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Words US 'thinkland' dare not speak
Winston Churchill lamented the absence of war - and the loss of empire. His successor, the Empire of Chaos, faces the same quandary, particularly as some wars, as in Ukraine by proxy, are not going so well. No wonder US Think Tankland is contorting itself to produce "forecasts" that dare not reveal the most likely future, with China, Russia and Germany at the helm. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 9, '15)
Germany's future lies East
Germany, sooner or later, must answer a categorical imperative - how to keep running massive trade surpluses while dumping its euro trade partners. The only possible answer is more trade with Russia, China and East Asia. It will take quite a while, but a Berlin-Moscow-Beijing commercial axis is all but inevitable. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 3, '15)
Year of the Sheep, Century of the Dragon?
Seen from the Chinese capital as the Year of the Sheep starts, the malaise affecting the West seems like a mirage in a galaxy far, far away. On the other hand, the China that surrounds you looks all too solid and nothing like the embattled nation you hear about in the Western media, with its falling industrial figures, its real estate bubble, and its looming environmental disasters. - Pepe Escobar
(Feb 23, '15)
Turkey - the ultimate crossroads
Casanova wrote that as Constantine arrived in Istanbul by the sea, seduced by the sight of Byzantium, he instantly proclaimed: “This is the seat of the empire of the world." More recently,Turkey under the AKP party and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been busy positioning itself as the ultimate crossroads between East and West, between Eurasia and NATOstan - on Erdogan's own terms. - Pepe Escobar
(Feb 2, '15)
Who profits from killing Charlie?
Who gains from killing Stephane Charbonnier and his colleagues at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo? Only those whose agenda is to demonize Islam. Not even a bunch of brainwashed fanatics would pull off the Charlie carnage to show people who accuse them of being barbarians that they are, in fact, barbarians. French intel at least has concluded that this is no underwear bomber stunt. This is a pro job. - Pepe Escobar
(Jan 8, '15)
Russia, China mock divide and rule
A case can be made that the geopolitical shift towards Russia-China integration and a trade/commerce alliance of the pair with Germany is the greatest strategic maneuver of the past 100 years. As Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping build a new economic reality on the Eurasian ground, Western economic attacks rage like hurricanes. Someone should tell the West that "divide and rule" tactics are not working, and will only make 2015 a hair-raising year. - Pepe Escobar
(Dec 23, '14)
Go west, young Han
If everything happens according to plan (and according to the dreams of China's leaders), the "New Silk Road" will become the project of the new century and the greatest trade story in the world for the next decade. Washington may be intent on "pivoting to Asia", but Beijing has its own plan to pirouette to Europe across Eurasia. - Pepe Escobar
(Dec 17, '14)
Russia, Turkey pivot across Eurasia
Russia's decision to use Turkey as a transit country for gas destined for Europe sends geopolitical shockwaves all across Eurasia. Turkey is the obvious gainer, but how the fragile Balkans will feel about being subordinated to the whims of Ankara for their energy supplies is one big unknown. - Pepe Escobar
(Dec 8, '14)
Will Russia, Germany save Europe from war?
Are the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Russia on a mad spiral leading to yet another war in Europe - one in which the quality of armed power stands firmly against the West? Such a hair-raising Apocalypse Now scenario can be avoided - by returning to borders altered by the likes of Stalin, Hitler and Lenin. Everyone would win - except for the Empire of Chaos. - Pepe Escobar
(Dec 1, '14)
Washington plays Russian roulette
Washington loaded the gun long before Vladimir Putin accused the United States of provoking him to pick it up - and long before most watching the game of Russian roulette could identify the weapon as caliber Cold War 2.0. With the bullet marked once for "Eurasian integration" and twice to target "regime change", Barack Obama is holding tensions high. When Hillary Clinton seizes the day, all bets will be off. - Pepe Escobar
(Nov 21, '14)
China's silky road to glory
Any remaining doubts about the stupidity of Western corporate media should have been banished by the puerile coverage of Russian President Vladimir Putin's gentlemanly conduct at the APEC summit in Beijing. Infinitely more relevant to the real world, and largely ignored, was the fact that China got what it wanted - on all fronts. - Pepe Escobar
(Nov 14, '14)
Lame-duck Obama's brave new world
Barack Obama, fresh from his shellacking in Congressional elections, now heads for more of a roasting in Beijing, where he may - or may not - get stuffed by Vlad "the Hammer" Putin, but will for sure face another thrilling round in the titanic battle over rival Asian trade deals. However the lame duck is sliced, the APEC sauce will go to the gander, China's President Xi Jinping. - Pepe Escobar
(Nov 7, '14)
The Caliph fit to join OPEC
Caliph Ibrahim's Islamic State is now for all practical purposes an oil major worth of OPEC membership, with US$2 million in profits a day from juicy energy deals and prices to die for. All its gains would not even be remotely possible without US/Western overt/covert complicity, proving once and for all that The Caliph is the ultimate gift that keeps on giving in the Global War On Terror. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 31, '14)
The loser in Brazil is neoliberalism
Irate Brazilian taxpayers are desperate for decent roads, urban security, better public hospitals and schools and less red tape and bureaucracy. But a slim majority still decided to stick with President Dilma Rousseff and her Xi Jinping-style anti-corruption drive over a turbo-neoliberalist challenger promising a "capitalist shock" that would see macroecomic policy run like a Wall Street fantasy. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 28, '14)
The Kobani riddle
The barbarians, in the form of Islamic State goons, are at the gates of Kobani, the bombed-out city in northern Syria which is also the epicenter of a non-violent experiment in local democracy. But don't expect the US, Turkey and the administration of Iraqi Kurdistan to save Kobani: the city is now an easy-to-lose pawn in a pitiless game because it embodies a people-power challenge to the hegemony of the nation-state. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 24, '14)
Do the Trans-Siberian shuffle
Take a trip back in time on a rumbling Trans-Siberian rail journey in the early years of the 1990s, then leap forward to the modern-era, circa 2020, with the route linked to a Chinese-driven high-speed rail network flashing across Eurasia. It's as if we were still frozen in time: both Russia and China remain pariahs in the eyes of the world's unipolar, imperial elite. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 17, '14)
A Caliph in a wilderness of mirrors
Islamic State goons are taking over the whole, notorious Baghdad belt - the previous "triangle of death" in those hardcore days of US occupation circa 2004. Yes, Donald Rumsfeld's "remnants" are back, razing Ramadi and Fallujah to an accumulation of bombed-out schools, hospitals, homes, mosques and bridges. How could the Pentagon's spectacular Full Spectrum Dominance possibly not see any of this happening? - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 15, '14)
Pure War in Tehran
Paul Virilio's 1983 classic Pure War turned out to be the perfect companion during a frantic week in Tehran revisiting the symbiotic twists that entwine the military-industrial complex and large-scale terrorism, in a city where Virilio's assertion that "peace" merely extends war by other means rings particularly true. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 8, '14)
China, Russia hold US in Eurasian squeeze
Think of China as a magnet for a new world order in a future Eurasian century in which the United States might find itself progressively squeezed out of Eurasia, with a future Beijing-Moscow-Berlin strategic trade and commercial alliance emerging as a Great Game-changer. Place your bets soon. They’ll be called in by 2025.
- Pepe Escobar
(Oct 6, '14)
Operation Tomahawk The Caliph
So the Tomahawks are finally flying again, targeting the self-declared leader of Islamic State and even greater bad-asses in the mysterious Khorasan group. As the militants dissolve Maoist-style, The Pentagon will soon be bombing vast tracts of desert for nothing - if that's not the case already, while the people who are really capable of defeating The Caliph's goons don't tomahawk. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 24, '14)
Obama's 'stupid stuff' turned upside down
First US President Barack Obama promised there would be no ground troops to fight The Caliph - as in a re-invasion of Iraq. Then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey argues that if Obama's self-defined "Don't So Stupid Stuff" foreign policy doctrine does not work he'll go for ground troops. "Don't Do Stupid Stuff" changes its tune like surfing on iTunes. And the tune now is the "Syraq" offensive remixed. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 18, '14)
Will NATO liberate Jihadistan?
Even as North Atlantic Treaty Organization heads of state gather for a confab in the United Kingdom, Islamic State leader Caliph Ibrahim broadcasts his disdain of Western military power with the beheading of another American journalist - then declares that Russia's Vladimir Putin is next - which would kind of place him as a NATO contractor. And in return? The Pentagon couldn't care less. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 5, '14)
NATO attacks!
The Ukraine battleground at least has the merit of exposing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as naked, even as the alliance's summit this week will showcase outgoing secretary-general Anders "Fogh of War" Rasmussen baring his teeth and straining one last time to cross multiple battlelines as if trying to remake Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 3, '14)
Obama's 'stupid stuff' legacy
Dr Zbigniew Brzezinski, the grand old man of geopolitical strategy and long-time adviser to White House inhabitants, has long delivered his own version of sage advise to present incumbent Barack Obama. Yet what a mess has been made of such "wisdom". As always alert former secretary of state Hillary Clinton said: "Don't do stupid stuff". Yet "stupid stuff" is all that the Obama foreign policy team knows how to do. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 2, '14)
The killer on the
(Saudi) king's highway
The murder of American photojournalist James Foley marks a new beginning in the never-ending Global War on Terror, as Islamic State fighters wax strong on the back of start-up funds and equipment supplied by - who else? - the US and Saudi Arabia. Their final destination? Mecca, Riyadh, and the head the House of Saud. And those killers shall also speak with a British accent.
- Pepe Escobar
(Aug 21, '14)
Vanishing point …
First, passenger airliner MH370 vanished, then it disappeared from the news cycle. Its fleet "sister" aircraft, MH17, was then shot down - and also quickly disappeared from the front pages - complete with black boxes, data recorders and the rest. MH370's fate may remain unknown; MH17's is much more prosaic - but will civil society will accept that it, too, remain a mystery? - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 15, '14)
Western plutocracy
goes bear hunting
The post-Cold War status quo in Eastern Europe, not to mention in Western Europe, is now dead and a Cold War 2.0 inevitable. The Empire of Chaos will never accept Russia's sphere of influence in parts of Eurasia (as it doesn't accept China's). It will never accept Russia as an equal partner. And it will never forgive Russia - alongside China - for openly defying the creaking, exceptionalist, American-imposed world order. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 1, '14)
Crime (Israel) and punishment (Russia)
Not even Hollywood could come up with such a plot: Israel gets away with unlawful premeditated mass murder of civilians while Russia gets framed for a (smaller-scale) airborne mass murder of civilians that has all the makings of being set up by the Kiev vassals of Russia's Western "partners". Sanctions and economic war are about to convulse Europe and pit Europe against Russia. Exactly what the Empire of Chaos is praying - and working - for. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 30, '14)
A chessboard drenched in blood
The MH17 tragedy may have been a horrendous mistake, but it may also have been a desperate gambit by the Kiev minions of the Empire of Chaos. Washington has been quick off the blocks to ignite and in theory win the spin war to persuade the world that Russia's hand was wittingly or otherwise behind the downing of the civilian aircraft. Moscow, more rationally, is seeking the facts first, before pointing fingers of blame. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 23, '14)
It was Putin's missile!
Here's the spin war verdict on the latest Malaysia Airlines tragedy. It's "terrorism" perpetrated by "pro-Russian separatists" in Ukraine, and Russian President Vladimir Putin is the main culprit. End of story. Anyone who believes otherwise, shut up. Why? Because the CIA said so. Unlike the United States, Russia will take its time to know the basic facts of what, where, and who, and engage on proving the truth to Washington's spin. - Pepe Escobar (Jul 19, '14)
BRICS against
Washington consensus
Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa come together today to play top class geopolitical ball with the launch a development bank for the emerging world. The new institution has the power to leave the World Bank in the dust, never mind challenge the order of the Washington consensus that's been received wisdom since the end of World War II. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 15, '14)
The fall of a superpower
The Brazilian football team's fall from glory was a long time coming, and foreseeable except by its handlers, the Brazilian football federation and the "technical commission" they appointed; a talentless, arrogant/ignorant lowly bunch that mirrors, crystal clear, the arrogance/ignorance of Brazilian political/economic elites, old and new. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 10, '14)
Arab Spring, Jihad Summer
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was an average Sunni Iraqi cleric with a degree in pedagogy before he metamorphosed into a de facto serial killer, blowing up Shi'ite kids at ice-cream shops. Now declared the Caliph of Islamic State, a catchier militant moniker than formerly used by the Men in Black, al-Baghdadi is the new Osama bin Laden, leading a group with sights set on conquering lands that include large swathes of Asia. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 2, '14)
Fear and loathing at Hotel Babylon
Hardcore Sunnistan is going to descend into a noughties-style militia hell again as Men In Black of different persuasions slug it out in and beyond the Iraqi battlefield. While the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham and their coalition of the willing won't take Baghdad just yet, the Empire of Chaos would cheer a final sectarian push towards a Great Kurdistan and across a balkanized Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Yemen. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 27, '14)
Burn, Men in Black, burn
Divide and Rule has run amok in the Levant, courtesy of the Men in Black of Islamic State of Iraq and Sham, the US-trained jihadis and bastard children of Saudi spy chief Bandar Bush. While the CIA could never have conceived it, the ISIS is the perfect ski-mask-clad tool to keep the Global War on Terror in Enduring Freedom Forever mode. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 20, '14)
The geopolitics
of the World Cup
The World Cup - the greatest show on earth - kicks off just as a relentless Made in the West (client states included) anti-Chinese and anti-Russian propaganda/downright vilification shatters all known hysteria levels. And that means the BRICS are a target; in the case of Brazil, just as progressive Latin American integration has dared to turn the Monroe Doctrine into (branded) toilet paper. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 12, '14)
Return of the living (neo-con) dead
Hysteria rules in the United States amid the notion that President Barack Obama's "new" foreign policy doctrine, announced last week at West Point, is a post-imperialist demonstration of realpolitik that rejects neo-cons and neo-liberals alike. Not so fast: "exceptionalism" remains the norm and the US president's belief that might is right is culled from the playbook of Robert Kagan, husband of crypto-Ukrainian hell raiser Victoria Nuland. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 3, '14)
The future visible in
St Petersburg
The now symbiotic China-Russia strategic alliance, with the possibility of extending towards Iran, is THE fundamental fact on the ground in the young 21st century. All roads in this partnership - an unholy alliance to eyes in Washington - converged in St Petersburg last week at Russia's answer to Davos, a week that arguably bore witness to the birth of the Eurasian century. Pepe Escobar
(May 29, '14)
Sex, lies and a bunch of lawyers
Welcome to New York, the soft-porn spectacular inspired by the epic 2011 sex scandal that terminated the career and political trajectory of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, created blushes at the Cannes Film Festival and the threat from the former International Monetary Fund chief to sue the producers of the movie, which stars Gerard Depardieu. The whole affair is quite the down and dirty allegory of these tawdry, futile times. - Pepe Escobar
(May 21, '14)
China pivot fuels Eurasian century
The first real fireworks in the celebration of a new Eurasian century-in-the-making light the sky this week when Russian President Vladimir Putin drops in on Chinese President Xi Jinping. As the two leaders seal a "Pipelineistan" of energy deals, look no further than the difference between China's focus on economic ties versus the US global military-first strategy for a measure of relative rise and decline. - Pepe Escobar
(May 19, '14)
Ukraine: The waiting game
The US hated the referendums - direct democracy in action - in Ukraine, and with the newly declared Donetsk People's Republic proclaiming itself willing to negotiate secession into Russia, the NATO neo-liberal neo-fascist junta gave the "illegal" votes no shrift. What's to do but wait for the junta to go broke? Then a neutral, Finlandized Ukraine might emerge to end the mess. - Pepe Escobar
(May 13, '14)
Putin displays Ukraine chess mastery
Russian President and chess master Vladimir Putin, with a sacrifice of two pieces, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have secured a deal on Ukraine that will hold as long as the regime-changers in Kiev - and the Obama administration's juvenile delinquent school of diplomacy - abandon their "anti-terrorist operation" and are ready to negotiate with the federalists in the east and south of the country. - Pepe Escobar
(May 9, '14)
Ukraine gets its Mafia-type loan
The first US$3.2 billion tranche of the International Monetary Fund's $17 billion loan to Ukraine has arrived, with nothing remotely key to reviving the Ukrainian economy among the conditions attached to this Mafia-style "loan" and its austerity package - from tax hikes and frozen pensions to an over 50% rise on the price of natural gas for heating homes. Ukrainians face a long cold winter. - Pepe Escobar
(May 8, '14)
NATO's soft war on Russia
NATO, still humiliated on a daily basis by a bunch of Pashtuns with Kalashnikovs in Afghanistan, is considering "new defensive measures" to deter "evil" Russia from "aggression" against its members, mostly the Baltic states. That will mean deployment of more combat forces to Eastern Europe - permanently. As if any doubt remained that Cold War 2.0 is here to stay. - Pepe Escobar
(May 2, '14)
US 'pivots', China reaps dividends
"Our first objective is to prevent the reemergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere ... ". Thus spake the United States in 1992, and it is all one needs to know about the Obama administration's "pivot" to Asia - or to anywhere else - and the president's present tour there. How does Beijing react to such hysterics? Simple: by reaping dividends.
- Pepe Escobar
(Apr 24, '14)
Ukraine and the grand chessboard
In a sane, non-Hobbesian environment, a neutral Ukraine would only gain by positioning itself as a privileged crossroads between the European Union and the proposed Eurasian Union, as well as a key node of the Chinese New Silk Road - not to mention of vital link in a common market from Lisbon to Vladivostok. Instead, the present disaster is a big spanner in the works - a spanner that suits only one player: the US government. - Pepe Escobar
(Apr 17, '14)
Breaking bad in southern NATOstan
Joie de vivre and fine wines won out as the Roving Eye and Roving Son spurned NATO's anti-Russian paranoia in Brussels in favor of breaking out to Provence. The road passed through towns strong in culture and artisan delights yet paved with malaise, revealing why - at a time China and Russia are forging ahead with mega-deals - locals in NATO's southern territory view its economic march with Van Goghian apprehension. - Pepe Escobar
(Apr 15, '14)
The US-Russia
Ukrainian deal
The heart of the matter - obscured by a rainbow bridge of hysteria - is that neither Washington nor Moscow want Ukraine to become a festering wound. Moscow told Washington, officially, it has no intention of "invading" Ukraine. And Washington told Moscow that, for all the demented rhetoric, it does not want to expand NATO to either Ukraine or Georgia. What the European Union wants is neither here nor there. - Pepe Escobar
(Apr 4, '14)
The Kerry-Lavrov chess match
As Russia's leaders continue to point out, a loose federation is the only possible solution for Ukraine, as part of a "deep constitutional reform", implying ethnic Russian eastern and southern Ukraine would be largely autonomous. US Secretary of State John Kerry might just be starting to realize that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will play the final move in this game. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 31, '14)
Why the EU
can't 'isolate' Russia
Most eurocrats were busy taking selfies or twittering as Barack Obama pompously lectured them on the evils of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The US president's exhortations in Brussels for Europe to frack away from dependency on Russian business fall on deaf ears when everybody knows there is no energy - in every sense - for the European Union and its neighbors to isolate the Kremlin. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 27, '14)
Asia will not 'isolate' Russia
Envy the fly on the wall in The Hague when cool Xi Jinping met Barack Obama, pivoting around himself because China and the rest of Asia will not "isolate" Russia. China is Russia's strategic partner and along with Japan and South Korea (essentially US protectorates) identifies more with a steady supply of oil and gas, and business deals struck in Moscow, than helping stir an anachronistic Western-provoked New Cold War. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 25, '14)
How Crimea plays in Beijing
China is officially absolutely neutral on the Cold War battlefield of Ukraine and Crimea, yet the real deal is support to Moscow, unspoken because Beijing is not interested in antagonizing the West unless heavily provoked (by hardcore encirclement). Meanwhile, Western dogs - like American ambassador to the UN Samantha Power - bark, and the Sino-Russian caravan passes on. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 20, '14)
Russia 1, Regime Changers 0
The US State Department has practically agreed to a Finlandized Ukraine - the solution being proposed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov right from the start. Expect Secretary of State John Kerry to go on overdrive to steal the credit and for the US corporate media to buy it. Essentially, Moscow didn't need an assist from the Crimean referendum; the "Khaganate of Nulands" has scored an own goal.
- Pepe Escobar
(Mar 17, '14)
The new Great (Threat) Game in Eurasia
Few in the West seem to have noticed that in Ukraine - and for the first time since the end of World War II - fascists and neo-nazis are at the helm of a European nation. But the glitterati in Washington and the faceless bureaucrats in Brussels supporting "our bastards" in Ukraine know that, sanctions threats to Moscow or not, Europe will come crawling back to get its Russian gas fix. Vlad the Hammer knows it too. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 12, '14)
Iran's real 'nuclear' revolution
The nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 are back this week in Vienna. The stakes couldn't be higher, and folk with hidden, and not so hidden, agendas on both sides badly want the talks to fail - and will spare no effort towards that goal, with those in the West backed already by decades of disinformation - Pepe Escobar
(Feb 18, '14)
The new US-Russia Cold War
There's never a dull moment in the New Great Game in Eurasia. One day, it's the implications of Washington's "pivoting" to Asia, and the next it's the perennial attempt to box Russia in, as in belittling all things in the Sochi. Yet US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland's verbal salute to the European Union over the Ukraine is way more serious as a sign of opportunistic US "strategic thinking", and will elicit a muscular response when Vladimir Putin swings back into action after the Winter Olympics. - Pepe Escobar
(Feb 14, '14)
The NSA does the 1980s
It was 1986, the year that the Michael J Fox blockbuster Back to the Future still felt fresh, when "Artificial Intelligence" was beginning to leap from sci-fi mags and into military laps, and the Japanese were still coming. In hallowed laboratories throughout the United States, Emmet Brown-like but minus the time-travelling DeLorean, the brightest minds were sketching visions of a human universe that have spooky parallels in the NSA today. - Pepe Escobar
(Feb 6, '14)
The real State of the Union
The American Dream is not in a coma. So said President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address. The spectacle of the grand, old Hollywood production - and a nod to inequality for (nearly) all - is not a potent enough smelling-salt to dispel the surreal nature of the Bush-Obama continuum and its odiferous foreign policy absurdities. - Pepe Escobar
(Jan 29, '14)
Rouhani and the 1914 remix
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has emerged as a Davos darling by wooing the in-crowd with an "open for business" sign. But the Masters of the Universe were less enamored by what he had to say on geopolitics, since rather than face the real sources of "rising tensions", they prefer an old centennial world war view: that 2014 is 1914 all over again. - Pepe Escobar
(Jan 24, '14)
Cowbells, or how Davos saves the world
Masters of the Universe wanting to play saviors of the world are flocking to tell it on the mountain this week. Their interminable business meeting amid the Swiss cowbells at the World Economic Forum is producing nothing but jingle-jangle, Russia-bashing, and an opportunity for Japan to blow its own horn. - Pepe Escobar
(Jan 23, '13)
We are all living Pasolini's Theorem
The real cause for the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1975 has never emerged. The words of this poet, painter, writer and filmmaker remain alive and prophetical. His critique of the then new generation of alienated Italian youth - "fragile, brutish, sad ... " - can easily explain their modern counterparts: the cross-border Islamic youth who joins a jihad in desperation. - Pepe Escobar
(Jan 17, '14)
Reliving Machiavelli
in Florence
A freezing evening at the dawn of 2014 in Florence brings to mind Machiavelli looking on at the burning of Savonarola, a popular puritanical Dominican preacher who was put to death after upsetting the Florentine merchant classes. Machiavelli lived in a Florence under the Medici, so he understood the nature of the (rigged) game and that, with every failing republic, the real rot comes from within. - Pepe Escobar
(Jan 14, '14)
All in play in the
New Great Game
The big story of 2014 will be Iran - albeit as part of the bigger US-China jigsaw - as the adults in the room seek a comprehensive nuclear program accord in the face of confrontational lobbies on either side. The benefits of a pact are all too evident across the region, though such a tectonic shift will bring casualties, and the re-emergence of an old power. - Pepe Escobar
(Dec 23, '13)
China vs US 'sea-to-shining-sea'
Beijing's assurances that there was "effective communication" during the recent near collision between a Chinese navy vessel and a US cruiser had better be damned right because more such confrontations are guaranteed as China does more than just dip its toes into local waters and moves into the oceans beyond. - Pepe Escobar
(Dec 18, '13)
So many secrets in the East China Sea
Reaction to China's declaration of an extended air defense identification zone has been almost universally hostile, in contrast to the largely conciliatory arguments presented by China itself. The solution to this and the related Daioyu/Senkaku issue lies with Tokyo, which could defuse the problem by admitting to its imperial adventures then start behaving like an Asian power - and not some obedient Western appendix. - Pepe Escobar
(Dec 10, '13)
A bunch of sexy, badass patriots
Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror, by Erik Prince.
Driven to "serve God, family and the United States", ex-SEAL Erik Prince made Blackwater into "the ultimate tool in the war on terror". His account of "performance excellence and driven entrepreneurialism" has been severely holed by US censors and his company reduced to shepherding diplomats. But make no mistake - with or without Blackwater, "surrogate armies" are the future. - Pepe Escobar
(Dec 6, '13)
US-Iran: The ever-spinning deal
The deal carved out in Geneva at the weekend between international powers and Iran is far from definitive, but gets the ball rolling for the "real deal" to end the oil and banking blockade of Iran. That's if the brigades of assorted hysterics don't manage to succeed in pushing the ball back uphill. - Pepe Escobar
(Nov 25, '13)
Turkey pushes
crossroads politics
The opening of a rail link under the Bosphorus exemplifies Turkey's goal of being a crossroads for everything, especially energy. This requires an energetic foreign policy that includes Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's strong support for an improved US-Iran relationship, even if that means testy relations with Saudi Arabia - but then everything of consequence happening in the region nowadays involves Iran. - Pepe Escobar
(Nov 22, '13)
The Wahhabi-Likudnik war of terror
The double suicide bombing of the Iranian embassy in Beirut is a deadly illustration of the Likudnik House of Saud in action, essentially enabled from Riyadh by spy chief Bandar bin Sultan's goons. The false flags are flying, but taking terror to the innocents on Lebanon's streets fits both Saudi Arabia and Israel's agendas. - Pepe Escobar
(Nov 20, '13)
France clueless on Iran
Gallic posturing knocked the international deal over Iran's nuclear program off the tracks over an issue that diplomats on all sides knew to be a red herring. With goodwill the name of the game as the negotiations sage restarts on Wednesday, everybody knows the clueless French cock cannot be allowed to crow twice. - Pepe Escobar
(Nov 15, '13)
Why France is playing 'stupid' on Iran
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, by pecking at "weak points" to kill the nascent international deal on Iran's nuclear program, looked "blind" and stupid" in the eyes of the United States. Cool calculation was behind the Gallic rooster's display: he was foolishly doing the bidding for Israel and the House of Saud. The axis of fear and loathing may play spoilers, but Washington and Tehran will inevitably strike a deal. - Pepe Escobar
(Nov 12, '13)
Will the House of Saud pivot to China?
