Pessimism Unbound: The Global Credit Crunch and the Crisis of Legitimacy

I had avoided posting on the ongoing financial meltdown for the past month for a number of personal reasons—my mother's visit, some hectic sight-seeing, the beginning of lectures. These were all trumped, however, by the breadth and scale of the crisis itself.

The events of the past few months should give us pause. We are witnessing the single-greatest economic shock of the last 70 years or so, an event of such monumental importance it makes the amateur commentator wobble at the knees. Still, it would be criminal of me not to try my best at providing context for the present crisis--both for its origins as well as its possible outcomes.

Bear in mind these thoughts are the product of feverish typing and late-night (and therefore very possibly incoherent) logic and argument.

It is none-too difficult to be crude in outlining the contours of this calamity. Indeed, how do we go about finding the key moments that have brought us to this fateful moment?

It is safe to say that a combination of cheap credit (in the way of low interest rates) and lax regulation (what in Britain was called 'The Big Bang', the financial de-regulation boom of the 1980s) played a decisive role in creating the most dangerous asset bubble--one based .. valuations--the rich world has experienced since the Japanese asset bubble in the 1980s. Perhaps it would be wise to mention here that the popping of the latter bubble resulted in the 'lost decade' (the 1990s) of stagnant or negative growth in the Japanese economy--an altogether ghastly possibility in the present circumstances.

In essence, the guiding principles of 1980s neoliberalism—unregulated markets—combined with 21st-century easy credit to fuel first the tech-led stock bubble of the 1990s, and then the infinitely more dangerous property bubble of the post-2001 era.

The excess liquidity of the Greenspan era initially found anchor in the technology-stock boom of the mid-to-late 90s and then, later, in houses and the mortgages that financed their acquisition. The latter was the result of the Federal Reserve response following the bursting of the Dot Com bubble in 2001. With money to spare financial institutions responded by pumping billions of dollars into the US property market--and the Irish, British, and Spanish ones as well. Properties provided a repository for the easy money, which in turn led to spiralling house prices, excessive home construction and reckless home borrowing.

Wall Street and The City of London exacerbated these underlying weaknesses by 'spreading risk'. They did so two ways: firstly, by creating nifty little financial instruments whose value was pegged to excessively loose loans (i.e. the subprime market loans), and secondly, by selling on those instruments to banks worldwide. These moves exposed banks large and small, far and wide, to an increasingly bloated American banking sector's liabilities. Yet, little was done at this point to mitigate the eventual come-down. The disincentives were, of course, unimportant when compared with the individual incentives (massive payouts and bonuses) sliced off Wall Street largesse.

The so-called 'masters of the universe' didn't stop there. As the underlying value of those assets became more difficult to gauge—a spectacular dereliction of duty by the credit rating agencies—and as a mild economic slowdown turned ugly, the institutional holders and sellers of those assets became understandably jittery. This led to frenzied hedging strategies—such as the opaque credit default swaps—meant to insure and reinsure those assets in the event of a problem. Of course, the veritable scale of this problem created problems of its own—problems related to the possible unwinding of the (at peak) $62 trillion CDS market. The implications of this hedging haven't yet played out.

We needn't go much further in describing what happened next. The toxic assets at the heart of the market became worthless over time as the economy slowed down and mortgage defaults increased. The troubles in the subprime market spread quickly, first from the banking lenders at fault for lax lending practices and then onto banks who had 'securitised' those dodgy assets, and finally onto banks who had purchased them. As mortgages went unpaid in Minneapolis, bankers in New York and London were left with excess debts and holding impossible-to-value 'assets', whilst investors in Saxony, Germany faced massive losses.

This snowball effect began having real-world, systemic consequences as credit markets seized up—that is, as banks became unwilling to lend to each other and to consumers (individuals as well as companies) as the losses mounted and banks began going under. What had been the banks' boon during the good times—high-leveraging policies plus fancy derivatives trading—became their undoing. And so we saw the collapse of Bear Stearns (such a shock at the time—but one to be dwarfed so quickly) and the much-larger Lehman Brothers; the forced merger of Merrill Lynch with JP Morgan; the nationalisation of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and most of AIG; the run on Bradford and Bingley and Northern Rock in the UK; the wobble of European bank Fortis and others; and so on.

Add on the spiralling cost of commodities and you have the single-greatest threat to the present globalised economic order since its inception. What started as a trickle of bad news has become a torrential flood of bad news—and the potential for a global crisis unlike anything we've seen since the Great Depression.

Domestically the present crisis in world markets represents a systematic failure of leadership and pragmatism, and the victory of ideology and special interests.

By ideology I mean to say the outspoken market fundamentalism of the past three decades—the bipartisan-supported notion that unfettered, untrammelled and under-regulated markets would provide generous and continuous benefits to those states that adopted it. This notion—not always applied in reality, but always underpinning the system(s) philosophically—had its corollary in wishful thinking: that the economic boon reaped by the explosion of financial wizardry would eventually trickle down to the common man.

That common man, meanwhile, would witness extraordinary structural change—in the decline of American industry, in the wholesale de-regulation of the services industry and in the absolute and relative decline of industrial-unionised power vis-à-vis corporate, supply-side interests. It is no accident that inequality has continued its forward march unabated in America. For wedded to the fundamentalist principles cursorily described above was the vague assumption that the welfare state had outlived its use. This assumption was never successfully applied against that most enduring of New Deal policies—Social Security—but a succession of popular-sounding initiatives (such as the decennial call for 'welfare reform') scaled back many aspects of 1940s progressivism.

So it was that the most apparent indicator of asymmetric economic progress —the glacial rise of real median income and stagnant job creation during a period of outwardly positive economic growth—was ignored.

In a country long accused of never really having a Leftist movement (Aló, BHL) the Reagan-initiated, Reagan-inspired changes proceeded along with haste. Likewise in Margaret Thatcher's Britain—where her 'creatively destructive' liberalism was starker and confrontational—and even in François Mitterand's France, at least in the middle years of his administration.

The picture as I've described it so far (even if only a part of it were true or fair interpretation) would provide enough ammunition against the ideologues in Washington and elsewhere under normal circumstances.

These aren't, of course, normal circumstances. The economic unwinding of the past year or so would be painful enough even if weren't accompanied (as it is) by the spectacular failure of American institutions, politicians and socioeconomic culture.

Let me not mince my words here: it is my belief that this crisis represents the most searing indictment on the complacent triumphalism of the past 30 years or so. Our political system has failed to respond with anything resembling a coherent response to this crisis, if only from a managerial perspective.

On the contrary, the spectacular loss of confidence in our political leadership was put on display yesterday when the House of Representatives shot down the compromise bail-out package initially proposed by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson (a Dartmouth alum, I'm none-too-proud to say). The package failed despite the incredible degree of bipartisan cooperation at the highest levels of government. The House rejected the bail-out despite winning the backing of the President, the Treasury secretary, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the leadership of both parties in both houses of Congress, and influential politicos on both sides of the aisle.

