Russia).

EUROPE

That region has continued to stay optimistic; Christmas shopping was good in the UK. For the first half of the year, the Euro will be a distraction but it will begin to force people to deal with issues they hoped to avoid. All in all, Europe should have a decent year and, on one hand, crack down on terror cells that used its facilities and, on the other hand, try not to antagonize any states in the Middle East that may benefit from such terror cells. One thing it will do increasingly is to extradite problematic people to Arab governments that it previously regarded as asylum-seekers.

AFRICA

Not much going on here as usual. I understand that Republic of Congo is actually making quiet progress with its New Generation president and is the surprise country to watch. 

LATIN AMERICA

I have been warned several times during the past quarter not to underestimate the social unrest in Argentina and we have seen the results. Problem is that Argentina’s situation has been allowed to fester for so long that it is going to take a solid decade of reform to pull the country into another direction. Just like Japan. Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico have problems that need US attention but this administration is solidly distracted with terrorism and have relegated that region to back lot status. The best they can hope for is to ride on any US economic recovery and to meanwhile put their house in order. Venezuela’s Chavez should watch his back.

ASIA

Japan is not an optimistic place and it is arguable as to whether or not any meaningful reforms are taking place. I hear different opinions and the jury is out on this. South Korea will have a change in government this year but I don’t know if that’s good or bad; North Korea will have a harder time blackmailing its way into money because Bush is not Clinton and it is a post 9-11 world. Remember though that no one wants North Korea to simply implode in an uncontrolled way.

China changes its leader this year and he is known to be more intelligent than his predecessors, though not as well traveled, but he is getting some hall passes to learn his way around. The India-Pakistan problem is also a China problem and how China acts will make a difference. Problem is that China sees a US hand in the India-Pakistan dispute and fears the US intent is against China. Overall, my sense is that China should be left alone to do its thing, that its interests are primarily internal and that if its big external interest is the island of Taiwan, then why should we really care enough to affect our whole defense strategy – if we are that distracted, we will wind up in an arms race and lose in the end anyway because this is a vital interest to them and not to us. Anyway, I don’t expect any military moves against Taiwan because it will negatively affect China’s economic interests in Hong Kong (and Taiwan). Over the next 10-20 years, Taiwan will be economically absorbed by China anyway and a new generation, less ideological, will smooth over political differences as both countries become something different than what they are today. 

India and Pakistan have, for several years, been considered the most likely nuclear flashpoints in the world. I am only now beginning to try and understand what the deal is with Kashmir and certainly don’t pretend to know what to suggest. My general feeling is that leaders on both sides are responsible parties who do not want a war, but there is the fear that someone will pull out his testicles in a Whose is Bigger contest and there will be unintended consequences. Or that each side is bluffing but that there will be unintended consequences. Worse comes to worse, someone pulls the nuclear button, we all see how bad it is, and then everyone learns not to do it again. 

I think that India is trying to threaten war in order to get the US to push Pakistan to clean up its act, hoping that Pakistan will be sufficiently scared of the prospect of war. Even during the Afghanistan campaign, the US was wary of Pakistan and gave it only economic promises. Overall, the US favors India but it needs Pakistan right now because it is the lifeline to Al Quaida. Pakistan is a problem – the President runs the show but he does not have absolute control. If he pushes too hard, he might well lose control and that would put us in a worse position overall than anything we might have achieved in Afghanistan. The thought was that pushing on both Afghanistan and Kashmir would be too much; now that Afghanistan is supposedly done with, the Indians think this is the right time to push on Kashmir. My prediction is that there will not be a war and that Pakistan will have to clean up its act because these fundamentalists are a greater threat to Pakistan than the Indians. 

Both the US and Pakistan are not satisfied with the war in Afghanistan and feel they were screwed by the other; the Pakistanis did not want the war to end with the Northern Alliance dominating Afghanistan and the US does not appreciate the fact that the Pakistanis let the big fish from Al-Quaeda get away and right now there are a good number of them operating in Pakistan and there are all these mosques and schools still operating (but controlled a bit more now). But this is the logical result when you leave the dirty work to bribed proxies instead of sending in your own troops to get your man. Yet, it wasn’t worth it to send in a bunch of army dudes to get a dozen mullahs wearing turbins just so we could say we got them. Keep reading.

