Donald Trump, who appears to be breaking away from the rest of the GOP pack in the race to secure the presidential nomination, delivered an illuminating foreign policy speech at the Center for the National Interest yesterday, hours after securing five solid primary state victories with overall 50+ percent of the vote (a first in the "Super Tuesdays" of this election cycle).
Though it has also been influenced by the "neocon" virus since the 1990s, the Center for the National Interest is comparatively more realist in its foreign policy outlook than the flagship neocon outlets like American Enterprise Institute (AEI), so Trump's choice of venue sends a signal in and of itself. The crux of his message couldn't have been clearer: it's time to quit the democratization business, and reenter the stability business.
Not a hard sell for anyone outside the cocoon of the Washington policy clique: if a $4 trillion expenditure in Iraq to effectively build up and stabilize a "Shiastan" satellite of Iran isn't a fiasco that screams out for a switch, just what is?
Rather, traditional American interest has always depended on an ability to work with leaders and nations with very different value systems than our own liberal democracy. That includes dictators or strongmen who can be pretty nasty to those that oppose their rule.
Trump's foreign policy outline is such a breath of fresh air because it acknowledges a simple reality: we just can't have our cake and eat it, too. Freedom and stability may ultimately be complementary for every society and not just the liberal West, but in the short term they're clearly at odds with one another in traditionalist or strictly hierarchical societies. There's a brutal and unchangeable logic to the autocracy of such countries that no amount of Western democratic proselytizing - even if backed by sheer military domination - can change within any time frame or budget even remotely acceptable to the American public.
If we can do hundreds of billions in trade with China and still deal cozily with Saudi Arabia (notwithstanding the recent tensions), just why can't we cut the best possible arrangements with any other dictatorship? It's not their lack of democracy that threatens us per se: it's their perception that they have more to gain from attacking or threatening our interests - or more accurately, less to lose - than if they just behave themselves.
Unsurprisingly, the two countries outside the US where Trump would fare best in an election are Russia (by a large margin) and China. These rival continent-sized empires speak the same language as the flamboyantly brash real estate mogul: the language of unapologetic, in-your-face authoritarianism. Having previously bragged about how he'd get along well with both Beijing and Moscow, Trump has now made it all but official that the foundation for global security going forward should be big power collaboration - a global "concert of Europe", of sorts.
Foreign policy and international affairs realists everywhere must be hearing some music at last after years of discombobulated cacophony.
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Russian power continues to grow, thanks to economic realities
In the wake of the Panama Papers - the latest feeble and feckless Western attempt to destabilize the Kremlin - Russian power in Europe and the Mideast continues to grow.
The Ukraine crisis has reached a new juncture with the resignation and replacement of the unpopular prime minister and an embarrassing Dutch referendum resoundingly against Ukrainian integration into the EU. As well, in the wake of the Panama Papers exposé that president Petro Poroshenko executed shady offshore dealings as his administration buckled before the summer 2014 Russian onslaught in the Donbas, the already low public confidence and trust which plagues Kiev is likely plunging to new nadirs. As Sovietologist Stephen Cohen remarks, it's been a horrible April for the anti-Russian party in the Western ruling class (and it's not even over) - and it's beginning to really threaten with utter meltdown their pet "democracy" project to dismantle Putin's Russia.
Moscow really hasn't had to do much: it's simply waiting for the blunders of its ill-wishers to run their predictable course. No matter how long it may take, policies and strategies which are built on fundamentally false or fraudulent premises have a reliable tendency to self-destruct.
Time is on Russia's side because of not so much military or political, but economic realities. Economically, Ukraine remains a basket case in desperate need of a rapid and resounding turnaround. On the other hand, with oil prices back in the $40s, Russia isn't quite a disaster anymore, if nowhere near its former glory in the $100s. Ukraine has severed its commercial ties with Moscow at just the juncture when some of the much wealthier EU economies are increasingly tempted to dissent from Brussels on continuing the bloc's own sanctions. As it becomes clearer that Russia is a self-sufficient continental economy which can get by fine without either Ukraine or normal EU relations, even as Ukraine's capacity to flourish next to a hostile Russia is anything but sure, the balance of power will tilt further in the Kremlin's favor.