The House of Saud's anger with the Obama administration begs the question of whether Riyadh dreams of pivoting to China. Cash-rich and oil-thirsty, the aspiring superpower would make a welcome hands-off partner. So far, King Abdullah offers no evidence of escaping the US "special relationship". But when the petrodollar system crashes and burns, the pivot begins. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 25, '13)
The self-beheading House of Saud
A Saudi Arabian decision to dump the offer of seat at UN Security Council's horseshoe table after a long campaign came straight from the leading camel's mouth. But the self-beheading will not change the way the geopolitical winds are blowing as the king's son, Prince Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, prepares to take the foreign policy reins. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 22, '13)
'Our' weaponized Wahhabi bastards
Weaponizing "our" Wahhabi bastards, as the United States is doing with the latest transfer of heavy metal to Saudi Arabia, provides a never-ending bonanza for the industrial-military complex. Yet there is a glitch to the cozy relationship: the House of Saudi has just won a two-year, rotating UN Security Council seat from which to launch heavily weaponized Arab princes at the rest of the world. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 18, '13)
Birth of the 'de-Americanized' world
China has had enough. A Xinhua editorial makes it plain the (diplomatic) gloves are off to build a "de-Americanized" world, with a "new international reserve currency" to replace the US dollar. The straw that did it - the US shutdown - is a graphic illustration that the US decline is as inexorable as China spreading its wings to master 21st century post-modernity. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 15, '13)
Fear and loathing in House of Saud
An end to mistrust between the United States and Iran would slash energy prices and create huge trade opportunities. Benefits would show in combating Salafi-jihadis and on Afghanistan, and Washington could even pivot to Asia for real. No wonder Israel will fight an US-Iran agreement like the plague. As for the House of Saud and its shadow master Bandar bin Sultan, rapprochement would be nothing short of Apocalypse Now.- Pepe Escobar
(Oct 11, '13)
Shootout at the free trade corral
A multipolar rendition of Happy Birthday, Mr (Russian) President rang through the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Indonesia. Even as the shootout in Washington excluded Barack Obama from the party, the bullets from Bali fired at the world's largest debtor must have stung. And forget America's China-excluding Trans-Pacific Partnership; Beijing, as lord of the Rim, made it abundantly clear it is gunning for one APEC trade deal to rule them all. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 8, '13)
China: We don't do shutdowns
The bumper-to-bumper debt gridlock in Washington leaves no room for US President Barack Obama to pivot to Asia as he is forced to give regional summits in Indonesia and Brunei a miss. That leaves Chinese President Xi Jinping to bask, unrivalled, in center-stage glow. The no-show only reinforces perceptions that US foreign policy is in a mess - and that while the US does shutdowns, China brings cash to the table. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 4, '13)
Breaking American exceptionalism
What if the US government actually shut down to mourn the passing of Breaking Bad, arguably the most astonishing show in the history of television? It would be nothing short of poetic justice - as Breaking Bad is infinitely more pertinent for the American psyche than predictable cheap shots at Capitol Hill. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 1, '13)
How the US is enabling Syriastan
The big news from Syria is how demented jihadis of Jabhat al-Nusra and other nasties have ditched US-supported "moderates" to pledge allegiance to a Syria with Sharia law. Follow the money, not Washington's fairytale belief in its ability to control disparate hardcore jihadi gangs, to shatter the myth that a "democratic" Syria is still in the making. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 27, '13)
Rouhani surfs the new WAVE
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani came to the United Nations, listened "carefully" to US President Barack Obama officially recognize the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's fatwa against nuclear weapons - and then called for a global coalition for peace to replace coalitions for war - in effect a call for a World Against Violence and Extremism. Now for the heavy lifting ... - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 25, '13)
Welcome to the Hotel Bo Xilai
When rising tiger turned crouching criminal Bo Xilai checks into his prison cell in the hills north of Beijing, courtesy of the Chinese Communist Party, he'll have all the trappings of a corrupt Mob boss in a California jail. Many powerful friends in the party would be bang to rights with him if his conviction was all about corruption. Instead, Bo waits for his key ally in Beijing to join him. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 23, '13)
Obama-Rouhani: lights, camera, action
Though a meeting with Barack Obama at the UN next Tuesday is by no means certain, it's well-established that the stage is set for President Hassan Rouhani's administration to talk directly to Washington about Tehran's nuclear program. The question is whether Obama will have the "heroic flexibility" to face 34 years of history and stare down the spoilers. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 19, '13)
China stitches up
the (SCO) Silk Rd
Oh, to eavesrop at the weekend meeting of presidents Xi, Putin, and Rouhani as they craft a new multipolar international order. Before the private meeting at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, China's Xi Jinping's lyrical praise has highlighted the strategic importance to the new order of Central Asian silk roads. Beneath the shine, Beijing is busy building a multifaceted network that is the stuff of threadbare American dreams. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 13, '13)
Al-Qaeda's air force
still on stand-by
It was 12 years ago today that, according to the official narrative, Arabs with minimal flying skills turned jets into missiles to attack the US homeland in the name of al-Qaeda. 9/11 elevated them to Ultimate Evil status. Twelve years on, the President of the United States wriggles on a Syrian hook, and the amorphous "al-CIAeda" eagerly awaits the US Air Force to clear the road to Damascus. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 11, '13)
Lavrov gambit checks Washington
The joys of the geopolitical chessboard: Russia throwing a lifeline to save Barack Obama from his self-spun "red line" on Syria. By forwarding a two-step proposal on Bashar al-Assad giving up its nerve gas, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov outplayed Washington, though his move is not a checkmate; it is a gambit, meant to prevent the US from becoming al-Qaeda's air force, at least for now. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 10, '13)
The (farcical) emperor is naked
The threatened US attack on Syria is not about ''strong common sense'', as the White House puts it. Is about farce built upon farce built upon farce, not least the ''credibility'' farce starring the Obama administration, caught in its own self-spun net woven of recklessly created ''red lines''. The pesky ''world'' is not buying it. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 9, '13)
Dogs of war versus the emerging caravan
While China and Russia pulled up at the G-20 caravanserai to re-enact the spirit of the Silk Road, the dogs of war were baying for blood outside. "Yes We Can" bomb Syria, barked US President Barack "Red Line" Obama. To which the emerging-powers caravan threw him an old bone, "It's the (global) economy, stupid", and kept on trucking. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 6, '13)
The indispensable
(bombing) nation
The indispensable nation that drenched North Vietnam with napalm and agent orange, showered Fallujah with white phosphorus and large swathes of Iraq with depleted uranium is getting ready to attack Syria based on extremely dodgy evidence and the "moral high-ground". Anyone who believes the White House's pre-bombing maximum spin should rent a condo in Alice in Wonderland. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 3, '13)
Operation Tomahawk
with cheese
By pronouncing the use of chemical weapons in Syria a ''red line'', President Barack Obama effectively strangled his own options, with the forthcoming G20 summit now further limiting his room for maneuver. So Operation Tomahawk, set to unleash missiles on Syrian innocents, must go ahead - with or without added ingredients - if only to maintain his own credibility. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 29, '13)
Obama set for holy Tomahawk war
''Responsibility to protect'', invoked for the war on Libya, has transmogrified into ''responsibility to attack'' - just because the Obama administration says so. Forget (again) about getting the facts right about chemical or any other weaponry; the window of opportunity for war on Syria is now, before Bashar al-Assad's forces get too much into the habit of winning. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 27, '13)
The Fall of the House of Bo
The trial of disgraced princeling Bo Xilai is China doing Macbeth, and its script is meticulously pre-ordained. But as he injects some extra drama into proceedings by claiming he was framed, the Man Who Would be President is proving that he won't go down without a fight. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 23, '13)
A message from our (Saudi) sponsors
The Egyptian junta is about to let former despot Hosni Mubarak out of the box in the name of defending the interests of the "Egyptian people". Take it as a message from the House of Saud, which loves Mubarak as one of its own. ... "Arab Spring? What Arab Spring?" - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 20, '13)
Hi, I'm your new Axis of Evil
The bloodbath in Egypt marks a victory for the House of Saud/Israel/ Pentagon triumvirate. And as they plot their way round a Middle East, with more settlements in Palestine, Egypt in civil war, Syria and Iraq bleeding to death (and never losing sight of Israel's perpetual survival), what's left is the certified proliferation of all kinds of axes, and all kinds of evil. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 16, '13)
Bandar Bush, 'liberator' of Syria
For a year, there was some doubt if he was even alive, but Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush, is very much alive and kicking, at least enough to knock heads with President Vladimir Putin over what Russia should do with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (drop him). That's not going to happen, which leaves The Comeback Kid (and Barack Obama) with a dilemma. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 13, '13)
Vlad the Hammer vs Obama the Wimp
As Barack Obama predictably throws another tantrum over Russia's part in the Edward Snowden affair, Vladimir Putin can sense a wimp in the White House like a polar bear hunting a seal. It suits Vlad the Hammer just fine that nobody in Washington has articulated a policy other than demonizing a Russian president who is otherwise engaged in the push for a new strategic reality. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 9, '13)
Al-Qaeda to the rescue
Fatwas from former Osama bin Laden sidekick Ayman "Doctor Evil" al-Zawahiri and jailbreaks galore have given the US a golden opportunity to deflect attention from the heady atmospherics of the Edward Snowden saga and back to trusted terror firma. Washington is waving its al-Qaeda false flags high, while hiding the colors of a truer enemy. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 5, '13)
Snowden: our man in Moscow
Wolf in sheep's clothing Barack Obama can huff and puff all he likes at Russia's granting of asylum to Edward Snowden, but short of an Abbottabad-style raid, the safehouse isn't going to blow down while the whistleblower enjoys the fruits of Vladimir Putin's international obligations. Settling into life outside Moscow airport, Snowden has exploded the myth of Full Spectrum Dominance by the president of the United States. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 2, '13)
China: The Bo factor
The larger-than-life geopolitical-economic question of our time, arguably, is not Syria, Iran, or even NSA spying. It's all about China; how on Earth the Chinese Communist Party will be successful in tweaking Beijing's economic growth model, and how China will manage its now slowed-down ascension. But first there's a "trial of the century", starring ex-Chongqing strongman Bo Xilai, to get rid of. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 26, '13)
War against Iran, Iraq AND Syria?
The signing by officials of Iraq, Syria and Iran of a memorandum of understanding to build a gas pipeline linking Iranian gasfields to the Mediterranean coast makes manifest a fundamental reason for the proxy war in Syria. The Europeans - who endlessly carp about being hostages of Gazprom - should be rejoicing. Instead, once again, they are shooting themselves in their Bally-clad feet. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 23, '13)
Magic carpet ride
In a remote village in Northern Afghanistan, Turkomen women have been spinning wool for 7,000 years. Anna Badkhen's delicate tale The World is a Carpet takes Roving Eye there and on a magical ride down memory lane, retracing steps over the years in bits and pieces of the Silk Road; all roads paved with carpets. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 19, '13)
Meet a moderate Syrian insurgent
Hi, I'm Mostafa and I'll be your moderate insurgent today. We badly need your help. Mr Obama is committed to providing more support for us. Your CIA said guns will go only to moderate insurgents. But your Congress? Oh no. Don't be such a spoiler! OK, the Salafis can be a bit hot headed, but we are all brothers - and most of us are moderate insurgents. And we promise we will never use these guns against you. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 16, '13)
The China-US 'Brotherhood'
The latest US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue talk fest now underway in Washington comes with local punters believing Beijing has weakened since its post-financial crisis heavy lifting days. Don't bet on it. With Barack Obama trapped in a Middle East Brotherhood net, Chinese leader Xi Jinping sees good pickings in Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Iraq - not to mention Pipelineistan and the South China Sea. "Fragile"? You wish. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 11, '13)
Snowden: towards an endgame
The Edward Snowden script of the The Spy Who Remains in the Cold (of Moscow airport's transit area) could become Our Man in Caracas after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro acknowledged receipt of an asylum request. It's up to Moscow to make that happen, though there is still no guarantee Snowden won't be whacked, sooner or later, by a CIA contractor. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 9, '13)
Hong Kong wants to ditch the joker
The citizens of Hong Kong are taking to the streets to show their mounting anger - anger over an influx of mainlanders, over hugely expensive accommodation, over Beijing's interference in education and elsewhere. Most of all, they are angry at quasi-elected Chief Executive C Y Leung - call him The Joker. A storm is definitely approaching. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 2, '13)
Qatar's love affair with Syria
Qatar may have spent as much as US$3 billion to make sure "Assad must go". Yet he hasn't gone anywhere. Meanwhile other countries are funding their own favored rebel groups in Syria. As Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani settles in as Qatar's new leader, and the fighting in Syria intensifies, the "young and modern" emir of the Muslim Brotherhood Spring may conclude he is caught in a trap of his his father's making. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 28, '13)
We are all Qataris now
All gratitude and praise for Emir of Qatar Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani for stepping aside so that Western-educated son Tamim can take over as despot. Never mind the younger man's love of the Muslim Brotherhood or that a bit of the good life in his fiefdom comes with flogging as a non-optional extra. Just think of all those billions of dollars under his control - and the cash and weapons that keep the Syrian rebellion bubbling with blood. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 26, '13)
Our man in Quito
The Edward Snowden saga moves fast forward, still fraught with danger, but nearing game, set and match for the runaway revealer of the global scope of US secret surveillance. The Ecuadorian capital, Quito, looms on the horizon as his (final?) port of refuge as Snowden leaves behind him a now passport-less trail of geo-political chaos, with Hong Kong, Beijing (and now Moscow?) gleefully thumbing their noses at Washington. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 24, '13)
The Chimerica dream
Chinese President Xi Jinping's dream for his country's future does not include ruling even the Asian part of the world, but the prospect does mean it impinges on Washington's own dream for the Pacific future. A strategic adjustment by both sides could help further cooperation towards a "Chimerica" - but that would imply the US was capable of acknowledging "core" Chinese national interests. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 21, '13)
Obama's weapons-for-peace program
The myth of US President Barack Obama as "reluctant warrior" in Syria is pure nonsense. Even his Russian counterpart, ex-KGB sickle Vladimir Putin, cannot convince him that expanding the proxy war would make the current - horrible - status quo look like a walk in the park. In its determination to arm "rebel" factions who would lose at the ballot box, the Obama administration has opted to play weapons-for-peace gambits rather than talk real democracy. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 18, '13)
See you on the dark side
The Edward Snowden-leaked National Security Agency Power Point presentation PRISM, as expressed in its Dark Side of the Moon-ish logo, is a graphic expression of the ultimate Pentagon/neo-con wet dream; the Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine. In the age of Total Information Awareness, the lunatics are in all our heads - and they won't be leaving anytime soon. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 13, '13)
Digital Blackwater rules
It's a no-brainer how a young IT wizard came to release ultra-sensitive secrets of the US intelligence-national security complex in the biggest leak in American history. Gung-ho privatization of spying has created a "Digital Blackwater" industry around the National Security Agency headquarters in Maryland. It took only one private contractor to bring the rules of state discipline out of the shadows. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 11, '13)
Hezbollah don't take no mess
A prime wet dream among US Think Tanklanders has been the possibility of pitting Hezbollah against al-Qaeda-linked jihadis inside Syria. In the full scale rout of Qusayr, 10 kilometers from the Lebanon border, they got their wish. Hezbollah leader Sheikh Nasrallah delivered, leaving the usual Western imperial courtiers mourning a Middle East prey to an "aggressive Russian-Iranian axis". - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 6, '13)
Meet the 'Friends of Jihad'
That about 70% of the Syrian people support President Bashar al-Assad is something the "Friends of Syria" prefer to trample under the nearest Persian rug. As Western governments - notably Britain and France - "lead from behind" to play the Sunni-Shi'ite divide, all they are promoting is perpetual petro-war by proxy. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 5, '13)
Erdogan risks the 'must go' path
Recep Tayyip Erdogan is playing with fire as he belittles the popular protest spreading among a cross-section of secular Turkey and totally opposed to his highly personalized/autocratic mix of hardcore neoliberalism and conservative religion. The prime minister now deriding demonstrators as "looters" is the same man who said Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak "must listen to his people" and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 3, '13)
Pipelineistan and the New Silk Road(s)
Faced with a Eurasian integration frenzy stirred by China's relentless westward-ho strategic and trade expansion, the US response is essentially a military bid to control all routes for Chinese energy imports. Yet Washington cannot escape the great escape from Atlanticist-dominated routes of trade, commerce and finance. The New Silk Road(s) will be built by emerging Asia - not by a fearful, declining West. - Pepe Escobar
(May 31, '13)
And the winner is - Khamenei
Iran's roster of would-be presidents has been whittled down to eight from nearly 700, courtesy vetting by the Guardian Council. Two potential big draws are ruled out - former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Esfandiar Rahim, too much outgoing President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's man. That leaves an uninspiring bunch and one sure winner whoever wins - Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. - Pepe Escobar
(May 22, '13)
Assad talks, Russia walks
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad wasted a golden opportunity in an interview to explain to the Western public, even briefly, why petro-monarchies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, plus Turkey, have the hots for setting Syria on fire. While he was talking, Russia was walking, sending a message it is ready to go where the Pentagon and others fear to tread. - Pepe Escobar
(May 20, '13)
Catfight - and it's US vs EU
Forget about the Pentagon "pivoting" to Asia; nothing compares with the catfight developing between the United States and European Union over a free-trade pact proposed by Brussels, feared by many in Europe, and now pursued with a vengeance by Washington. Much lies in the hands of a European determined to be a personal winner in this transatlantic tussle, whatever its revolutionary potential. - Pepe Escobar
(May 17, '13)
Israel rescues Mujahid Obama
Israel's bombing of Syrian army installations near Damascus is an act of war, and a timely one for President Barack Obama, just when the "red line" charade was reaching fever pitch and he had to choose between the US "exercising restraint" or "directly involving itself" in the Syrian war. - Pepe Escobar
(May 7, '13)
The Syria-Iran red line show
The Bushist Obama "red line" as applied to Syria and Iran is becoming a tad ridiculous. Prevailing "wisdom" in Washington is that the limits in place for Syria (like the US-Israeli fabricated hysteria on chemical weapons) must be enforced with the same color-coded spin used for Iran. There is no "red line", just a hue and cry to drown out hardcore weaponizing of Israel and the Gulf petro-monarchies. - Pepe Escobar
(May 2, '13)
A post-history strip tease
Beyond neoliberalism and/or a desire for social democracy, reality tells us is that an internecine global civil war is at hand. From Washington's Asian "pivot", to regime change in Iran, to Western fear of China, to the growth of neo-fascism in Europe and the pauperization of the Western middle class. What the world sorely needs now is a touch of Burt Bacharach. - Pepe Escobar
(Apr 26, '13)
Orwell does America
With still so many unanswered questions regarding what took place in Boston after the bombing there, it's time to look at an extra, possible Top Ten list of absurdities. And with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev already convicted by the corporate media - though still officially only a ''suspected'' terrorist - we can declare ''Welcome to Police State USA'' - where at least everyone still has the right to shop till they drop. - PepeEscobar
(Apr 23, '13)
The FBI Boston-Chechnya charade
The Boston bombing was major blowback. That much is certain. The question is, what level of blowback? Are we looking at some Caucasian terra-rists inspired by hate of the US of A, or more credibly a US home-grown black-ups gone rather awry? ''Disappearance'' of photo evidence tells its own story. - Pepe Escobar
(Apr 22, '13)
How Bowiemania buries Thatcherism
In 1979, the year Margaret Thatcher came to power, David Bowie foretold the zeitgeist she came to embody. Today, as the British muster pomp and circumstance to mark her departure, the old order that stole - and steals - the world still dominates. Inspired by Bowie, we can be heroes ... - Pepe Escobar
(Apr 17, '13)
The Islamic Emirate of Syriastan
As Islamic brigades answer al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri's call to form an Islamic Emirate in Syria, Syrian jihadists, with a little help from Western weapons, are preparing an annex to Iraqi jihadis. Baghdad sees the writing on the wall: as a direct consequence of divide and rule Sunni-against-Shi'ite games the Americans have been encouraging for 10 years now, the stage is set for a civil war, Syria-style, in Iraq. - Pepe Escobar
(Apr 12, '13)
The South also rises
A commodity boom driven by China and improving Latin American finances in the early 2000s were the genesis of the Global South finally defying decades of economic oppression institutionalized by the West. The political front that has since emerged is too weak to counter the military hegemony of the United States and NATO, but it still offers an alternative to a stagnant world of neoliberal imperialism. - Pepe Escobar
(Apr 5, '13)
BRICS go over the wall
Atlanticist, Washington-consensus fanatics who say the BRICS grouping is on its deathbed are blind to the reality that its members - while protecting the global economy from casino capitalism - will increasingly take a political role in a multipolar world. As the North is overtaken by the global South at a dizzying speed, all stagnant and bankrupt Western elites can do is cling on for grim life. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 26, '13)
 The ever-destructive fantasy of air power
Drone warfare gives a new twist to a story nearly as old as flight itself; the ability of air supremacy to deliver decisive triumph over helpless enemies. Yet as airstrikes on al-Qaeda and its affiliates show, drones are neither surgical nor decisive. The dream of air power remains a capricious and destructive fantasy. - William J Astore
(Mar 25, '13)
Real liars go to Tehran
It was a Back to Future moment, 10 years after the invasion of Iraq on trumped up WMD charges, as Bibi stressed Iran's (non-existent) nuclear weapons posed an existential threat to Israel and Barack Obama was adamant that Bibi was entitled to do anything to defend Israel. Willful ignorance of the facts made their meeting less reality, more trashy reality show. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 21, '13)
Search and Destroy: The rape of Iraq
Despite the harrowing spiral of Iraqi suffering and drift towards balkanization and civil war, 10 years on and even so-called "liberals" are trying to legitimize something, anything, out of the "Iraq project". As the country sits on the brink of fragmentation, resource-rich Kurdish regions turning to Turkey to bypass Baghdad for oil exports and influence could become the last straw. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 20, '13)
Crisis? What crisis? Let's hit Syria
Members of the European Council just got together to tie themselves up, autocratically, in the red-tape that passes for democracy and screams "no exit" in the crisis-hit region. Luckily, the men in tights, David Cameron and Francois Hollande, were on hand to raise pulses with an Anglo-French offensive to weaponize Syrian "rebels". As with all matters EU, if it can get more pathetic, it will.
- Pepe Escobar
(Mar 18, '13)
The Fall of the House
of Europe
The great Dante set out for his 14th century Italian (and European) contemporaries the descent that awaited them after they shuffled off life's coil. His modern day descendants, alas, must cope without the wisdom of his Virgil to guide a way through the terrors as the European project belches anger and avarice on its way to (possibly yet more violent) self-destruction.
- Pepe Escobar (Mar 11, '13)
El Comandante has
left the building
Unfortunately for turbo-capitalists in Washington and Brussels, the death of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez from cancer does not signal an end to the spirit of Chavism. With his "socialism of the 21st century" and defiance of centuries-old patterns of subjugation in Latin America, El Comandante struck a chord with the Global South that's now resonating in crumbling European structures.
- Pepe Escobar
(Mar 6, '13)
And the Oscar
goes to... the CIA
As poetic justice, the Ben Affleck-directed (and George Clooney co-produced) Argo snagging the Best Picture Oscar makes sense. A patriotic Hollywood saving the CIA and a certified Hollywood ending proved irresistible. But Argo is really for pussies. Django Unchained best captures the United States as still the Wild West. Next up for Quentin Tarantino's dark arts? Obomber Unchained...
- Pepe Escobar
(Feb 25, '13)
Zero Dark Oscar
Tension is undoubtedly rising in Los Angeles for that "And the winner is ..." Oscars moment and the pride that will burst forth over the "liberal" leanings of leading contenders Argo, Lincoln, and Zero Dark Thirty. Yet major sponsors, as in the CIA, will merrily bask in the glow of cinematic myth - and gongs or not, nothing will beat Zero Dark Thirty as the representative of the post-modern military-industrial-security-Hollywood complex. -
(Feb 22, '13)
The illusory state of the
Empire
US President Barack Obama used the State of the Union address to conjure up the
illusion of America as a controlling force in the world, while keeping his
actual foreign policy cards close to his chest. The smoke and mirrors belie the
political role of the US back in the real world and mask questions he would
never dare ask anyway. - (Feb 13, '13)
The sound of Munich
US Vice President Joe Biden had little new to say at the recent Munich Security
Conference, but rumors and real action by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov, Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi and Syrian opposition leader Moaz
al-Khatib raised the prospect of some sort of detente between Washington and
Iran. Israeli, Saudi Arabia and the enemy within will have something to say
about that. - Pepe Escobar (Feb 5, '13)
All that pivots is gold
Mali's gold reserves and China's frenetic buying spree of the shiny stuff as it
tries to unseat the petrodollar likely motivated the United States to step up
its AFRICOM project by building a drone base in nearby Niger. But shadow wars
in Africa are just a sideshow, the real deal is a pivot to Asia that maintains
the exorbitant Pentagon budget. - Pepe Escobar
(Jan 31, '13)
War on terror forever
The Global War on Terror is the gift that keeps on giving for the
French-Anglo-American industrial-military-security-contractor-media complex.
Follow the line from cosy NATO ties with Salafi-jihadi "freedom fighters" in
Libya west to the gold and uranium, and the shift in focus from Afghanistan to
Mali emerges as power play in the fight with China. -
(Jan 22, '13)
Syria: A jihadi paradise
Syria has turned into a remix of 1980s Afghanistan as Sunni hardcore faithful
rush to crush President Bashar al-Assad on al-Qaeda's call. This is hardly what
the petromonarchs and gilded Western powers backing the Syrian opposition have
in mind. What they want is a military dictatorship without the military
dictator; what they've put up is a jihadi paradise with Assad not moving
anytime soon. - (Jan 10, '13)
For whom the Syrian bell tolls
The rape of Syria is disaster capitalism in action, the terrain already
prepared for profitable "reconstruction" once a pliable, pro-Western government
is installed. With NATOGCC on one side and Iran-Russia on the other side,
ordinary Syrians opposed to the ethnic-religious cleansing promoted by the
"rebels" have nowhere to go. The bell tolls in Syria, not for thee, but for
doom, gloom, death and destruction. - (Dec 21, '12)
NATO aims for a Nobel War Prize
Even as Jose Manuel Barroso and fellow European Union bureaucrats picked up the
Nobel Peace Price in Oslo, the Europeans - mega-suppliers of war materiel -
were gearing up for an onslaught on Syria. Perhaps it's time to award the EU's
military arm, NATO, a Nobel War Prize. Secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen
is itching for it. - (Dec 12, '12)
I love the sound of a drone in the
morning
The United States - as usual, as always - denies everything regarding the
latest "missing" drone, as in the ScanEagle, now the star of Iranian TV. Maybe
its a terminology thing - Iran is not "the Middle East" - or maybe some ally
(the United Arab Emirates anyone?) is now one short in its drone fleet. Or
maybe an evil Eye-ranian spy stole it on a shopping trip to Dubai. -
(Dec 5, '12)
Bomb Iran? No. Bomb Gaza? Yes!
Frustrated with the re-election of US President Barack Obama and his pledges to
pursue diplomacy with Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
engineered an offensive on the last place Israeli Defense Forces can wreak
havoc with total impunity. Don't expect condemnation of the Gazan assault from
Gulf Arabs or Western "Friends of Syria", but Egypt could draw new battlelines.
- Pepe Escobar (Nov 16, '12)
How sexy is Benghazi?
Scandal or not, former CIA chief David Petraeus has agreed to face the Senate
over the US consulate attack in Benghazi, and likely questions about what his
agents were really doing in Libya. While it's hard to concentrate on foreign
policy with all the turpitude flowing from the Love Pentagon, Benghazi may be
the hors d'oeuvre to what the US and its frenemies are now brewing up in Syria.
- Pepe Escobar (Nov 15, '12)
Skyfall, starring David Petraeus
What a sorry exit for The General: he gets no fancy car, no martinis, no Tom
Ford killer suit, he doesn't save the world. And in the end he doesn't even get
the girl. Maybe David Petraeus just chose the wrong profession - after all, he
was more of a PR genius than a samurai. The now ex-CIA director certainly
leaves behind uncomfortable questions - and a dire shortage of
straight-shooters in the US intelligence leadership. - Pepe Escobar
(Nov 13, '12)
Election kicks on Route 66
The antidote to the billionaire orgy of negative ads spewed out by Obama and
Romney on their frenetic mad dash in Ohio and Pennsylvania may well be a drive
on Route 66. To journey along The Mother Road is the like singing a slow blues
to a vanished America, and under the starry New Mexico skies lies a frission of
glory days and the American Dream. - Pepe Escobar
(Nov 5, '12)
China takes over Bryce Canyon
Past the "loneliest road in America", beyond Mitt's Mormon paradise in Salt
Lake City, and at Bryce Canyon, Nevada, early-rising expeditioners from
Guangzhou were surveying the fractured landscape of the American dream. In that
scene Roving Eye heard an echo to answer the futility of Mitt Romney's proposed
trade/currency war against China: the Chinese are going to take over
everything. - Pepe Escobar (Oct 29, '12)
Exceptional America rules
The latest Obama-Romney talk-fest was not so much a debate as a duet on
American Exceptionalism, with no hard questions or pressing on nuance, no
smashing of preconceived misconceptions - its entertainment value resting in
Mitt Romney's attempted u-turn from extremist hawk to centrist dove, anything
to get, or not lose, the vote of undecided ladies in Ohio. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 24, '12)
Mitt the binder
No one can escape the attack of Binders Full of Women, as Mitt Romney's
feminist rant goes viral. But way beyond the meme cycle of the Republican
presidential candidate's latest gaffe, the problem with is actually his Binders
Full of Baloney. Be afraid, very afraid, of the world according to Mitt and his
neo-con advisers.
- Pepe Escobar (Oct 18, '12)
Obama plays ball
US President Barack Obama came out swinging in Tuesday's presidential debate,
nailing the Republican robot on Libya and exposing stinging contradictions in
Mitt Romney's attempts to demonize China. Neither candidate dared touch the
real reasons behind the US's foreign policy and financial woes -
turbo-capitalism politically conquering the whole world. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 17, '12)
Romney sings Da Doo War War
Couched by a wall of neo-con armchair warriors, presidential candidate Mitt
Romney has offered a foreign policy vision where Soviets, Ay-rabs, Eye-ranians
and Chinese are delivered US might in a clenched fist. Details of Operation
Enduring Freedom Forever are sketchy, but it will certainly include an Afghan
nugget in the Empire of Bases, arming jihadists in Syria and endless war
stretching from Central Africa to potentially Venezuela. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 11, '12)
Why Qatar wants to invade Syria
Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani has the petrodollars to match the swagger of
his call at the UN for an Arab coalition of the willing-style invasion of
Syria. The Emir of Qatar's view will go down well in Washington, yet it's clear
his real aim is to kill the $10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline, a deal
clinched even as the uprising was underway. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 27, '12)
Hawk, dove, butterfly, bee
Soaring promises at the UN General Assembly that the US will spread democracy,
prevent Iran going nuclear and not abandon the Arab Spring signal that United
States President Barack Obama knows foreign policy can lose an election - but
not win it. Obama couldn't admit that his embrace of Middle Eastern populations
is "newfound" because past clinches were stifled by US-backed dictators. - Pepe
Escobar (Sep 26, '12)
USS Romney goes Titanic
Barack Obama has deployed a secret weapon to clinch his re-election to the
White House - Mitt Romney. Unlike the aircraft carriers parked in and around
the Persian Gulf, this ship of misstate keeps colliding with icebergs, most
recently the "47% solution". Facing unemployment after the November poll,
Romney might look for a career in film; the emir of Qatar may be casting for
someone if Leonardo DiCaprio isn't available. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 19, '12)
Brother Obama, where art thou?