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM

Al-Quaida loses its base in Afghanistan but still exists. Had the US gotten Bin Laden and Mullah Omar, it would be under great pressure to declare victory and lower the alert. Fact is, we are better off keeping them under the chase and having the world remain on alert because catching these two guys will not solve the problem. The network is just too big, and it is more than Al-Qaida. Was the Shoe-Bomber part of that network or a different network? (By the way, remember that in September GlobalThoughts noticed that the main loophole in airport security was shoe-based explosives so you read it here first. Since then on a related point, at least Heathrow now makes you go through security again if you enter the duty free shopping area even if you come back from a gate (to make sure you don’t pass stuff to another person in the duty free).)

So far there is no evidence that any state is behind any unconventional attack but Iraq has too many biological and chemical weapons for comfort and is certainly looking to go nuclear. It is a proven menace to its neighbors. I expect that the year will end with Saddam gone; support for any move against Iraq will be conditioned on the grounds that it must be swift and overpowering with the elimination of Saddam as an absolute prerequisite. The Israelis expect to suffer an unconventional attack in the process and the Arabs do not want another half-assed protracted campaign which they fear they may not be able to survive domestically, what with the 24 hour Arabic news channels that now exist in the region. The Americans will not fear the vacuum this time, particularly since Afghanistan appears to be coming out better than anticipated. They will deal with the afterward afterward.

IRAN

As I have said for several years, one of the most dynamic countries in the world that bears watching and visitation. Khatami was interviewed a month ago on American TV by Charlie Rose who gave him a full hour without commercials and he is smooth. The best thing for the US to do with regard to Iran right now is to leave it alone; any attempt to interfere will only backfire. Among countries in the region, the US is most popular in Iran right now precisely because we are not seen to have any influence in that country’s government. It is clear that the conservative judiciary is overreaching in its prosecution of legislators (who are supposed to have immunity) and that the government is not popular in the country. Also that it is corrupt. Iran will take care of itself over the next decade. Iran will definitely become a nuclear power (it has too many hostile countries bordering it) and post-Saddam will extend its interests into Iraq but if Saudi Arabia is lost to fundamentalists, the more cosmopolitan and friendly Iran we get in return will more than make up for it.

ARAB COUNTRIES

The Levant and the Gulf can expect to muddle along in a year which will involve little economy or progress on any front. The war against Iraq will be a distraction but ultimately it will be a positive for the region because after it is over there will be new opportunities. Cautious old-school trouble-making dictators such as Bashar Assad (and the power structures that prop him up) will not be helped if Iraq falls; the fall of Iraq may usher in a new period of American influence where governments feel compelled to get with the program.

The greatest danger is Islamic extremism to the governments of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, both of which are seen to be heavily under US influence, oppressive of their citizens and undemocratic. I maintain that most people in the region want more democracy and economic opportunity and that it is patronizing and Orientalist to think that the people of the region do not want or are incapable of living in some variation of a democratic country. Moslem countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia prove that Islam is not incompatible with governments approaching representative democracies and civil societies.

The Saudis have gotten the message that their tolerance of extremism backfired and is not without consequence domestically. They are cooperating more and taking some initiatives to clean house. However, the shock therapy of 9-11 (i.e. the increased hostility by the West toward Saudis) put proud Saudis on the defensive and alienated many young educated elites who, among other consequences, no longer feel comfortable with the idea of getting educated in the US and, given that this dooms them and their country to a bleak future of stagnation, gives them more reason to just hate the US. This is actually Bin Laden’s biggest victory. 

Problem is that this is a problem we can’t quickly solve; the Saudis are responsible for their lousy educational system which teaches no useful skills and their students know that their Saudi educations are by and large useless. So much so that the US universities altogether put out 9 Arab language majors this year; the Saudis have turned out 100 Hebrew majors (because they think they’ll get a useful job with it.) And they have been pumped with all this Islamic extremism since they were kids from their educators, mosques and media. The Saudi royals have sown the seeds of their own destruction with a deal they made with the devil – you guys run the religion for everyone else but we get freedom to be as decadent as we like and take care of all the money. The game can’t last forever. The real problem with Saudi is that in the end it is a country lacking motivated people or a sense of urgency. It is cursed with laziness and arrogance bred from wealth and lack of work ethic or ever having needed anything. Other Arabs are jealous but many just feel the Saudis have money but no class. If Saudi goes down, no one will mourn it, just as no one in the neighborhood mourned for the loss of Kuwait. 