That's doubly so because the European project as a whole is increasingly exposed as a geopolitical pygmy, unable to cope with the Mideast refugee crisis precisely because cracks are undermining its brittle economic foundations. The market turmoil in January and February showed that $15 to $20 a barrel crude will sooner bring down the largest German banks than put Putin at risk of revolt; like Japan, the EU has grown so addicted to extraordinary monetary policy (QE) to prop up its finances and thereby real economic activity that it can't handle even relatively minor perturbations (which, in the grand scheme, a million or so migrants really is). This isn't even to mention the internal terrorist threat from potentially thousands or even tens of thousands of disaffected, unintegrated (and frankly, largely unwilling to integrate) young Muslim men. Or the next iteration of Grexit...or Brexit...or an Italian banking collapse and the long-term Spanish and Portuguese fiscal crises.
But even the US isn't looking so formidable anymore. The notion that we can do just fine as our rivals (China and Russia) wither away is plain ridiculous. Sure, Beijing will be squeezed by a devaluing currency (yuan), but Wall Street will get whacked as every long trade gets liquidated for shorts; sure, the Kremlin will pinch pennies with oil in the teens, but JP Morgan and Wells Fargo will get blown out of the water.
Not even our shale miracle looks so hot anymore...turns out it was mostly the hype of quick profits, new stock bubbles. and especially another orgy of investment banker underwriting fees for issuing trashy bonds. If our financier cartel wants their old margins back, they can only do so by empowering Beijing and Moscow; if they want to keep their margins from totally collapsing, they need Russian and Chinese collusion; either way, our politicians are in no position to pursue policies that effectively raid the deep pockets that control them.
The inevitable verdict: Ukraine will implement the Minsk accords as surely as Syria will form a national unity government under Assad but with significant local and regional concessions to the opposition. Both will take a while and could yet be derailed, but to speak of any significantly divergent alternative outcomes would amount to a denial of basic reality at this point. We're in a multipolar world already, like it or not: the poles may sound discordant, but that's only because they're tuning in to the same frequency.
The Ukraine crisis has reached a new juncture with the resignation and replacement of the unpopular prime minister and an embarrassing Dutch referendum resoundingly against Ukrainian integration into the EU. As well, in the wake of the Panama Papers exposé that president Petro Poroshenko executed shady offshore dealings as his administration buckled before the summer 2014 Russian onslaught in the Donbas, the already low public confidence and trust which plagues Kiev is likely plunging to new nadirs. As Sovietologist Stephen Cohen remarks, it's been a horrible April for the anti-Russian party in the Western ruling class (and it's not even over) - and it's beginning to really threaten with utter meltdown their pet "democracy" project to dismantle Putin's Russia.
Moscow really hasn't had to do much: it's simply waiting for the blunders of its ill-wishers to run their predictable course. No matter how long it may take, policies and strategies which are built on fundamentally false or fraudulent premises have a reliable tendency to self-destruct.
Time is on Russia's side because of not so much military or political, but economic realities. Economically, Ukraine remains a basket case in desperate need of a rapid and resounding turnaround. On the other hand, with oil prices back in the $40s, Russia isn't quite a disaster anymore, if nowhere near its former glory in the $100s. Ukraine has severed its commercial ties with Moscow at just the juncture when some of the much wealthier EU economies are increasingly tempted to dissent from Brussels on continuing the bloc's own sanctions. As it becomes clearer that Russia is a self-sufficient continental economy which can get by fine without either Ukraine or normal EU relations, even as Ukraine's capacity to flourish next to a hostile Russia is anything but sure, the balance of power will tilt further in the Kremlin's favor.
That's doubly so because the European project as a whole is increasingly exposed as a geopolitical pygmy, unable to cope with the Mideast refugee crisis precisely because cracks are undermining its brittle economic foundations. The market turmoil in January and February showed that $15 to $20 a barrel crude will sooner bring down the largest German banks than put Putin at risk of revolt; like Japan, the EU has grown so addicted to extraordinary monetary policy (QE) to prop up its finances and thereby real economic activity that it can't handle even relatively minor perturbations (which, in the grand scheme, a million or so migrants really is). This isn't even to mention the internal terrorist threat from potentially thousands or even tens of thousands of disaffected, unintegrated (and frankly, largely unwilling to integrate) young Muslim men. Or the next iteration of Grexit...or Brexit...or an Italian banking collapse and the long-term Spanish and Portuguese fiscal crises.