The US administration is struggling to come to grips with the rage in the
Middle East and North Africa. It's not just that America's medieval bedmates,
the Salafi-jihadis, are showing their true colors; that was predictable. More
complex is its recent love affair with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood - now also
shaky. Still, Barack Obama has a few arrows left in his quiver - at home, the
foreign-policy ignorance of the Romney Republicans, and abroad, lots and lots
of drones. - Pepe Escobar (Sep 14, '12)
Mr Blowback rising
The attack on the US consulate in Benghazi may have been just an out-of-control
protest against a crude movie produced by an Israeli-American certified
Islamophobe - or a determined response to the death by drone of al-Qaeda number
2 (and former "freedom fighter"), the Libyan Abu Yahya al-Libi. Either way, Mr
Blowback has his day - again. So what now? Who're you gonna bomb? Who're you
gonna drone to death next? - Pepe Escobar (Sep
13, '12)
Ground Zero redux
A walk in the dead of a New York night to Ground Zero, where our
post-apocalyptic modernity began, 11 years go, is to hear the echoes and sense
the ghosts of when it became evident, even under a thick shroud of
as-yet-unanswered questions, that turbo-capitalism is not only in crisis;
turbo-capitalism, in shorthand, IS crisis.
- Pepe Escobar (Sep 11, '12)
Still in search of the American
dream
Former US president Bill Clinton all but single-handedly sealed President
Barack Obama's re-election with a meticulous deconstruction of Republican
"issues" at the Democratic Party convention. On two key questions the campaign
raises - is the US is better off now than four years ago and is Obama just a
cog in the infernal machine? - there's no possible positive spin. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 6, '12)
Morsi delivers his calling card
First call Beijing, then Tehran - by now it's clear that Egyptian President
Mohammed Morsi has taken to the world stage determined to restore Cairo,
historically the intellectual hub of the Arab world, to its leadership
position, too long usurped by the oil-rich barbarians from the House of Saud.
Next up for discussion - Camp David? That will give Israel's warmongers
something to consider.
- Pepe Escobar (Aug 30, '12)
Realpolitik blurs US red line
on Syria
Obama administration threats that the Assad regime in Syria would cross a "red
line" by moving or utilizing chemical weapons distract from what's really at
stake in a titanic struggle between NATO-GCC and Russia and China over the rule
of international law. Washington eyes "kinetic military activity" in Syria
while Moscow and Beijing see the "red line" gambit as a deceptive maneuver akin
to the US "leading from behind" in Libya. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 23, '12)
War fever: the view from Iran
As war drums sound in Jerusalem and Washington, rational voices in Tehran point
out that it's the West that has been driving Iran towards toward mastering
nuclear technology. Constant rebuttals of offers to cap enrichment underline
the lack of desire for a negotiated solution, with "Bomb Iran" fever instead
stoked with the apparent aim of accelerating Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.
- Pepe Escobar (Aug 21, '12)
All (war) roads lead to Mecca
Sugar-coated photo-ops at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation couldn't hide
the bitter truth that the House of Saud and Tehran are practically at each
other's throats in an all-out war between Sunnis and Shi'ites. In between
suspending Syria from the OIC, Saudi Arabia is juggling a tricky agenda around
weakening - not quite smashing - Iran, either by years of Western sanctions or
by an Israeli attack it could condemn in public while inwardly rejoicing. - Pepe
Escobar (Aug 16, '12)
American (jihadi) Idol
Syria is now the ultimate Sex Pistol-inspired Holiday in the Sun (the jihadi
remix); a magnet to Libyans, Jordanians, Saudis, Algerians, Chechens, Af-Pakis,
plus some enthusiastic young Brits. If anyone doubts this, the US
establishment's Council of Foreign Relations will put them right.
- Pepe Escobar (Aug 9, '12)
Bomb Iran fever
Well-informed Israelis know striking Iran's nuclear program will only delay it
by six months, while no solution exists to Israel's lack of fly-over rights,
bunker-busters and intel. As the United States is also well aware of the risks,
the only reasons behind the "bomb Iran" mantra seem to be Jerusalem's regional
ambitions and Washington's desire to revive a Persian satrapy. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 7, '12)
Obama does Syriana
As Western media finally confirm that the floodgates of US assistance to the
Syria's rebels have opened, the conflict is becoming a redux of the 1980s'
Afghan jihad, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar playing the role of Pakistan, the Not
Exactly Free Syrian Army as glorious mujahideen "freedom fighters" and US
President Barack Obama as Ronald Reagan. Similarly disastrous blowback looms
large. - Pepe Escobar (Aug 2, '12)
Where is Prince Bandar?
Bandar Bush, the presumptive orchestrator of "Damascus volcano", the failed
attempt to obliterate Bashar al-Assad's inner sanctum, has dropped off the
radar. Did Syrian intelligence bump him off? Or did the Iranians get their man
in a tit-for-tat bombing in Riyadh, where the prince was newly crowned head of
Saudi intel? As the rumor mills hit overdrive in Syria, the House of Saud is
cloaked in silence. - Pepe Escobar (Aug 1,
'12)
Welcome to the Kurdish Spring
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has come out all guns blazing after
Assad quietly concluded a deal that handed the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Party
control of key areas in northeast Syria. This raises prospects for Ankara's
worst nightmare - a semiautonomous region coalescing with Kurds in Iraq - and
turns the Turkish maxim of "zero problems with our neighbors" on its head. - Pepe
Escobar (Jul 27, '12)
Syrian blood etches a new line
in the sand
A new line is being drawn in the Middle East sand by Saudi Arabia and Qatar,
marked by Syrian blood sent gushing with the help of NATO mujahideen/jihadi
death squads pursuing expansion of Sunni domination in the region. There's no
endgame yet in Syria - but the sectarian game is just beginning. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 24, '12)
Suicide bombers of the world,
unite
The brazen assassination in Damascus of Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha and his
deputy, Assef Shawkat (Bashar al-Assad's brother-in-law), has been claimed by
the Free Syrian Army as its "volcano". Godfather IV-like intrigue behind
the bombing instead suggests a "white coup" launched by the inner circle to
"decapitate" the Assads. Meanwhile, US neo-cons who believe a suicide bomber
was involved have found an unlikely new hero to eulogize. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 19, '12)
Blood on the (Bain) tracks
There couldn't be a more sensitive theme in a US electoral year than jobs for
workers in the home of the bravely unaccountable. Which is why when charges
that Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney was involved through
practices at the vulture fund Bain Capital to helping swell the ranks of the
unemployed, the first big blood of the campaign goes to Barack Obama. - Pepe
Escobar (Jul 16, '12)
Syria: have coup, will transit
Kofi Annan's new transition plan seems unlikely to shake-up Syria's monolithic
ruling class or satisfy opportunistic rebels with pitiful democratic
credentials. A wishful thinking West is salivating over the possibility of a
coup. But as the "Friends of Syria" are incapable of mounting one, the only way
out is decapitating a snake that is forever growing hydra-style mini-heads. - Pepe
Escobar (Jul 12, '12)
There will be hell to pay
for NATO's Holy War
The strain of circumventing the UN Security Council in the stopover to Iran
that the war against Syria represents is beginning to show for NATO and its
Arab cohorts. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insists Russia and China
will pay Russia and China will pay a price for blocking regime change in
Damascus, but the real hell to pay will be for America, as Holy War syndrome is
accelerating the end of the US dollar as the reserve currency of choice. - Pepe
Escobar (Jul 9, '12)
Iran won't crack
The hard nuts in the White House who think Iran will crack under international
pressure should go back to bully school. Since treating Tehran like a pariah
will only lead to a blunder equaling the Bush administration's in Shock and Awe
in Iraq, it's time for the Obama administration to make a real decision between
"roll over and die" diplomacy, or real negotiations. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 6, '12)
Welcome to 'democraship'
Progressives in Egypt should take note of how Latin America has become a giant
laboratory for "democratic" coup d'etat mutations. The overthrow of an elected
president in Paraguay last month underlined how in former dictatorships it is
often only political parties linked to the ancien regime that profit from the
long, tortuous transition towards democracy. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 3, '12)
One country, two (failed) systems
The nearly one on five Hong Kongers who marched across the city to vent anger
against new CEO Leung Chun-ying and mother China at the weekend are the
simmering masses of a Hong Kong Spring that has been brewing for 15 years. For
them, "One country, two systems" has failed because it's put power in the
greasy palms of billionaires dancing to the mainland's tune. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 2, '12)
Let's party like it's …1997
Fifteen years after the Hong Kong handover, and none of the dire post-party
Western predictions about Chinese heavy-handedness have come true. For the
motherland, it all comes down to "crossing the river while feeling the stones",
but the city's still not made a transition towards the promised land of a
harmonious society and knowledge-based economy. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 29, '12)
O brother, where art thou?
Signs that new Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi won't rock the dhow on
contentious issues such as Palestine show his foreign-policy cloth has been cut
in a backroom deal with the armed forces. While that suits Washington as proof
the Muslim Brotherhood under Morsi can be easily contained by the military
dictatorship apparatus, the first real test of the shackles will be how he
handles relations with Iran. - Pepe Escobar (Jun
27, '12)
Syria and Turkey's phantom war
As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization crafts a response to the shooting
down of the Phantom jet by Syria's anti-aircraft artillery, Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu is furious over why Turkey was singled out when violations of
Syrian air space are as common as sheesh kebab. We can't be sure however if
Turkey is trying to wag the NATO dog into a war, or if it is the other way
around. - Pepe Escobar (Jun 25, '12)
It's Ecuador or Guantanamo
WikiLeaks superstar Julian Assange, apparently despairing of finding justice
elsewhere in Europe and aware a trial for alleged rape in Stockholm could lead
to a cell in Guantanamo, sees his brightest future in the hands of Ecuadorean
President Rafael Correa - and freedom at the door of the South American
country's embassy in London. - Pepe Escobar (Jun
20, '12)
Austerity not a Greek goal
The slim victory of the right in Sunday's Greek elections was mistakenly
portrayed as a collective decision not to exit the euro - although whatever
else, that country will remain a social and economic wasteland. Nor is the
sado-austere global order of tomorrow that Greece now symbolizes what the likes
of Brazil, Indonesia or Turkey care to sign up to. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 19, '12)
Drone me down on the killing
floor
Welcome to the bad dose of the blues courtesy of The Drone Empire as it roams
far beyond the delta and Detroit, to precision-scatter lethal calling cards
unannounced, killing unsuspecting targets and maiming hearts and minds all over
the world. All things drone are revealed in Terminator Planet, which
presents a fair case for America's place outside of international law, as rogue
a state as they come. - Pepe Escobar (Jun 15,
'12)
The art of war, with a glass of
wine
Bernard-Henri Levy - philosopher, nonpareil regime changer and Cannes
red-carpet star - devotes his latest self-promoting opus to Syria, liberated
Libya already being safely stashed in his trophy cabinet. The world may not
have long to wait before he looks across the Arabian sands for his next
Qatar-financed war target. Iran sounds nice for a start. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 13, '12)
Got war if you want it
Ready, set ... and waiting for US President Barack Obama to fire the starter's
gun to attack Iran. That's how Pentagon head Leon Panetta describes the mood in
Washington, straight from the pages of the neo-con play book. Lack of a smokin'
nuclear gun in Tehran or anything else illegal be damned, even though Obama
could easily decide to sue for a nuclear deal and bag a foreign policy victory
for his own re-election race. - Pepe Escobar (May
30, '12)
Iran and Europe, 'till death do
us part
The stalemate in Baghdad on Iran was not unexpected, but the fact remains that
the Barack Obama administration needs a deal - be it in Moscow, or beyond. That
will be essential for Obama to milk as a foreign policy triumph. Meanwhile, the
tension rises in the eurozone, centered on new French President Francois
Hollande. - Pepe Escobar (May 25, '12)
How Osama re-elects Obama
The release of hundreds of pages of government documents reveal that Kathryn Hurt
Locker Bigelow was given unprecedented access to top-level sources for
the movie she is making on the SEAL raid in Pakistan that led to the killing of
Osama bin Laden. Essentially, this will be a Hollywood 90-minute multi-million
dollar campaign commercial selling President Barack Obama as a macho
commander-in-chief. - Pepe Escobar (May 24,
'12)
NATO occupies sweet home Chicago
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization hopes that If you can't beat them in
Pashtunistan, you can at least corral them in the home of the blues, with
NATO's Chicago summit planned to instill in members the "common values" behind
drone warfare and base expansion. As riot police lock down the city, some
partners likely fear they've married into the mob. - Pepe Escobar
(May 18, '12)
Will 'Onshela' save Europe?
German Christian Democrat Chancellor Angela Merkel will say nein to
French Socialist President Francois Hollande's vision of a Europe true to its
construction - less technocratic, less hostage to the market and less
constrained by the financial system. This would require a betrayal of the
foundations of the German miracle, and an admission that Europe's economies are
controlled by a cartel of bankers. - Pepe Escobar
(May 16, '12)
Long live 'our' Gulf bastards
Just as the Sunni al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain is vowing, publicly, to keep
arresting, tear-gassing, raiding their homes, confiscating their jobs and
forcing pro-democracy protesters to live in fear, Bahraini Crown Prince Salman
bin Hamad al-Khalifa is being hosted in Washington. The simple reason is, he's
one of "our" bastards. - Pepe Escobar (May
11, '12)
World powers rush to plunge
Syria into war
Open up YouTube to witness the reports of death and destruction. Bring in
Gulf-financed one-legged observers of human rights. Call the House of Saud! We
are in a race against time to promote full-scale civil war in Syria. Democracy
and regime change joined at the hip, with the geopolitical farce broadcast live
across the globe by all the usual suspects. - Pepe Escobar
(May 9, '12)
Change Europe can believe
in?
Newly-elected French President Francois Hollande has identified his "enemy" as
the world of finance, much to the consternation of la grande bourgeoisie. His
promises of social justice and change will ripple through Europe in the throes
of austerity. No wonder Wall Street and the City of London see Hollande as more
dangerous than Lenin. - Pepe Escobar (May 7,
'12)
Off with King Sarko's head
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is part of the hated elite - as 50% of the
"Merkozy" couple - along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is, in
theory, trying to "save" Europe. So a problem for King Sarko was that he was
not able to sell his vision for Europe. Likely new president Francois Hollande
may be a cold cucumber, and his prescriptions "outdated", but at least the
return of the socialists will shake up the groggy chessboard. - Pepe Escobar
(May 4, '12)
Confessions of an angry young
drone
I'm a lean, mean, killing machine, the Almighty Predator, unleashing the Will
of the Lord from on high, but I need to see a shrink. Got a case of the blues,
they wouldn't let me get Osama bin Laden. But what the heck, there are still
killing fields - all that virgin land - in Africa on which to unleash my hell.
- Pepe Escobar (May 2, '12)
A history of the world, BRIC
by BRIC
From a distance, the 21st century planet looks like a swirling mess crossed by
a new and visible wall as the rising BRICS, economic powers with staggering
problems, including swamps of corruption and potentially unsustainable levels
of poverty, counter old powers that are potentially in decline, but still wage
staggering clout. Up close and personal, the blueprint is set for confrontation
of the full-spectrum kind. - Pepe Escobar (Apr
27, '12)
The fast and furious Sunni
revenge
The Fast White Man Formula 1 circus roars into Bahrain this weekend, to the
delight of a coterie of Sunni sheikhs telling the "international community" -
we won; it's our way or the (boiling hot) desert highway. How could they not
gloat? The unruly waves of that noxious Arab Spring never had a chance of
disturbing the placid waters of the Gulf.
- Pepe Escobar (Apr 18, '12)
What's goin' on at the
Turkish-Syrian border?
Turkey has advanced right to the border with Syria, enabling a back-and-forth
by heavily weaponized guerrillas/mercenaries to attack a sovereign state. The
question now is whether Ankara will go one step further in a move that would
amount to being directly involved in the Syrian civil war; ie, a declaration of
war against Damascus. - Pepe Escobar (Apr 11,
'12)
Surrender now or we'll bomb you
later
Welcome to the "roll over and die" school of diplomacy over Iran - as perfected
by the Barack Obama administration, with vital input from the Israel lobby in
Washington. The United States president's ultimatum before international talks
over Tehran's nuclear program is a rhetorical missile aimed at demonizing Iran
- all to the delight of the "Bomb Iran" crowd.
- Pepe Escobar (Apr 10, '12)
We want war, and we want it now
A full-fledged mercenary army paid for by autocrat Arabs to overthrow an Arab
government in Syria is pure and simple regime change - United States rhetoric
about "democracy" and "freedom" notwithstanding. It's all about classic,
imperial divide and rule, profiting from pitting Sunnis against Shi'ites. - Pepe
Escobar (Apr 5, '12)
War porn: The new safe sex
The catalogue of grubby titles is seemingly endless: From "war on terror" to
Kandahar, via Fallujah, Abu Ghraib, Gaza, an orgy of drones over Afghanistan,
R2P (sic) in Libya and Syria, and onto that current supreme blockbuster - the
Iran psychodrama, a worldwide audience of global couch and digital potatoes is
helplessly hooked on the crude, United States-directed exhibition of war porn.
- Pepe Escobar (Mar 29, '12)
Russia rules Pipelineistan
The European Union political "leadership" has gloriously sabotaged what it has
always billed as its most ambitious energy project, the Nabucco pipeline, by
caving in to US pressure. A certified winner in this complex Pipelineistan
battle is Turkey. But most of all Russia wins. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 22, '12)
War, Pipelineistan-style
While Western media say United States sanction threats have scared Chinese
mega-bank ICBC away from the planned Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, Islamabad - in
dire need of energy - insists the lender is still onboard. Washington's anti-IP
campaign has been relentless, including the arming of Baloch insurgents, but it
could crumble should China extend the pipeline to its Xinjiang province. - Pepe
Escobar (Mar 15, '12)
Why Putin is driving
Washington nuts
A New World Order is a no-go for Washington's top bogeyman, back-to-the-future
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Good old-fashioned state sovereignty rules
his world. The Putinator will be ultra tough on all fronts, from closer
coordination with China, thwarting NATO bases in Afghanistan and ensuring Iran
is not attacked, and all points in between. That's enough to make
Anglo-American elites apoplectic. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 8, '12)
Is Bibi the Bully wagging the
American dog?President Barack Obama's rhetorical gymnastics at
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee underline Israel's grip over US
foreign policy. Although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is hurting
Obama's re-election bid and the global economy with the "bomb Iran" mantra
that's sending oil prices towards the stratosphere, Obama is keeping the
ominous "military component" on the table. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 5, '12)
What's at stake in Iran's
elections
Iran's parliamentary elections this week can't quite manage free and fair
(after all, there is no opposition to talk of); but that's not the point. The
real vote is whether to vote or not vote, with the no-voters likely to be in
the vast majority. The rest have a choice between the "principlists" and, well,
the "real principlists". - Pepe Escobar (Mar
1, '12)
Six degrees of (Iranian)
separation
Iranian Ashgar Farhadi's A Separation was a shoe-in for an Oscar in the
Best Foreign Language Film category, even though it should have been the best
movie of 2011 in any language. The director's acceptance speech also provides
food for thought for US neo-con and Israel lobby warmongers. - Pepe Escobar
(Feb 27, '12)
Real cowards go to Tehran
A spike in oil prices talked up by neo-con warmongers is compensating Iran for
funds lost to "biting" sanctions, never mind that Asian buyers of its crude
have told Washington hegemons to mind their own business. Israel lobby drafters
of the sanctions couldn't foresee any of this, proving once again that they
live the vegetative lives of armchair "action" men. - Pepe Escobar
(Feb 21, '12)
US want SWIFT war on Iran
The European Union's oil embargo of Iran is backfiring, with the mere threat of
an Iranian counter-embargo prompting an oil price spike, while the US is
demanding further EU subservience by demands it expel Iranian banks from the
SWIFT payment network. This is hardcore economic war - and Tehran can fight
back. - Pepe Escobar (Feb 16, '12)
Why Bahrain is not Syria
The United States tells the Syrian regime to step aside for a democratic
transition, while one year after crushing democracy protests Bahrain's monarch
gets more weapons. Consider Russian and Chinese support for Syria and Bahrain's
strategic importance for the defender of the "free world" and the dissonance
passes, unlike the air of repression in the kingdom. - Pepe Escobar
(Feb 14, '12)
The return of the Keyboard
Warriors
For right-wing America, Iran in 2012 is the Iraq circa 2002. Whatever their
route - real men go to Tehran via Damascus, or real men go to Tehran non-stop -
the Keyboard Warriors now populating the media with their fallacies and
imperial disdain don't just want neo-conservative revolt: they want a war, and
they want it now. - Pepe Escobar (Feb 10,
'12)
Exposed: The Arab agenda in
Syria
Washington, London and Paris are falling over themselves to assure the real
international community that the "Arab-led drive to secure a peaceful end to
the 10-month crackdown" in Syria at the United Nations is not seeking another
mandate for bombing a la Libya. But BRICS members Russia and China see it for
what it is: no less than a crude drive for regime change. - Pepe Escobar
(Feb 3, '12)
Fear and loathing in the
American Gulf
In roughly one month, no less than three US aircraft carriers and their strike
groups will be sloshing around the American Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the
Arabian Sea. The only good thing among all this weaponized orgy is that Tehran
and Washington are still talking - sort of - using the proverbial back
channels. - Pepe Escobar (Feb 2, '12)
What is the GCC up to in Syria?
The Arab League's proposal for a new draft United Nations Security Council
resolution to "solve" the Syrian saga sounds very civilized - a road map for
regime change followed by full Western parliamentary democracy. Except that it
masquerades behind the real agenda of UN-imposed regime change and obscures
that the House of Saud and its Gulf minions are in the driver's seat. - Pepe
Escobar (Jan 30'12)
All that glitters is ... oil
The real "international community" is now very much aware that India will start
paying Iranian oil with gold - and not only rupees. Beijing - which already
trades with Iran in yuan - may also turn to gold. Talk about the Year of the
Dragon starting with a bang. And talk about the new Year of the Dragon gold
standard. - Pepe Escobar (Jan 25, '12)
Iranian oil poses Asian dilemma
It makes tactical sense for countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, India
and Turkey to slowly retrench from Iranian oil, but it would be a strategic
disaster for them to become reliant on Western approval to access Middle
Eastern energy, which will remain important in Asia's energy mix for at least
some more years. - Sreeram Chaulia (Jan 24,
'12)
The US-GCC fatal attraction
The United States power projection and psychodrama over Iran can be understood
only by shining light on the miasma of Washington's relationship with the six
oil-rich Persian Gulf monarchies that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council,
also known as the Gulf Counter-revolution Club. As friends of the US with
benefits, for decades they have received massive, unconditional support in
exchange for pricing oil in dollars. But the days of that fatal attraction are
numbered. - Pepe Escobar (Jan 19, '12)
The myth of an "isolated' Iran
United States expectations that a harsh sanctions regime might cripple Iran may
prove a chimera. Though few in the US have noticed, Tehran is not as "isolated"
as Washington wishes: it has the majority of the South on its side - not
forgetting that China, India, Japan and South Korea buy 62% of Iran's oil
exports. Follow the money and Tehran's move to torpedo the petrodollar is
perhaps one key reason for the mounting crisis in the Persian Gulf. - Pepe
Escobar (Jan 18, '12)
Playing chess in Eurasia
As Pipelineistan and hardcore geopolitics collide across Eurasia, China and
Russia are coordinating policy in fine detail. The trick is connecting China to
Central and South Asia and the Gulf, creating an economic/security powerhouse
that controls 50% of the world's gas reserves and undercuts the United States'
Empire of Bases. Old Europe wants in, but it may be locked out. The US,
meanwhile, is watching as its New Silk Road vision crumbles. - Pepe Escobar
(Dec 21, '11)
The war is pronounced dead
The tenor of the US's moving farewell ceremony, officially called "So long,
towelheads", was likely to sound an uncertain trumpet for a war that was
invented to get rid of non-existent weapons of mass destruction. And it now
ends without the Iraqi chapter of the Empire of Bases the Pentagon badly wanted
in the first place - and the oil. - Pepe Escobar
(Dec 16, '11)
NATO dreams of civil war in
Syria
By adopting a pincer movement from bases in Turkey and Jordan, the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization is actively diversifying into an Iraq-in-the-1990s
strategy; to submit Syria to a prolonged state of siege before eventually going
for the kill. But NATO's dream is to push Turkey to do the dirty work, even
though this country remains the great imponderable on a complex chessboard. - Pepe
Escobar (Dec 14, '11)
The Dead Drone sketch
The Central Intelligence Agency's drone that went down in Iran is no more. It
has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its industrial-military complex
maker! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace in a Shi'ite paradise!
Its metabolic processes are now history, it's shuffled off its mortal coil ...
but don't tell the CIA. - Pepe Escobar (Dec
8, '11)
The shadow war in Syria
Feel free to bask in the glow of yet another mercenary paradise as the stage is
set for Target Syria, aka Libya 2.0. Trigger-happy Libyans formerly known as
rebels have already shipped to Syria via Turkey, where the symbiosis of Western
and Gulf states has set up a command center on the border. The pressure is
relentless for the "civil war" prophesy of United States Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton to come to pass. - Pepe Escobar
(Dec 1'11)
That rocky road to Damascus
As they examine the regional chessboard and the formidable array of forces
aligned against them, the Iranians must face, simultaneously, superpower
Washington, bomb-happy North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, nuclear
power Israel, all Sunni Arab absolute monarchies, and even Sunni-majority,
secular Turkey. As Tehran sees it, what's really going on regarding Syria is a
"humanitarian" cover for a complex anti-Shi'ite and anti-Iran operation. - Pepe
Escobar (Nov 23, '11)
Exposed: US press 'freedom'
Hypocrisy is writ large over the treatment of Sam Husseini, whose behavior as
an actual journalist with tough questioning of the House of Saud got him
suspended from the National Press Club in Washington. Husseini didn't play by
lap-dog rules that dictate how corporate media should fawn to American allies
and bear teeth at its enemies to keep tidbits dropping from the establishment
table. - Pepe Escobar (Nov 21, '11)
Politburo uber alles
Two decades after the end of "real socialism", politburos are back in fashion.
In the eurozone, that means naked power concentrated in an imperial "Gang of
Eight" and a trokia of gloriously unelected institutions that call all the
shots and render national governments totally meaningless. The only thing that
matters to this newly formed pantheon is what the financial markets want; mere
mortals, as in European voters, are seen at best as a nuisance. - Pepe Escobar
(Nov 15, '11)
Do the bomb Iran shuffle
Hardcore neo-con practitioners of the Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine are
hyperventilating at the possibility of a successful attack on Iran reshuffling
all the cards in the "arc of instability" from the Middle East to Central Asia.
As the warmongers leer at the targets in the pack, Iran is too enticing. All
they have to do is convince President Barack Obama he won't be the joker if he
fights another war. - Pepe Escobar (Nov 10,
'11)
A bad case of nuclear Iranophobia
A leaked report by the International Atomic Energy Agency expresses "serious
concerns" about Iranian research and development "specific to nuclear weapons",
even though the United Nations watchdog has no independent means to confirm the
enormous mass of information - over 1,000 pages - it received from more than 10
countries over eight years. What's left is the possibility of even more
sanctions on Tehran - although Russia and China won't buy into this. - Pepe
Escobar (Nov 9, '11)
Fear and loathing in the
Cannes debt festival After posing as the Great Liberator of
Libya, French President Nicolas Sarkozy thought this week's Cannes Group of 20
summit would crown his Napoleonic ambitions. Instead, the Greeks made the
(invisible) God of the Market angrier than Zeus and more psychotic than a
German chancellor. All eyes are on China, but the Middle Kingdom's generosity
carries a hefty price tag - European exceptionalism itself. - Pepe Escobar
(Nov 4, '11)
The Pentagon-Arab Spring love story
The Arab counter-revolution is stronger than ever - led by the House of Saud
and its monarchy minions at the Gulf Cooperation Council. Their most precious
ally is the Pentagon, as further militarization of the Persian Gulf -
especially via more boots on the ground in Kuwait, and more warships - is being
sold as a response to "a collapse of security in Iraq or a military
confrontation with Iran". - Pepe Escobar (Nov
1, '11)
Real wimps go to Tehran via Baghdad
No matter how many "rightsized" United States boots remain on Iraqi ground
after the purported withdrawal at the end of the year, the "how to nail Iran"
gambit looms large. One neo-conservative plan - and is it that unlikely? -
would have Americans used as bait for an Israeli attack. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 26, '11)
A peek at the new Libya
Welcome to the new Libya. Islamist militias will turn the lives of Libyan women
into a living hell. Hundreds of thousands of Sub-Saharan Africans - those who
could not escape - will be ruthlessly persecuted. Libya's natural wealth will
be plundered. That collection of anti-aircraft missiles appropriated by
Islamists will be a supremely convincing reason for the "war on terror" in
northern Africa to become eternal. There will be blood. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 21, '11)
The US power grab in Africa
Libya - where United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a
whistle-stop visit on Tuesday but didn't get to see the devastation in Sirte -
is just one angle of a multi-vector US strategy in Africa. Washington's Uganda
surge, where 100 "advisors" now have their boots on the ground, is a classic
Pipelineistan gambit and it's not hard to fathom where that country's oil
contracts will eventually land. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 20, '11)
Occupy World Street
Occupy World Street wants that forests won't be mowed down, the air won't be
polluted, banks won't be double-crossing their clients, and citizens should be
totally engaged in the running of public life. This implies sensible laws
managed by honest and impartial people should be in place. It's not happening -
thus the swelling ranks of the Indignados International. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 18, '11)
Obama, the king of Africa
The mineral rush in Africa is already one of the great resource wars of the
21st century. China is ahead, followed by companies from India, Australia,
South Africa and Russia. The West is lagging. The name of the game for the
United States and the Europeans is to pull no punches to undermine China.