I was so utterly shocked by the news that I managed to spit a bit of my pint of bitter out yesterday evening at a King's College/Classic Department shindig at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. How could this flawed, but perhaps necessary, piece of legislation fall prey—at this abysmal hour—to craven party politics? Would the immediate and stupefying drop in the stock markets convince the sceptics of the necessity of some political intervention? And how could the GOP rebels really get away with proposing cuts to capital gains taxes at a time when banks probably won't have many capital gains to tax anyway!?

Some form of the bill may yet be passed by this Congress, as well it should.

Nevertheless, it is painfully obvious that the government as a whole now suffers from a crisis of legitimacy unseen since the Watergate years.

This shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone.

The mechanisms of government have been methodically corrupted and undone by the singular stubborn-minded approach to governance displayed by the Republican Party and its apologists on the other side of the aisle. The net result is a legitimacy deficit

For decades the Republican Party—which has governed the White House for 20 out of the last 28 years; controlled Congress for most of the 1990s and early noughties; selected the majority of the justices of the Supreme Court; and whose free-market ideology has become the economic consensus Washington—has been brazenly contemptuous of government in all its manifestations.

That isn't to say that the GOP ever really managed to 'reduce' government, the stated goal of the Reagan Revolution. On the contrary, the Reagan and Bush II years have been defined by massive budget deficits and rising public-sector debt. Paradoxically, the party of small government has exponentially increased the size of government in ways Democrats could only dream—and have done so despite protestations to the contrary.

The level of public commitments alone wouldn't be so problematic—here I proudly display my political stripes—if it weren't for the stunning incompetence of succeeding Republican leaders.

As our industry is shipped off to other parts of the world and the 'real economy' stagnates, our leadership still slavishly praises the wonders of the über-liberal economy. As our trade deficits soar and foreigners control an ever-larger portion of our debt (read another way: as foreigners bank-roll our spending) this country chooses to bully its friends and foes with impunity. As successive crises of confidence rocked American-style socioeconomic policies, our leadership goes on lecturing, hectoring and ignoring the outside world on everything from terrorism to—you betcha!—economic policy.

And as government assumes more burdens—in a distorted fashion: to the net benefit of politically-motivated pet projects and a bloated defence budget, and at the expense of the social safety net—our leaders debase the decision-making process, rendering it inefficient, dysfunctional and mistrusted. The GOP has tested the fibre of the American constitutional project, and in some disquieting ways have managed to dent it.

The Republicans have made a business of partisan hatred and a blame-government-first mentality. They have scalped government departments and offices, and packed them with hacks—not out of a pragmatic desire to manage government, but ultimately to undermine it. And in this all the media's complicity in the affair—in its inability to report the government's many abuses; in its shameless inability to stay above the fray, even disowning 'patriotism' (if need be) as a journalistic duty; and in its spiral to the bottom, in terms of quality.

Perhaps—perhaps—this is the perverse logic of the Right Wing: to use the levers of government in such a perverse manner as to render them irrevocably damaged and socially de-legitimised. Our civil servants are mistrusted, our institutions disdainful of our rights, our representative politics reduced to sham sparring and legislative gridlock, our leaders shockingly wedded to the creators of the buck—all to the detriment of social cohesiveness and socio-moral responsibility.

How can government ever again be trusted by its citizens when it has been so grossly destructive of its means?

So we come to what is perhaps the most jarring lesson of this crisis: the fundamental undermining of the American colossus from within at a time of great geopolitical change. Let us be in no doubt: the American Century as we knew it is no more.

That is not to say that America has suddenly and irrevocably become irrelevant. The strength of its constitutional structures remains—if tattered—and its economic productivity remains enviable. Nevertheless, by most measures of global power America is in relative decline to the BRIC states and others in the developing world—save, of course, for the size and scope of its military force.

America's economic legitimacy has been shaken to its foundations with the present crisis, whilst its political structures have manifestly failed to remain relevant at this critical time. Its human rights and developmental aid record has been patchy, while its foreign policy has been soundly rejected. Technologically still the most advanced nation on Earth, America has failed to translate this advantage into tangible gains—whether it be in its shoddy infrastructure (civil engineering-wise, transport-wise and even high-tech-wise in the form of its decrepit cell phone network) or its energy policies.

Together these problems amount to a stunning crisis of respect and legitimacy. It was only a few years ago that America was described as the world's only hyperpower: its power and dominance unchecked, its ambitions global.

That is no longer the case. We now have an America roundly criticised from all corners of the world for its lack of leadership. Today, my country is humbled, its problems personified in one man: the gaunt, dejected and exhausted figure of President George W. Bush.

The next US president may do much to roll-back the decades of incompetence.

As of now neither candidate has shown a particularly creative stab in that direction, which is entirely unfortunate.

It is still the case, I believe, the he will have to manage a policy of reconciliation and rebuilding at home and geopolitical accommodation abroad. Domestically, he will have to manage the country through the aftermath of the current economic crisis—and it is not entirely clear whether the worse is yet to come on this front—and defuse the decades-long rancour at the heart of political discourse.

Externally, he will have to accept the rise of new regional powers and the establishment of new economic principles, and perhaps even the reshaping of key institutions—such as the IMF, the World Bank and perhaps the UN.

It will not be the case that America will forget its penchant for foreign meddling and the leadership of its allies, though battered. It most likely will not become entirely isolationist. But we can probably expect more restraint. Old habits die hard, except when they cost a pretty (debt-funded) penny.

September 2008 may well be remembered as the turning point in a fundamental reordering of global power. Many editorial boards, economists, politicians and common-folk worldwide are suggesting as much already.

Of course, we shall only know with the passing of time what the events of September 2008 mean in the long term—though I'd go out on a limb and suggest its ramifications could eclipse those stemming from the events of September 2001.

One thing is certain: For Americans the next few months couldn't flit by any faster...

The Pound-Dollar Pair: A Snapshot

I'd like to share a few charts having to do with global currencies. You see, foreign currencies have been an obsession of mine since before I first moved abroad, and more so after I did.

These days I check currency market fluctuations on a day-to-day basis. It sounds more boring than it is--especially when you are directly affected by these fluctuations. That is true the more so you have funds travelling between two different currency areas.

I have personally been a keen observer of the euro (€) and pound sterling (£) with relation to the dollar ($). Over the past two years or so the United States dollar has suffered a decline in confidence with relation to those two European currencies for multiple reasons: the negative balance of trade caused by an insatiable American demand for exports, mostly from China; huge budget deficits and, consequently, an ever-expanding national debt, rung up by the Bush administration since the fiscal years 2001-2002; a psychological rise in confidence for the euro since a coordinated intervention in 2002; and so forth.

By most purchasing-power measures the euro and the pound have been overvalued vis-à-vis the dollar for quite some time. (You can consult The Economist's funny, if not quite accurate, Big Mac Index to see what a fair dollar-euro/pound valuation should be.) So it comes as no surprise that they have faced pressure during times of economic difficulty, both in the Eurozone as well as in the United Kingdom and other non-euro European economies.