But even the US isn't looking so formidable anymore. The notion that we can do just fine as our rivals (China and Russia) wither away is plain ridiculous. Sure, Beijing will be squeezed by a devaluing currency (yuan), but Wall Street will get whacked as every long trade gets liquidated for shorts; sure, the Kremlin will pinch pennies with oil in the teens, but JP Morgan and Wells Fargo will get blown out of the water.
Not even our shale miracle looks so hot anymore...turns out it was mostly the hype of quick profits, new stock bubbles. and especially another orgy of investment banker underwriting fees for issuing trashy bonds. If our financier cartel wants their old margins back, they can only do so by empowering Beijing and Moscow; if they want to keep their margins from totally collapsing, they need Russian and Chinese collusion; either way, our politicians are in no position to pursue policies that effectively raid the deep pockets that control them.
The inevitable verdict: Ukraine will implement the Minsk accords as surely as Syria will form a national unity government under Assad but with significant local and regional concessions to the opposition. Both will take a while and could yet be derailed, but to speak of any significantly divergent alternative outcomes would amount to a denial of basic reality at this point. We're in a multipolar world already, like it or not: the poles may sound discordant, but that's only because they're tuning in to the same frequency.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
At half-year anniversary of this blog, Syria's fate hinges on Aleppo
This blog began last October 12 and at its half-year anniversary, the Syrian conflict has changed dramatically, though not in the exact manner that just about anyone would have expected.
In a general sense, this blog accurately forecasted the success of the Russian air campaign in its central aim: to secure Assad's regime around Damascus, the Mediterranean coast, and a defensible corridor linking these most habitable core portions of Syria. Likewise, we have seen the expected further radicalization of the resistance, many of whose residual secular nationalist elements have, since the late February ceasefire, been compelled to join a peace process on terms they don't like, i.e. taking Assad's immediate ouster off the table.
Notwithstanding a recent upsurge in "moderate" rebel activity such as that of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which apparently threatens the ceasefire, there seems to be enough buy-in amongst the secular nationalist opposition to the Geneva process to give Assad a clear upper hand in negotiations, which he's now pressing with the intent of getting just enough opposition representation into a new national unity government to make it an acceptable alternative to continued armed insurrection.
That leaves Al Qaeda's local affiliate Al Nusra Front and its motley collection of jihadist allies, notably Ahrar al-Sham, as the dominant "rebel" presence still effective on the battlefield - with the FSA and other non-jihadist groups increasingly pushed to all but abandon their own residual revolutionary goals if they choose to remain in the most credible anti-regime coalition. Of course, Western media has continued to play up the possibility - already defunct all the way back in 2013 - that these "moderates" can still be a viable alternative to the Baathist state while simultaneously opposing the extremists: it just goes to show how the neocons and their minions can never bring themselves to accept failure and readjust accordingly.
In fact, whatever "moderate" forces even remain at all owe their existence exclusively to Russian and even regime goodwill and flexibility: they were given a breather since late February to enter into talks with the regime, not to restart their fantasy revolution. Now that even their provisional Islamist allies, especially Al Nusra, have turned increasingly hostile against them, it's only a matter of time - after all their showboating with the defiant banners of the old Arab Spring - that they take the only sensible path left for them, namely join those of their brethren who have already made overtures to Damascus.
That being said, it appears they're willing to give force of arms a chance in Aleppo, where they're gearing up for a final stand against the Axis of Fatima as the latter prepares an assault to recapture the city.
Thus, at this blog's half-year anniversary, Syria's fate hinges on Aleppo, both the divided and besieged city itself and the surrounding province. The Axis of Fatima's gathering offensive could in itself be a sign of confidence that the political process is gaining enough traction to further isolate Al Nusra and other implacable jihadists: another round of heavy spankings on the field should convince remaining "moderates" that their armed leverage is exclusively dependent on an unpalatable and unsustainable alignment with such extremists, who themselves are doomed to military defeat, if even by long attrition. That should bring more of them into the fold of Geneva, where the UN and even the West have all but surrendered the notion that Mr. Assad won't be a central figure in any transition to a new arrangement for the country.
Once that's achieved, the Axis of Fatima's other problems - notably ISIS and the Kurdish question (including Turkish designs) - are comparatively trivial.