That's why Uganda is the perfect cover story for Barack Obama, the king of
Africa, to plunge a dagger inside Islamic Africa.
- Pepe Escobar (Oct 17, '11)
The occupy Iran Fast and
Furious plot (extended
The storyline of the apparent plan to kill the ambassador of Saudi Arabia would
be hurled into the garbage can in any self-respecting Hollywood script
conference. Yet it is very handy to divert attention from the Saudis as the
beneficiary of a multi-billionaire United States weapons sale. And it is also
very handy for Attorney General Eric Holder - caught in a monstrous scandal
over Operation Fast and the Furious, a franchise that is the entertainment
weapon of choice across all levels of the US government. - Pepe Escobar
(Oct 13, '11)
Liquid modernity, solid elites
The Occupy Wall Street campaign is flying the flag for the peaceful rejects of
liquid modernity - all but the 1% solids, the fat-cat Masters of the Universe
who take all the cream but still don't have a clue that 99% of Americans are as
mad as hell and can't take it anymore. Derided as a bunch of nuts or criminals,
the protesters are defying the elites and challenging their logic in a movement
that could sow the seeds of a humanistic neo-Renaissance for the masses. - Pepe
Escobar (Oct 11, '11)
Pentagon aims at target Pakistan
If - when - the Pentagon decides that United States Special Forces will violate
Pakistani sovereignty by helicopter, a la the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama
bin Laden, and go for the Haqqani network in the North Waziristan tribal area,
it risks a direct clash with the Pakistani army. Yet Washington is desperate,
feeling the urge to do something. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 29, '11)
Decline and fall of just about
everyone
Let's pick the bones of a broken system: middle classes in the Atlantic world
barely hang on in quiet desperation; in the Pacific, the middle class is giving
global capitalism a reprieve, for how long, we don't know; over in the Arab
world, the military machine tries to keep the US and Europe in the game, the
BRICS out, and the "natives" in their places. And globally, the whole world is
holding its breath for the next economic shoe to drop in the West. - Pepe
Escobar (Sep 26, '11)
The age of the Reaper
For the MQ-9 Reaper drone that struts its stuff equipped with Hellfire missiles
and rains death from above, the sky, literally, is the limit. It's expanding
its footprint from AfPak to the whole of East Africa up to the Gulf of Aden.
The Reaper, though, can also wear a business suit and incorporate the persona
of the president of the United States. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 22, '11)
Why the BRICS won't 'save'
Europe
As national egoism drags Western Europe into the financial mire, a cavalry of
emerging economies made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa is
mulling a bailout that could also accelerate the rise of the BRICS in global
influence. However, while China is still smarting over the economic impact of
the Libyan bombings, other BRICS say helping Europe would simply be a poor
investment - Pepe Escobar (Sep 20, '11)
To King Sarkozy, the spoils
While Neo-Napoleonic French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his sidekick British
Prime Minister "David of Arabia" Cameron were basking in the glow of their
victory lap in Tripoli, the place was swarming with multilingual contractors.
But nobody knows what's really going on in desert catfighting and bets are on
Libya turning not into Afghanistan 2.0 or Iraq 2.0, but Somalia 2.0. - Pepe
Escobar (Sep 16, '11)
Turkey takes over the Arab
Spring
With the whole Arab world glued to his every word, Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan used his Arab Spring tour to articulate what the whole world,
except Washington and Tel Aviv, knows in its collective heart over the
recognition of a Palestinian state. Erdogan's tour is a realpolitik master
class and leaves Israel up against a wall it hasn't faced since the 1978 Camp
David accords. - Pepe Escobar (Sep 14, '11)
Enduring freedom forever
Ten years after 9/11, facts on the ground spell out a world shocked and awed to
endure war rather than justice, while freedom, shrinking by the minute, is just
another word for everything left to lose. The road to war is a mission that
goes on forever. - Pepe Escobar (Sep 8, '11)
Libya: The real war starts now
As the Libyan Transitional National Council already behaves like a lame duck
and as the militias will simply not vanish, it's not hard to picture Libya as a
new Lebanon, with regions carved up between numerous factions. This includes
the deadly Islamic temptation - which is spreading like a virus across the Arab
Spring. In this environment, Muammar Gaddafi can reveal himself to be even more
dangerous than he was in power. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 6, '11)
It's a TOTAL war, monsieur
Call it the Friends of Libya war; the R2P war (as in "responsibility to
protect" Western plunder); the Air France war; the Total war; anyway, the
"friends" had a blast spinning their win in Libya, which magically is not in
Africa anymore. It has been relocated (upgraded?) to Arabia. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 2, '11)
Why Gaddafi got a red card
The Sunni monarchical dictator in Bahrain stays; the House of Saud club of
dictators stays; even the Syrian dictator is getting a break - so far. So, what
was the crucial difference with Muammar Gaddafi that got him a red card? There
are enough red lines crossed by The Big G to turn this whole computer screen
blood red, but let's start with the French ... - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 31, '11)
How al-Qaeda got to rule in
Tripoli
Abdelhakim Belhaj, the top rebel military commander in still war-torn Libya, is
an al-Qaeda asset. It doesn't require a crystal ball to picture that his group
- being among the war "winners" - will not be interested in relinquishing
control just to please the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Libya may now
face the specter of Muammar Gaddafi forces against a weak transitional central
government and NATO boots on the ground; and the Belhaj-led nebula in a jihad
against NATO (if they are sidelined from power). - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 29, '11)
R2P is now Right 2 Plunder
The United States establishment is now brazen about the true meaning of the
humanitarian imperialist doctrine of the "right to protect" - or R2P - being
"the right to plunder". With so much loot at stake and all signs pointing to
Quagmire City, the Big G Muammar Gaddafi may literally be buying tribal
allegiance in gold and gambling that Western/Arab ops will turn Libya into the
new Iraq/Afghanistan. - Pepe Escobar (Aug 26,
'11)
Sweet crude of mine
From the point of view of the real Libyan war "winners", it's bye-bye to
"subversive" ideas such as dumping the US dollar and the euro to create a
single currency for Arab and African nations and a big hello to ultra sweet oil
contracts and an array of concessions. While nothing would be sweeter for the
House of Saud than a friendly new emirate in northern Africa, real control is
still an open game as no one yet knows what influence Islamists will be able to
wield in post-Muammar Gaddafi Libya. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 25, '11)
Disaster capitalism swoops over
Libya
North Atlantic Treaty Organization winners have eyes peeled on juicy
opportunities to come; the House of Saud, in the shape of the Bin Laden Group,
will likely swoop on Libya's post-Gaddafi business bonanza. It is the interests
of BRIC nations - who saw through the United Nations-sanctioned arming of
rebels as the latest chapter in the Disaster Capitalism series - that the
victors want to gouge. - Pepe Escobar (Aug
24, '11)
Welcome to Libya's 'democracy'
The Big Gaddafi's impending departure as a result of Operation Siren means
humanitarian imperialism wins. The Arab monarchies win, the Pentagon wins and
the idealistic "rebels" win. As the Apache gunships and jets stop firing, the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization can gleam over its Mediterranean lake, while
in the background the wrangling over oil and gas - and the fratricidal
bloodshed - can begin in earnest.
- Pepe Escobar (Aug 23, '11)
The Big Gaddafi
The Big Gaddafi takes another toke at prime Maghreb and stares in disbelief as
the Western narrative predicting his demise unfolds - all because a bunch of
barbarian Bedouins decided to pee on his carpet. That rug really tied the room
together. It's just a game, man ... and The Dude minds. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 19, '11)
Blood on the Iraqi-Syrian
tracks
As a bloody Monday for Iraq followed carnage on Friday in Syria, many in
Baghdad are losing sleep about events across the border. As uneasy as Iraq may
be with the exploits of Syria's vicious security apparatus, it is not applying
any pressure. Like Tehran, Baghdad fears any hint of a Sunni Salafi takeover in
Damascus. - Pepe Escobar (Aug 16, '11)
Why the regime won't fall
President Bashar al-Assad has done the math and realizes his regime won't fall
as long as the protests don't convulse the urban middle classes. Turkish
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu appeared of the same opinion during his visit
to Damascus, implying there's no reason for Ankara to interfere as long as
Assad stops killing people and introduces reforms. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 12, '11)
My minaret is bigger than yours
Saudi Arabia is to spend US$1.23 billion on a building over one kilometer in
height. Yet the towering achievement of the House of Saud has got to be what it
has in store in terms of criminalizing any possibility of dissent in the
kingdom, while at the same time maneuvering to ensure that Sunnis get to
monopolize power in Syria. - Pepe Escobar (Aug
10, '11)
US shocked and awed by the
Taliban
It's tantalizing to indulge the conspiracy theories surrounding the downing of
a Chinook that claimed the lives of 19 United States Navy SEALs from the same
unit that killed Osama bin Laden. More constructive is to realize that the
Taliban missile that brought down the helicopter underscores the harsh truth
that the "new" war strategy in Afghanistan is a failure. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 9, '11)
Al-Qaeda's Christian mirror
"Al-Qaeda" - or the nebula of franchises and copycats commonly bundled as
"al-Qaeda" - does not have the resources to attack Europe, and this is not the
priority anyway; the priority is AfPak, Central Asia and India. But the
priority of Christian fundamentalist terror is definitely Europe. And the
attacks will come via loners such as Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik as well
as organized groups. (Jul 25, '11)
Taliban deliver hammer blow to
NATO
The assassination on Tuesday of Ahmad Wali Karzai, President Hamid Karzai's
half-brother, smashes to bits the notion that the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization is winning the war in Afghanistan. The Taliban are now rid of the
major pro-Washington actor not only in Kandahar province but in the whole south
of Afghanistan - where NATO has been involved en masse to crush the Taliban in
their spiritual home and favored grounds. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 13, '11)
Pakistan 'punished' in
Pipelineistan
Pakistan has no need to be too concerned over the United States suspending
payment of US$800 million in military assistance. The Iran-Pakistan gas
pipeline is going ahead, with or without India's participation. The heart of
the matter is that the pipeline will do more than any form of US "aid" (or
outright interference) to stabilize the Pakistan half of Washington's AfPak
theater of operations. - Pepe Escobar (Jul
12, '11)
The House of Saud paranoia
For Riyadh, the great Arab revolt is all an Iranian plot, another front for the
House of Saud in the psy-ops war it is fighting against Tehran's "polytheists",
directed by the Medieval Wahhabi clerical establishment. The Saudi message to
Washington and London is clear - we hold the petrodollars and we're top dog in
the Gulf, so forget silly ideas about "democracy". - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 6, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Have lobby, will travel
The "rebel" government - which is now named, after numerous permutations, the
Interim Transitional National Council of Libya - has hired Patton Boggs, one of
Washington's leading (and one of the most profitable) public relations firms,
to "advise and assist" them in, well, winning the war - and getting their hands
on billions of dollars in frozen funds from the Muammar Gaddafi regime held in
the United States. - Pepe Escobar (Jul 5, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
PHOTO ESSAY
The Karen rebel yell
The Karen National Liberation Army has been fighting for decades with the
central government in Myanmar for the self-determination of the Karen people,
via an independent state. The soldiers are commonly referred to as "thra"
- "big uncle". Some of them took time off from the battlefield to face the
camera. (Jul 1, '11)
Story by Pepe Escobar. Photos by Jason Florio
What's really at stake in Libya
Hypocrisy, newspeak - and opposing acronyms - rule the relentless
disinformation war over Libya. Beyond the fog, however, facts emerge that
civilians are being bombed, not protected, in Tripoli and there is a refugee
crisis. The only feasible way out is a ceasefire, but expect the West to fight
to the death - for obvious reasons. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 29, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
On crimes against humanity
The banality and gall of evil are in full display as perhaps the last batch of
senior Khmer Rouge face justice over the deaths of two million people in the
killing fields of Cambodia. Hanging over the tribunal is the specter of an
American Empire that back then put superpower "engagement" above concerns of
despotic pathology. Its old chains still rattle today, in the Middle East. - Pepe
Escobar (Jun 28, '11)
NATO, the ultimate transformer
As a global Robocop, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is on a roll. From
southeastern Europe to the eastern Mediterranean, and from the Persian Gulf to
South and Central Asia, the Pentagon-led war machine is taking military
establishments under its wing. All very well, unless you happen to be a
civilian destined for humanitarian liberation, NATO-style. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 20, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
The cold hard cash
counter-revolution
The House of Saud is showering billions of dollars on a "new Egypt", an
imploding Yemen and a suddenly more useful Muslim Brotherhood as the great Arab
revolt is smothered under a mountain of oil wealth. Washington has meanwhile
granted its own loaded gifts to Cairo, while quietly working with Bahrain's
crown prince on the Persian Gulf American satrapy. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 9, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
The secret life of Arabia
What lurks in the shadows tells us more about what's to come as the Arab Spring
turns into the Arab Summer. Qatar is maneuvering its soft power towards Syria,
where the repression machine has turned its guns on youths and the urban
bourgeoisie has yet to make a move. Egypt may boil over too as the Saudis turn
up the heat, the Wahhabi way. - Pepe Escobar (Jun
2, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
The counter-revolution club
The rest of the region might be teetering, but members of the Gulf Cooperation
Council - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and
Oman - are sleeping easy. Nothing will happen to them because the enlightened
West - not Allah - is their supreme guardian. And for any extra muscle they
might need to keep the order they desire, heavily bankrolled foreign
mercenaries are just the ticket. - Pepe Escobar
(May 27, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
The Arab spring conquers
Iberia
What's happening in Spain goes way beyond a student revolt and the economy.
It's a movement that lays bare a profound ethical crisis convulsing a whole
society. The los indignados - "the outraged" - are seriously inquiring
over the place of human beings in turbo-capitalist nations. - Pepe Escobar
(May 24, '11)
What Obama could not possibly say
The true intent of the dodgy "dignity versus dictator" rhetoric of Barack
Obama's Middle East "reset" speech lies in a simple tally: Israel mentioned 28
times and a big zilch for Saudi Arabia. Don't watch this United States
president's lips for the truth that a US-Saudi-Israeli counter-revolution is on
to smash the Arab revolt, or that "It's all about the oil, stupid". - Pepe
Escobar (May 20, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Sex, power and American
justice
The downfall of Dominique Strauss-Khan, the head of the International Monetary
Fund arrested in New York on sexual assault charges, possibly opens the door
for his replacement to come from the developing world. What spectacular poetic
justice, that it will be thanks to an African Muslim immigrant woman. - Pepe
Escobar (May 18, '11)
Bin Laden out, Gaddafi next
"Our" bastards are left to do their dirty work in peace, but Gaddafi beware:
international law has taken it in the head from a bullet stamped "R2P" (aka
"Responsibility to Protect"), courtesy of war in Libya, drones and targeted
assassinations, including of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. Luckily, R2P as a
humanitarian imperialist concept, as the end of sovereignty as we know it,
isn't fooling everyone. - Pepe Escobar (May
11, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Bahrain topples its own people
The crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Bahrain is really about a monarchy
trying to get rid of its people, with tactics straight out of the collective
punishment playbook as Shi'ite mosques are razed and medics incarcerated for
treating demonstrators beaten up by police. No sanctions or no-fly zones for
the ruling al-Khalifas, hosts of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet. - Pepe Escobar
(May 10, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Welcome to the post-Osama world
Almost a decade after 9/11 - and with the "dead or alive" promise finally
fulfilled - the answer to the magic bullet question on the timing of the Osama
bin Laden hit is that United States psychoanalyst-in-chief Barack Obama deemed
a symbolic kill of the "war on terror" necessary to purge America's desire for
foreign misadventure. The post-Osama cure faces monstrous contradictions, and
the Pentagon will fight on. - Pepe Escobar (May
5, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Show us the shooter
The biggest manhunt ever ended with two golden bullets administered to Osama
bin Laden by a Navy SEALs shooter after the verdict of guilty as (not) charged.
A body bag consigned the "mastermind'' of 9/11 to the sea rather than have the
CIA's dirty laundry aired in the trial of the century. The system that arranged
the hit will be happy; the rest of us left in the dark. - Pepe Escobar
(May 4, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Obama/Osama rock the casbah
It may have turned the boogie on United States President Barack Obama's
re-election, but the assassination of Osama bin Laden heralds a new breed of
hell. The West's self-fulfilling prophecy that al-Qaeda, made irrelevant by the
Arab revolt, will react "with a vengeance" may come true, and the Arab world
will revert to barbarism instead of dreaming of democracy. - Pepe Escobar
(May 3, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Arab Pipelineistan's high stakes
Gas supplies from Egypt to Israel and Jordan were shut off this week when an
"unknown armed gang" bombed the Arab Gas Pipeline. This is not the first time
the star of Arab Pipelineistan has been disrupted, causing acute concern in
capitals across the region. The discovery of massive natural gas deposits in
the eastern Mediterranean, however, has the potential to end any energy war. Or
does it? - Pepe Escobar (Apr 29, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
The Syrian chessboard
Syria matters on all fronts - from Iran to Iraq, from Turkey to Lebanon, from
Palestine to Israel. But what the House of Saud intervention in Syria is
inciting, above all, is tremendously destructive; a bloodthirsty sectarian
epidemic spreading all across the Middle East (it started in Bahrain).
(Apr 27, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
AfPak comes to Africa
Why haven't they thought about this before; an army of drones (only five for
the moment, based in southern Italy) instead of boots on the ground? Pentagon
chief Robert Gates claims the drones will strike Libya for "humanitarian
reasons". The "cubicle warriors" will certainly raise some hell by dragging a
mouse, but there is only one way this is headed - stalemate (and "collateral
damage") as in AfPak. - Pepe Escobar (Apr 26,
'11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Fear and loathing in the House of
Saud
That the United States has condoned Saudi Arabia's counter-revolution against
the Great 2011 Arab Revolt and incendiary manipulation of sectarianism shatters
America's ''credibility on democracy and reform''. For all its bluster, the
House of Saud's actions are essentially moved by fear and may lead to a total
radicalization of the Sunni-Shi'ite divide across the Arab world. - Pepe Escobar
(Apr 20, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Mission regime change
By jointly announcing the bombs will fall until Muammar Gaddafi is gone for
good, Washington, London and Paris have torn up the original UN mandate on
Libya. There will be Western boots on the ground - sooner rather than later -
and what comes next is even more messy: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
as the weaponized arm of the UN, roaming Africa for conquest and plunder. - Pepe
Escobar (Apr 19, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Let me bomb you in peace
After learning the lesson of having his tanks bombed at will by the "coalition
of the willing", Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is fighting light-armor
guerrilla style against the "rebels" and the air war is now useless. If the
"rebels" had their way and their own cities were carpet-bombed, collateral
damage would be horrific. The last hope for sanity in all this mess is Turkey.
- Pepe Escobar (Apr 8, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
The sweet smell of
counter-revolution
The House of Saud pulled its partner in the counter-revolution double act over
from the right side to the wrong side of history. As United States Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates meets Saudi King Abdullah to discuss the intricacies of
"US outreach" and "regime alteration", the current juncture spells out
Washington/House of Saud winning, hands down, against the great 2011 Arab
revolt. - Pepe Escobar (Apr 7, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Turkey: The sultans of swing
While Turkey's "strategic depth" envisions an informal empire ranging from the
Eastern Mediterranean to Western China, from the Balkans to the Middle East,
Anatolia is the ultimate Pipelineistan crossroads for the export of Russian,
Caspian-Central Asian, Iraqi and Iranian oil and gas to Europe. Much to
Washington's dismay, the Arab revolt is opening a sublime portal to a new
"global, political, economic and cultural order." - Pepe Escobar
(Apr 6, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Billion-dollar Obama rocks Yemen
Protesters are being killed, a dictator refuses to step down, al-Qaeda is
thriving, the CIA is on the ground, and civil war looms. Welcome to the curious
case of Yemen, undeserving of Libyan-style humanitarian imperialism, yet where
President Ali Abdullah Saleh has just been dropped from Washington's roster of
"our bastards" as Barack Obama launches a US$1 billion re-election bid. - Pepe
Escobar (Apr 5, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Tripoli, the new Troy
Muammar Gaddafi is "winning" like the king of besieged Troy did for 10 years.
The problem with the Odyssey Dawn script is that a rebel Ulysses or a Helen is
nowhere to be found and a cast of characters of infiltrated special forces
including Central Intelligence Agency covert ops will be key. Many a Libyan
will eventually have to acknowledge it's best to beware of Westerners bearing
gifts. - Pepe Escobar (Mar 31, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Queen Hillary of Libya
Foreign intervention in Libya - "legitimized" by dodgy United Nations cover -
is shaping up as a counter-revolutionary master coup to squash the momentum of
the great 2011 Arab revolt, show who's boss, and present neo-colonialism with a
facelift. And the new Libyan government kingmaker presiding over its
balkanization is actually a queen: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. - Pepe
Escobar (Mar 30, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
There's no business like war
business
It's easy to identify who profits from the war in Libya: The Pentagon, the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the "rebels", the
French and al-Qaeda. But that's only a short list of profiteers; control of an
ocean of fresh water is crucial to the war mix, and nobody knows who'll end up
getting the oil and the natural gas. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 29, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Welcome to the new NATO quagmire
The decision for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to run the show on
Libya is a copy of the International Security and Assistance Force arrangement
in Afghanistan. Libya is now an official victim of the endless war club and
since it is on the ground in Central Asia, NATO is about to enter the era of
the double quagmire. - Pepe Escobar (Mar 25,
'11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here
Endgame: Divide, rule and get the
oil
Western moral uprightness on Libya to coalition Gulf countries goes something
like this: If you sell us a lot of oil, buy our weapons, and smash al-Qaeda,
that's fine; you may even kill your own people, provided it's dozens, not
thousands. That's how Saudi Arabia can get away with anything. The forces of
counter-revolution are now joined at the hip with the West. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 24, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
The Odyssey Dawn top 10
Gotta hand it to the Pentagon's ghost writers, allowing Homer's heroes to roam
the Mediterranean in the aptly named Operation Odyssey Dawn. But with a nod to
the top 10 plays in this tragedy, the operation is really House of Saud Takes
Out Gaddafi. With the heavy lifting subcontracted to the West and the eastern
Libya protesters posing as extras. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 21, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
The Club Med war
The passage of resolution 1973 has put the ball (of fire) in Gaddafi's court.
Every civilian and military target in the Mediterranean is now fair game as he
threatens to "get crazy", and with the colonel willing to fight to the death,
it's fair to assume the Security Council vote gives a mandate that only ends
with regime change. - Pepe Escobar (Mar 18,
'11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
The Arab counter-revolution is
winning
In the inextricable Saudi/Washington nexus, democracy may be acceptable for
Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, but it's a very bad idea for Saudi Arabia, Bahrain
and other friendly Gulf dictatorships. The message of the Gulf kingdoms and
sheikhdoms to Washington is unambiguous and effective; if we "fall", your
strategic game is in pieces. Once more, "stability" trumps democracy. - Pepe
Escobar (Mar 17, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Libyans and Bahrainis sheikh,
rattle and roll
In both Libya and Bahrain, the great 2011 Arab revolt seems to have reached the
red line. Regime change stops here - with the House of Saud at the top of the
Arab dictatorial pyramid, followed by its Gulf minions. And as Muammar Gaddafi
rolls out his forces to crush rebellion in Benghazi, the world will watch the
killing like silent sheep. - Pepe Escobar (Mar
16, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
House of Saud 'liberates'
Bahrain
The House of Saud has rolled into Bahrain with armored carriers, tanks and
troops to repress protests that have revealed the United States client state
and its corrupt 200-year-old dynasty as the Gulf's weakest link. Media-fueled
illusions of Iran as the bogeyman and Saudi Arabia as a "reluctant" regional
policeman are as unreal the West's "support" for Libyan rebels. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 15, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Mummies and models
in the new Middle East
Egypt, previously a moribund land of "stability" and bosom buddy of whoever was
in power in Washington, has been hurled into the Middle East's New Great Game.
Possible models for transition range from Turkey's modern, Islamic ideal to
Muslim-majority Indonesia's flourishing democracy and Latin America's path of
total independence. Either way, it's enough to make Western diplomatic circles
tremble. - Pepe Escobar (Mar 14, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
The birth of Islamic modernity
Although the symptoms are the same - unemployment, poverty, corruption, absence
of freedom - the great Arab revolt is actually diverse revolutions fought with
diverse strategies. The crucial unifying theme is that Arab peoples are
starting to build their own modernity. That, as Gilles Kepel was prescient to
note, secures the victory of Islam as democracy over Islam as a "revolutionary"
vanguard. - Pepe Escobar (Mar 11, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Why no-fly won't fly
As the countries known as BRICS build a wall around the plan for a no-fly zone
in Libya, Muammar Gaddafi is skillfully reading the writing. No-fly, even if
approved, would be useless and he knows those backing the idea can't invade
Libya - that would be seen as one more chapter, after Afghanistan and Iraq, of
the white man's crusade to destroy Islam (and get the oil). - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 10, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Rage against the House of Saud
The US$36 billion question in Saudi Arabia concerns whether an ailing monarch
can bribe his subjects into submission with oil money and escape the the
furious freedom winds of the great 2011 Arab revolt. The world will be able to
watch a preview this Friday, as a Facebook-organized "Day of Rage" hits the
globe's largest gas station. - Pepe Escobar (Mar 9,
'11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
The perfect (desert) storm
The Arab revolt, North African yearnings for democracy, Western despair over
oil prices, and the new American doctrine for regime alteration are kicking up
a perfect storm, deploying devastating gusts of hypocritical winds such as the
US request for Saudia Arabia to arm rebels, while turning a blind eye to the
House of Saud's inconvenient truth. History yet again repeats itself as farce.
- Pepe Escobar (Mar 8, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
Fly me a Tuareg on time
With most of Libya's tribes united against Muammar Gaddafi, Algeria is reported
instrumental in getting mercenaries from Niger and Chad to his side. After
Gaddafi propped up their rebellions for decades, nomadic Tuaregs appear to be
making the grueling trip overland, organized by a former rebel commander now in
Libya and lured by petrodollar-fueled pay. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 7, '11)
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click
here.
The lion wants his juice back
It's stalemate time in Libya. Like a lion resting under a tree, Muammar Gaddafi
is surveying the odds of keeping power. He knows rebels have what it takes to
defend Zawiya, Misrata and Brega, yet lack the means to attack. Having lost
control of 80% of Libya's oil fields and refineries, he wants his juice back.
Africa's ''king of kings'' knows Brega is key - and next time, he'll go for the
kill. - Pepe Escobar (Mar 4, '11)
The end of the end of history
Western ideological categories have beenmummified. There's no "clash" of
civilizations between parliamentary democracy and Islam. Secular, nationalist
revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt have debunked Tehran's monopoly, and the fight
is now on, against not only the tyrant of American choice but the whole US
Treasury/IMF/World Bank-concocted architecture of "reality". - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 3, '11)
War porn is back in Libya
The Libyan people who are risking their lives to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi have
been saying for over a week that they don't want foreign intervention. But
forget democracy; the world won't listen amid the hysteria of calls for a
no-fly zone and demands for military boots to turn Libya into a North Atlantic
Treaty Organization protectorate. "Shock and awe" is back and once again - it's
the oil, stupid. - Pepe Escobar (Mar 2, '11)
Don't take your eyes off the
Gulf
Lute-playing septuagenarian Sultan Qabus bin Sa'id of Oman cannot understand
the discord in his Disneyland-perfect territory, but as protesters keep up the
pressure for reform his time may be running out. Beware the humanitarian
imperialism possibly rearing its ugly head in Libya. But all eyes should be on
the Strait of Hormuz; on the Omani, not the Iranian, shore. Pepe Escobar
(Mar 1, '11)
Don't cry for me, Suleiman
The Egyptian street revolution proves that the ghastly "Arab exception" concept
- that dictatorship and hardcore repression are intrinsic to the Arab world -
was always a manufactured consensus. It's a no-brainer, between
Washington-supported Omar "Sheik al-Torture" Suleiman and the protesters, who's
on the right side of history. - Pepe Escobar (Feb
9, '11)
'Sheik al-Torture' is now a democrat
If French philosopher Jean Baudrillard was alive, he would say revolution in
Egypt never took place except on the world's television screens. The regime was
never shaken to the core - because the army remains in charge and it is
comfortable with "acting president" Omar Suleiman (aka "Sheik al-Torture")
running the show. So are the democrats in Washington.