Still, the pound's fall over the past year has been incredible--and, for this dollar-dependent American, fortuitous. The pound reached a high of $2.11610 over the past year, but just this week has been scraping the lowest levels seen in more than two. You can see the depreciation over the past year:

In some ways one can see this as a bit of a historical correction. A longer, 5-year survey demonstrates the dramatic upturn in the pound since summer 2006. In April 2007 the pound cracked above $2 for the first time since 1992, and stayed above that level for the latter half of 2007. It has skirted it multiple times in 2008, with probable negative consequences on UK exports.

Personally, of course, the recent slide is very good news. The pound has been touching the void all week, and that couldn't come at a better time than now where dollars from home keep me well fed. :-)

It's probable the pound will remain weak for a while even if not as weak as recently. The UK economy has slowed down dramatically and could dip into a mild recession for the last two quarters of 2008. That will continue to put downward pressure on the pound against the dollar, and against the euro--against which it has touched all-time lows this week.

Here's a graph showing the periods (in light red) when I've spent more than 2 months in the UK over the last 5 years:

The Beijing Games Through American Eyes

What do the Olympics say about a nation’s psyche?

The Beijing Olympics have been a roaring success by most counts. That, despite well-deserved controversies regarding human rights and the shadow cast by events in the Caucuses.

China has had the most spectacular coming-out celebration, putting itself squarely on the map as an Olympic Superpower. Whether the host nation’s geopolitical power reflects that sporting prowess just yet is open to debate, but that doesn’t really matter. The Olympics are all about symbolism. To the Chinese these Olympics have served their purpose: to demonstrate the sheer power of the Chinese colossus, by symbolically eclipsing the United States (US) on the world stage.

The Chinese have made their point starkly enough, putting on the grandest—and most costly (upwards of £20 billion)—Olympics of all time. And what a better way to spend so much money than on an Olympics that have unified the nation behind the national team, the most successful national team of the Games.

Well, unless you're in the United States.

The American press has contented itself by publishing medal tables ranked by the total number of medals won by each nation. By this metric the US comes out top of the table with 107 medals, compared to China’s 96 and Russia’s 69 (as of 23 August.)

Conversely, major publications and broadcasters worldwide measure the national rankings by a stricter metric—the total number of gold medals per nation. The gold medal tally is the accepted international benchmark by which to rank nations, a measure which coincidentally puts China (49) far ahead of the United States (34) and Russia (21).

The American manner of weighing the medals has caused considerable mirth in the international press. The Financial Times led its comments section this morning on the rather contrary nature of the US count. Meanwhile, the US media have tried to get the proper spin on the issue. The Los Angeles Times went to press with a headline too cheesy to ignore: ‘Medal count favors China—and U.S.’ Yes, we’re ALL winners!

The New York Times, meanwhile, published an atrocious piece on the US Olympic Committee’s (USOC) views on the issue. Success, we are told, ‘could be measured by the number of overall medals, [or] the number of gold medals…’ But of course, that’s not really true. In the world’s eyes China has won, fair and square.

Not so, says USOC:

“We really measure our success on how well our team sports performed,” he said. “More individual athletes will finish with a gold medal around their neck than any other country, if you want to look at it that way.”… using Scherr’s calculation, the United States is ahead: 81 American athletes now have medals around their necks, compared with 69 Chinese athletes.

Hmm. This smacks of a slight bit of desperation. Non-Americans agree. As per the LA Times:

"Gold is better, not the total," said Toshiyuki Kon, a photographer for the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun. "One gold and 10 silvers is bigger than no gold and 20 silvers."

Jan Bengtsson, a reporter for Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, noted that because Sweden "is suffering its worst Olympics since 1896" -- four silver medals and a bronze -- it'd be easy to say the overall number of medals is more important. But he couldn't.

"The Olympics is not about being second, being third. It's about being first," he said. "The gold medalist will be covered and praised for the rest of his life, but who remembers who won the bronze?"

I’m inclined to agree, especially as this has been the internationally accepted measure of national success for decades. We could quibble night and day about what is a fairer rule to settle the issue, but that would be rather ridiculous. A perfectly reasonable measure exists already. It does what it needs to do—reflect the best of the best athletes. What is there to argue with?

The 2008 Olympics will rightly be remembered for China’s successes. It wanted to make the grandest statement of its ambitions—to lead the world and make this a Chinese century.

They may well get their wish.

What it says about the United States is a different matter altogether.

Cold Peace? Transatlantic Unity in Georgia and Beyond

Gerard Baker's most recent column in The Times (UK) proves it: Conservatives truly have a shallow conception of history.

To the conservative mind every geopolitical event bears a striking resemblance to the Second World War and its origins. Indeed, we are always repeating Munich in 1938 and there is always a new Czechoslovakia to save. It would seem as though the strictures of foreign relations were invented and ossified a mere 70 years ago.

Given such proclivities one should not be all that surprised to read Mr. Baker's latest invective against Europe generally and French diplomatic efforts specifically. It is entirely to his credit that he manages to bash Europe, for no fault of its own, in such a creative fashion.

In his feverish imaginings Europe has capitulated to naked Russian aggression when nothing short of a muscular (read: military) response would do. One cannot help but take exception to such simplicity.

The South Ossetia question has been unresolved since 1991 with little or no effort taken by the outside world to resolve it. Such is international indifference that Abkhazia has been under lazy UN monitoring since 1993, whilst South Ossetia has been in legal purgatory under OSCE supervision. In that time regional stability has largely depended on the restraint exercised by both Russia and Georgia.

The world long ago recognised there was no simple solution here. The West's apathy in the past 16 years--exemplified by the reflexive annual recognition of the UN peacekeeping mandate--surely supports that interpretation.

With that context in mind Georgia's attack on South Ossetia last week becomes incredibly difficult to defend. An attack would only ever force Russia either to give up its interests in the region or to respond militarily. President Saakashvili is no fool: he knew his actions would incur a Russian reprisal, but he was determined to press on despite the consequences. He recklessly expected that NATO would come to his aid if the Russians tried to capitalise on his move.

That expectation of automatic NATO assistance was Mr. Saakashvili's greatest mistake. His gambit was doubly imprudent in light of NATO's decision earlier this year not to fast track approval of Georgian membership. We should not be surprised. Georgia is an unstable and divided state and NATO membership cannot be a panacea for its political problems.

At best NATO membership could have mitigated Georgian fears of an external, Russian threat. But the alliance cannot serve as a guarantor of internal stability, especially not when that stability is dependent on wider geopolitical considerations. In an ideal world the United States would have pushed strongly to resolve the status of both Abkhazia and South Ossetia before promising NATO membership to Georgia.

Those subtle considerations are predictably lost on Mr. Baker. He loses any shred of objective credibility when failing to recognise the indiscriminate killing on both sides, whilst repeatedly confusing American aims for European (and consequently UK) interests. Let us be clear: The US has staked far more of its credibility in Georgia than Europe has, but you wouldn't know that from Mr. Baker's tedious, tabloid-quality arguments.

Russia's actions are entirely inexcusable. The Russian military needlessly widened the crisis by expanding its operations far outside the region of conflict. It was reasonable to expect Russian intervention in South Ossetia given its overwatch role--despite Mr. Baker's protestations--but that should never have involved bombing targets in Poti, Tbilisi, Gori or elsewhere. We are witnessing an attempt to bully Georgia at the expense of peace for Ossetians, Abkhazians and all other Georgians. The continued Russian presence on Georgian soil outside the zone of conflict--indeed, Russia's mendacity in not complying with the EU-sponsored ceasefire--deserves nothing short of the swiftest condemnation.