As usual in war and politics, the stupid are penalized for mistaking leniency and patience for weakness and unresolve. That's what the "moderates" who have not taken advantage of the ceasefire to join peace talks, but on the contrary seized on the regime's shift of attention to ISIS (i.e. Palmyra) to improve their military position in Aleppo, are about to find out.
In a general sense, this blog accurately forecasted the success of the Russian air campaign in its central aim: to secure Assad's regime around Damascus, the Mediterranean coast, and a defensible corridor linking these most habitable core portions of Syria. Likewise, we have seen the expected further radicalization of the resistance, many of whose residual secular nationalist elements have, since the late February ceasefire, been compelled to join a peace process on terms they don't like, i.e. taking Assad's immediate ouster off the table.
Notwithstanding a recent upsurge in "moderate" rebel activity such as that of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which apparently threatens the ceasefire, there seems to be enough buy-in amongst the secular nationalist opposition to the Geneva process to give Assad a clear upper hand in negotiations, which he's now pressing with the intent of getting just enough opposition representation into a new national unity government to make it an acceptable alternative to continued armed insurrection.
That leaves Al Qaeda's local affiliate Al Nusra Front and its motley collection of jihadist allies, notably Ahrar al-Sham, as the dominant "rebel" presence still effective on the battlefield - with the FSA and other non-jihadist groups increasingly pushed to all but abandon their own residual revolutionary goals if they choose to remain in the most credible anti-regime coalition. Of course, Western media has continued to play up the possibility - already defunct all the way back in 2013 - that these "moderates" can still be a viable alternative to the Baathist state while simultaneously opposing the extremists: it just goes to show how the neocons and their minions can never bring themselves to accept failure and readjust accordingly.
In fact, whatever "moderate" forces even remain at all owe their existence exclusively to Russian and even regime goodwill and flexibility: they were given a breather since late February to enter into talks with the regime, not to restart their fantasy revolution. Now that even their provisional Islamist allies, especially Al Nusra, have turned increasingly hostile against them, it's only a matter of time - after all their showboating with the defiant banners of the old Arab Spring - that they take the only sensible path left for them, namely join those of their brethren who have already made overtures to Damascus.
That being said, it appears they're willing to give force of arms a chance in Aleppo, where they're gearing up for a final stand against the Axis of Fatima as the latter prepares an assault to recapture the city.
Thus, at this blog's half-year anniversary, Syria's fate hinges on Aleppo, both the divided and besieged city itself and the surrounding province. The Axis of Fatima's gathering offensive could in itself be a sign of confidence that the political process is gaining enough traction to further isolate Al Nusra and other implacable jihadists: another round of heavy spankings on the field should convince remaining "moderates" that their armed leverage is exclusively dependent on an unpalatable and unsustainable alignment with such extremists, who themselves are doomed to military defeat, if even by long attrition. That should bring more of them into the fold of Geneva, where the UN and even the West have all but surrendered the notion that Mr. Assad won't be a central figure in any transition to a new arrangement for the country.
Once that's achieved, the Axis of Fatima's other problems - notably ISIS and the Kurdish question (including Turkish designs) - are comparatively trivial.
As usual in war and politics, the stupid are penalized for mistaking leniency and patience for weakness and unresolve. That's what the "moderates" who have not taken advantage of the ceasefire to join peace talks, but on the contrary seized on the regime's shift of attention to ISIS (i.e. Palmyra) to improve their military position in Aleppo, are about to find out.
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Clueless US could now be escalating a proxy war in Syria - against itself!
The US and Russia are nearing a de facto alliance against ISIS in eastern Syria, a development that would cap off a stunning reversal of fortune in 2016 for the Baathist regime of Bashar al-Assad, who with recent battlefield successes against ISIS is closing in on a once-unthinkable diplomatic coup: gaining legitimacy with the West as part of the anti-terror coalition.
That's especially so because terror-stricken Western Europe in particular is absolutely desperate for progress on the ground against ISIS whether in Iraq or Syria - but not surprisingly at all, US-backed Iraqi government forces have again choked bigtime, fleeing yet again in the face of the ragtag terrorist army in the vicinity of Mosul like they did almost two years ago, and badly delaying the liberation of Iraq's second city from the caliphate which was trumpeted by pro-US media as being virtually imminent a couple of weeks ago. (It now appears Washington felt pressured to hype up the whole campaign because the Russian-backed Syrian army and Iranian-led militias were making such good progress against ISIS around Palmyra in the immediate aftermath of the Brussels bombings.)