(Feb 8, '11)
EGYPT IN CRISIS
Dead men walking, with license to kill
Egypt's counter-revolution is on. And if President Hosni Mubarak is a "dead man
walking", as opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei has coined it, what about his
zombie army of machete-wielding thugs paid by his cronies? Masked goon squads
encircling protesters in Cairo represent the ugly face of Mubarakism - and,
with the army and police eerily gone, the ominous sign of state terror
unleashed. (Feb 3, '11)
CRISIS IN EGYPT
The brotherhood factor
Demands on the streets for a one-way ticket out for President Hosni Mubarak
will forge a path to free and fair elections and a role in government for the
Muslim Brotherhood. Contrary to alarmist rightwing sirens, no "Islamic fervor"
envelopes the Middle East, and a Muslim Brotherhood refuting violence and
bowing to secularist majority opinion in a post-revolutionary Egypt cannot
possibly spook the West. (Feb 1, '11)
Davos, Dakar and a ton of BRICS
After the richest of the ruling classes schmooze in Davos, "the rest" will be
left with the World Social Forum - to be held in Dakar, Senegal. There could
hardly be a better place to discuss inequality and the current crisis in
capitalism, never mind its plethora of emerging catchy-named conclaves, than
Africa - where hard-baked talk is likely to produce better solutions than any
"problem solving" session apres-ski. (Jan 26, '11)
The Google-GM summit
Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit to the United States can best be seen
as a summit between Google and General Motors. The US is the beleaguered car
company, doggedly peddling yesterday's product to the world. China is the sexy
search engine that nobody can live without. To understand this, all you need to
do is watch the Wall Street head honchos fighting for a seat at the summit
table. (Jan 19, '11)
Masters of hate locked and loaded
A right-wing gunman shoots a US congresswoman as part of a kill spree; the
American gulag at Guantanamo Bay celebrates nine years of extra-legal
repression; WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange prepares his legal defense amid
calls for his assassination. There are connections here, and they aren't
pretty. But in an America rushing headlong towards fascism, they are barely
making a ripple. (Jan 12, '11)
For drone warriors, the future is
murder
Seduced by visions of a "stabilizing" pipeline cutting through huge swathes of
Afghanistan and Pakistan, US President Barack Obama now has a hot war on in
both countries. This will keep his spooks busy remote-controlling mayhem from
the air. Take cover - the Year of the Drone is upon us.
(Dec 22, '10)
Emperor waits in wings with waterboard
Julian Assange is a free man for now, and the emperor's frustrated fury is a
palpable thing. Washington is frantically seeking a way to put a legal veneer
on its drive to strap Assange and WikiLeaks to the waterboard. If it succeeds,
the tattered remnants of our press freedoms will be going under too. - Pepe
Escobar (Dec 17, '10)
Hell hath no fury like an empire
mocked
Despite being granted bail, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is still behind
bars in Britain, the victim of a Swedish legal system that few believe is
serving real justice. The empire has been humiliated, and will prove to be even
more vindictive than a woman scorned as it fights to regain its information
hegemony. - Pepe Escobar (Dec 15, '10)
What is al-Qaeda really up to?
Forget the old-school iconography of Osama bin Laden. In the new narrative of
intelligence agencies on al-Qaeda, gone is the talk of a caliphate, Yemen is
the name of the game, and the password is the online "re-Islamization" of
Muslims living in the West, inspired by the likes of Anwar al-Awlaki. WikiLeaks
shows the larger than life evil was an American construct - and the real
al-Qaeda now lacks the means to hit strategic targets. - Pepe Escobar
(Dec 7, '10)
The naked emperor
Using its house-trained corporate media as a mouthpiece, the Western
establishment is having a collective hissy fit about recent diplomatic
disclosures from WikiLeaks. But far from being a security risk, these leaked
cables mostly just reveal the world of international politics as a tawdry
reality show. - Pepe Escobar (Nov 30, '10)
Brazil’s street war not for resale
abroad
An all-out war is being fought in the slums of Rio de Janeiro between the
Brazilian government and drug gangs, a war that the state has a fair chance of
winning. But envious Pentagon observers should note that there are no foreign
armies of occupation in this fight. - Pepe Escobar
(Nov 29, '10)
US a kid in a NATO candy store
At its Lisbon meeting last weekend, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization gave
the American warfare state pretty much everything it wanted, including the
green light on a Europe-wide missile shield and the promise of virtually
endless war in Afghanistan. It was enough to warm the heart of the most jaded
Pentagon praetorian. - Pepe Escobar (Nov 24,
'10)
Welcome to NATOstan
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with its scattershot of bases around
Central Asia, navy patrols across strategic sealanes, and more allies than it
knows what to do with, will try this weekend, under United States President
Barack Obama's imperial gaze, to decide what all this is about. Turkey, for
one, is watching carefully. - Pepe Escobar (Nov
19, '10)
Have (infinite) war, will travel
It's got night ops, air strikes, drone missions and special-forces
skullduggery. It's horrendously expensive, as bloody as a slasher film and it
keeps the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization busy in the
strategic heartland of the world. Withdraw from Afghanistan? The fun is just
getting started. - Pepe Escobar (Nov 17, '10)
Word up, G-20?
An animated rap video from a Taiwanese group sums up the Seoul Group of 20
meeting better than the weasel words of any official statement. To wit: the
rest of the bloc takes a dim view of Washington flooding the world financial
system with dollars it doesn’t have. - Pepe Escobar
(Nov 12, '10)
All hail the decider-in-chief
Those on a metaphysical quest to explain former US president George W Bush's
decisions to follow the September 11, 2001, attacks with an invasion of Iraq
and authorize Spanish Inquisition-era torture techniques are unlikely to find
answers in Decision Point. All the memoir proves is that "if you tell a
lie big enough and keep repeating it, people eventually come to believe it". - Pepe
Escobar (Nov 10, '10)
Sic transit gloria Obama
The US electorate has decided to reward a bunch of clowns and crooks
responsible for America's political, economic and cultural debacle in the first
place. Democrats sowed the seeds of their own doom by failing even to try to
live up to 2008's collective rapture over "Change we can believe in". After
taking a "shellacking", it's about time for President Barack Obama to start
playing offense. - Pepe Escobar (Nov 4, '10)
The day Obama dreamed of being Lula
United States President Barack Obama must have fantasized about an alternative
life after watching "the man", Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva - the outgoing
Brazilian president and world's most popular political leader - not only win
two elections in a row but see his chosen successor elected. Reality dawns for
Obama in the mid-term firing squad, while the Brazilian dream could end soon
too. - Pepe Escobar (Nov 2, '10)
Aziz's story will remain untold
Maliki and his Shi'ite Da'wa party had a score to settle with Aziz, and they
will believe justice has now been done. Everyone else loses badly because Aziz
is arguably the only person on Earth who could tell the real story, bit by
juicy bit, about the rolling, decades-long American dirty game in Iraq. - Pepe
Escobar (Oct 27, '10)
See you at the barricades, babe
The French October of 2010 is reducing French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a
certified member of a global neoliberal gang still merrily slashing-and-burning
the benefits of the welfare state, to some clone of Louis XVI on the way to the
(political) guillotine. But instead of the May '68 mantra of "we want the
world, and we want it now", the barricades chant "please, world, give us a
break". - Pepe Escobar (Oct 26, '10)
And the winner is ... Muqtada
Iraq's next government will likely be Iran-friendly and Shi'ite-friendly,
headed by incumbent Nuri al-Maliki, but crucially with the support of Shi'ite
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. At the same time, although Iraq has the third-largest
proven oil reserves in the world, it will be exploited by Chinese, Russian and
Asian companies, not US Big Oil - the final nail in the coffin of the
neo-conservative fantasy of a Greater Middle East as an American lake. - Pepe
Escobar (Oct 19, '10)
Betting and bluffing in the new
Great Game
With natural gas flowing from Turkmenistan and the promise of Iraqi oil
arriving in the next few years, China is methodically building up the energy
supplies its voracious economy will need in the future. And unlike its rival
the United States, Beijing is guaranteeing its future without deploying its
military. - Pepe Escobar (Oct 13, '10)
An American dream made in Brazil
Brazil is touted as becoming the fifth-largest global economy. This American
dream - as in an empowered lower-middle class consuming homes, cars,
televisions and computers like there's no tomorrow - will be the inheritance of
Dilma "Iron Lady" Rousseff, the most likely next president. She'll be aware
that relying on the non-stop sale of commodities to China is not a recipe for
sustainable growth. - Pepe Escobar (Sep 30,
'10)
It's Obama vs infinite war
The key - one may say tragic - point of Bob Woodward’s latest court opus Obama's
Wars is that the United States president not only cannot end the Afghan
war, he cannot even downscale it without incurring blowback. Even if Barack
Obama is seriously betting on his exit strategy, the Pentagon wants infinite
war. The corporate media-orchestrated narrative will never tell us why. - Pepe
Escobar (Sep 24, '10)
Barack and Mahmud back in the
groove
There can be no better opportunity for Iran and the United States to talk than
this week's United Nations General Assembly in New York. Against the wishes of
the mullahtariat, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said he's
open for dialogue, and US President Barack Obama looks to be gearing up too.
They might as well hit the groove before the dogs of war start barking.
(Sep 22, '10)
Don't mess with my burqa,
monsieur
So what if the Roving Eye turns up in Paris wearing a burqa, provided he
can decide between the light blue used in Talibanistan or the ultra-chic green
one from Peshawar. It's now the dilemma facing burqa-wearing women in
France. With the government also mired in a row over deportations, one wonders
whether President Nicolas Sarkozy is leading the republic down a road towards
trashiness, intolerance and bling-bling. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 16, '10)
'Dude, you have no Koran'
The skateboarder who snatched a copy of the Koran from the grasp of an American
self-styled paramilitary Christian leader before he could burn it is among the
people of Amarillo, Texas, who demonstrated that most Americans refuse to be
cowed by fear. At the center of their action is respect for the inalienable
right to practice the religion of one's choice. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 14, '10)
Nobody expects the American
inquisition
Earlier this century, as the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks
approached and the land of the free was still enmeshed in two wars to combat
the rising tide of Islamic world dominance, a coalition of Republican
politicians, talk show hosts and assorted wackos moved without hindrance
throughout the American land, in a reign of intolerance, bigotry and catchy
sound bites. This was the American Inquisition ... (Sep
10, '10)
AfPak and the new great game
As much as Washington may think it's in command, wily Afghan President Hamid
Karzai is playing an attacking game. He has seen the future as a power-sharing
deal in Kabul with no Americans involved. And, as usual, there's never a
mention of the key Pipelineistan game, Washington's real reason to spend US$100
billion a year (and counting) to fight a bunch of Arab jihadi instructors.
(Sep 8, '10)
LIFE IN TALIBANISTAN
Married to the mob
Ten years ago, while the Taliban were filling their coffers with taxes from the
world's largest smuggling ring, a reincarnation of the Queen of Sheba was
playing her part in a sprawling west Afghan underground network of women
refusing to be locked indoors. Today, the Afghan-Pakistan border is still
porous, and the Taliban seem to believe they may even get their Talibanistan
back. - Pepe Escobar (Sep 3, '10)
This is the conclusion of a three-part report.
PART 1: 'Throw these
infidels in jail'
PART 2: The degree zero
of culture
LIFE IN TALIBANISTAN, Part 2
The degree zero of culture
A decade ago it was a sad sight at the University of Kabul to witness a group
of eminent professors at what was once one of the best centers of learning in
the world being subjected to the sermons of a mediocre madrassa student
who never finished the equivalent of primary school. This was Baudrillard's
degree zero of culture, remixed by the Taliban. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 2, '10)
PART 1: 'Throw these
infidels in jail'
This is the second article in a three-part report.
Red alert! The Russians are coming!
Moscow's response to Washington's Russophobia, which manifests as humorless spy
movies and plans for full spectrum dominance, has been to get down to business.
While the West is bogged down in Afghanistan, links with Kabul forged in the
1980s ensure the Kremlin a slice of the mineral wealth, and while US neo-cons
balk at Iranian nuclear plants coming online, Russian industry merrily cashes
in. - Pepe Escobar (Aug 26, '10)
ON THE ROAD IN PATAGONIA, Part 2
The end of the world is on sale
The great Patagonia-on-sale party is in full swing, though tough questions
remain - and they apply to virtually all the developing world. How to "develop"
Patagonia? How to preserve it from serious environmental contamination? There
is a necessity for a clear policy setting serious targets for responsible
tourism, and the need for a clear policy regarding industrial development. - Pepe
Escobar (Aug 23, '10)
This is the conclusion of a two-part report.
PART 1: In Tierra del
Fuego, Darwin still rocks
ON THE ROAD IN PATAGONIA, Part 1
In Tierra del Fuego, Darwin still
rocks
The Patagonian narrative has been spun for centuries by bold navigators and
adventurers, hydrologists, mariners from Spain, Portugal and Britain,
scientific bulletins, devoted settlers, fierce pirates. In the early 21st
century, as the global South tries to reclaim its rights, this story can be
blended with the wealthy North's take on how this "arid, desert, windy,
abandoned" Patagonia has become "a sea of opportunities" for foreign
occupation. - Pepe Escobar (Aug 20, '10)
This is the first article in a two-part report.
'Surge' smoke follows Petraeus to
Afpak
As General David Petraeus, the mainstream US media's new armored Messiah, takes
command in Afghanistan, the myth of his "successful surge" in Iraq could not
but linger. Anyone who buys the Pentagon's spin and believes the same conquest
will happen in the Pashtun south and southeast of Afghanistan must have smoked
Hindu Kush's finest. - Pepe Escobar (Jul 2,
'10)
Mistah McChrystal - he dead
The McChrystal goes rogue/McChrystal gets fired story is yet one more classic
Pentagon non-event magnified to dementia. The "warrior-intellectual” never gave
any sign he was engaging in specific, detailed criticism of the overall
military strategy of the United States; after all, the Pentagon's
"full-spectrum dominance" cannot be really sold for what it is. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 24, '10)
The World Cup war
The first kick in the World Cup in South Africa takes place on Friday, the
start of the world's greatest sporting festival and the showcase for global
entertainment's biggest industry - football, which is run with an iron fist by
the mega-rich FIFA. Host countries - and the fans - might have to sell their
souls to FIFA, but for a month of frenzied action, the only real question is
who will be the next footballing god. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 11, '10)
The method in Israel's madness
Israel's heavy-handed attack on the Mavi Marmara carrying activists
heading for Gaza was motivated by fear as the ultimate Israeli nightmare has
come true. The new key axis in the Middle East is Turkey, Iran and Syria, and
it has smashed the divide-and-rule logic Western colonialism has been imposing
on the region for more than a century. - Pepe Escobar
(Jun 8, '10)
HIGH JINKS ON THE HIGH SEAS
The Israeli raid on a ship heading for Gaza has drawn international
condemnation, yet in Israel the attackers are being spun not only as heroes,
but as victims, writes Pepe Escobar, who argues the incident also leaves
United States President Barack Obama emasculated. Spengler writes the
flotilla caper should teach Israel that no matter how gingerly it approaches
the threats on its borders, it ends up holding the bag for the region's
problems and that it might as well get down to the business of war.
(Jun 1, '10)
We are all Gazans now
- Pepe Escobar
Iran: Obama's other oil spill
Nobody but washed up neo-conservatives, the Israel Lobby and full spectrum
dominance fanatics can win from President Barack Obama's attempt to sink the
emergence of non-United States-centric diplomacy that Brazil and Turkey's
nuclear deal with Iran epitomizes. By drilling hard for United Nations
sanctions on Iran, Obama has the political equivalent of another Gulf oil spill
on his hands. - Pepe Escobar (May 27, '10)
Iran, Sun Tzu and the dominatrix
American allies Brazil and Turkey were fuming after a public slapping for
defying the United States plan to punish Iran over its nuclear program. After
Hillary Clinton lashed the United Nations Security Council into submission for
another round of sanctions, Beijing and Moscow, well versed in the Art of War,
aren't exactly licking the US secretary of state's unilateralist whip. Who
should the real "international community" trust? - Pepe Escobar
(May 21, '10)
Brazil-Turkey 1, sanctions 0
The groundbreaking nuclear fuel swap agreement brokered by Brazil between Iran
and Turkey was a ''victory for diplomacy", according to Brazilian President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. It was most of all a win for the BRIC countries -
the emerging global counter-power to US hegemony and Washington's continuing
demands for crippling sanctions against Tehran. - Pepe Escobar
(May 18, '10)
The American Taliban are coming
The United States initially said that Faisal Shahzad, charged in connection
with a failed car-bombing in New York, had no connection with the Pakistani
Taliban. Washington now says he did. The Taliban have also reversed their
position, saying he is not tied to them. Either way, the age of the virtual
jihadi nomad is a go. - Pepe Escobar (May 11,
'10)
Time for a nuclear samba
Iran has all but agreed with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's proposal for
a nuclear fuel swap deal for Tehran's research reactor. This makes Brazil the
mediator between Tehran and the United Nations - rather than the axis of the
United States, Britain and France inside the UN Security Council, plus Germany
- to finally settle the Iranian nuclear dossier. - Pepe Escobar
(May 6, '10)
Iran, Brazil and the 'bomb'
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visits Tehran next month and has
offered to enrich uranium for Iran. For "full spectrum dominance" hawks this is
anathema, and it matters little that there is no consensus among the so-called
"international community" on isolating Iran. Lula for his part is adamant that
more sanctions on Tehran will open the way for all-out war, not prevent it. - Pepe
Escobar (Apr 29, '10)
The BRIC post-Washington consensus
Brazil, Russia, India and China, the engines of world economic growth over
coming decades, are well on the way to defining how they shape the new
geography of global power, even though the road to a formal trading bloc will
be very long. As they move full-speed ahead towards the post-Washington
consensus, the name of the game must be evolution, not revolution. - Pepe
Escobar (Apr 16, '10)
Nuclear Obama
Talk about terrorist threats was thin cover for the real target of US President
Barack Obama's 47-nation gabfest on nuclear security: the call for sanctions on
Iran. And while there is no clarity on how much further the US will cut its
formidable atomic arsenal, Obama's vision of a "completely nuclear-free world"
is the stuff of dreams for the Pentagon and its growing strategic non-nuclear
firepower. - Pepe Escobar (Apr 14, '10)
Collateral Pentagon
The leaked video of an apparent massacre of Iraqi civilians by United States
gunships comes as the supreme US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley
McChrystal, says US checkpoint forces have shot an "amazing" number of innocent
Afghans. The timing suggests that in both conflicts, the Pentagon has bent
normal "rules of engagement" to breaking point. - Pepe Escobar
(Apr 6, '10)
The Black Widow riddle
If it was indeed the suicide bombs of Chechen widows that caused the death and
carnage in the subway under the Moscow headquarters of Russia's security
service, the women could have been avenging the killing of Chechen master
ideologue, Said Buryatsky, rather than having any broader political or
spiritual goal in mind. - Pepe Escobar (Mar
31, '10)
Iraq squeezed between US and Iran
Sectarianism is the only winner to emerge so far in post-election Iraq. As the
struggle to form a ruling coalition pits United States-backed Iyad Allawi
against Nuri al-Maliki, the Iran-aligned present prime minister, neither is
likely to succeed. But one thing's certain: violence will erupt in the Sunni
backlash if Allawi, whose coalition won the most seats for the National
Assembly, fails to take power. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 30, '10)
Obama squeezed between Israel and
Iran
Washington's schizophrenic reaction to the US-Israel "crisis" - a brief
scolding followed by talk of an "unshakeable bond" and sanctions "that bite"
for Iran, reveals the spat may be theater designed to obscure a not-so-subtle
drive to attack Tehran. After all, Israel's powerful friends have determined
the broad outlines of US policy in the Middle East for decades. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 25, '10)
Brazil steps between Israel and
Iran
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva this week made the first official visit by a
Brazilian president to Israel. Brazil is emerging as a potential "bridge"
between Iran and those countries that seek to punish Tehran over its nuclear
program. Lula stepping into this arena is a further instance of the BRICs
(Brazil, Russia, India, China) acting as a new rival power to an increasingly
disoriented US, as well as to Washington's ally, Israel. - Pepe Escobar
(Mar 17, '10)
Oscar night in Baghdad
Hollywood's take on the Iraq War, The Hurt Locker, swept Sunday's
Oscars. Who will emerge victorious from Iraq's elections is less clear.
Washington favors former premier Iyad Allawi - once an intelligence asset -
over the Shi'ite incumbent aligned with Iran, Nuri al-Maliki. But ultimately it
seems that as long as Maliki can hasten the Americans' exit, he will emerge
triumphant. - Pepe Escobar (Mar 9, '10)
PYONGYANG JOURNAL, Part 4
All aboard the juche train
On the train from Pyongyang to Beijing, the North Korean countryside displays
an endless succession of bullock carts, rusty tractors and people carrying bags
of rice or coal on their backs. Yet the North holds the solution for its own
ecoomic success - a strong central state, vast natural resources and, not
least, a disciplined workforce. In short - juche. - Pepe Escobar
(Mat 1, '10)
This is the final article in a four-part series.
Part 1: Happy
birthday, Comrade Kim
Part 2: Happiness
rolls over us like a wave
Part 3: The
last frontier of the Cold War
Yemen, the new Waziristan
The United States fighting machine is still hostage to the outdated notion of
"territory". So it's automatic to have the Pentagon dispatch its might to fight
"al-Qaeda" in Yemen and in the Waziristan tribal areas in Pakistan. All that is
there, though, beyond some individualistic neo-jihadis, is ghosts. - Pepe
Escobar (Feb 10, '10)
Staring at the abyss
On Indonesia's tropical island of Bali, everything is about sekala and niskala,
ritual and the occult. In the United States, the Pentagon has its occult as it
continues its descent into the ghostly abyss of its "long war". When President
Obama visits Indonesia next month, he'd do well to do some soul-searching on
Bali if he is to avoid being permanently engulfed by hungry ghosts. - Pepe
Escobar (Feb 4, '10)
Empire reloaded
According to United States President Barack Obama, AfPak is still the epicenter
of al-Qaeda, but the Yemen chapter is a more serious problem. Thus comes into
play still one more rehash of the same old narrative: a fragile dictator,
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, needs America to defeat the terrorists. - Pepe
Escobar (Jan 12, '10)
China plays Pipelineistan
While China is at the forefront of moves toward green energy supplies, it is
leaving nothing to chance. Imported oil and gas are still crucial - and will be
for a long time - to its economic growth, and Central Asia is key to Beijing's
wide-ranging energy strategy. - Pepe Escobar (Dec
23, '09)
Dancing the revolution away
The ballet Red Detachment of Women, popular with Mao Zedong during the
Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, is now playing again in Beijing, complete
with capitalist roaders, psychedelic cartoon sets and girls with guns. Given
the way China's economy has progressed - and where it is heading - the dancing
girls should be prancing around in Pradas, Guccis and Jimmy Choos, sipping
champagne and juxtaposed against steel and glass sets. - Pepe Escobar
(Dec 17, '09)
Iraq's oil auction hits the jackpot
Russia and China were the big winners in the latest auction of Iraq's oil
rights, as was the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki; United States
companies were conspicuous by their absence. If the oil starts to flow as now
promised, the next few years should see the rise of a relatively wealthy,
Shi'ite-controlled Iraq, friendly with Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah. Does this
make Maliki the new Saddam Hussein? - Pepe Escobar
(Dec 15, '09)
Hopenhagen's dirty secret
As developing countries accuse the industrialized North of trying to side-step
cuts in carbon emissions, the real winners of the Copenhagen climate summit are
emerging: Wall Street and Big Oil. While Wall Street banks will probably turn
climate change into a new commodities market, marketing it as an investment
product, Big Oil is likely to make a killing from a global carbon tax.
(Dec 9, '09)
Vietnam-lite is unveiled
United States President Barack Obama took pains in his speech to distance his
new Afghan policy from the traumas of the Vietnam War, but there are that signs
his "war of necessity" is inviting history to repeat itself. Costing trillions
of dollars, the surge will see occupation troops next year reach the peak level
of the Soviet occupation. Still, it's great news for the Pentagon and its
agenda of full spectrum dominance. (Dec 2, '09)
China bemused by flat Europe
In theory, Europe now has a unified voice. But while Europeans were expecting
bubbly champagne, they were handed flat cola in the form of the new European
Council president, Belgian Herman van Rompuy, and quasi-EU foreign affairs
minister, Baroness Catherine Ashton. China might well ask the immortal 1970s
Henry Kissinger question: "Which number do I dial when I want to talk to
Europe?" (Dec 1, '09)
Welcome to the Luladinejad axis
Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula's warm embrace of visiting Iranian President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad said it all - this is how to make progress between
countries. And as Lula made clear his support of Iran's stance over nuclear
power, business leaders were adding depth to the warming relations.
(Nov 25, '09)
Welcome, comrade Maobama
United States President Barack Obama visits Beijing as China is organizing a
new world order based on economic independence and respecting cultural and
political differences - a hierarchical change all nations can believe in.
Beijing welcomes being classed as the US's "essential partner" and
"competitor"; being competitive is second nature when you have been a major
economic power for 18 of the past 20 centuries. (Nov
16, '09)
UNDER THE AFPAK VOLCANO, Part 2
Breaking up is (not) hard to do
The Pentagon well knows that AfPak is the key land bridge between Iran to the
west and China and India to the east; and that Iran has all the energy that
both China and India need. The balkanization of AfPak would neutralize China's
drive for land access from Xinjiang across Pakistan to the Arabian Sea, via the
port of Gwadar in Balochistan province. (Nov 6, '09)
This is the concluding article in a two-part report.PART 1:
Welcome to Pashtunistan
UNDER THE AFPAK VOLCANO, Part 1
Welcome to Pashtunistan
A rough beast, its hour come at last, Pashtunistan is already being born across
the strategic corridor straddling eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan. If
the Pakistani Taliban and their Pashtun allies manage to establish full
control, with or without jihadi support, an Islamic emirate will for all
practical purposes be constituted. (Nov 5, '09)
This is the first article in a two-part report.
Jundallah versus the mullahtariat
Sunday's suicide bombing in Iran has set off a war: it's the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards Corps against Pakistani Balochistan-based Jundallah and
the massive drug trafficking network in the area. In terms of the turbulent,
internal political equation in Iran, the show of force against a key element of
the mullahtariat could not be more devastating. (Oct
20, '09)
Putin lays down law for Clinton
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's appeal in Moscow for Russia
to embrace "diversity" and her belief that the Kremlin will approve more
sanctions on Iran got short shrift from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as he
busied himself elsewhere, stitching together crucial energy deals in China.
(Oct 16, '09)
Stuck in Kabul, with Saigon blues
again
What is now being preformed for Washington galleries is the spectacle of the
dance of the generals - Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike
Mullen, National Security Adviser retired General Jim Jones and top man in
Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal. The Pentagon and its experts argue the
US should "Afghanize" the war - but the staggering financial black hole is just
getting bigger as the US slouches towards "Chaos-istan".
(Oct 7, '09)
Jumpin' Jack Verdi, it's a gas,
gas, gas
Washington wants reluctant Europeans to wean themselves off Russian gas and do
more to protect Pipelineistan - that network of real and virtual routes
intended to channel from the planet's most fractured political landscape the
lifeblood of the world's richest industrial area. It's a new great game, and
it's still the Cold War. It's pure opera, on a grand, grand scale. - Pepe
Escobar (Oct 2, '09)
It's bomb, bomb, bomb Iran time
Israel, sundry Sunni Arab puppet rulers and dictators, the American right and
the European right, these all fear Iran's regional clout and want to castigate
Tehran in Thursday's nuclear talks. Iran's nuclear dossier - and new
revelations about a second, not-so-secret enrichment plant - could not be a
more convenient cover story for regime change. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 30, '09)
The president is in the trunk
The June 28 oligarch-directed military coup in Honduras has exposed the fallacy
of the Barack Obama administration's pledge to uphold democratic values around
the world. It unveils how helpless he is facing his subordinates at the
Pentagon and the State Department. If Obama can't even control his own
militarist backyard in Washington, not to mention Latin America, how will he
face up to Russia and China? - Pepe Escobar (Sep
24, '09)
More questions on 9/11
Last week, on the eighth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks on New
York and Washington, Asia Times Online posed 50 unanswered questions about the
immense, mysterious 9/11 riddle. Due to overwhelming reader response, here's a
follow-up with 20 more questions - with a hat-tip to all readers who joined the
debate. - Pepe Escobar (Sep 17, '09)
Fifty questions on 9/11
It's eight years since the fateful day that terror struck at the heart of the
United States. The rebranded "global war on terror" still rages, with the
epicenter now back where it began, in Afghanistan. After all these years,
unanswered questions remain over both the events of September 11, and what
followed; they're food for serious reflection. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 10, '09)
Enduring Freedom until 2050
In only 450 days, the number of troops in Afghanistan has swelled from 67,000
to 118,000. Since 2001, the United States has spent $179 billion in the
country, while its European allies have burned $102 billion. The tragicomedy is
clear: the US and its allies will do - and spend - whatever it takes to implant
military bases on the doorstep of Russia and China, and to get their gas
pipeline on track. - Pepe Escobar (Sep 8,
'09)
US's 'arc of instability' just gets
bigger
In 2007, a former US ambassador to Colombia was sent to Afghanistan to
implement a counter-insurgency disguised as a war on drugs. It makes some
sense: Afghanistan is to opium what Colombia is to cocaine. And inevitably
that's where the North Atlantic Treaty Organization comes in. The only part of
the world where NATO is still not active is ... South America. The New Great
Game will soon stretch from AfPak to Mexico. - Pepe Escobar
(Sep 2, '09)
The glitzy face of Eurabia
Qatar's Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani enjoys his French connection - and
the feeling is mutual. The emir has big plans for his tiny emirate and its huge
oil and gas reserves, while France's president enjoys cozying up with a key
Persian Gulf actor. Expect Qatar to buy more Paris real estate, as more French
arms and passenger jets go in the opposite direction. - Pepe Escobar
(Aug 27, '09)
The Afghan pipe dream
Washington says success in Afghanistan involves "diplomacy, development and
good governance" - but all that the world sees is the 96,500 - and counting -
coalition troops now on the ground to "fight the Taliban". As for the election,
who cares who's the winner - President Hamid Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah or
anyone else? Afghanistan will be ruled by Barack Hussein Obama anyway. - Pepe
Escobar (Aug 19, '09)
Jihad bling bling
The toned and tanned of St Tropez - sipping chilled wine aboard
multimillion-euro yachts anchored at this mythic Mediterranean port - don't do
drones. Especially not the kind that took out Pakistani warlord Baitullah
Mehsud last week. And for them, an economic "crisis" is not landing the best
five-star table in town. Welcome to the gauche and gleaming epicenter of
hypercapitalism. - Pepe Escobar (Aug 13, '09)
NEW GREAT GAME REVISITED, Part 2
Iran, China and the New Silk Road
China's denial of Iran into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization last year
might signal that a Beijing-Tehran axis doesn't exist, yet a strategic alliance
between the pair is essential to counter Western influence in their domain. For
China, Iran is all about Pipelineistan, the Asian Energy Security Grid and the
New Silk Road. - Pepe Escobar (Jul 24, '09)
This article concludes a two-part report.