The only real question being asked of me is whether or not US troops will man Saudi oil fields if and when they lose control over their country. I think we won’t but because we won’t care enough to do so. I just don’t see how the Saudis can manage to hold on forever or that they will ever really change, and it is not normal that they can withstand the anger of a new generation of underemployed educated people any more than the Iranians can. So perhaps the Saudis will have their flirtation with fundamentalism but over the long run, they might become practical after they see it is a false messiah that avoids reality rather than brings progress and wealth. But there is an important reason not to be optimistic here. The difference between Saudi Arabia and Iran is that Iran’s people are by and large more cosmopolitan and receptive to change in an area of the world that has for centuries been a crossroads of cultural exchange; had the Shah been more benevolent as a ruler, I don’t think he would have been overthrown. The Saudis keep saying he was overthrown because he was too liberal; I think that’s a false conclusion that has been used to justify its policies of repression – the problem was that he was liberally extravagant equating his wealth with the country’s wealth, but not at all in tune with meeting the needs or aspirations of his people, giving them space to observe or not observe customs according to their personal beliefs or empowering them. Instead he dominated them and drove everything underground till it bubbled back with great ferocity. (More discussion later.) The Saudis are more isolated and cannot see the benefits of change, especially since they think the world is their prostitute. This is a long range puzzle. What the West can do is to meantime reduce dependence on their oil so as to make any disruption less meaningful and that indeed is happening.

ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM

From beyond Turkey till China, only Uzbekistan is not run or threatened by Islamic fundamentalists. Out of 38 armed conflicts in the world today, 36 are tied to fundamentalists. This is indeed a big issue and one that has utterly consumed Bush & Co. According to someone I know who met with Bush a few weeks ago, Bush “gets it” – he is focused with a very solid sense of who is right and wrong and determined to crush the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. This person who is a brilliant professional world player and has been meeting world leaders for a quarter century says he was more “ecstatic” having met Bush this month than any previous meeting with a US president.

It is important for a minute to review the history of religious fundamentalism. Fundamentalism usually comes into existence when the dominant power prohibits the free exercise of religion and political rights and drives it underground so that it becomes ever more violent as a means of protest and bubbles back to the surface in an explosive way. Sadat and the Shah drove fundamentalists underground until they came back and bit. For Mubarak, Assad Sr. and Hussein of Jordan, the lesson learned is to jail, kill or exile these people so that they never have a chance to bubble back. For the Gulf, the lesson is to appease them hoping that if they are not driven underground, they will not bubble back. Both methods don’t work in the long run and the reason as I see it is not there is a better way to deal with fundamentalists but that the only true solution is to make the society around it a more attractive reality than the Islamic fantasy. There are no shortcuts here. 

Fundamentalism is bred by both a lack of economic opportunity as well as a sense of injustice with the political dynamic. The people who carried out 9-11 may have done so in the US but their motive was the situation in Saudi Arabia. They came here with their ideologies formed in Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. It is true that some of the leaders and troopers come from the middle and upper classes, but as I have said it is a combination of political and economic motives. There are also aberrations and transferences – the petty criminal in the UK who channeled his energies into a cause and became the Shoe Bomber and the blue-blood from California in search of himself who found himself in Afghanistan. The problem is not merely the few thousand actors but the societies in which a billion people come to justify their actions. The challenge is not only to stop the actors but to remove the reasons used to excuse and justify the act by the people around them and the solution is not simply to label such acts “terrorism” and forbid them. And not to let their organizations be the only sources of hot lunches and social services to too many ordinary people.