However, Turkey is clearly doubling down its resistance to the Axis of Fatima, in league with Saudi Arabia. Having secured a deal with Merkel to return Syrian refugees from Greece to Asia minor and beef up a crackdown on illegal trafficking of more migrants into Europe, Mr. Erdogan apparently feels he has enough leverage now to up the ante in his long war to eliminate Assad even if it means openly supporting Western-recognized terrorists - or at least preserve what remains of the non-ISIS jihadistan in northwestern Syria that the Axis of Fatima's February victories threatened with extermination.
Turkey's blatant support for Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front is becoming less and less of a suspicion - even Ankara increasingly seems okay with it gradually coming to the open as a plain established fact. Among other developments, the terror group's apparent acquisition of advanced Western surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) from Turkish dealers has resulted in two Syrian warplanes being downed by militants in a month: the Saudis had specifically warned of this if they didn't force Assad's immediate resignation at the start of the Geneva-brokered political transition. Rogue Turkish officers are also reportedly recruiting for Al Nusra in northern Aleppo province to fend off the campaign of attrition by the Kurds and pro-regime forces.
Last weekend, Al Nusra opportunistically captured a weak link in the regime's siege ring around Aleppo city, capitalizing on Damascus' newfound focus on ISIS further south and east. With stepped-up Turkish materiel and Saudi monetary aid, it apparently thwarted Aleppo's pacification, but Russian air power continues to reign supreme, allowing the government to launch a counteroffensive, as they've done so repeatedly against both ISIS and other rebels in the vicinity in recent months.
Interestingly, however, as the article mentions, the US is now stepping up its own airstrikes against Nusra fighters, killing a top commander. This indicates that not merely in ISIS' heartland Raqqa governorate, but also in northwestern Idlib, American and Russian warplanes are buzzing around the same sectors to hit essentially the same enemies (one presumes in coordinated fashion to avoid targeting conflicts and redundancies).
But this highlights just how potentially explosive - and not merely embarrassing - things can get in both the strained US-Turkey relationship and, much closer to home, the simmering rivalry between two bureaucratic empires right here inside the Beltway. Ever since Washington got sucked into a proxy war with itself when its CIA and Turkish-backed Syrian Arab rebels started shooting with its Pentagon-backed Syrian Kurdish rebels in Aleppo province back in February, Erdogan has been barking down Obama's nose about making a choice between Turkey and the Kurds. The problem is, Obama obviously hasn't decided one or the other - allowing his disparate intelligence and defense agencies to escalate what's essentially a proxy war with one another!
The sheer absurdity of this whole situation should be the butt of all manner of standup comedy jokes - only it's anything but not deadly serious. Just imagine: the CIA is furnishing Al Qaeda terrorists with advanced SAMs - which could be aimed at Pentagon warplanes!
All the while, weak and feckless Western Europe has become such a geopolitical sissy that Donald Trump has opened a debate about whether NATO isn't already an obsolete relic; and Turkey and Russia have very obviously opened up a new front in their proxy war as their respective vassals Azerbaijan and Armenia reignite a frozen conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Perhaps we in America need some kind of rude awakening as to the sheer folly of our foreign policy. Things are getting awfully interesting.
That's especially so because terror-stricken Western Europe in particular is absolutely desperate for progress on the ground against ISIS whether in Iraq or Syria - but not surprisingly at all, US-backed Iraqi government forces have again choked bigtime, fleeing yet again in the face of the ragtag terrorist army in the vicinity of Mosul like they did almost two years ago, and badly delaying the liberation of Iraq's second city from the caliphate which was trumpeted by pro-US media as being virtually imminent a couple of weeks ago. (It now appears Washington felt pressured to hype up the whole campaign because the Russian-backed Syrian army and Iranian-led militias were making such good progress against ISIS around Palmyra in the immediate aftermath of the Brussels bombings.)