Nevertheless, it would be reckless for the West to jeopardise the entire NATO-Russian relationship. This consideration will take on more importance over the coming months and years, as the Ukraine and other nervous, ex-Soviet states weigh their futures against the backdrop of a resurgest Russia. Alexander Nekrasov, a former Kremlin analyst, warned on the BBC's Newsnight (Friday, 15 August 2008) that the current tensions over Georgia would pale in comparison to a Ukraine-Russia spat. He gravely warned that a similar situation in the Ukraine would end in global war.

The spectre of nuclear war in future over precisely the sort of issues in debate today should focus minds. We may not be witnessing a new 'iron curtain' descending upon Europe, but the era of American hyperpuissance ('hyperpower', or global dominance) is now well and truly over. That relative decline, coupled with the rise of the BRIC states (Brazil, Russia, India, China), also brings to a close the unipolar post-Cold War era--and perhaps the end of the interregnum before a return to great power competition. Russia may not be the main challenger--and its demographic collapse suggests it won't--trans-Eurasian expanse may make it one of the trickiest to handle. We may not be at the tipping point of a new cold war, but this does not preclude the possibility of a 'cold peace' with Moscow.

This is the wider geopolitical context for the current situation in the Caucuses, and its lessons should not be so readily discarded without at least trying to resolve the matter peacefully and fairly.

Here, the West has been playing a more effective game than admitted by most commentators in the UK and abroad.

The United States has played the 'bad cop' to the European's 'good cop' in negotiations. The Americans have outright threatened Russia with grave consequences if it does not extricate itself from Georgia.

Meanwhile, it is providing visible Western support by airlifting humanitarian aid. That is nothing short of a 'muscular' response. Notably, and here Mr. Baker fumbles badly, these actions have not met with European disapproval. On the contrary, the European Union seems to be giving tacit support to these moves whilst partaking in its own, US-backed form of diplomacy.

Behind the scenes European diplomats are quietly supporting US efforts to isolate Russia. In fact, it has already begun--the G7 met to express its disapproval, effectively freezing Russian membership in the G8. The longer the Russians play this out, the more isolated they will become at the 'big table' organisations. We shall see how long Russia's intransigence lasts while its future WTO membership hangs in the balance.

For the moment, Europe is playing a double-game with the Russians. On the one hand the EU is pushing the Russians into respecting the ceasefire as neutral mediators. On the other President Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken quite openly of the consequences if they do not comply. Furthermore, he has been quite keen on the idea of EU peacekeepers to enforce the ceasefire.

Just this Friday the German chancellor spoke out against the 'disproportionate' Russian response during a joint press conference with the Russian president. The British government has done the same, speaking candidly about consequences whilst allowing EU-US efforts to continue. Even the Italians have appealed for EU unity in the face of Russian aggression.

This is not 'transatlantic disunity' in the slightest. Condoleezza Rice is playing shuttle diplomacy as we speak precisely to support the European initiative. Her presence in the region thus has the dual purpose of signalling strong US support whilst aiding EU efforts. The allies are tackling this issue in multifaceted ways--but again one wouldn't know that from Mr. Baker's analysis.

There will be no progress in the region until we can get the Russians back to the status quo ante. No amount of posturing will change the simple truth that threatening the presence of western military forces in the region would do little to draw down tensions. Joint EU-US efforts are operating in an entirely appropriate manner given the circumstances.

We should support western initiatives to resolve this crisis in a peaceful manner, not undercut them by shouting on, night and day, about the twin right-wing obsessions of European weakness and anti-Russian rhetoric.

Sadly, right-wing political columnists are too busy rehashing the history of September 1938 to notice.

Rape Victims, Twice Over

It was revealed this week that a British rape victim had her £11,000 compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) reduced by up to 25% because she had been drinking before being raped. The courts ruled in favour of the victim, thereby overturning the compensation reduction. The ruling led the Ministry of Justice to clarify that 'a victim of rape is not in any way culpable due to alcohol consumption.' There have been subsequent revelations that 14 other rape victims had their compensation reduced because they had consumed alcohol prior to being attacked.

Salon.com's Broadsheet briefly mentioned the case a few days back, and many of the comments in response to the post were boilerplate arguments about--ahem--personal responsibility. That is, the victim's responsibility in the matter. This afternoon, the BBC World Service (radio) put the question more bluntly to its global audience on 'World Have Your Say':

'So can the way a woman behaves be a factor in rape? Are women "inviting" rape by the way they dress or act? If a woman signals in some way that she's available, does that mean she's "asking for it", or is this just an excuse?'

One standard version of an 'affirmative' response went as such:

'I am not in the least bit excusing any criminal for their actions. I am simply saying that if a person's decisions cause them to be more vulnerable, then they need to accept that they made a mistake. This means, that they should not repeat those actions in the future. In the end, it is a woman's responsibility to protect herself. Failure to do so, whether right or wrong, will have consequences.'

Let's be clear about what we're talking about here. Rape is about control; it is not sex. Sex is a consensual act satisfying the needs--emotional, animalistic, psychological, what have you--of its participants. Rape is a distortion of that: it is subjugation of an individual life to the violent whims of another. We cannot and should not confuse one for the other. Likewise, we should not pretend that flashing a bit of skin, or staring provocatively, or sending any other such physical 'signals' of lust give free reign to rape anyone. Again, rape is about control, and darned if a hijab, or a long skirt, or some other heavy vestment will get in the way of its depravity.

Nevertheless, some would have us assume a rather twisted version of the laws of causality. This rigid notion of causality--that one's actions obviously lead to a consequent set of actions--becomes a straightjacket constraining the search for justice. For you see, justice no longer becomes just a question of 'legal' responsibility--that responsibility lies on the attacker for having raped his/her victim. No, we are told, the act of rape also gives rise to a 'personal' responsibility as well. That responsibility--for dressing in a skimpy manner, for blowing kisses, for getting drunk--lies squarely on the victim for having, in effect, allowed him/herself be raped.

This line of thinking is dangerous, specious and unjust. This false dichotomy between 'personal' and 'legal' responsibilities has the perverse effect of apportioning an element of blame on the victim.

To be sure, women should take care not to put themselves in dangerous situations where there is an increased probability for harm. The same can obviously be said for many crimes. But the victim should never be doubly victimised for someone else's criminal behaviour. Whether drinking or not, dressed provocatively or not, a woman will be raped for no fault of her own. Sobriety, a niqab and a dose of paranoia are not enough to prevent a determined attacker--one who is sensitive to (a) the vulnerability of his victim, and (b) an opportunity to strike. Remember, the rapist seeks to control his victim: there lies his satisfaction. Are there grey areas to this standard scenario? Absolutely, and courts in the UK and elsewhere take those subtleties into account--but again, that should never be at the expense of the victim.

