The shadow over Iraq By George Friedman It is August 2010, the month when the last United States combat troops are scheduled to leave Iraq. It is therefore time to take stock of the situation in Iraq, which has changed places with Afghanistan as the forgotten war. This is all the more important since 50,000 troops will remain in Iraq, and while they may not be considered combat troops, a great deal of combat power remains embedded with them. So we are far from the end of the war in Iraq. The question is whether the departure of the last … Continue reading The shadow over Iraq

By Chalmers Johnson In 1962, the historian Barbara Tuchman published a book about the start of World War I and called it The Guns of August. It went on to win a Pulitzer Prize. She was, of course, looking back at events that had occurred almost 50 years earlier and had at her disposal documents and information not available to participants. They were acting, as Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara put it, in the fog of war. So where are we this August of 2010, with guns blazing in one war in Afghanistan even as we try to extricate … Continue reading The guns of August

Old and new faces of Indonesian terror By Clifford McCoy The arrest last week of radical Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir was the highlight of a government crackdown on Islamic militants following the discovery in February of a training camp in Aceh province. Once regarded as the spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror group, Bashir’s popularity has wavered in recent years and his position is emblematic of the evolving nature of militant Islam in Southeast Asia. The 72-year-old Bashir was arrested together with his wife and five bodyguards on August 9 while traveling to deliver a sermon in … Continue reading Indonesian terror

Flood relief and politics in Pakistan By Brian M Downing The world is seeing a tragedy unfold as monsoon rains swell the expansive Indus River and flood large parts of Pakistan from Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province to the Arabian Sea. Whether directed by Pakistanis or outside agencies, relief will not always be a straightforward humanitarian effort – neither in intent nor result; it will be tempered with civil-military issues, international politics, and concerns with Pakistan’s very future. Civilians and soldiers Pakistan has alternated between civilian and military governments since its inception in 1947. Neither established a record of capable government in … Continue reading Flood relief and politics in Pakistan

SINOGRAPH No rush for China By Francesco Sisci BEIJING – The angry youths who used to shout anti-Japanese slogans were silenced, their older chauvinistic mentors behaved as if they had received a gag order. Newspapers ignored the news or exiled it to a corner, while senior officials tried to dodge the subject in talks with foreigners. Figures released this week by the Japanese government indicate that China has replaced Japan as the world’s second-largest economy, after the United States. The figures show that Japan’s gross domestic product (GDP) for the second quarter of this year, seasonally unadjusted, totaled US$1.28 trillion. … Continue reading No rush for China

Deep reasons for China and US to bristle By Jingdong Yuan SYDNEY, Australia – China’s strong reaction to the United States’ call for multilateral negotiation to resolve territorial disputes in the South China Sea fits the rising tide of tensions between Beijing and Washington over a number of issues. Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi stated that interventions last month from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested the US was ganging with other countries in the region against China. Chinese analysts also point to US-South Korea military exercises staged in the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan as nothing but … Continue reading China and US bristle

SPEAKING FREELY Rising China tests the waters By Abraham M Denmark and Daniel M Kliman With joint exercises between the navies of the United States and Vietnam kicking off, Washington and Beijing’s rivalry over the South China Sea is heating up. Although exercises with Vietnam involve non-combat training such as search and rescue, they reinforce recent remarks by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Speaking at last month’s meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Clinton affirmed that peacefully resolving territorial disputes in the South China Sea amounted to a US ”national interest”. What followed was a sharp … Continue reading Rising China tests the waters

BOOK REVIEW Reality check for Asian titans India and China: The Battle between Soft and Hard Power by Prem Shankar Jha Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia Views about the inexorable rise of China and India to global dominance have multiplied as the two storm ahead with impressive economic growth rates amidst a worldwide downturn. Speculation that these Asian giants will reconfigure the international order with their accumulating might has assumed an air of certainty, a matter of “when” and not “if”. But it is worth inquiring whether the market-based modernization in both countries is proceeding in a stable direction or setting … Continue reading India and China – Reality check

Last sultan gets a modern makeover By Sami Moubayed DAMASCUS – For the past year, sporadic articles have appeared in the Arabic press debating the life and policies of Sultan Abdulhamid II, the last absolute monarch of the Ottoman Empire, who ruled from 1876 until forced to abdicate in 1909. For decades after the collapse of the empire, especially when Arab republics were in their infancy, Abdulhamid II was blamed for much of the difficulties that crippled Arab provinces of the empire, especially Ottoman Syria. In TV soap operas or novels he was always portrayed as an autocratic despot who … Continue reading Sultan Abdulhamid II

Speculators help stoke China’s food prices By Olivia Chung HONG KONG – The three great determinants of food prices – flood, drought and speculators – are helping to drive China’s inflation past the government’s full-year target to the highest in almost two years. The Consumer Price Index, a key measure of inflation, rose 3.3% in July from a year earlier, 0.4 percentage points higher than the June increase and exceeding the government’s 3% full-year ceiling. It is the largest year-on-year increase since a 4% gain in October 2008. The country’s worst floods in a decade, which have killed 1,454 people … Continue reading Chinese Food Speculators