However, Turkey is clearly doubling down its resistance to the Axis of Fatima, in league with Saudi Arabia. Having secured a deal with Merkel to return Syrian refugees from Greece to Asia minor and beef up a crackdown on illegal trafficking of more migrants into Europe, Mr. Erdogan apparently feels he has enough leverage now to up the ante in his long war to eliminate Assad even if it means openly supporting Western-recognized terrorists - or at least preserve what remains of the non-ISIS jihadistan in northwestern Syria that the Axis of Fatima's February victories threatened with extermination.
Turkey's blatant support for Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front is becoming less and less of a suspicion - even Ankara increasingly seems okay with it gradually coming to the open as a plain established fact. Among other developments, the terror group's apparent acquisition of advanced Western surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) from Turkish dealers has resulted in two Syrian warplanes being downed by militants in a month: the Saudis had specifically warned of this if they didn't force Assad's immediate resignation at the start of the Geneva-brokered political transition. Rogue Turkish officers are also reportedly recruiting for Al Nusra in northern Aleppo province to fend off the campaign of attrition by the Kurds and pro-regime forces.
Last weekend, Al Nusra opportunistically captured a weak link in the regime's siege ring around Aleppo city, capitalizing on Damascus' newfound focus on ISIS further south and east. With stepped-up Turkish materiel and Saudi monetary aid, it apparently thwarted Aleppo's pacification, but Russian air power continues to reign supreme, allowing the government to launch a counteroffensive, as they've done so repeatedly against both ISIS and other rebels in the vicinity in recent months.
Interestingly, however, as the article mentions, the US is now stepping up its own airstrikes against Nusra fighters, killing a top commander. This indicates that not merely in ISIS' heartland Raqqa governorate, but also in northwestern Idlib, American and Russian warplanes are buzzing around the same sectors to hit essentially the same enemies (one presumes in coordinated fashion to avoid targeting conflicts and redundancies).
But this highlights just how potentially explosive - and not merely embarrassing - things can get in both the strained US-Turkey relationship and, much closer to home, the simmering rivalry between two bureaucratic empires right here inside the Beltway. Ever since Washington got sucked into a proxy war with itself when its CIA and Turkish-backed Syrian Arab rebels started shooting with its Pentagon-backed Syrian Kurdish rebels in Aleppo province back in February, Erdogan has been barking down Obama's nose about making a choice between Turkey and the Kurds. The problem is, Obama obviously hasn't decided one or the other - allowing his disparate intelligence and defense agencies to escalate what's essentially a proxy war with one another!
The sheer absurdity of this whole situation should be the butt of all manner of standup comedy jokes - only it's anything but not deadly serious. Just imagine: the CIA is furnishing Al Qaeda terrorists with advanced SAMs - which could be aimed at Pentagon warplanes!
All the while, weak and feckless Western Europe has become such a geopolitical sissy that Donald Trump has opened a debate about whether NATO isn't already an obsolete relic; and Turkey and Russia have very obviously opened up a new front in their proxy war as their respective vassals Azerbaijan and Armenia reignite a frozen conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Perhaps we in America need some kind of rude awakening as to the sheer folly of our foreign policy. Things are getting awfully interesting.
Friday, April 1, 2016
As in Heaven, so on earth: how a Jewish woman runs everything
Apparently, US Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen - the little Jewish lady who effectively manages the livelihoods of the planet's 7.4 billion inhabitants - saved the global economy from a complete meltdown on February 11, 2016 - the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes (and, incidentally, the third anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI's shocking resignation which paved the way for Pope Francis).
It was on that very day that the crash of oil prices - which threatened to unleash an uncontrolled death spiral of (petro)dollar deflation worldwide - was decisively arrested.
Today, the relative calm in global markets, but most significantly the major exchanges in the US, UK, Europe, Japan and China, is singularly attributable to the fact that crude oil was not allowed to drop into the teens per barrel, effectively bottoming out around $26. As well, the other hammer that would've come down had crude hit the teens - China's yuan or RMB - has been effectively propped up around 6.5 to the dollar (which has apparently been deliberately weakened since then) to prevent a cataclysmic feared 20 to 30 percent devaluation which would've blown already-depressed global trade levels clean out of the water.
No, we're not out of the woods yet; more likely, we're only approaching the actual thick part of the deep forest interior - all that's been achieved to date is we've taken a powerful pill to prevent a guaranteed (panic-induced) stroke even before we've actually set out some proximate course to reach the other side eventually.