Part 1:
Iran and Russia, scorpions in a bottle
NEW GREAT GAME REVISITED, Part 1
Iran and Russia, scorpions in a
bottle
A nuclear Iran would inevitably turbo-charge a new, emerging multipolar world -
one that does not rely on the United States to subjugate the bulk of oil in the
Arab Middle East. But the Iranian nuclear dossier cannot be solved without
Russia, leaving Moscow with a key moderating role between Iran and the West. No
matter how nasty the overtones, the Iran-Russia dynamic is the pacemaker for
the heart of the New Great Game. - Pepe Escobar(Jul
23, '09)
This is the first article in a two-part report.
Supreme Leader Marcello Mastroianni
Forget Iran's Ali Khamenei. Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni is the real
supreme leader. Just watch him in Pietro Germi's 1961 black-and-white
masterpiece, Divorzio all'italiana, or Federico Fellini's iconic La Dolce
Vita. They don't make movies like that anymore. But how about a Divorce
- Italian-style set in the Pashtun tribal areas, with a US Marine
eloping with a local girl? Or better yet, in Barbarella fashion, with a
sexy drone. - Pepe Escobar (Jul 21, '09)
Kashmir: Ground zero of global jihad
The jihad waged by Pakistani militants in divided Kashmir and the
Taliban-backed jihad in Afghanistan against foreign troops have always been two
sides of the same coin. The Taliban have established roots in Pakistan's Swat
Valley, which lies between the borders of Afghanistan and Kashmir. If they
become entrenched, Jihad International Inc will have a vital corridor linking
these areas. - Pepe Escobar (Jul 16,'09)
Go ahead Bibi - drop the bomb
As unclenched fists go, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu's
government and that of the newly empowered administration of the "mullahtariat"
in Iran now seem to be locked in a free-for-all cage match - regardless of
United States President Barack Obama's self-styled "refereeing" positioning. - Pepe
Escobar (Jul 7,'09)
Superfat hits Asia
In 2007, diabetes affected 46.5 million adults in Southeast Asia. By 2025, it
will strike more than 80 million. At the same time, Asia is getting fat -
leading to the specter of "diabesity" - the deadly coupling of diabetes and
obesity. Now, a group of global specialists has gathered in Thailand to spread
the alarm to doctors all over Asia. - Pepe Escobar
(Jul 1,'09)
Requiem for a revolution
In the end, the sound and fury of the "Tehran spring" led to neither reform nor
revolution. The army didn't support the people, and the merchants and workers
didn't go on strike. Still, to believe that Iran's national interest and the
aspirations of its disenchanted masses will be defended by the new dictatorship
of the mullahtariat is to completely miss the point.
(Jun 29,'09)
Iran's streets are lost, but hope
returns
People power may have lost in the streets against a massive repression machine,
but Iranians are not afraid anymore. They believe another Iran is possible. All
hopes lie on a protracted, creative, subversive, underground and parallel
movement of civil disobedience, with strikes and mourning ceremonies held up
and down the country. The seeds of the next revolution have already been
planted. (Jun 24,'09)
Meet Shah Ali Khamenei
Iranian protest leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, hurled despite himself into the eye
of an historic hurricane, now follows the human flow of people power claiming
that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's title is illegitimate; that his credibility
as a religious scholar was and remains shaky. All the same, Khamenei's power
remains complete. (Jun 22,'09)
Divine assessment vs people power
It was like a bossa nova song playing on an elevator on fire: while people
power was still driving events in Tehran, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad
showed up at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization proclaiming "the
international capitalist order is retreating" and that the age of empires has
ended. That's entirely possible - but maybe some other old orders are ending as
well. (Jun 18,'09)
The meaning of the Tehran spring
Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has made his power play against challengers
Mir Hossein Mousavi and Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani. Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei fully supported him. As the aftermath unwinds, Mousavi and
Rafsanjani need an urgent counterpunch, and their only possible play - given
that no pacifying solution can be found within the institutional framework of
the Islamic Republic - is to go after Khamenei. (Jun
15,'09)
Poetic justice of a green
revolution
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad was never more dangerous then when lying about
inflation and unemployment in TV debates to lure the votes of Iran's poor. But
this may not come close to the green power he is up against. Psychedelic green.
The color of Islam, the color of presidential challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi
and, for many, the color of hope. (Jun 11,'09)
The shadow war in Balochistan
With or without using Jundallah for its own Iran-destabilizing agenda,
Washington's "other" war is about to hit Balochistan in Pakistan full speed
ahead. By mid-summer, the US's Afghan surge in troops will be in position. A
new American mega-base in Helmand province's "desert of death" will be
operational. Assassination teams, drone attacks and Hellfire missiles will boil
this tense tri-border area. Shadowplay rules. (Jun
3,'09)
Pipelineistan goes Iran-Pak
A deal was finally signed this week in Tehran by which Iran will sell gas from
its South Pars mega-fields to Pakistan by way of the 2,100-kilometer, US$7.5
billion Iran-Pakistan pipeline. For the moment, Iran, Pakistan, China and
Russia win. Washington and NATO lose, not to mention Afghanistan. But will
Balochistan province also win? If not, all hell will break loose, creating an
even greater, regional, ball of fire. (May 28,'09)
Slouching towards balkanization
Washington is focused on the Pakistani province of Balochistan like a laser. In
an evolving strategy of balkanization of the country - increasingly popular in
Washington foreign-policy circles - Balochistan has very attractive assets:
natural wealth, scarce population and a port, which is key for Pipelineistan
plans. (May 21,'09)
Pipelineistan goes Af-Pak
From the "Las Vegas of Central Asia" to the backlands of Taliban-controlled
Afghanistan and Pakistan to Beijing, Moscow and Washington, the politics of
"blue gold" (natural gas) and great-power politics are playing out in a lethal
liquid war. (May 13,'09)
REBRANDING THE LONG WAR, Part 2
Balochistan is the ultimate prize
Strategically, the Pakistani province of Balochistan is mouth-watering: east of
Iran, south of Afghanistan, and boasting three Arabian sea ports, including
Gwadar - a harbor built by China - which is the absolute key. The only
acceptable scenario for the Pentagon is to take over Gwadar, gaining a prime
confluence of Pipelineistan and the US empire of bases. The die has been cast.
(May 8,'09)
This is the concluding article in a two-part report.
PART 1: Obama
does his Bush impression
REBRANDING THE LONG WAR, Part 1
Obama does his Bush impression
This week's summit between United States President Barack Obama and Afghan
President Hamid Karzai and President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan was less
about saving lives than it was about rhetorically re-inventing - and physically
relocating - the past administration's "global war on terror". The question is:
how far will the three leaders go to wipe out al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or halt
the Predator drone war against Pashtun peasants in Pakistan?
(May 7,'09)
The myth of Talibanistan
The Taliban's activities in Buner in Pakistan - which prompted a sharp response
from the military - have raised concern over the country to the level of
hysteria; that it is about to fall to an army of turbans. This is not going to
happen. What is happening is that the United States, to legitimize the next
stage in the Af-Pak war, is creating a new uber-bogeyman - Pakistan Taliban
leader Baitullah Mehsud. (Apr 30,'09)
Torture whitewash from The Dark
Side
The drama of torture memos released last week is shaping up as a case of
American exceptionalism one cannot believe in. Without accepting full
responsibility for torture - and illegal, pre-emptive wars - there can be no
catharsis in America. President Barack Obama is smart enough to know that if he
looks the other way, this whole mess could come back to haunt, and even
destroy, his presidency. (Apr 23,'09)
The mother of all cockfights
What President Barack Obama won't do - and the Pentagon won't allow - is to do
a full Vietnam and go down as the president who lost the American empire of
bases and the dream of prevailing in the New Great Game in Eurasia. Meanwhile,
it will be Predator hell from above raining over angry Pashtun tribals in
Pakistan. Make no mistake: there will be blood - a lot of blood.
(Apr 16,'09)
The president makes a victory lap
President Obama's arrival in Baghdad for a gated-community photo op - without
so much as a glimpse of real-life, messy, dangerous Red Zone Baghdad - made it
shockingly clear that Obama, for all his charisma, is still the president of an
occupying power. He says his presence can help resolve issues. His rhetorical
change is more than welcome. But actions do speak louder than words.
(Apr 8,'09)
Globocop versus the TermiNATO
No one will actually admit it - but many in Washington and Brussels would love
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to really be a borderless international
sheriff, bypassing the United Nations to perform humanitarian imperialism all
over the globe, taking out al-Qaeda and "terrorists" anywhere, and protecting
energy pipelines for Western interests in all directions.
(Apr 3,'09)
The secrets of Obama's surge
President Barack Obama is selling the US's military surge in Afghanistan and
Pakistan as nation-building based on trust. A hard sell if there ever was one -
as Washington cannot trust the Pakistani government or security forces, while
the Pakistanis don't trust Washington. Can nation-building be done by Predator
drones? Will this become Obama's Vietnam? Whatever it is, it's not about
"terrorists". Not really. (Apr 1,'09)
Obama's Afghan Spaghetti Western
To sum up the acronym-infested situation in western Afghanistan, the whole
picture looks like a version of the Sergio Leone-directed film The Good, the Bad
and the Ugly. The area's most important military base is Italian, where
3,000 men are charged with controlling a Mafia-run territory with Taliban
Godfathers aplenty. The Italians are encircled, and even a "pizza surge" from
Rome might not save them. (Mar 27,'09)
Liquid war: Welcome to
Pipelineistan
The new Silk Road of energy sees Washington, Beijing, Moscow and Tehran fight
for control of Caspian oil lines on a global energy battlefield on which the
fate of humankind could well be settled. Pepe Escobar enters the Space
Odyssey-style map room of Russian energy giant Gazprom, spends a rainy
"night" in Georgia, and discovers the thrill of following energy around the
"arc of instability". (Mar 25,'09)
Burn, Balochistan, burn
Somebody needs to tell United States President Barack Obama that a strong
government in Kabul capable of overseeing its provinces and porous borders is a
pipe dream, and that Western allies have no interest in participating in the
US's new front in the Pakistani province of Balochistan. The best solution for
Afghanistan remains China's: a UN peacekeeping force, largely composed of
Muslim soldiers. (Mar 19,'09)
Another round of Ahmadineboom
With the reformist bloc split ahead of Iran's presidential elections on June
12, the road to victory now seems clear for incumbent Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who
has just launched a charm offensive to calm the hardcore ayatollahs in Qom and
upstage his only likely rival. The word in Tehran is that an Ahmadinejad second
term would solidify all of Iran's fundamentalist factions. Hawks in Israel are
already polishing their bombs. (Mar 18,'09)
Taliban set to burn the Reichstag?
The united Pakistani Taliban are helping to prepare a massive spring offensive
directed by Mullah Omar against the surging United States-led coalition in
Afghanistan. Meanwhile, cynics in Brussels bet that some weaponized arm of
Western arrogance doesn't stand a chance against built-for-war mujahideen who
have defeated everyone from Alexander the Great onwards.
(Mar 12,'09)
The Obama-Medvedev turbo shuffle
US President Barack Obama won't ever play chess like the Russian masters, but a
solid knowledge of Francis Coppola's Godfather flicks could carry the
day with his Kremlin counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev. If Washington intends to
lure Russia to the anti-Iran train, Obama had better leave the gun at home and
call on Moscow with some cannoli. (Mar 4,'09)
Backstage at the theater of 'terror'
United States President Barack Obama - even without being an
expert on the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater - has got to be clever enough to see
the surge there as a suicidal gambit. The problem is that he still seems to
believe the war is "winnable", and his newest definition for victory is "to
defeat al-Qaeda". Well, if that is the mission he must pursue, the key is
Pakistan, not Afghanistan. (Feb 26,'09)
Obama, Osama and Medvedev
The 1,600-kilometer Karachi-Khyber-Kabul supply line envisioned by the United
States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is for all practical purposes
dead - thanks to neo-Taliban guerrillas in Pakistan's tribal areas. If
Washington and Moscow can't hash out a new route, the only other realistic
possibility for the coalition is courting Iran, which is already deeply
connected to Russia, and China. (Feb 19,'09)
US-IRAN WALL OF MISTRUST, Part 2
Will Obama say 'we're sorry'?
Former ruler the shah and revolutionary leader ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini have
been described as the two juxtaposed Irans: imperial Iran and the painful Iran
of the blood of the martyr, "a juxtaposition that symbolizes an unreal dream
... a dementia of the inaccessible". For US President Barack Obama, the
"inaccessible" can become more than accessible with just a simple "we're
sorry". (Feb 12,'09)
This is the second article in a two-part report.
PART 1: Obama's
Persian double
US-IRAN WALL OF MISTRUST, Part 1
Obama's Persian double
Speaking on the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, Iranian President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad stressed that any United States changes in attitude towards
Tehran had to be "fundamental and not tactical". It is now up to US President
Barack Obama to differentiate between the two. Obama may, however, be saved
from having to make a choice should Mohammad "dialogue of civilizations"
Khatami return to power. (Feb 11,'09)
This is the first article of a two-part report
Obama's arc of instability
Announcing his new State Department, United States President Barack Obama
stressed "America's commitment to lead". But lead where? Where's the boldness,
the real change of mindset? The Pentagon's "arc of instability" hovers over
Obama's "Clinton-3" State Department like a ghostly self-fulfilling prophecy.
Unless, of course, the Obama White House really kicks out ideology and steers
the US back to politics. (Jan 29,'09)
Fade out on George W Bush
What a record: stolen elections, corporate greed, fraud and corruption,
unlimited spending, wealth redistribution (to the top), no checks and balances,
rampant militarization, the destruction of Iraq, permanent war, and
unquantifiable, unrepayable national debt. Not many world emperors are able to
create a vast wasteland, call it a government, and then retire. (Jan
16,'09)
Obama and the new Latin America
Delegates to this week's groundbreaking, wide-ranging, 33-country Latin
American and Caribbean summit in Brazil understandably devoted much time to
Cuba, and its testy relations with the United States. This is just one of the
challenges facing US president-elect Barack Obama in a fast-integrating Latin
America in which China, Russia and Iran are increasingly active.
(Dec 18,'08)
The emperor gets the boot
Call it poetic justice, but in the end President George W Bush found his
weapons of mass destruction - in the form of two size 10 shoes hurled at his
head. Bush may have dodged them with his "cat-like" reflexes, but
metaphorically they managed to strike the huge army of assorted profiteers that
made the Iraqi tragedy possible, while putting US public opinion to shame. The
thrower, meanwhile, is being hailed across the Arab world.
(Dec 17,'08)
Bush comfortable on the SOFA
When Iraqi parliamentarians vote on Wednesday on whether or not to endorse a
security pact with the United States, many of them will not have had the
opportunity to study the finer points. Perhaps all they need to know is that
the Pentagon and President George W Bush are very comfortable with it.
(Nov 25,'08)
A pact with the devil
Influential Shi'ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr is already threatening fire and
brimstone over the Iraqi cabinet's approval of a draft security agreement with
the United States. But Muqtada, currently studying in Iran, is in a difficult
position: he has to confront the problem that in strategic terms, Tehran
subscribes to not attacking US troops as the best way for the Americans to
eventually leave. (Nov 17,'08)
The keys to the country
Politically, the long George W Bush night of the soul ends in some 70 days.
Historically, led by a cool black man with a weapon of mass seduction, this
passage of time could be the prelude to a new day. It's up to an engaged,
tirelessly mobilized American society - and the whole planet - to turn hope
into reality, and help this man "change America, and change the world".
(Nov 7,'08)
The $55 trillion question
With a third presidential debate victory and a tottering American economy,
conditions are in place for a Barack Obama landslide. But what will he win,
exactly? Answer: A country $55 trillion in the hole (that's $480,000 per
household), embroiled in unpopular wars and set to endure unemployment not seen
since the 1930s. Perhaps conditions are also in place for Obama to ditch the
"war on terror" - and launch a war on poverty. (Oct
16, '08)
A bailout and a new world
While the US is trying to implement its US$700 billion financial bail-out plan,
French President Nicolas Sarkozy talks of "rebuilding" capitalism. In the
corridors of the United Nations, there is talk of another kind of rebuilding,
of a new multipolar world that would get rid of imperialism and colonialism.
Call it the revenge of the developing world. (Sep 25,
'08)
Iran-bashing from al-Qaeda's corner
Al-Qaeda's leadership, in a battle to seduce Muslim hearts and minds, says its
top strategic enemy is Shi'ites - be it Tehran or Hezbollah - and not the
United States. Winning over Shi'ites will fuel al-Qaeda's objective of a "long
war" in which the only winner will be the US military-industrial complex.
That's the sorry legacy of 9/11, seven years on. (Sep
11,'08)
All square
It's more than possible that within the next few months a pro-gun, pro-Big Oil,
mooseburger-eating PR stunt named Sarah Palin, whose foreign policy credentials
are burnished by a visit to Canada, will have her finger on America's nuclear
button if anything untoward should happen to a septuagenarian president. But
fear not: Palin will have a plan, just as she has/will have (it's not at all
clear) a plan for Iraq: "[T]hat is what we have to make sure, [that] there is a
plan and that plan is God's plan." (Sep 5, '08)
Paris Obama for president
American voters can abandon any hope for serious political debate in the race
for the White House. The "swift-boating" campaign of Republican Senator John
McCain paints Democratic rival Senator Barack Obama as too young, too arrogant
and just too rock star to be president. The race is now all about Obama, and
his campaign will have to change the rules, and do it quick.
(Aug 7, '08)
Al-Qaeda's got a brand new bag
United States Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama has got it
right - Afghanistan, and not Iraq, is "the central front in the war on terror".
Al-Qaeda couldn't agree more. That is exactly where they want the war to be
fought, and then extended into Pakistan. (Jul 23,
'08)
Obama's brave (new?) world
At first glance, Democratic Senator Barack Obama's "new overarching strategy"
for Iraq and Afghanistan is streets ahead of the approach proposed by his US
presidential rival, Republican Senator John McCain. But from the planned
withdrawal of troops from Iraq to dealing with the Taliban, Obama's vision,
when it comes to implementation, will likely founder on the harsh realities
that have so frustrated the George W Bush administration.
(Jul 16, '08)
Iran's missiles are just for
show
As a political statement to world leaders gathered in Japan, Iran's test-firing
on Wednesday of nine long-and-medium range missiles was impeccable. But even if
Iran had the physical means to deliver the nuclear warheads it does not
possess, these tests do not mean it has mastered the capability to do so.
Iran's real deterrence against an attack comes from the reorganization of its
military, giving it effectively 30 armies spread across the country.
(Jul 10, '08)
Big Oil's 'secret' out of
Iraq's closet
The Iraqi war's worst-kept secret saw daylight this week with a report on the
role US government-led advisers played in drawing up contracts for Western oil
companies to develop Iraqi oil fields. The big prize is still being pursued, as
is the White House's other dream - a US$7.6 billion, 1,600-kilometer pipeline
through Afghanistan. (Jul 3, '08)
Why Iraq won't be South Korea
President George W Bush's last call in Iraq is an agreement that would create a
US-style consumer society in the Mesopotamian sands, a demilitarized client
state under benign US protection. Better yet, it could be like a 21st century
version of the South Korean "tiger" miracle. The problem is, Iraqis aren't
buying into it. And without an agreement, and a new US-friendly Iraqi oil law,
Bush's US$3 trillion Iraq adventure will have been for nothing.
(Jun 19, '08)
Gaza: Mogadishu or Dubai?
Battered Gaza, a new line of thinking goes, could be turned from a war-ravaged
"Mogadishu" into a prosperous hub such as Dubai. First, though, the
"terrorists" Hamas have to be smashed into oblivion. Anyway, that's not the
real issue: Gaza goes way beyond Hamas: it is directly connected to the larger
Israel and United States-Iran confrontation. (Jun 13,
'08)
And the winner is ... the Israel
lobby
For many decades, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee has helped shape
the United States' ties with Israel, to the extent it maintains a virtual
stranglehold over the US Congress and powerful think-tanks. This week,
Washington's political elite, including all three presidential hopefuls, will
address the committee's annual meeting. Beyond the US-Israel relationship,
expect sharp pointers to "the Iran problem". (Jun 2,
'08)
The Mosul riddle
While most attention in Iraq is focused on Baghdad and the troubles in Sadr
City, under the global radar an invisible war in Mosul drags on, officially
against al-Qaeda in Iraq jihadis but in fact a barely disguised anti-Sunni
mini-pogrom conducted by government-embedded militias.
(May 23, '08)
The US-Iran sound bite showdown
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's latest comments on Israel have been
variously translated in the Western media, the most ominous saying Israel will
not save itself from "death and destruction". This will inevitably be seized on
by the George W Bush administration as more evidence that Tehran wants to
"destroy" Israel, muscling up the case for a preemptive US attack. Maybe that
is what Ahmadinejad intends. (May 15, '08)
How under-the-gun Iran
plays it cool
What Iranian leaders dream of is an Iran respected as a major power.
To this end, they have little choice, faced with the enmity of the globe's
"sole superpower" - its sanctions and its ring of military bases - but to
employ a sophisticated counter-encirclement foreign policy. And given President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad's place in the country's politico-religious politics, he
might be betting on the usefulness of an American air assault.
(May 2, '08)
Hillary,
the war chick
It was a silly question to begin with, but Democratic hopeful
Hillary Clinton jumped in boots and all, saying if she were US president and
Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, she would "obliterate" Iran.
Clinton's positioning spells Imperial Washington in all its glory - and hubris.
(Apr 25, '08)
My militia is more
untouchable than yours
Iraq, transfixed by no less than 28 militias, is burning - again.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has made a lot of noise about an ongoing
government crackdown on these groups. But some militias are more untouchable
than others: the Kurdish Peshmergas fall under the radar, while Muqtada
al-Sadr's are bang in the line of fire.
(Apr 17, '08)
Evil
Iran, the new al-Qaeda
The recent opinion piece by senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsey
Graham was soothing for George W Bush administration supporters in its
assurances that the "surge" in Iraq is successful as well as noble. It also
served as a convenient demonizing of Iran. As for the majority of the American
public, which has had enough of an endless war, it's nothing but an insult to
their collective intelligence.
(Apr 9, '08)
The other Iraqi civil war
Even under George W Bush logic, "the terrorists" won and Iran won,
this time in the battle of Basra. In the north of Iraq, though, the pieces are
falling into place for an alliance between the United States, Israel and a
"greater Kurdistan". If only the pesky Iraqi nationalist Sunnis and Shi'ites
don't get in the way. (Apr 2, '08)
Shocked,
awed and left to rot
US Vice President Dick Cheney is spot on when he talks of "phenomenal changes"
in Iraq. Millions of Iraqis have lost their homes, their jobs, their families,
their dreams and in countless cases their own lives because of a pre-emptive
war. And all the while, anti-American Muqtada al-Sadr will ultimately be the
lord of what remains of Iraq. (Mar 19, '08)
Relax
and float south stream
The decision by three Central Asian energy exporters to charge
Gazprom a higher rate for gas it then channels to Europe looks like a severe
blow to the Russian company. But US and European hopes that they might secure
some independence from Russia at the other end of the supply chain increasingly
look like wishful thinking. (Mar 13, '08)
As alliances
shift, Iran wins. Again
The George W Bush administration promoted a Turkey-Israel axis, a
Sunni Arab "axis of fear" and then a Saudi-Israeli nexus, always trying to
isolate Iran. None of these concoctions has worked, and there are even hints
that Washington and Tehran have concluded a secret deal brokered by Saudi
Arabia to hammer out contentious issues. This might be fanciful, but the bottom
line is that Iran sees itself as the ultimate victor of the US war on
Iraq. (Mar 6, '08)
A long road from
Kosovo to Kurdistan
The embrace by Washington of Kosovo's declaration of independence has less to
do with democracy than with hard-nosed pragmatism. The US's biggest foreign
military base - Camp Bondsteel - since the Vietnam War lies in Kosovo, and the
region will be home to a US$1.1 billion pipeline that will get oil from the
Caspian Sea ultimately to refineries in the US. Kurds in Iraq, believing Kosovo
to be a precedent for an independent Kurdistan, will be disappointed: the
US-sanctioned Turkish invasion of northern Iraq has seen to that. -
(Feb 28, '08)
Iran-Russia: Strategically on
message
A deal that will expand Gazprom's interest in Iran's South
Pars gas field and involve daughter company Gazpromneft in an oil project in
the country underlines Tehran's expanding role in the region's energy sector
and the immunity of Russian gas companies from sanctions emanating from the
United States. -(Feb 26, '08)
Slouching towards
Petroeurostan
The Iranian International Petroleum Exchange started business this week. It was
a low-key affair, yet it could mark a key point in the decline of the US dollar
as a world currency while offering oil producers a vital option to using
existing middlemen and exchanges that at present control the global oil market.
- (Feb
20, '08)
The state of the (Iraqi) union
It's more a state of disunion in Iraq, where George W Bush's invasion has left
a divided nation in anger, sorrow and shambles. Whether his successor is Barack
Obama or Hillary Clinton - or anyone else - they are not willing to defend
progressive ideas and detail how they realistically plan to confront the
quagmire. - (Jan 29, '08)
'Our' dictator gets away
with it
The embrace of President George W Bush and President General Pervez Musharraf
endures. Pakistan and its people caught in the middle are left to watch their
country burn, and contemplate the worst-case scenario of partition.
(Nov 27, '07)
Iraq: Call an air strike
There might be less violence in Baghdad, but that's because sectarian clashes
have died down as there are virtually no more neighborhoods to be ethnically
cleansed. And US engagements are declining, but only because troops are
spending more time in the bases. Now, whenever there is a mission in Baghdad,
it inevitably means an air strike. (Nov 9, '07)
Bush's Turkey shoot
The astute Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, knew before he set
foot in Washington that a sound bite would be about all President George W Bush
would have to offer on the explosive Turkey vs Kurdistan Workers' Party crisis.
Now Erdogan will wait - for just a little while - and if nothing moves, Turkey
will strike northern Iraq, hard, without consulting Washington.
(Nov 6, '07)
Double-crossing in
Kurdistan
The United States plan for Iraq all along has been no less than a "soft"
partition, including an autonomous Kurdish mini-state and Shi'ite and Sunni
regions. Even Turkey had signed on to this, provided the Iraqi Kurds cracked
down on Kurdish militants striking into Turkey. With the militants running
wild, though, Ankara has to take care of matters itself - and risk throwing the
whole grand scheme into jeopardy, including the US's designs on Iran.
(Nov 1, '07)
The Turks are coming
The United States military commander in northern Iraq has made
it clear that he will do "absolutely nothing" about reining in Kurdish rebels
in the area. This leaves Turkey with no option but to take matters into its own
hands. The major plot, though, is the future of Iraq, or more precisely, the
partition of Iraq. (Oct 29, '07)
'War on terror' is now war
on Iran
In the face of new United States sanctions, the Iranian companies and
individuals affiliated with the now "terrorist" Revolutionary Guards Corps will
have plenty of opportunities for doing business with Russia, China or Arab
monarchies, or they may resort to the black market. But given the pervasive
business and national security influence of the Guards, by branding them as
terrorists Washington has declared war on the Iranian power elite.
(Oct 26, '07)
Attack Iran
and you attack Russia
On the international front, Iran and Russia appear to have agreed on a plan to
nullify the George W Bush administration's relentless drive towards launching a
preemptive strike against Iran. On the home front, though, differences between
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei widen.
There can only be one winner.
(Oct 25, '07)
Iran jails its conscience
Iran's leading human rights activist is in solitary confinement in Tehran's
sinister Evin prison. Tehran is in need of a new public relations strategy.
Just when it most needs friends, it sends Emadeddin Baghi to jail - not exactly
a brilliant move. (Oct 17, '07)
It's the resistance,
stupid
Coalitions Washington didn't count on are growing in Iraq with
formerly unlikely alliances between Sunnis and Shi'ites being made, with all
opposed to US super-bases, a federalized Iraq and oil thirsty occupiers in
general. (Oct 16, '07)
General Petraeus in his
labyrinth
The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, continues to build an ever
growing heart of darkness in Baghdad and, eventually he hopes, in Tehran. The
latest addition to his arsenal in the plan to attack the "terrorist" Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps inside Iran is a former small terrorist group once
sheltered by Saddam Hussein and now by the US, and the Kurdish PKK and PJAK
groups now stirring trouble in Iran, as well as Turkey, from Iraqi Kurdistan.