Let me be crystal clear. A woman should not be victimised both by her rapist and by the law. The same goes for her relationship with her peers, and anyone else within spittle range of an opinion.

My thoughts may be all well and good, but study after study show a worrying bias against the victim when a certain style of dress or alcohol are involved.

Naturally, this raises the question: Why is it that rape automatically gives rise to 'mitigating circumstances' to shift even a minute amount of blame to the victim, though the same does not to apply to a lot of other unprovoked, violent acts? Perhaps it's the nature of the beast--the act of rape itself. Still, that does not change the inherent instability of the logic that apportions some blame to the victim. That is the tendentious nature of this logic. It underscores an obvious bias that seeks to 'explain' why a 'reasonable man' would want to rape someone else.

Nor are we therefore sensitive to the fact that the nature of rape–highly violent, but also perversely sexual–makes it a particularly acute form of psychological abuse as well, often giving rise to a large degree of misplaced guilt.

The act of explication--to see 'why' an attacker would want to do what s/he did to the victim--is itself detrimental to the search for justice. For then we are but patting the back of the victim, providing commiserations for her plight, whilst quietly judging her for her 'irresponsibility'.

It is a fundamental error of judgement to correlate a rapist's actions with those of his victim. In so doing we undermine the notion of criminality in all sorts of unpleasant ways. We place an undue burden on the individual to control his/her environment and all those populating it, at all times, when we should instead recognise that we often can't control either.

That goes for rape as it does other crimes of a seriously violent nature. It is moral abdication of the highest order to suggest otherwise.

What's going on in the Persian Gulf?

The Georgia-Russia conflict seems to be winding down (for the moment) after frantic, and apparently fruitful, peace efforts by French (and EU) president Nicolas Sarkozy. Whether the temporary cease-fire will hold is subject to much speculation, and I'll be keeping an eye on it.

Meanwhile, something is afoot in the Middle East.

The Kuwait Times (below, first), Middle East Times (here and here) and The Jerusalem Post (below, second) are reporting that a large flotilla of US (and possibly also British and French) warships are moving to the Persian Gulf. These moves have reportedly led the tiny, oil-rich nation of Kuwait to activate its emergency war plans, in anticipation of an attack on Iran. Are the US and its allies positioning themselves for conflict?

I'm not entirely sure what is going on, if anything. I'll be scouring the net for more information...meanwhile, here are two of the relevant articles.

***

GOVT FINALIZING WAR EMERGENCY PLAN
Kuwait Times [Link to Source]
7 August 2008

KUWAIT: The government is finalizing its emergency plan this week in order to ensure that the country is protected from foreign dangers in case the regional situation escalates and a war breaks out between Iran and the USA.

An unnamed senior official revealed that the government has learnt that two aircraft carriers are scheduled to arrive in the Gulf and the Red Sea in preparation for the expected war at any time. The official said that this information led the government to accelerate its emergency plan preparations, which include arrangements for protecting all sectors and vital installations.

The senior official added that acting premier Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah has asked the Interior Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Khalid Al-Sabah and other ministers concerned with devising and implementing the emergency plan to hold meetings with the different government departments in order to discuss the plan and submit reports to reveal and resolve possible weaknesses before war breaks out in the area. He told ministers that Kuwait would not be immune from war and the government must be ready for any emergency.

The plan is divided into three parts, said the official - Security, Humanitarian and Vital Services. He added that the Kuwaiti Civil Defense and the Health and Interior Ministries would prepare the plan's outlines in order to discuss them and complete all parts of it.

The official said that Ahmad Al-Abdullah, the Commerce and Industry Minister and State Minister for National Assembly Affairs is preparing the livelihood and supplies plan, while Mohammed Al-Olaim, the Minister for Oil, Electricity and Water and Oil is preparing the electricity plan.

The Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) is ready to provide an alternative energy source in case of any conflict affecting power supplies, as well as supplying water from the nation's strategic reserves which stand at nearly two billion gallons and can supply the country for forty days.

***

2 US AIRCRAFT CARRIERS HEADED FOR GULF
The Jerusalem Post [Link to Source]
7 August 2008

Two additional United States naval aircraft carriers are heading to the Gulf and the Red Sea, according to the Kuwaiti newspaper Kuwait Times.

Russia plays down talks of tougher sanctions against Iran

Kuwait began finalizing its "emergency war plan" on being told the vessels were bound for the region.

The US Navy would neither confirm nor deny that carriers were en route. US Fifth Fleet Combined Maritime Command located in Bahrain said it could not comment due to what a spokesman termed "force-protection policy."

While the Kuwaiti daily did not name the ships it believed were heading for the Middle East, The Media Line's defense analyst said they could be the USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Ronald Reagan.

Within the last month, the Roosevelt completed an exercise along the US east coast focusing on communication among navies of different countries. It has since been declared ready for operational duties. The Reagan, currently with the Seventh Fleet, had just set sail from Japan.

The Seventh Fleet area of operation stretches from the East Coast of Africa to the International Date Line.

Meanwhile, the Arabic news agency Moheet reported at the end of July that an unnamed American destroyer, accompanied by two Israeli naval vessels traveled through the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean. A week earlier, a US nuclear submarine accompanied by a destroyer and a supply ship moved into the Mediterranean, according to Moheet.

Currently there are two US naval battle groups operating in the Gulf: one is an aircraft carrier group, led by the USS Abraham Lincoln, which carries some 65 fighter aircraft. The other group is headed by the USS Peleliu which maintains a variety of planes and strike helicopters.

The ship movements coincide with the latest downturn in relations between Washington and Teheran. The US and Iran are at odds over Iran's nuclear program, which the Bush administration claims is aimed at producing material for nuclear weapons; however, Teheran argues it is only for power generation.

Kuwait, like other Arab countries in the Gulf, fears it will be caught in the middle should the US decide to launch an air strike against Iran if negotiations fail. The Kuwaitis are finalizing details of their security, humanitarian and vital services, the newspaper reported.

The six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) - Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman - lie just across the Gulf from Iran. Generals in the Iranian military have repeatedly warned that American interests in the region would be targeted if Iran is subjected to any military strike by the US or its Western allies.

Bahrain hosts the US Fifth Fleet, while there is a sizeable American base in Qatar. It is assumed the US also has military personnel in the other Gulf states, The Media Line's defense analyst said.

Iran is thought to have intelligence operatives working in the GCC states, according to Dubai-based military analysts.

The standoff between the US and Iran has left the Arab nations' political leaders in something of a bind, as they were being used as pawns by Washington and Teheran, according to The Media Line analyst.

Iran has offered them economic and industrial sweeteners, while the US is boosting their defense capabilities. US President George W. Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have paid visits to the GCC states in a bid to win their support.

Initial, rambling thoughts on the Russian-Georgian conflict.

On my birthday last year Adam Lebor—the Central Europe Correspondent for the The Times (London)—wrote an editorial for TheFirstPost in which he argued, rather cheekily, that Russia should back independence for Kosovo. Doing so, he argued, would give Russia a pretext to defend breakaway regions in its 'near-abroad' for its own convenience—in, say, Transnistria, or perhaps South Ossetia. I wrote a letter to the editor that was subsequently published, in which I argued that Russia should not wish for such a precedent to be set, as it could awaken old troubles in Chechnya and elsewhere.