These woods, of course, are a metaphor for the unprecedented global peace promised originally by Our Lady of Fatima in July 1917 - a worldwide stabilization brought about by the universal language of market-driven commerce, with the Jews, hardly surprisingly, at the very center.
Not coincidentally, the situation in Syria also improved markedly at virtually the same moment the world was pulled back from the economic precipice: the Axis of Fatima spent the following fortnight consolidating its gains around the critical strategic city of Aleppo in the run-up to the February 26 ceasefire that has largely held ever since.
The Axis of Fatima - Russia, Iran, Syria, etc. - is of course oil-fueled and petrodollar-based. That it's essentially been handed a geopolitical win in the Levant makes perfect sense when you consider that it was first handed a financial salve by Ms. Yellen in the form of an eased global dollar ecosystem - this, far more than any rumored or real "output freeze" agreement between Russia and OPEC, is the determinant of petro prices.
Further, on the very day the Syrian ceasefire took hold, the US also essentially pivoted its economic destiny even further to China, secretly agreeing at the G-20 in Shanghai to prop up the yuan by debasing the greenback. Years from now, this moment will likely be remembered as the one in which "Chimerica" became the permanent foundational fixture of the integrated global economy - with both its West and East wings run by the Jews (America being the New World Israel, China being the Far Eastern Wisdom sought by the ancient Hebrews of the Near East).
Things are looking pretty good for Israel - both the literal secular state in the Mideast and the figurative spiritual and cultural one encompassing most of the world (albeit still bitterly divided against and within itself); beyond this, the Axis of Fatima, being the (not so) secret link between Judeo-Christianity and Islam, is the only additional bridge to cross to arrive at the Nirvana of lasting world peace.
It was on that very day that the crash of oil prices - which threatened to unleash an uncontrolled death spiral of (petro)dollar deflation worldwide - was decisively arrested.
Today, the relative calm in global markets, but most significantly the major exchanges in the US, UK, Europe, Japan and China, is singularly attributable to the fact that crude oil was not allowed to drop into the teens per barrel, effectively bottoming out around $26. As well, the other hammer that would've come down had crude hit the teens - China's yuan or RMB - has been effectively propped up around 6.5 to the dollar (which has apparently been deliberately weakened since then) to prevent a cataclysmic feared 20 to 30 percent devaluation which would've blown already-depressed global trade levels clean out of the water.
No, we're not out of the woods yet; more likely, we're only approaching the actual thick part of the deep forest interior - all that's been achieved to date is we've taken a powerful pill to prevent a guaranteed (panic-induced) stroke even before we've actually set out some proximate course to reach the other side eventually.
These woods, of course, are a metaphor for the unprecedented global peace promised originally by Our Lady of Fatima in July 1917 - a worldwide stabilization brought about by the universal language of market-driven commerce, with the Jews, hardly surprisingly, at the very center.
Not coincidentally, the situation in Syria also improved markedly at virtually the same moment the world was pulled back from the economic precipice: the Axis of Fatima spent the following fortnight consolidating its gains around the critical strategic city of Aleppo in the run-up to the February 26 ceasefire that has largely held ever since.
The Axis of Fatima - Russia, Iran, Syria, etc. - is of course oil-fueled and petrodollar-based. That it's essentially been handed a geopolitical win in the Levant makes perfect sense when you consider that it was first handed a financial salve by Ms. Yellen in the form of an eased global dollar ecosystem - this, far more than any rumored or real "output freeze" agreement between Russia and OPEC, is the determinant of petro prices.
Further, on the very day the Syrian ceasefire took hold, the US also essentially pivoted its economic destiny even further to China, secretly agreeing at the G-20 in Shanghai to prop up the yuan by debasing the greenback. Years from now, this moment will likely be remembered as the one in which "Chimerica" became the permanent foundational fixture of the integrated global economy - with both its West and East wings run by the Jews (America being the New World Israel, China being the Far Eastern Wisdom sought by the ancient Hebrews of the Near East).
Things are looking pretty good for Israel - both the literal secular state in the Mideast and the figurative spiritual and cultural one encompassing most of the world (albeit still bitterly divided against and within itself); beyond this, the Axis of Fatima, being the (not so) secret link between Judeo-Christianity and Islam, is the only additional bridge to cross to arrive at the Nirvana of lasting world peace.
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