(Oct 12, '07)
Che lives
Forty years after he was executed at the behest of the CIA after failing
miserably to incite revolution in Bolivia, Ernesto "Che" Guevera's image and
inspiration both eclipse anything he accomplished in life. From Bengal to
Brazil and all points in between the myth has overtaken the man.
(Oct 9, '07)
A divided Iraq just
doesn't add up
Although the United States Senate's vote to split Iraq into a
loose, three-region sectarian federation is non-binding, it reflects sentiment
both in the US and in sections of Iraq about what might be in store. Yet it
would be an unmitigated disaster, at best leading to partition, at worst to
ethnic cleansing. (Oct 3, '07)
The southern axis of evil
After Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's frosty reception in New York, the
red carpets were rolled out for him in Bolivia and Venezuela, Iran's key
strategic allies in South America. The trade deals Ahmadinejad signed are
significant, as is his realization of which way the winds are blowing in a new
world order. (Oct 2, '07)
Buddha vs the barrel of
a gun
With the United Nations as his stage, US President George W Bush announced to
the world his decision to slap new economic sanctions on Myanmar. This is just
for internal American consumption. The outcome of the showdown between
thousands of Buddhist monks and the military rulers in Myanmar will in all
likelihood be decided in China. (Sep 26, '07)
'Hitler' does New York
Despite his demonization by the White House, US media and his Columbia
University host, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's skillful and
manipulative Big Apple blitz has wowed the audience that really matters:
worldwide Muslim public opinion. For those who listened, unlike the many who
simply brand the man as too evil to speak, Ahmadinejad coolly turned American
disinformation on its head to his own advantage. (Sep
25, '07)
Welcome to Planet Gaza
The Israeli cabinet's edict to declare the Gaza Strip a
"hostile territory" and slowly grind its population even further down is only
the latest strategy to sabotage any attempt by Hamas to govern the Strip
properly. It's also a template for US logic in Iraq.
(Sep 21, '07)
French-kissing the war on
Iran
Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of the United Nations' nuclear
watchdog, has dropped his diplomatic demeanor in an attempt to defuse French
comments over "preparing for the worst" - war on Iran. ElBaradei has already
upset Western powers led by the United States by brokering an agreement with
Iran over its nuclear program. Now he is up against a France playing messenger
to big (energy) business. (Sep 18, '07)
Mr Bush, your sheikh is
dead
Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq on Thursday,
was the congenial face of the United States' efforts to engage Sunnis in the
reconciliation process with the Shi'ite-led government. The prime suspect is
al-Qaeda, which the sheikh's alliance was fighting with weapons and money
supplied by the US. But Abu Risha had other enemies, especially among Sunnis
whose main goal remains ending the occupation, not befriending it.
(Sep 14, '07)
Behind the Anbar myth
One of the key arguments in General David Petraeus' presentation to the US
Congress this week was the close collaboration between the occupation and Sunni
tribal leaders in al-Anbar province. Nothing could be further from the truth:
what success there is in Anbar is not due to the general's wily ways, but to an
Iraqi sheikh. And even then, US occupation forces remain the main enemy.
(Sep 13, '07)
Sheikh Osama and the iPod
general
Both Osama bin Laden and General David Petraeus aim to seduce multiple layers
of constituencies, but above all US public opinion. The al-Qaeda leader revels
in what he views as the United States' failed imperial project and promotes a
global "protest movement". Washington's top man in Iraq still sees success in
the "surge". How different things might have been had Petraeus been set loose
on bin Laden's trail six years ago. (Sep 11, '07)
From al-Qaeda to al-Quds
The only guiding logic of the US far right in power is permanent war and any
excuse will do for President George W Bush to attack Iran. The Iranian
Revolutionary Guards Corps will retaliate and all of Iran, out of Persian
national pride, will rally behind the supreme leader, President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad and the theocratic police state. So much for regime change.
(Sep 6, '07)
Bush's brand-new poodle
With former British prime minister Tony Blair put out to new pastures, US
President George W Bush has a newer, leaner, meaner, adrenaline-packed "Made in
France" version of his favorite ally in all things "war on terror". President
Nicolas Sarkozy has wasted no time in joining the demonize-Iran campaign, and
is taking trans-Atlantic entente to new levels. (Aug
29, '07)
Welcome to Hillary's wars
With her eye on the US presidency, Hillary Clinton is jockeying for a macho
political position. Whether she means it or not, the reality if she becomes
president is that she knows the US powers-that-be, even if they are in decline,
will never accept a majority-Shi'ite Iraqi government aligned with an Islamic
Republic of Iran. (Aug 23, '07)
Highlights of the (not so) silly
season
All is not well in France, even though its new president is the best-loved
Frenchman in the US since Lafayette, its newspapers have simply erased the Iraq
war from their pages, and mini-Eiffel Towers made in China for 10 cents each
and sold by immigrant Africans in front of the real thing (which itself is
surrounded by Chinese-owned real estate) can be had for a mere US$5. Meanwhile
in Iran, things are even sillier - and nastier. (Aug
15, '07)
We all live in an Antonioni
world
Decades before mobile phones connected us with everything except the dry
cleaners, Michelangelo Antonioni, the great Italian film director who died this
week at 94, was focused on what is worth being communicated. He was not only
the great painter of the cataclysmic 1960s, he was the painter of the world we
now live in. Pepe Escobar bids him buona notte.
(Aug 2, '07)
Fun and games on the Arab
Riviera
What better place than the French Riviera for President George W Bush to hold
his proposed Middle East peace summit? The region's movers and shakers own
villas in the quaintly named "California" estate, where they escape the
scorching summers of the Middle Eastern desert. Pepe Escobar explores a
corner of Europe divided not by Christian vs Muslim, but by ultra-haves and
aspiring have-somethings. (Jul 20, '07)
COMMENT
Iraq, the
new Israel
While US President George W Bush fiddles, Baghdad continues to burn, fueled by
divide-and-conquer tactics inspired by Israel's occupation of Palestine.
(Jul 5, '07)
COMMENT
Hamastan and Red Zoneistan
Gaza is a gulag. The West Bank is a series of unconnected ghettoes. Baghdad is
now a gulag. Iraq has been reduced to a series of unconnectable ghettoes.
"Terrorist" Gaza has been already downgraded to Hamastan. The Red Zone - that
is, real Baghdad - is actually Red Zoneistan. (Jun
28, '07)
Levitate the
Pentagon
 The
year was 1967, and Americans were advised to turn on, tune in and drop out.
Forty years later, the slogan might as well be turn off, tune out and drop
dead. They missed an opportunity then to levitate the Pentagon, and so the only
way to stop the insanity of Iraq, and probably soon Iran, is a thorough
mobilization of public opinion, as in Vietnam. Alas, there are no second acts
in this drama. (Jun 18, '07)
Welcome
to the summer of hate
Forty years ago, when The Beatles released their Sgt Pepper's album, the
world seemed to be singing in tune. It marked the beginning of the Summer of
Love, even if it included Vietnam War escalation. Today, we have Patti Smith
singing covers of The Beatles, Iraq instead of Vietnam, and a possible attack
on Iran. Call it the summer of hate. (Jun 1, '07)
The
second coming of Saladin
Political repression, social inequality and economic disaster across the
Middle East are the consequences of decades of "divide and
rule" imperialist meddling followed by rapacious rule by
local elites. Yet the potential for unity in the Muslim world is not a chimera.
Who will be the 21st century equivalent of Saladin, the
greatest warrior of Islam? Such a one is needed to reunite the ummah.
(May 17, '07)
ROVING IN THE RED ZONE
The
true heart of darkness
Iraq is and will remain for years to come the real heart of darkness of the
early 21st century. Forget about Russia or China; now, finally, the Bush
administration, the military-industrial complex and assorted armchair warriors
can finally be assured that the US has found an enemy for life.
(May 16, '07)
The
'dirty thieves' of Sadr City
Once the jewel of the Middle East, al-Mustansariya University struggles on amid
the chaos of Baghdad. Students hold out for a mostly worthless degree in hopes
it will help them find jobs outside of Iraq. Once the meeting place of wealthy
Arabs, it is now mostly made up of lower-class Shi'ites, which the former elite
looked down on as "dirty thieves" of Sadr City. (May
15, '07)
ROVING IN THE RED ZONE
'The
cultivation of life'
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, despite what many believe, does not have the
"privilege" to issue a religious decree that could bring the US occupation in
Iraq to an abrupt end. Rather, leading Shi'ite cleric Sheikh Mohammed
al-Roubaie tells Pepe Escobar, people should be more spiritual. It's as
simple as that. (May 11, '07)
ROVING IN THE RED ZONE
Leave, or we
will behead you
Dora was a prosperous middle-class neighborhood of Baghdad by the Tigris, rich
in fruit and with a large Christian population. Now it's a favorite stomping
ground of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and a vortex of ethnic and confessional cleansing.
The few remaining Christians have a simple choice: either convert to Islam or
pay a US$1,600 fee. Even then, the chances of being killed are high.
(May 10, '07)
ROVING IN THE RED ZONE
Inside Sadr City
The almost 3 million people in Sadr City, an immense Shi'ite slum in eastern
Baghdad of ramshackle one-story buildings covered with dust, exude a
resignation born of sadness. But at least they feel safe, Hussein al-Motery of
the municipality tells Pepe Escobar. Unless, of course, Amrika attempts
the Pentagon dream of smashing the place into submission.
(May 9, '07)
ROVING IN THE RED ZONE
Back to 'Saddam
without a mustache'
 The
true measure of the overwhelming Iraqi tragedy is that people in Baghdad are
now yearning for an ersatz Saddam Hussein. For many, former premier Iyad Allawi
is just such a man. "We have cooperation with all national groups," Allawi's
spokesman tells Pepe Escobar. What he does not say is that he
also has the support of the US. (May 8, '07)
ROVING IN THE RED ZONE
The
man who might save Iraq
Sheikh Abdul Satter Abu Risha doesn't mince his words. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, now
his bitter enemy, "has abused our traditions and generosity" and, he alleges,
they even "take drugs". The Sunni leader tells Pepe Escobar about the
powerful coalition of tribes in al-Anbar province he heads, with visions even
of a Sunni coalition fighting alongside a predominantly Shi'ite Iraqi
government against Salafi jihadi terror. (May 4,
'07)
ROVING IN THE RED ZONE
What Muqtada
wants
All that the Sadrists want is a timetable for the US withdrawal from
Iraq, Nasr al-Roubaie, Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's top man in government,
tells Pepe Escobar. This struggle is both "peaceful and armed", he
admits, and there is a possibility of an Iraqi shadow cabinet being formed
uniting Sadrists and Sunni nationalists. But whatever happens, Muqtada remains
the kingmaker. (May 3, '07)
ROVING IN THE RED ZONE
Masri: Dead or
alive, the terror continues
News that Abu al-Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, had been
killed was ecstatically greeted in the 3-million-strong Shi'ite slum of Sadr
City in Baghdad. The joy might be premature, as the death has not been
confirmed. But true or not, the killing of Masri will make no difference. One,
two, a thousand Masris are waiting in the wings, and al-Qaeda's strategy of
non-stop bloody bombings to keep inciting Sunnis to attack Shi'ites won't
change. (May 2, '07)
ROVING IN THE RED ZONE
ATol's "Roving Eye", Pepe Escobar, is back in Iraq and in the
Red Zone - that is, everything outside "Fortress USA", the Green Zone. This is
the first of his unembedded, non-Kevlar-protected, bodyguardless reports.
Baghdad up close and personal
Having dodged a bullet but not arrest by the Mehdi
Army militia, Escobar witnesses the grand-scale mayhem and the minutiae of
misery of Baghdad. In the deadly daily embrace of the Red Zone, the surreal
overlaps Hollywood-style special effects while ethnic cleansing proceeds
neighborhood by neighborhood and the bereaved are told to visit the market
to find the missing limbs of their dead. (May
1, '07)
'All life is waiting'
For one attractive young Iraqi war widow, life these days is waiting, waiting,
waiting in the consular section of the Iraqi Embassy in Damascus, where she and
other desperate people seek that lucky piece of paper that might allow them to
go to Portugal, or Spain, or anywhere. Anywhere except the living hell of
Baghdad. "They destroyed our country. Why, why?" asks another.
(Apr 26, '07)
We build walls, not
nations
The 5-kilometer-long, 3.7-meter-high concrete wall being built to contain the
Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiyah in Baghdad will fail, even if Prime Minister
Nuri al-Maliki doesn't manage to get it stopped. The US cannot cut off the head
of the resistance in Iraq - simply because there is no head. Although talking
to the nine recently united leading Sunni Arab resistance groups would be a
start. (Apr 23, '07)
Hezbollah's big challenge
In Iraq, the US pits its own Shi'ite collaborators against "other" Shi'ites and
assorted Sunnis in Iraq. In Lebanon, meanwhile, the US places its Sunni clients
against Shi'ites, with help from jihadis linked to al-Qaeda. Hezbollah's
challenge is to prevent this from developing into a regional Sunni-Shi'ite war.
(Apr 18, '07)
The Baghdad gulag
The million-man Shi'ite march in Najaf coupled with the
spectacular bombing of the Iraqi Parliament in the Green Zone truly spells the
end of the US in Iraq. The only thing left is to turn Baghdad into a cluster of
self-contained gated communities - a gulag - where the few can feel safe from
the chaos around them. But isn't the Green Zone a gated community? (Apr
13, '07)
Night bus from Baghdad
In the mythology of US neo-cons, Syria is a sanctuary where jihadis rest and
regroup before heading into Iraq on another bombing run. The reality is quite
the opposite, as one can see at the Syria-Iraq border. The traffic is all
one-way - in the direction of Syria, where tens of thousands of ordinary Iraqis
now live a precarious, but safe, life far from the hell of Baghdad.
(Apr 12, '07)
Who
profits from a 'gas OPEC'?
A meeting in the tiny Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar may be signaling
the birth of a new cartel grouping countries controlling 73% of the world's gas
and 42% of production. The prospect is shaking the wealthy, gas-dependent
countries of the West to the core. (Apr
10, '07)
In the heart of Little
Fallujah
The hundreds of thousands of Iraqi
refugees in Syria have created their own enclaves, from Little Fallujah to
Little Mosul, where many have set up businesses. They pay in US dollars, dance
to the tune of their own music and share one desire: to return to an Iraq free
of occupying forces. Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have learned a lot if she
had taken a stroll in Little Fallujah. (Apr
5, '07)
British pawns in an Iranian game
The Iranian seizure of 15 British sailors may be much cleverer
than it appears. Oil has moved above US$60 a barrel as a result of the
incident. And if Tehran drags out proceedings, the Shi'ites in southern Iraq
may take the hint and accelerate a confrontation, and even start merging with
strands of the Sunni resistance.
(Mar 28, '07)
BOOK REVIEW
The man who would be king
Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy by Andrew
Cockburn
A fitting way to "celebrate" shock and awe, the bombastic opening of the most
astonishing blunder in recent military/geopolitical history, would be to read
this book about the life of Donald Rumsfeld, a life spent pursuing personal
grandeur at enormous cost to entire nations, including his own.
(Mar 20, '07)
The waterboarded
evildoer
Just how much of Khalid
Shaikh Mohammad's confession of terror attacks is true is a moot point. What
does matter is the number of jihadis al-Qaeda's former operations chief taught.
Probably dozens, and they are lurking in the shadows, ready to inflict blowback
to kingdom come. (Mar 16, '07)
What drives biofuel
Bush?
The prospect of a Green Saudi Arabia in America's "back yard" has US President
George W Bush and Brazilian President Lula da Silva rubbing their hands
together with glee after the signing of a potentially very lucrative biofuels
agreement that could lead to a new form of colonialism in Latin America and the
Caribbean.(Mar 13, '07)
The fall guy in Iraq
Even as the "surge" proceeds in Baghdad, the US is quietly moving to implement
"Plan B", which would be nothing less than a coup d'etat pushing the hapless
Nuri al-Maliki aside and installing former CIA asset and neo-con favorite Iyad
Allawi back in as a dictator. Nothing less than a return to strongman rule will
restore order, Washington believes. (Mar 12, '07)
Bush down south
US President George W Bush is headed Brasilia way to try to
counter the growing influence of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. He might as
well stay home. Chavez is the king of Latin America, and the number of
potential US allies among the pseudo-populist regimes, such as in Brazil, is
diminishing by the day. (Mar 7, '07)
An ill wind in Iran
All is not well in Iran, specifically the health of Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei. One proposed succession plan involves the appointment of a
triumvirate, rather than turn to the next in line, former president Hashemi
Rafsanjani. Such a move, though, would lead to the isolation of President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad.(Mar 1, '07)
US's Iraq oil grab is a
done deal
Under draft oil legislation approved by the Iraqi cabinet, the country's oil
wealth will, in theory, be distributed directly to Kurds in the north, Shi'ites
in the south and Sunnis in the center. In effect, the massive reserves will be
under the iron rule of a fuzzy council boasting "a panel of oil experts from
inside and outside Iraq". That is, nothing less than predominantly US Big Oil
executives. - (Feb 27, '07)
The hottest party in the galaxy
They're on patrol on the hot streets of Rio, where the only heat-seeking
missiles around are the curvaceous Brazilian bombshells, and they are not to be
dodged. Forget the Sambadrome and head for the supercharged blocos, full
of pickpockets and chambermaids dressed up as Nordic goddesses. The Green Zone
was never like this. (Feb 21, '07)
Iran, the EU and the Swiss
way out
The Swiss propose that Iran stops feeding its centrifuges with processed
uranium hexafluoride gas so that negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program can
resume. Iran has indicated a willingness to talk, yet all the heavily disunited
European Union appears capable of doing is shooting itself in the foot.
(Feb 14, '07)
Slouching toward D-day
The battle for Baghdad has officially begun. It's a double bill involving
suppression of Sunni militants and defanging Sadr City, the vast Shi'ite
enclave that staunchly backs cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army. This
counterinsurgency against classic guerrilla tactics with popular support is
doomed. Inevitably, Iran will be blamed. (Feb 8,
'07)
A massacre and a new civil
war
The massacre at Najaf points to a Baghdad-concocted operation designed to
torpedo an increasingly popular, non-sectarian Sunni and Shi'ite Iraqi
nationalist alliance that is anti-US and anti-Iran. In the process, yet another
civil war could emerge - "Arab" Shi'ites against "Persian" Shi'ites.
(Feb 2, '07)
The 'axis of fear' is born
Given the disaster of occupied Iraq, the Bush administration has a new
scapegoat: exit al-Qaeda, enter Iran. The Sunni Arab "axis of fear" is merrily
playing along, stoking the chaos on which the US underpins its plans for a "new
Middle East" - internal sectarianism and state-to-state sectarianism.
(Feb 1, '07)
The state of
the (dis)union
While US President George W Bush's State of the Union address was a non-event
in terms of a new strategy for the Middle East, what the "enemy" is thinking
has been personified by al-Qaeda's No 2, Sunni Arab Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, and
Iraqi Shi'ite nationalist leader Muqtada al-Sadr. But it is unclear who will be
the ultimate winner of the escalated conflict in Iraq, only that the losers
will be the Iraqi poor - especially as the Pentagon is on course to launch an
air war over Baghdad. (Jan 24, '07)
Ahmadinejad be damned
While Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has been traipsing around South
America hatching energy plots, all is not well on the home front. Ahmadinejad
is subject to crossfire from conservatives and reformers alike, with the former
particularly upset over his handling of the nuclear dossier and wanting to rein
him in. Washington might need to start manufacturing another "new Hitler".
(Jan 18, '07)
Somalia: Afghanistan remixed
Ethiopia's US-backed invasion of Somalia gives the US a client regime in the
highly strategic Horn of Africa. But it will also generate a whirlwind of
blowback, making Somalia the new Afghanistan and also the new Iraq - just one
more battlefront in the lands of Islam. (Jan 12,
'07)
Surging toward the holy oil grail
If a new oil law friendly to Western business is passed in
Iraq, the chances of Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army joining the
Sunni resistance will increase dramatically. Thus the preemptive, two-pronged
escalation by President George W Bush on the war front - against both Muqtada
and nationalist Sunnis. (Jan 11, '07)
Iran's crocodile rocked
Moderates, with unexpected gains in the weekend's elections for the influential
Council of Experts, have dealt Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and his
extreme-right mentor, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi (also known as "the crocodile"), a
hard blow. But the real winner is Supreme Leader Ali al-Khamenei, whose vast
powers remain undiluted. (Dec 18, '06)
US staying the course for Big Oil
in Iraq
One solution to the Iraqi tragedy would be for the Bush administration to give
up its quest for the country's oil, with no preconditions. This is not going to
happen, which is why there can be no firm timeline for a complete US
withdrawal. A new Iraqi oil law being drafted will open the industry to
foreigners, and US troops will be needed to defend Big Oil's investment.
(Dec 13, '06)
Bush, OPEC and Chavez of
Arabia
The Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, recently
re-elected in a landslide, is all about building an egalitarian society - and
snubbing a nose at the US. No wonder Washington is apprehensive. South America
is the only region in the world where progressive ideas are flourishing. (Dec
6, '06)
Looking beyond the 'axis of evil'
With President Mahmud Ahmadinejad hosting his Iraqi
counterpart in Iran (minus Syria) and President George W Bush due to meet Iraqi
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the scramble for solutions to the Iraqi debacle
continues. In the meantime, all options remain open - from a return of the
Ba'athists to an attack on the US heart in Iraq, the Green Zone.
(Nov 28, '06)
Following the yellow BRIC road
After his re-election on Sunday, Brazilian President Lula da Silva has some
tough choices to make. His country has been identified along with Russia, India
and China as one of the great emerging economic powers of the 21st century. But
the path to prosperity has many forks in the road. (Oct
31, '06)
'Stability
first': Newspeak for rape of Iraq
It's not the first time Baghdad has been sacked. Genghis Khan's grandson did
it, and so did Tamerlan. In the good old days, they built pyramids of skulls.
This time around, they coin nice names, like "Stability First" and "Redeploy
and Contain". "Staying the Course" is out of favor, but no matter, they all
amount to the same thing: rape. (Oct 26, '06)
The
other September 11
In 1973, South America had its own September 11 when Salvador Allende was
overthrown in a US-inspired coup by Augusto Pinochet. This set the stage for
the transcontinental Operation Condor, a Latino war "of" terror that eliminated
thousands of people who were or might have become political adversaries.
(Sep 11, '06)
Part 2: Lost paraguayos: Yankees are coming
In fact, they're already there - in the
heart of the Amazon, US Special Forces welcomed last year by Paraguay's
Bush-friendly president, and eyed with suspicion by the region's populist
governments. It all comes back once again to the 21st-century energy wars. This
is the concluding article in a two-part report.
(Aug 3, '06)
Part
1: Hezbollah south of the border
The
Pentagon insists that South America's Triple Border region, where Brazil,
Argentina and Paraguay meet near the spectacular Iguacu Falls, is crammed with
terrorists funneling cash to the likes of Hezbollah and al-Qaeda. The place is
a dizzying black void of contraband, narco-trafficking, weapons smuggling,
money laundering, car theft, piracy and corruption - but where, oh where, are
the terrorists? (Aug 2, '06)
The
spirit of resistance
Hezbollah's asymmetrical war effort is absorbing everything thrown at it.
Resistance is fueled by a mix of beggar's banquet anger, creative military
solutions and Shi'ite martyr spirit. The practical result is that Hezbollah is
even more popular all over the Arab street. (Jul 25,
'06)
Lebanon left for dead
Events in Lebanon fall into the pattern of a master plan drawn up by US
neo-conservatives for Israel 10 years ago. The "getting rid of Saddam Hussein"
part has already been accomplished. The degradation of the Palestinians is
ongoing. The "destabilizing of Syria in Lebanon" took place last year. The next
step would be hitting at both Syria and Iran via Lebanon.
(Jul 20, '06)
Leviathan
run amok
Israel's tactic of trying to turn the Lebanese as a whole against Hezbollah
seems to be doomed. Hezbollah is betting that Lebanon will be able to absorb
the extreme limits of collective punishment it is receiving - and the
resistance movement will come out stronger than ever.
(Jul 18, '06)
Russia
and Iran lead the new energy game
This weekend's G8 summit in Russia is ostensibly about energy security. But
Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement a month ago of support for a
pipeline from Iran to Pakistan and India means that Moscow and Tehran have
already positioned themselves as the key geopolitical players in the
Pipelineistan game, and thus the guarantors of energy security to Asia.
(Jul 13, '06)
And all
for a little round ball ...
For a month, billions of people, regardless
of the color of their skin, where they come from, their political ideology or
religion, can forget about the "war on terror", Iran's nuclear threat, or
anything else that bothers them. It's time for the football World Cup, a
celebration of the biggest and most profitable show on Earth.
(Jun 8, '06)
Dubai lives the post-oil
Arab dream
Dubai will soon boast the world's tallest building, the
largest hotel, the largest this and the largest that. It's well on its way
to becoming the first modern Arab metropolis,
but in this triumph for globalization, the whole glittering
facade is supported by an underclass of "invisible" foreign workers with no
rights.(Jun 6, '06)
The Gazprom
nation
Russia has an auspicious confluence of factors: its fabulous energy reserves,
on which Europe is largely dependent, and strong Asian interest in these
reserves. This is the era of pipeline power, where geopolitical turmoil is
intimately linked to gas pipeline routes. Russia and its giant Gazprom company
are sitting pretty. (May 25, '06)
BOOK REVIEW
The
accumulation of the wretched
Planet of Slums by Mike Davis
Urbanologist Mike Davis has painted a portrait of the future, and it isn't
pretty: "a grim world largely cut off from the subsistence and solidarity of
the countryside ... disconnected from the cultural and political life of the
traditional city". What Davis describes is today's reality in Baghdad and Sao
Paulo; tomorrow, it is likely, Dhaka, Jakarta and Mumbai.
(May 19, '06)
Iran impasse: Make
gas, not bombs
Iran's national interests are best served by selling portions of its huge
natural gas reserves to energy-starved Europe, not in building an atomic bomb.
Europe's best interests are served by lessening dependence on Russian gas. The
mullahs in Tehran seem to understand this; now it's a matter of pounding some
sense into other factions. (May 8, '06)
The axis of
gas
Three South American countries are leading the drive for a South American
energy grid similar to what's proposed in Asia. Venezuela's President Hugo
Chavez sees the US$23 billion project as more than an energy source, it's about
jobs and eliminating poverty - and not being pushed around by the US.
(May 2, '06)
What's
really happening in Tehran
Smiling and articulate, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad locked horns with
the international media on Monday, showing a face somewhat different from that
of a suicidal nut bent on confronting the US, as he is often portrayed. Yet the
president leads just one of four key factions in a do-or-die power play, and he
is following his own agenda, which is not the same as the Iranian theocratic
leadership's. (Apr 25, '06)
The war on Iran
Iranians know that if the US bombs the country's nuclear sites, they are
maintained by Russians; that in effect would mean a declaration of war against
Moscow. Iranians also know that Shi'ites in Iraq would turn extreme heat on the
occupation forces. And Iran has the power to halt all oil supplies from the
shores of the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz. (Apr
12, '06)
Real men go to Khuzestan
Even as the tanks were rolling into Baghdad, a hard core in the Bush
administration believed that the real target should have been Iran or, more
precisely, its restive Arab-dominated Khuzestan region. Tehran charges that,
indeed, US and British special forces are stirring up trouble there. If so,
they have made a serious miscalculation. (Apr
5, '06)
Iran reacts to the UN
Iranians of all stripes agree that their nation is a victim of Western
propaganda and double standards. They're adamant about their right to a
civilian nuclear program. (Mar 31, '06)
The ultimate
martyr
In the Islamic Revolution scale of values, to die as a martyr is an even
greater honor than to live as a good, practicing Muslim. Yet the last thing
Iran's clerical-political establishment needs at this moment is for President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad to martyr the nation into the status of ultimate global
outcast. It might be time for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to step in.
(Mar 30, '06)
Messages of hope from Iran
Persians pride themselves on molding Islam from the Arabs into a much more
refined faith. While Arab governments are basically mum, Iran has taken the
initiative to counteract what is perceived as Islam and religion under fire,
and to remedy the fact that Islam is not getting its message across to the
West. (Mar 27, '06)
A frenzied Persian
new year
Even though Iran is slowing down for New Year celebrations, the
political temperature remains high. Tehran is closely watching as the UN
Security Council debates its nuclear program, while proposed Iran-US talks on
Iraq have done nothing to erase suspicions on both sides. And Iran has its own
terror problem to deal with. (Mar 21, '06)
Irreversible
Iranians
The US strategy of trying to separate the Iranian people from
the regime seems doomed to failure. Nationalist fervor regarding Tehran's
nuclear rights is at a peak - and cannily manipulated by the government. What
the rest of the world thinks, too bad. (Mar 17, '06)
In the heart of
Pipelineistan
Oil and gas executives gathered in Tehran for a major conference
see the international row over Iran's nuclear program as a passing phase. There
are much bigger issues: the total energy interdependence of the Middle East and
East Asia, in which Iran will play a pivotal role.