Fourteen months have certainly changed the parameters of that debate. Kosovo ended up unilaterally declaring independence from Serbia, against the objections of Russia, but with the support of most European states and the US. More ominously, as we've now learned, tensions over another breakaway region closer to the Russian heartland have boiled over into war.

Russia's invasion of South Ossetia, a tiny breakaway province of the small republic of Georgia, has taken on grave overtones in the last 24 hours. Russian planes have widened their incursion by reportedly bombing the suburbs of the Georgian capital Tbilisi, along with the city of Gori (near the zone of conflict) and the port of Poti on the Black Sea. There are rumours that the Russians have summoned their Black Sea fleet to the coast of Abkhazia—another breakaway Georgian province.

You can read more about the origins of this conflict elsewhere, such as here. I'd like to make some cursory points going forward.

The current conflict is typical of the region: at once intensely local and dangerously global. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union 17 years ago Russia has attempted to maintain a tight grip on its former imperial holdings. Then-Russian president Boris Yeltsin argued in 1994 that the world was no longer divided along ideological boundaries, but rather along fault lines dividing 'spheres of influence' from each other. Mr. Yeltsin made it clear that Russia saw the former Soviet republics as falling within the Russian sphere—a clear message for the US and its European allies to back off.

In the past decade that Russian sphere of influence has become noticeably smaller. The growth of two western institutions—the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)—has steadily rolled back Russian influence in the former Soviet empire, first in Eastern Europe and increasingly in the former SSRs themselves. The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were the first ex-Soviet republics to plunge in to both NATO and the EU. The Ukraine and Georgia have attempted to follow suit in the past few years, with limited success: Russian objections have played a decisive, and antagonising role in their strategic considerations.

Of course Russia has plenty of interest in the Caucasus. The region's only non-Russian controlled oil pipeline runs from Azerbaijan through Georgia and onto Turkey and the West, posing a direct challenge to Russian efforts to monopolise energy trade with Europe. Tbilisi isn't all that far from Grozny, the capital of the rebellious (or, rather, now 'normalised') Russian province of Chechnya, and Georgia borders NATO member Turkey. From there the Middle East beckons: to the south of Georgia lie Armenia and Azerbaijan, and thence on to Iran. The Caucasus are therefore a geopolitical bottleneck, a rugged crossroads between Europe, the Middle East and greater Asia.

The blame for the current conflict can be divvied up many ways. The Georgians gambled that, with the opening of the Olympics, they would be able to pacify South Ossetia before Russia could respond--thereby unilaterally resolving the nearly 2 decade-old conflict. Meanwhile, the Russians have taken advantage of the current situation; there could, indeed, be substance to suggestions that Russia and South Ossetia goaded the Georgians into a trap. [NB 11/08/2008, 22:52 PM BST -- I've added a link to a Channel 4 news bulletin of ~16 mins. providing a bit of evidence to the last point; in particular between mins. 4 and 6.] They have been delivered an opportunity to bully the pro-Western Georgians into submission, and perhaps even bring about the collapse of its democratically-elected régime. Further, they are now able to impose their wishes--effectively to dismember Georgia by force, perhaps to absorb both South Ossetia and Abkhazia--under the cover of a peacekeeping operation. Finally, Russia has sent a message to its neighbours, the West and the wider international community--that it is prepared to use force in its 'near abroad' to bring wayward states to heel.

The West is caught up in a dilemma not of its own making. On the one hand, Georgia's population and leadership are pro-US, NATO and EU. It has embraced western institutions and policies, and has even maintained 2000 soldiers in Iraq as part of the coalition. (Incidentally, half those troops are due to return to Georgia post-haste, if they can convince the US to airlift them back home.) There are some US military advisers in the country, mainly for training purposes, and the US has an interest in maintaining influence in such an important—if unstable—region of the world.

On the other hand, the United States and its allies have their hands tied for two distinct, prohibitive reasons. Firstly, the US cannot afford to antagonise Russia over its tiny neighbour. The Russians play a key role in the ongoing negotiations with Iran (as part of the P5+1 framework) and North Korea (as part of the Six-party talks) over their nuclear programmes. Russian intransigence prevented sanctions from being applied to Zimbabwe in the past few weeks, and the Russians have a role (if relatively minor) to play in the Palestinian issue (as part of the Quartet). After years of US unilateralism—over the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the possible future placement of a missile defence system in Central Europe—the Russians appear to hold the upper hand, diplomatically. To put it bluntly, the US no longer has any major cards to play.

Secondly, any attempts to defend Georgia itself would be madness. NATO has no appetite to confront a nuclear-armed Russia over a small, former provincial backwater. As Henry Kissinger once put it, 'Great powers don't commit suicide for their allies.' And Georgia is a small ally indeed. Slowly but surely Russia is making great strides in cutting off the tiny nation from outside assistance. It has struck military installations and economic centres, and is attempting to blockade Georgia to prevent weapons from filtering in. Short of an unprecedented—and utterly dangerous—NATO/US airlift, which would involve our forces fighting their way into the country, there is little we can do in terms of material assistance.

There is thus little the West can do but exert strongly-worded diplomatic pressure. There is the risk that this could backfire monumentally: Russia has lost its desire to be lectured by a 'fading' super power, to be hectored on international fora, to be vilified by what it considers meddlesome and hypocritical foreigners. Russia is on the ascendancy (so it believes) and it has made it clear over the past couple of years that it will no longer be pushed around. Never mind the dramatic demographic decline facing the massive, sparsely populated country, and bollocks to its internal instability (e.g. Chechnya, Siberia, the far east). Russia is awash with oil, natural gas and confidence—and it means to use these to its advantage. There are rumours of Russia re-opening military installations in Cuba, of rebuilding its military forces, and of flexing its hydrocarbon power against the West. In the past year or so Russian bombers and fighters have strayed perilously close to NATO airspace, provoking the alliance to respond in a way not seen since the Cold War.

Its dramatic intervention in Georgia proves Russia hasn't lost its ability to intimidate.

***

UPDATE: 3:07 BST, 10/08/2008 - The BBC and Reuters are reporting that the Russian air force has bombed an airport in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.

SECOND UPDATE: 3:23 BST, 10/08/2008 - Russia is reportedly amassing 'thousands' of troops and tanks, and they are preparing for dawn to 'move in'. Is this the start of a wider invasion of the whole country?

THIRD UPDATE: 19:08, 10/08/2008- Georgia has declared a unilateral ceasefire, though the Russians have failed to live up to it. The US has accused the Russians of attacking the withdrawing Georgian columns as they flee the combat zone. Meanwhile, testy words were exchanged on the floor of the UN Security Council between the Russian and US ambassadors, with a volley from the bow by the UK. The French ambassador's statements, speaking for the entire European Union (including the UK) received wide support among members for his mediation efforts. Kudos to the Panamanian ambassador for pointing out the loose use of words such as 'genocide' and 'ethnic cleansing', as they undermine diplomatic efforts.