The long range solution is to pledge significant sums of money to provide practical education in countries around the world, build infrastructure, fight disease and poverty. Increase trade and encourage the exchange of culture and ideas. Encourage political pluralism. Pay off monarchs and dictators that peacefully yield to the popular will and move to the side which is cheaper than waiting for the revolutions to come where we lose all our assets and influence. Too often our response is to raise tariffs and embargos where the desired effect would have been reached quicker with cases of Coca Cola and drinkable water. I’m sorry if this sounds naive but the fact is that it is much cheaper to invest in the future of these countries than it is to be paying the economic and military costs of bombing them and making generations of future enemies who come back and bomb our countries. 

By the way, you don’t have to leave Manhattan to see poverty and the absence of any future. You are more likely to reach the age of 5 in Pakistan than in Black Harlem just 2 miles (and 2 light years) north of where I live. I took a walking tour of Harlem and saw a copy shop with advertisements on its awning about the various services it offers including “Funeral Programs.” I had also noticed that there were funeral parlors on almost every block.

ISRAEL & THE PALESTINIANS

The new head of the Labor Party is there as an interim leader and is not expected to be a contender as prime minister in the future. Problem is there are no contenders to the throne except two certified losers named Bibi and Barak. There is no political debate right now in the country and Sharon has everyone inside Israel exactly where he wants them. He has proven to be a much more clever politician than expected and has fashioned himself into a consensus leader because although his politics is to the right, he is very much a clubhouse politician who gets along with all the guys unlike his past few predecessors who managed to alienate everyone. It is a very unusual situation. There is not even talk of any kind of elections for the foreseeable future because there is nobody ready to run. Until something major happens, nothing will change. Perhaps this is why the Palestinians realize something has to give. They undid Barak, put Sharon in there, the Labor Party self-destructed and only they can get rid of him.

This was a year in which everyone found out that contrary to expectations, the Intifadah did not wear Israel out but rather united Israelis with a new sense of purpose (they even reclaimed Zionism after it had seemed to go out of fashion) – 9/11 had the unintended consequence of drawing Europe and the US into the Palestinian issue, firmly against terrorism in all forms. It was a disastrous year for Palestinians – a year in which Peres and Sharon teamed up to shake them down and in which many people suffered and died with no apparent benefit. [Just as I said it would, if you review the first half of my article written 8 March: Israel’s New Government: Endurance Test Begins.]

Arafat is trapped; if he goes one way, the Israelis come after him. The other way, he fears civil war. He need not; Hamas will not make civil war; they are sensitive to Palestinian public opinion and their actions lately prove the point. In power, they will have to provide goods and services and they need cooperation from the Israelis to do this. So far where they take control (ie: Lebanon) they realize they have shift from revolutionaries to providers. So Arafat realizes that Sharon has decided he could live with Hamas in power or try and broker deals with all the village mukhtars (though there is no evidence from past experience that would succeed). Arafat also worries that any letup in violence will be pocketed by the Israelis without any tangible benefit to him. So he is torn, but the Israelis have him and the Palestinians on their knees – the value of a donkey has gone up 10x during the past year because the sieges on the cities are so strong that the preferred means of transport is now a donkey rather than a car. So Arafat can be expected to do everything but cry Uncle and to give as much as he has to in order for the Israelis to let him breathe. But neither Arafat or Sharon sees the benefit of compromise or stopping a conflict that might bring about the downfall of both of them. So unfortunately this year we will continue to see  flareups and mini-crises from time to time with no real change with talks about talks. It is a show and a profitable one at that for those at the top. I revert to my standard stand – as long as Arafat is at the top, nothing happens. It is strange that everything hinges on someone who is “irrelevant” – never mind that Sharon continues to have all sorts of back-channel communications with him.

A war against Iraq will have consequences for Israel (ie: physical damage) but no direct consequence on its relations with the Palestinians. It is a side show.

You thought I’d ramble on viz. this topic, huh? Yup, it’s reached its impasse. If Arafat is gone, then I expect the Palestinians to put up someone reasonable (it may take a shootout/shakeout but I think that either Rajoub or Dahlan [the heads of security in the territories] will rise to the top) and then within 6 months the Israelis will replace Sharon with someone moderate as well and then the two sides will talk turkey. Both publics want this to happen when it becomes realistic and at some point this past year or so will be viewed as a diversion on the road to the inevitable.