(Mar 16, '06)
The old
lovers' nuclear tango
The diplomatic dancing over Iran's nuclear program has expanded
to a tango for two couples: the US plus the European Three on one side, and
Russia and the head of the UN nuclear watchdog on the other. Tehran waits
transfixed in the middle. (Mar 7, '06)
'Get out' ringing
in Thaksin's ears
Students, trade unionists and teachers are mingling with
peasants, Buddhist fundamentalists and middle-class families with their
portable kitchens at rallies calling for the resignation of Prime Minister
Thaksin Shinawatra. "Thaksin! - Get out!" is their mantra. But it's falling on
deaf ears, for now. (Feb 27, '06)
Goodbye
Iraq, hello Afghanistan
 With
Ibrahim Jaafari being given another shot at the premiership, Iraq will have a
fractious and weak central government, and go the same way as Afghanistan.
Warlords, religious or secular, and tribal sheikhs will defend their
mini-states armed to their teeth, and criminal gangs will run parallel to death
squads. Which suits Washington fine. (Feb 14, '06)
Thailand's
spreading yellow tide
They massed in Bangkok in their tens of thousands and they
draped themselves in yellow to hear media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul's latest
allegations against Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. And they were not
disappointed, even if their countrymen were kept in the dark.
(Feb 6, '06)
But it's so
cold in Alaska
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's verbal assaults on Israel are most
likely aimed at an internal audience and are a part of a broader progression
toward self-chosen isolation. But this does not remove the fact that billions
of dollars of public relations could not have landed such a prize to Israel's
hardliners. (Dec 15,
'05)
We vote, then we
throw you out
Iraq may well be on its way to
extinction after Thursday's elections. Partition is already de facto in the
four provinces of Kurdistan, and the nine Shi'ite provinces are earmarked for
the same. The US would be left with little more than the Green Zone - which is
not exactly an oil lake - and a lot of empty desert.
(Dec 14, '05)
The politics of shopping
It was people power "lite" as media entrepreneur Sondhi
Limthongkul's weekly talk show in a Bangkok park - in which he once
again focused on corruption - had stiff competition from the
opening nearby of a megamall. People power "heavy" won't happen until
they discover their purchasing power only allows them to window-shop.
(Dec 12, '05)
The
king steps in
Following some wise words from the king of Thailand, much of the heat has been
taken out of the bitter row between Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his
most vocal critic, media entrepreneur Sondhi Limthongkul. The premier is
dropping a slew of lawsuits amounting to US$50 million against Sondhi, who,
nevertheless, still has some causes to fight.
(Dec 6, '05)
Full
power on the Arabian Sea
Wily taxi drivers in Mumbai, demented, horn-honking buses on the roads of
Kerala, computer whizzes in the backs of shacks, commuters hanging from train
windows dodging lethal poles, they're all on "full power", living out India's
new mantra. (Dec 2, '05)
An appeal to the
Thai masses
Ever since the political talk show of Thai media tycoon,
Sondhi Limthongkul, went mobile after being run off the air by the government,
it has snowballed into a political protest movement. Sondhi wants the
constitution rewritten to curb the abuse of state power. Now the matter is in
the hands of the people. (Nov 28, '05)
The occupiers' trial
With Saddam Hussein finally due in court, his defense team will argue that the
trial has no jurisdiction because it has been created by an occupying power
which has no right to change the legal system of an occupied country. In many
ways, it's the occupation itself that is in the dock.
(Oct 19, '05)
How to constitute a civil
war
If the draft Iraqi constitution is rejected on Saturday, the different strands
of the Sunni Arab resistance - as well as al-Qaeda in Iraq - will be
encouraged, because, for them, this is the occupiers' piece of paper. But even
if the constitution is approved, the same thing will happen. There couldn't
have been a more constitutional way to civil war. (Oct
14, '05)
Fear
and loathing in militia hell
The law of the jungle rules in Baghdad, coupled with the collapse of social
life, as rival militias control the city, day and night, often dressed up as
police. This is the visible legacy of the occupation on the eve of a popular
vote on a constitution.
(Oct 11, '05)
'WAR
ON TERROR' REVISITED
The conquest of Southwest Asia
Even before Katrina showed the emperor to have no clothes, there
was growing unease that the Bush administration was
subsidizing al-Qaeda to the tune of $300 billion and counting, in American
taxpayers' money, by transforming Iraq into a preferred training ground for
terrorists. So forget about "war on terror"; the war is mutating into
what it was always meant to be - the conquest of Southwest Asia first, and
Eurasia second. - (Oct 7, '05)
Who's in
charge, Qom or Najaf?
The renaissance of the holy Iraqi city of Najaf - home of the Grand Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani - is problematic. If the center of gravity of Shi'ism goes back
from Qom in Iran to where it was before - in Iraq - Iran's influence will be
tremendously reduced. (Sep 30, '05)
The
myth of the Shi'ite crescent
Shi'ites believe that the nation-state is just a
stage on the road to the final triumph of Shi'ism. But to go beyond this stage
to establish a vast Shi'ite crescent spanning the region it's necessary to
reinforce the nation-state and its Shi'ite sanctuary, which happens to be Iran.
But not all Shi'ites are in a position, or are willing, to help realize this
goal. (Sep 29, '05)
Welcome to
civil war
While US and Iraqi
army troops were chasing shadows in the town of Tal Afar, Salafi jihadis
mounted deadly and highly visible attacks against Shi'ites in Baghdad to
coincide with a call by al-Qaeda's Musab al-Zarqawi for all-out war on Shi'ites
in Iraq.
(Sep 15, '05)
Travels in
Ahmadinejadland
He is honest, a simple man who looks after the
poor and is a regular visitor to the mosque. Without fail, these are the
attributes that the mass of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's supporters in the
lower working-class areas of Tehran pinpoint. In other, more affluent areas,
praise is harder to find.
(Sep 14, '05)
Why Iran can't become the new China
Iran as an emerging Muslim China? Forget it,
says Ibrahim Yazdi, a veteran dissident politician in Iran, who sees stark
differences between what he calls the repressive Islamic republic and a more
enlightened leadership in Beijing. Yet Yazdi could be wrong.
(Sep 13, '05)
Iran
takes over Pipelineistan
As a key energy supplier to China as well as India's major supplier, Iran is in
an enviable position. Further, its trans-Caspian alliance with Russia is
iron-clad, and Tehran is well poised as a key supplier to Western Europe. Iran
has the foundation to become a major economic power.
(Sep 9, '05)
The humanist reformer
The reform movement has all but been beaten at the polls in Iran, with its
place taken by a kind of "compassionate conservatism". The voices of reform,
however, are as strident as ever, personified by Emadeddin Baghi, even if
Iranians are not listening. (Sep 7, '05)
Iran
knocks Europe out
Tehran has called the EU's bluff, and
international opinion faces a split.
(Sep 6, '05)
A nuclear
(mis)adventure in Isfahan
The focus of Tehran's nuclear standoff with
Europe and the US is centered on Isfahan, where Iran has resumed uranium
conversion activities, which it claims is its right. With a flurry of
diplomatic maneuvers planned, matters are coming to a head, and
Pepe Escobar is the first casualty.
(Sep 1, '05)
WAITING FOR THE MAHDI, Part 2
A vision or a waking dream?
The Shi'ite tradition in Qom teaches that when the world has become
psychologically ready to accept the government of God and when worldly
conditions are ready for truth to prevail, God will then allow Imam Mahdi to
launch his final revolution. In the meantime, fertile minds are educated in
preparation for this worldwide revolution.
(Aug 31, '05)
WAITING FOR THE MAHDI, Part 1
Sistani.Qom: In the wired heart
of Shi'ism
The issue of supremacy among top Shi'ite religious leaders has profound
implications for Iran and Iraq. Is it the almost recluse Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani in Najaf in Iraq, who forced the American superpower to bow to his
wishes? Or is it the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? The
Shi'ite communications center in Qom provides some clues, as Pepe Escobar
reports in the first of two articles from the Iranian holy city.
(Aug 30, '05)
The nuclear rap
It's summer holidays, so what better way for university students to spend a hot
afternoon than protesting outside the French, German and British embassies in
Tehran. Pepe Escobar joins in. (Aug 25, '05)
Iran: Tough talk and temptresses
The contrasts could not be sharper: an army of Angelina Jolie
clones cruising north Tehran's streets and malls, to the thousands gathered at
Tehran University, including the president, to hear the country's Supreme
Leader at Friday prayers laying into the US. Pepe Escobar hits the road
in Iran. (Aug 24, '05)
The Algerian
connection
It is one thing to mouth opposition to the US-led occupation of Iraq, it is
another to allow the US military to use your country as a playground in the
"war on terror". Two Algerian diplomats have paid with their lives at the hands
of an al-Qaeda-linked group for their government adopting such a
position. (Jul 28, '05)
Fighting the uncivil fight
European Union officials, not to mention
Europe-wide public opinion, are starting to confront a very serious question:
how to fight jihad inside the EU without infringing on civil liberties. This is
exactly what Salafi-jihadis want.
(Jul 21, '05)
Self-service
jihad
More and more so-called "white Moors" - white Muslims carrying European Union
passports - are taking jihad training in Chechnya, while "individual jihadis",
without contact with al-Qaeda, are learning the trade of terror on their own
before joining or starting sleeper cells in Europe. (Jul
19, '05)
War comes to the heart of Europe
A new, deadly generation of internationalist jihadis is making Europe its
battleground. It's not only a war against the Western occupiers of Muslim
lands; it's a war for the future of global Islam as the al-Qaeda "nebula"
strives to impose Wahhabi values on the faith. (Jul
14, '05)
Blowback
For the new generation of jihadis, the Anglo-American coalition - as well as
civilians - must live in fear, just as people live in fear in Iraq and
Palestine. Only the US leaving Iraq and an internationally-accepted agreement
between Israelis and Palestinians will end the cycle.
(Jul 11, '05)
Pop music won't change
this world
Billions of people clapping their hands at "the biggest musical event in
history" will not save us from greenhouse gases or rescue Africa from the
guillotine of foreign debt. The G8 is calling the tune, and it appears to be
tone deaf. (Jul 5, '05)
Twelve
more years
Conceding that the "throes" of the Iraqi insurgency could go on for another 12
years, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld admits that the US is talking with
insurgent leaders. What the leaders have to say, though, is not what Washington
wants to hear. (Jun 27, '05)
The first, not the last throes
The heated hearings in Washington in which Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld came
under withering attack may be just the tip of the iceberg that the Bush
administration's doggedly optimistic line on Iraq is simply not tenable. In
Baghdad, quite literally, the writing is on the wall.
(Jun 24, '05)
Iraq, the new Afghanistan
There was blowback in Afghanistan after the US financed a jihad there against
the Soviet invasion. There is now blowback in Iraq following the US occupation.
And the comparisons between Iraq and basket-case Afghanistan don't end there.
(Jun 23, '05)
The axis of lesser evil
Iran's reformist movement is enthusiastically backing pragmatist Ayatollah Ali
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as the next president, over his hawkish rival.
Neo-conservatives in the US will be disappointed. (Jun
21, '05)
How
much is a hostage worth?
The six-month hostage ordeal of a French journalist and her Iraqi fixer
received little publicity on Islamist websites, and their kidnappers made no
political demands for their release. Which leaves just the "financial" motive.
The French government, though, is respecting an implacable law of silence.
(Jun 15, '05)
Exit strategy: Civil war
Against all odds, a national liberation front is emerging in Iraq comprising
politicians, religious leaders, clan and tribal sheikhs, with a single-minded
agenda: the end of the US-led occupation. Simultaneously, the US is pushing on
with its policy of divide and rule - sectarian fever translated into civil war.
(Jun 9, '05)
Europe's disaster movie
Europe's political elites are in a deep, existential funk. The monumental
crisis created by France and the Netherlands rejecting a proposed European
constitution may spell catharsis or catastrophe. It all hinges on political
will. And visionaries. (Jun 2, '05)
French-fried Europe
The Dutch look set to complete a double blow on Wednesday, following France's
rejection of the proposed European constitution. One might assume the document,
a compromise reached after five years of hard-fought negotiation, is already
six feet under. But there is a plan B - sort of.
(May 31, '05)
Pipelineistan's biggest game
begins
 It's
a law unto itself, a sovereign state 44 meters wide and 1,767 kilometers
long. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, after 10 years of hard
work and $4 billion in funding, is finally open for business. (May
25, '05)
The US's gift to al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda has recently managed to capitalize on major blunders in the United
States's "war on terror", strengthening the anti-US impulse among global,
moderate Muslims and winning legitimacy from leading Islamic scholars. Pepe
Escobar explains how it happened. (May 20,
'05)
'We are a banana republic'
 Paul
Krugman, the Mick Jagger of political/economic punditry, has an opinion on
everything, sweeping across China's rise (and fall?), the "banana republic"
status of the US, Iraq, petrodollars and much more. And, as he tells Pepe
Escobar, a penchant for Thai food. (May
18, '05)
The US and
its 'special' dictator
Even though his US-funded soldiers have killed hundreds of protestors, Uzbek
President Islam Karimov is an essential piece in Washington's great oil and gas
chessboard, as is Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan. So you won't see the White House
hammering Karimov, or calling for free elections. (May
16, '05)
From Baghdad
to Brasilia
South America is avidly cultivating much stronger ties with China, Russia and
the Arab world, as seen in this week's Arab-South American summit in Brazil.
The emerging axis is non-aligned, and it's swimming in oil. Washington is
watching closely. (May 11, '05)
Bilderberg strikes again
Over 100 Western movers and shakers - politicians, tycoons, bankers, captains
of industry - have just concluded their secret annual gathering as members of
the exclusive Bilderberg club. Previously they have been known to shape world
affairs. This time is likely to have been no different. (May
9, '05)
Iraq's hostage cabinet
The fatal flaw of Iraq's cabinet is that it is hostage to a big picture it
won't be able to control - the foundations for a new Iraq simply do not exist.
There's anarchy in much of the country, there's little work, and at least six
militias armed, trained and funded by the Pentagon are on the rampage. All the
elements for civil war are in place. (Apr 29, '05)
They shoot journalists, don't
they?
 Italian
secret intelligence agent Nicola Calipari was killed by US fire in Iraq, while
Giuliana Sgrena, an unembedded correspondent, was injured in the same incident.
No one is denying this. Where the
problem arises is over culpability. The US indicates its soldiers followed
standard procedures. Others disagree. (Apr 27,
'05)
It's terror when we say so
Last year in its annual report, the US National Counterterrorism Center listed
175 "significant" terrorist attacks in 2003. This year, the report found a
sharp increase to 624 such attacks for 2004. However, this figure will not be
included when the report is officially released at the end of the month. Why?
Ask Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. (Apr
22, '05)
The shadow Iraqi government
The only way Iraq's transitional government can garner any measure of popular
credibility is to demand a firm deadline for total American withdrawal. This is
what the Shi'ite masses voted for. Yet this is the last thing on the minds of
the White House/Pentagon/Green Zone axis that controls - or will control - the
country.
(Apr 20, '05)
What's behind the new Iraq
The balance of power between Iraq's three main sectarian groups - Shi'ites,
Kurds and Sunnis - has been the biggest stumbling block in forming a new
government. A deal has finally emerged, but this is not the end of the matter,
not by a long way: as before, the stark choice remains - politics or civil war.
(Apr 7, '05)
Looking South for a pope
The Vatican voting South for the next Pope will be
interpreted as a Church privileging social justice and globalization with a
human face. But there are a number of other compelling options.
(Apr 4, '05)
What kind of
revolution is this?
The strange events in Kyrgyzstan do not exactly constitute a classic
revolution. One order has fallen, but a new one has yet to be born - it was
rather "meet the new boss, same as the old boss". For a real revolution, look
elsewhere in the region. (Apr 1,
'05)
The Tulip Revolution
takes root
Compared to its hardcore neighbors, Kyrgyzstan was a paradigm of
democracy. But this will not make the task of the disparate bunch of new
leaders any easier to bring stability and economic order to the country. One
thing is clear, though: the Tulip Revolution will be propagated by the Bush
administration as the first "spread of freedom and democracy" success story in
Central Asia. (Mar 25, '05)
Shocked and awed into 'freedom'
Two years on, there's no government in Iraq because of the Kirkuk tinderbox,
where the Kurds want it all. Sectarianism is on the rise, security is a joke.
But from a strategic Washington viewpoint, these issues are all minor.(Mar
21, '05)
Iraq, IRA-style
Influential echelons of the resistance in Iraq are actively engaged
in the political unification of an array of disparate groups to solidify their
support among the Sunni population: this is like an Iraqi version of the Irish
Republican Army polishing a Mesopotamian Sinn Fein. Unaddressed, though, is the
Kurdish problem. (Mar 10, '05)
Bush does Brussels
President George W Bush's visit to Brussels was
carefully coordinated to convey the impression that he needs Europe to fulfill
his mission for the world. But the European Union was not falling for that
sucker punch. (Feb 23, '05)
The trip goes on forever
Even in his final days, when he described himself as "an elderly dope fiend
living out in the wilderness", Hunter Thompson kept his extreme conceptual
coherence, his certitude that Power cannot, could never be trusted. The
self-described proud patriot's life-long quest for the American Dream ended in
suicide on Sunday, but the good Dr Gonzo remains, to many, "strong like a
river". (Feb 22, '05)
From Baghdad to Beirut
What many had feared - the "Lebanonization" of Iraq, bringing
back the tragic memories of the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990 - might be
forced, with the assassination of Rafik Hariri, to happen in reverse: the
Iraqification of Lebanon. (Feb 16, '05)
Before the breakup,
the breakdown
The Iraqi election results don't really illustrate who are the real
winners and losers: there are currently too many variables and competing
interests to give an accurate picture. One thing, though, is crystal-clear
- the Sunni Iraqi resistance vs US occupation will continue.
(Feb 14, '05)
The Shi'ite's Faustian
pact
Shi'ite leaders don't want the American military to leave, just yet, for fear
of a bloodbath. This suits the US, which will consolidate military bases, and
do something about the country's oil riches, possibly even privatize the
industry. Yet the Shi'ite leadership will find it almost impossible to maintain
public support for any length of time without telling the Americans to leave.
(Feb 10, '05)
Why the US will not leave Iraq
Iraq's elections will see Shi'ites taking power in the Arab world for the first
time in 14 centuries. The Shi'ites' premier electoral promise - later reneged -
was to negotiate a total American withdrawal, so the US will be in no hurry for
a swift pullout. But as long as the US stays, the resistance will become even
bloodier. (Jan 31, '05)
It's celebration time
Shi'ites, the Pentagon, the Sunni Iraqi resistance, the rest of the world, even
Henry Kissinger; they all have reason to celebrate Sunday's elections in Iraq,
and all of their reasons are different. But there can only be one winner - and
it won't be democracy. (Jan 28, '05)
Vote or no vote, we
will kill you
The key issue after the Iraqi elections
will be how to kick out the Americans. It's also the only window of opportunity
for the future Shi'ite government to woo moderate Sunnis, and the only way to
isolate the guerrilla resistance. But the resistance has time. It has loads of
weapons, plenty of financing and thousands of members, and any new government
will be seen as a mortal enemy. (Jan 26,
'05)
The
hottest label: China chic
Forget the shopworn "made in China" label
- make way for China chic. High-quality textiles are now designed by hip
Chinese designers, produced by skilled artisans and sold by China, with profits
repatriated to the Middle Kingdom. The message: just give us a little time, and
we will also swamp you with our cool new designs.
(Jan 18, '05)
First we vote, then we
kick you out
As the January 30 elections near, the majority of
Iraqis have one thing on their minds: get the US occupiers out - and get them
out fast. At the moment, however, the risk of post-election civil war is
stronger than ever, with various factions refusing to sit back and let the
Shi'ites take control of the country. (Dec
23, '04)
COMMENT
Evildoers, here
we come
The road to Syria is the key node in the George W
Bush/neo-conservative roadmap for a new Middle East. Along this road there are
likely to be several detours, with Iran, Saudi Arabia and North Korea singled
out for special treatment. (Dec 16, '04)
The grand elector
Sistani
When Iraq was fighting British colonialism in 1920, the vanguard of
the armed resistance was Shi'ite. So the British installed the Sunnis in power
- where they have remained ever since. Now the situation is reversed, and the
Shi'ites, guided by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, want to get their hands on
the power. (Dec 9, '04)
From Guernica to
Fallujah
 The
counterinsurgency blueprint for Iraq is a 182-page field manual distributed to
each and every soldier by the Pentagon. Many of the soldiers appear not to have
read the instructions. And now the resistance in Fallujah bears strong
resemblance to that of the people of Guernica, the Basque capital, who opposed
the Spanish dictator Franco in 1937. (Dec
1, '04)
The Sunni-Shi'ite power play
Under the current US-imposed timetable for Iraq, the Shi'ites
will be in power following elections scheduled for next January. This will
leave a Shi'ite-dominated government to deal with a widespread Sunni resistance
movement with only a ragged bunch of guerrilla-infiltrated Iraqi security
forces. (Nov 19, '04)
Counterinsurgency
run amok
In counterinsurgency, success means destroying the
environment, physical and social, that supports the enemy. Take away the
"water" and the "fish" will die. This strategy led to indiscriminate bombings
in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. This is what's happening in Fallujah. But it
won't work, because the "fish" are developing more complex, distributed network
structures. (Nov 17, '04)
Masters of war
The US has declared that Fallujah has been "liberated". But the city is
celebrating with no cries of joy - with no cries at all: only with the stench
of tons of explosives, and the stench of decomposing bodies.(Nov
15, '04)
Collective punishment,
regrettable necessity
Fallujah was always defiant towards Saddam Hussein. Now the US has reduced its
civilian population to a bunch of "insurgents". The rationale invoked is
"regrettable necessity". What is never mentioned is the real objective:
collective punishment. (Nov 12, '04)
A thousand Fallujahs
Five years ago the Russians totally destroyed Grozny, the Chechen
capital, yet today Chechen guerrillas are still trapping Russian troops in a
living hell there. The same scenario will be replayed in Fallujah - and
countless towns and cities across Iraq. (Nov
11, '04)
Satan
hides in a hospital
One of the first targets of the US offensive into Fallujah was the
general hospital, which has been secured. Other targets include those used to
spread information, such as telephones. But the resistance fighters have been
preparing for this onslaught for months. They have a battle plan, and it
doesn't end in Fallujah. (Nov 10, '04)
 The
real fury of Fallujah
The Pentagon is selling Operation Phantom Fury as a battle of good
against evil to root out "terrorists" in the "militant stronghold" of Fallujah.
Yet there could not be a more tragic exercise in futility - to destroy Fallujah
in order to "save" it. This is the road for civil war.
(Nov 9, '04)
Value-added victory
It was a remarkable feat to convince the poor working class and the
struggling lower middle class to vote for tax breaks for billionaires. How to
fool them? By promoting "moral values".
(Nov 4, '04)
Damn politics, let's
dance
Among many surprises, the widely sung-and-danced-to youth vote never
materialized. And President George W Bush won the popular vote by a handsome
margin. This is a neo-conservative dream turned reality: four more years, and
possibly four more wars. (Nov 3,
'04)
COMMENT
In God - or
reality - we trust
Because the stakes are so high, this is a world election by any
means: if George W Bush is re-elected, it will send a strong signal that
Americans support the neo-conservative agenda, and all that it entails, a la
Iraq. (Nov 2, '04)
Bush or Kerry, Osama's
unmoved
By re-establishing his preeminence, and changing his rhetoric, Osama
bin Laden makes it clear that the target is not America per se, but recruiting
the Muslim masses for jihad. A George W Bush victory will not change this. Nor
will a John Kerry victory. (Nov 1, '04)
American rebel vs
American al-Qaeda
Unleashed only one week before the US presidential election,
Eminem's "Mosh" is a stunning piece of political hip-hop. But even as this
millionaire white-trash rapper does his bit toward regime change in the White
House, another video emerges, this one featuring an alleged al-Qaeda operative
vowing, in English, that "the streets of America will run red with blood".
(Oct 29, '04)
How Bush blew it in
Tora Bora
The US presidential election is less than a week away and still no
October surprise named Osama bin Laden. Yet even if bin Laden does surface
- captured and exhibited "Saddam-in-chains" style - the real surprise took
place in Tora Bora way back in November 2001, when the Bush administration let
him slip through its fingers. (Oct 26,
'04)
Precision-strike
democracy
People cannot believe that precision strikes against civilian
neighborhoods are a persuasive weapon conducive to winning hearts and minds in
Iraq and establishing democracy. The resistance, meanwhile, is succeeding in
mobilizing the urban masses, Sunni and Shi'ite, against the occupation.
(Oct 21, '04)
Zarqawi and al-Qaeda,
unlikely bedfellows
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's reported swearing of his jihadi group's
allegiance to al-Qaeda is mystifying. The al-Qaeda nucleus is a mix of hardcore
Saudi Wahhabis and the Egyptians of Islamic Jihad. Zarqawi's group contains
Jordanians, Palestinians and Syrians, and they are Salafis, Islamic purists.
True or false, though, the effects will be felt in Fallujah.
(Oct 19, '04)
Zarqawi - Bush's man
for all seasons
From a two-bit thug into an overnight international terrorist with a
finger in every pie, Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been thrust into the
limelight through the many emails, threats, communiques and grisly videos
attributed to him, especially in Iraq. The "Zarqawi" myth is certainly bigger
than the man. But this suits the Bush administration just fine.
(Oct 14, '04)
Deconstructing the war
on terror
Jacques Derrida, the last survivor of the fabulous generation of
1960s French thinkers, was the master of the concept of "deconstruction", which
can be defined as a guerrilla attack on a dominant system of thought. Before he
died last week, Derrida deconstructed "the war on terror", a concept that
obscures current reality and hobbles our ability to fend off the next
"September 11". (Oct
13, '04)
Hand it to
the warlords
Hamid Karzai, with his US backing and
Pashtun roots, is favored to win Saturday's presidential elections in
Afghanistan. Local warlords, though, with the immense power they wield over
their fiefdoms and voters, cannot be overlooked. Deals, therefore, are already
being made, even though such arrangements tend to backfire, with disastrous
results. (Oct 8, '04)
That split screen
In a "debate" designed to stifle any real debate of
any real issues, some US networks decided to brighten things up a split screen.
And there they were: one candidate playing to one camera, while his opponent
let his true persona show on the other. So we saw the choice facing American
voters: do they want to live in reality, or seek refuge in a reality show?
(Oct 1, '04)
Why al-Qaeda
is winning
As nihilistic as it may be, al-Qaeda is a major success: three years after
September 11, it is a global brand and a global movement. This brand does not
have much to do with Islam, but it has everything to do with the globalization
of the fight against imperialism. And imperialism is widely seen as having its
center in Washington. (Sep 10, '04)
In God, and terror, we trust
Be afraid. Be very afraid. That is the essence of
the Republican platform for "four more years" of the president of permanent
war. Oh, but don't ask how the "war on terra" is actually going, with the
1,000th US soldier about to die in Iraq, which along with Afghanistan is in
chaos; because God, and Karl Rove's dirty tricks, are on George Bush's
side. (Aug 31, '04)
Oil in troubled waters
As oil's price slides towards $50 a barrel, it is
now 136% more expensive than before September 11, 2001. Yet demand, especially
in the US, China and India, surges. OPEC - controlling about half of the
world's oil exports - has promised to do something, as has Saudi Arabia, but
they can't deliver. Neither can Iraq, where US plans for a world of cheap oil
started to go all wrong. (Aug 23, '04)
A unifying factor across Iraq
Inside Iraq, Sunni and Shi'ite alike condemn the United States offensive in
Najaf as a "bloodbath", but the longer the fighting continues, "the image of
[Muqtada] being the only one capable of unifying the country beyond communal
divisions" will grow even stronger. (Aug
17, '04)
Barack Obama rules, OK
Barack Obama, an Illinois state legislator, stole the show on the second night
of the Democratic National Convention in Boston with a speech of rare
brilliance. He's not a uniter, not a divider, he's the ultimate transcender. He
is also black, and exactly what the Republicans don't need right now.
(Jul 29, '04)
Clinton
clinches the deal
He's still The Big Dog: in his inimitable style, former US president Bill
Clinton managed to sell to Democratic Party faithful the stiff senator from
Massachusetts, John Kerry, as a strong leader worthy of the White House. But
missing from the Clinton pitch was Iraq, because, unlike the Iraqi resistance,
Democrats - including Kerry - don't have any more idea what to do about it than
George W Bush. (Jul 28, '04)
The new
Saddam, without a moustache
In Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, dubbed "Saddam without a moustache", Washington
has exactly the man it wants in Iraq. But such 19th century-style colonialism
gambits are doomed - just as they were in the past. (Jul
15, '04)
The Islamic emirate of Fallujah
By intimidation, by force of arms and with full support of the mosques,
Fallujah is now a haven of order and security in Iraq. Americans troops are
out, as are foreigners. Strict Islamic law is in, and the gun-toting leaders
see their city as a model for the rest of the country.
(Jul 14, '04)
Click here for
earlier articles
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THE ROVING EYE
An extreme traveler, Pepe's nose for news has taken him to all parts of the 
globe. He was in Afghanistan and interviewed the military leader of the
anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Masoud, a couple of weeks before his
assassination (Masoud:
From warrior to statesman , Sep 11, 2001). Two weeks before
September 11, 2001, while Pepe was in the tribal areas of Pakistan, ATol
published his prophetic piece,
Get Osama! Now! Or else ... (Aug 30, 2001). Pepe was one of the first
journalists to reach Kabul after the Taliban's retreat, and more recently he
has explored and reported from Iraq, Iran, Central Asia, US and China.
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ATol
Specials
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Sinoroving
Escobar in China
(an ongoing series)
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By Pepe Escobar with
photographs by Kevin Nortz
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The pulse of
pre-election America
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Escobar treks from western
China to the Caspian Sea
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