FOURTH UPDATE: 22:30, 11/08/2008 - President Bush has just spoken, delivering strong words to the Russian government. Suggested 'régime change' is Russian policy. Meanwhile, Channel 4 News (UK) played footage during today's 7 o'clock bulletin apparently showing South Ossetian forces firing at Georgian forces a week ago--adding fuel to rumours that there was a plot afoot here for some time.

Celebs in the Spotlight: Does free speech trump personal privacy?

When does a celebrity or important figure lose his or her right to privacy? And what exactly constitutes the public's right to free access of information in relation to that privacy? We're quite familiar with paparazzi chasing down people like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, and it seems we (as a society) are quite okay to let that kind of stuff slide--after all, plenty of folks gorge on all sorts of delightfully trashy media centred on the compromised privacy of celebrities. And why not: they want that kind of attention, n'est-ce pas?

Max Mosely, the head of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA)--the organisation that hosts the Formula One racing competition--was videotaped in what appeared to be a dungeon-style sado-masochistic sex orgy. The British tabloid News of the World published pictures of the tape under the headline 'F1 boss has sick Nazi orgy with five hookers'. They also posted video clips on their website.

Mr. Mosely sued the tabloid, arguing that this was a violation of his right to private life, which is protected under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The tabloid, in turn, argued that their freedom of speech (under article 10 of the same convention) should prevail. They argued, specifically, that either (a) there was a public interest in knowing about the Nazi/concentration camp theme of the orgy, and/or that (b) the lasciviousness of the event, whether or not it involved a Nazi theme, was sui generis of public interest because of the high-profile nature of Mr. Mosely's position. In effect, the newspaper seeks to limit the right to privacy of any high-profile individual who has dodgy sex--despite the inexistence of criminality--on the basis of the public's insatiable voyeurism and the celebrity's lifestyle.

The High Court of England and Wales shot down the tabloid's arguments. Mr. Justice Eadley held there was no legitimate public interest served by publication of the details of Mr. Mosely's sex orgy. The court subsequently awarded Mr. Mosely substantial damages stemming from his petition.

I think the High Court got it right (though there were some who protested on the grounds of freedom of speech and/or the defence against moral decay).

The defendant's argument (b) is patently ridiculous, and I'm quite surprised they'd make such an argument unless they were convinced Mr. Mosely was guilty of some legal or moral sin, whilst (a) placed a very heavy burden on the defence to prove that the event itself was really and truly 'Nazi'. (A related question: Is it acceptable to link all things German with National Socialism/fascism? Are faux German accents always, or even often, 'Nazi accents'?)

What do you think? I get the impression that US laws are more lax on the issue, though I'm admittedly short on US case law in reference to libel. Perhaps the News of the World could have won its case in the States?

Thoughts?

Fat Americans: Food for Thought

Philosophy Professor Chris Bertram at the University of Bristol (UK) posted the following over at the Crooked Timber:

'For Europeans, one of the really disconcerting things about visiting the United States is the size of the meals. Ok, there’s the phenomenon that the restaurant staff will let you take home what you don’t or can’t eat (and that’s an idea that many Europeans feel uncomfortable with), but there’s still the fact of the sheer volume of stuff that gets put on your plate. It seems it wasn’t always this way...I came across this article on how portion sizes have changed in the US over the past twenty years. And not only are American meals bulkier, they’ve also increased two or three times in calorific value. That can’t be good.'

Here is the link to the article to which he is referring...and it really is quite disconcerting.

As I'm visiting the States at the moment after a six-month absence, I thought it behoved me to provide some perspective. Frankly, I couldn't agree more with Professor Bertram--it IS disconcerting (I'd go as far as to say it's sickening and obscene) to see so much food piled on, and potentially wasted, on one person's plate.

But the mountains of food aren't the only things that are staggering: it's the sheer scale in which Americans like to do most things, without recourse to the consequences of such actions, what makes us so different (and odd). For example, how does constructing a city like Las Vegas--consuming electricity, food and water to an obscene degree--in the desert make any sense whatsoever? It is a singularly American sort of wish-making: to make the desert bloom at the expense of all else, and to make it larger and grander than should be possible.

I guess I'd forgotten the degree to which American culture is fixated on the 'more is good' mantra. This goes not only for our diets: our spendaholic culture generally falls into the same category, as does our (dwindling) interest in big cars, big lawns, etc. One need only compare how Europeans and Americans construct our respective physical environments--with America's massive streets; our endless, sprawling shopping centres; our obsession with cars and open space--to get a sense of the magnitude of that cultural fixation.

Trouble is, I'm not too sure such a lifestyle is healthy (it isn't), or sustainable (especially in a drying American West). Personally, I've no truck with this sort of lifestyle choice. I'd take Europe's smaller portions and compact construction over the massive plates of food and the asphalt sprawl any day of the week.

Flying over the Los Angeles cityscape yesterday afternoon, taking in the obscene urban sprawl over Southern California--a naturally dry, semi-arid region siphoning water from surrounding regions--only served to reinforce that conviction.

A Dangerous Cocktail: Obama, Iran, Jerusalem and AIPAC

A week and a half ago, Barack Obama delivered what was his first post-primary election victory speech as the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party. The Times (London) described the 'sombre' speech thus:

Barack Obama strode on to the international stage for the first time as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee-elect and vowed to use “all elements of American power” to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat.

He told America’s powerful pro-Israel lobby: “I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything.”

Mr Obama made these provocative statements whilst prostrating himself before AIPAC, the much-maligned right-wing Israeli lobby. (You can read more about the power of AIPAC elsewhere, a bit of which you can read here.) It is clear that he is effectively threatening to bomb Iran for its intransigence, something not lost on anyone who heard the speech live (me included). The speech was, as The Times described it, an 'opening salvo aimed at Iran.'

Of course, his sabre rattling was far from different from that delivered by Senators John McCain and Hillary Clinton, or indeed Joe Lieberman. Nonetheless, it is crucial to recognise just what 'change' we can expect from an Obama presidency, at least on the foreign policy front. Mr Obama made it clear that he does not intend to rock the foreign policy consensus--not least in an election year. As Alexander Cockburn put it in a scathing editorial, 'To Israel and its Arab neighbours it surely signalled that, whoever moves into the White House next January, there will be no swerve from Bush's role as guarantor of Israeli intransigence.'

So we are just as close to war with Iran as we have been at any time under the Bush administration, and the status quo will not change. It is not entirely clear how such an attack would look--perhaps Israel acting as a proxy, or alone, or perhaps a series of air strikes by US aircraft and warships. But we can at least sweep aside any notion that Barack Obama would stray too far from the conventional, Washington wisdom.

...but wait...there was more!

Let me be clear. Israel's security is sacrosanct...any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.

Jerusalem's legal status is at the very heart of the delicate negotiations around a peace settlement: whether as a fully Israeli city or as a partially occupied one. The claim that Jerusalem is the undivided capital of Israeli is even more contentious, as not even the United States (whose embassy is in Tel Aviv) has legitimised such a move. But Mr. Obama's statements seem to throw a wrench in the debate. The UN--and indeed most every state in the world--considers Jerusalem an international city at best; at worst an occupied one.

As the Israeli writer Uri Avnery put it:

Since Camp David, all Israeli governments have understood that this mantra constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to any peace process. It has disappeared - quietly, almost secretly - from the arsenal of official slogans...No Palestinian, no Arab, no Muslim will make peace with Israel if the Haram-al-Sharif compound (also called the Temple Mount), one of the three holiest places of Islam and the most outstanding symbol of Palestinian nationalism, is not transferred to Palestinian sovereignty. That is one of the core issues of the conflict. On that very issue, the Camp David conference of 2000 broke up.

More embarrassingly still, the US government (yes, under the BUSH administration!) distanced itself from the remarks. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack went out of his way to point out that Jerusalem, as a final-status issue would be left to the Israelis and Palestinians to figure out--it would not be for the US to dictate.

The Arabs were, rightly, shocked. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, told Al Jazeera:

This is the worst thing to happen to us since 1967...he has given ammunition to extremists across the region...What really disppoints me is that someone like Barack Obama, who runs a campaign on the theme of change - when it comes to Aipac and what's needed to be said differently about the Palestinian state, he fails...I say to Obama...please stop being more Israeli than the Israelis themselves, leave the Israelis and Palestinians alone to make decisions required for peace.

These statements were echoed by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and Hamas--which controls Gaza. The latter made the point quite bluntly: 'These statements slash any hope of any change in the American foreign policy.'

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. We shouldn't be surprised about the anger and confusion these comments have caused amongst the Palestinians, both in the West Bank as well as in Gaza. And we certainly shouldn't be surprised to see just another politician grovelling before the AIPAC lobby. But we should certainly expect much, much more: more than sabre rattling; more than grossly appeasing a lobby; and much more than lazy remarks about Palestine.

"I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon -- everything," he said to a standing ovation.

Indeed.

I invite you all to read the following editorial. It gives you a sense of what your politicians AREN'T talking about...

Robert Fisk: The West's weapon of self-delusion
The Independen [UK], Saturday, 7 June 2008

There are gun battles in Beirut – and America thinks things are going fine

So they are it again, the great and the good of American democracy, grovelling and fawning to the Israeli lobbyists of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), repeatedly allying themselves to the cause of another country and one that is continuing to steal Arab land.

Will this ever end? Even Barack Obama – or "Mr Baracka" as an Irish friend of mine innocently and wonderfully described him – found time to tell his Jewish audience that Jerusalem is the one undivided capital of Israel, which is not the view of the rest of the world which continues to regard the annexation of Arab East Jerusalem as illegal. The security of Israel. Say it again a thousand times: the security of Israel – and threaten Iran, for good measure.

Yes, Israelis deserve security. But so do Palestinians. So do Iraqis and Lebanese and the people of the wider Muslim world. Now even Condoleezza Rice admits – and she was also talking to Aipac, of course – that there won't be a Palestinian state by the end of the year. That promise of George Bush – which no-one believed anyway – has gone. In Rice's pathetic words, "The goal itself will endure beyond the current US leadership."

Of course it will. And the siege of Gaza will endure beyond the current US leadership. And the Israeli wall. And the illegal Israeli settlement building. And deaths in Iraq will endure beyond "the current US leadership" – though "leadership" is pushing the definition of the word a bit when the gutless Bush is involved – and deaths in Afghanistan and, I fear, deaths in Lebanon too.

It's amazing how far self-delusion travels. The Bush boys and girls still think they're supporting the "American-backed government" of Fouad Siniora in Lebanon. But Siniora can't even form a caretaker government to implement a new set of rules which allows Hizbollah and other opposition groups to hold veto powers over cabinet decisions.

Thus there will be no disarming of Hizbollah and thus – again, I fear this – there will be another Hizbollah-Israeli proxy war to take up the slack of America's long-standing hatred of Iran. No wonder President Bashar Assad of Syria is now threatening a triumphal trip to Lebanon. He's won. And wasn't there supposed to be a UN tribunal to try those responsible for the murder of ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005? This must be the longest police enquiry in the history of the world. And I suspect it's never going to achieve its goal (or at least not under the "current US leadership").

There are gun battles in Beirut at night; there are dark-uniformed Lebanese interior ministry troops in equally dark armoured vehicles patrolling the night-time Corniche outside my home.

At least Lebanon has a new president, former army commander Michel Sleiman, an intelligent man who initially appeared on posters, eyes turned to his left, staring at Lebanon with a creditor's concern. Now he has wisely ordered all these posters to be torn down in an attempt to get the sectarian groups to take down their own pictures of martyrs and warlords. And America thinks things are going fine in Lebanon.

And Bush and his cohorts go on saying that they will never speak to "terrorists". And what has happened meanwhile? Why, their Israeli friends – Mr Baracka's Israeli friends – are doing just that. They are talking to Hamas via Egypt and are negotiating with Syria via Turkey and have just finished negotiating with Hizbollah via Germany and have just handed back one of Hizbollah's top spies in Israel in return for body parts of Israelis killed in the 2006 war. And Bush isn't going to talk to "terrorists", eh? I bet he didn't bring that up with the equally hapless Ehud Olmert in Washington this week.

And so our dementia continues. In front of us this week was Blair with his increasingly maniacal eyes, poncing on about faith and God and religion, and I couldn't help reflecting on an excellent article by a colleague a few weeks ago who pointed out that God never seemed to give Blair advice. Like before April of 2003, couldn't He have just said, er, Tony, this Iraq invasion might not be a good idea.

Indeed, Blair's relationship with God is itself very odd. And I rather suspect I know what happens. I think Blair tells God what he absolutely and completely knows to be right – and God approves his words. Because Blair, like a lot of devious politicians, plays God himself. For there are two Gods out there. The Blair God and the infinite being which blesses his every word, so obliging that He doesn't even tell Him to go to Gaza.

I despair. The Tate has just sent me its magnificent book of orientalist paintings to coincide with its latest exhibition (The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting) and I am struck by the awesome beauty of this work. In the 19th century, our great painters wondered at the glories of the Orient.

No more painters today. Instead, we send our photographers and they return with pictures of car bombs and body parts and blood and destroyed homes and Palestinians pleading for food and fuel and hooded gunmen on the streets of Beirut, yes, and dead Israelis too. The orientalists looked at the majesty of this place and today we look at the wasteland which we have helped to create.

But fear not. Israel's security comes first and Mr Baracka wants Israel to keep all of Jerusalem – so much for the Palestinian state – and Condee says the "goal will endure beyond the current American leadership". And I have a bird that sits in the palm tree outside my home in Beirut and blasts away, going "cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep" for about an hour every morning – which is why my landlord used to throw stones at it.

But I have a dear friend who believes that once there was an orchestra of birds outside my home and that one day, almost all of them – the ones which sounded like violins and trumpets – got tired of the war and flew away (to Cyprus, if they were wise, but perhaps on to Ireland), leaving only the sparrows with their discordant flutes to remind me of the stagnant world of the Middle East and our cowardly, mendacious politicians. "Cheep-cheep-cheep," they were saying again yesterday morning. "Cheap-cheap-cheap." And I rather think they are right.