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Money and Terror: Is there an End to American Addiction to Oil?
HICHEM KAROUI
Université Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle
Abstract: Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world, said President George W. Bush in his February 1, 2006 State of the Union Address, delivered before a Joint Session of Congress. The hypothesis we try in this paper to test is the following: President Bush's pledge about putting an end to the US oil addiction is not a workable issue, neither on the short-term nor on the mid-term, as long as oil is still the main source of energy for humankind. We will demonstrate: 1 - that the OPEC and Saudi Arabia are still acting as the masters of the oil markets; 2 - that the US businessmen and politicians are still bound to the oil industry and policy is depending upon it; 3 - that as a consequence of this double dependence (economical and political), the US self-declared policy of encouraging reform and democracy in the Middle East is seriously handicapped as a wide portion of the terror financial network still escapes the US control. Read the analysis
Proposal for Creating Suitable Conditions for Ending the Conflict
According to the Palestine-Israel Journal (Jerusalem) a paper was recently leaked as a document worked out by a group of Hamas and Israeli leaders, who met in Europe with the sponsorship of a European element. No one who was involved in the drafting has come forward to assume responsibility for it; therefore it has become an “orphan document,” without any official parents. However, it is a document of great potential value — which may be proven in the days to come. This is the first publication of the document in English...read more
Ambassador LtGen (Ret.) Ed Rowny: "The Status of U.S. as the sole Superpower will not Change until 2020"
By : Dieter Farwick *
Ambassador Ed Rowny is one of the world's leading strategic thinkers. He played a vital role in SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) and in MBFR (Mutual and Balanced Force reductions) negotiations. Over the course of decades, he has served under five American presidents and acted as political advisor to several political leaders. His book “It Takes One to Tango” is still a treasure for all readers in the process of political decision making. His voice is still heard in Washington D.C. and beyond...
RAND EVALUATES EFFORTS TO IMPROVE EFFECTIVENESS AND HUMAN
RIGHTS PERFORMANCE OF INTERNAL SECURITY FORCES IN 4 NATIONS
U.S. efforts to improve the effectiveness and human rights performance of internal security forces have been partially successful in Afghanistan and El Salvador, but far less successful in Pakistan and Uzbekistan, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today...
Profile and Statements of President Ahmadi Nejad Hussein D. Hassan Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (pronounced mah-MOOD ah-mah-dihnee-ZHAHD) was born in 1956 in the town of Garmsar, southeast of Tehran. The fourth son of seven children of an ironworker, he and his family moved to Tehran for better economic opportunity. Their move to Tehran coincided with the change of his family name. His family’s original name was Saborjhian.1 According to some, the family name change provides an insight into the devoutly Islamic working-class roots of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s brand of populist politics. His solidarity with the most downtrodden is also believed to have been influenced by his father, Ahmad, who, after running a grocery store and then a barber shop in Aradan, became a blacksmith in Tehran...
Illusive Reform: Jordan's Stubborn Stability
By Julia Choucair
Political reform is a priority for United States Middle East policy, and Jordan is often showcased as a model of a moderate pro-American Muslim country that is successfully democratizing. For two decades, the Jordanian monarchy has introduced positive reforms, such as legalizing political parties and modernizing its economy. Yet the impact on democratic change has been limited, with the reforms serving more to stabilize the regime amid severe regional and economic challenges...
Somalia's Political Future Appears to be its Pre-Courts Past Drafted By: Dr. Michael A. Weinstein
During the first two weeks of January, the domestic and external actors with interests in Somalia's political future strove to adjust to the new balance of power created by Ethiopia's successful invasion of the country that drove the previously dominant Islamic Courts Council (I.C.C.) out of the official capital Mogadishu and installed the weak, unpopular, clan-based, warlord-riven and internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.) in its place... read more
OIL SECURITY AND THE IRAQ WAR
Paul Rogers
In the first five months of 2006, Iraqi sources reported that the civilian death toll in the greater Baghdad area was running at over a thousand a month, double the figure for a year earlier. This alone was an indicator of the deteriorating security situation in much of central Iraq, matched by increased violence in the Basra province that had previously been relatively stable. Although the US military casualties remain very small compared with Iraqi civilian deaths, April and May were also bad months for the American forces, with 145 people killed and 850 wounded...
Oil Deplition and Its Term of Trade Marina Irimia-Vladu- American University of Sharjah
Henry Thompson- Auburn University December 2006 The present model of the international oil market integrates offer curves and optimal depletion. Oil suppliers set production according to the transversality condition tying the growth rate of the resource price to the real interest rate. The demand side of the market is closed with the oil import elasticity leading to simulated paths of extraction and depletion that some provide perspective on the long term international oil market.
Under reasonable assumptions about production and utility, the exporter offer curve is backward bending. An oil tariff would then not only lower the international price, but also raise imports and lower price inclusive of the tariff in the Metzler (1949) effect. The empirical evidence suggests inelastic oil import demand, implying a backward bending oil importer offer as well.
The Best Friend of Instability and Islamism: George W. Bush
December 29, 2006 Ivan Eland *
As 2006 comes to a close, the world is in flames and George W. Bush’s foreign policy is both directly and indirectly to blame. He has caused a civil war by invading Iraq, continued an occupation of Afghanistan that motivated a revival of the deposed radical Islamist Taliban movement, pushed for elections in Palestine that elected the Islamist group Hamas, cooperated with Israel’s failed attack on Lebanon that enhanced the status of the Islamist group Hezbollah in that country’s politics, and created an al Qaeda–friendly Islamist threat to Somalia by supporting unpopular warlords. What other foreign policy disasters can George W. Bush perpetrate in his last two years in office?... Read more
GLOBAL ECONOMIC PROSPECTS Managing the Next Wave of Globalization: WASHINGTON, DC, December 13, 2006 — Globalization could spur faster growth in average incomes in the next 25 years than during 1980-2005, with developing countries playing a central role. However, unless managed carefully, it could be accompanied by growing income inequality and potentially severe environmental pressures, predicts the World Bank.
According to Global Economic Prospects 2007: Managing the Next Wave of Globalization, growth in developing countries will reach a near record 7 percent this year. In 2007 and 2008, growth will probably slow, but still likely exceed 6 percent, more than twice the rate in high-income countries, which is expected to be 2.6 percent...
A Conversation with Dr. Kenneth M. Pollack "The problem is that if you try to divide Iraq, you are going to get the civil war that you seek to prevent. However, if you cannot prevent the slide to civil war, perhaps in 5, 10, or 15 years there will be enough ethnic cleansing and enough bloodshed that you can preside over a partition. That is essentially what happened in Bosnia..." Download the full text in PDF (Ext.Link)
The New Middle East
Richard N. Haass
From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2006 The age of U.S. dominance in the Middle East has ended and a new era in the modern history of the region has begun. It will be shaped by new actors and new forces competing for influence, and to master it, Washington will have to rely more on diplomacy than on military might.
Middle East Notes and Comment : Arab Decision 2007 A CSIS Document by : Jon B. Alterman
While it was U.S. voters who cast their ballots in last week’s elections, Arabs may feel the election’s most profound effects. For five years, the Bush Administration has dedicated itself to healing the Middle East so as to provide security at home. While U.S. voters did not directly repudiate the vision, they showed little support for the zeal with which the administration pursued it. With the U.S. push toward Arab reform stalled, Arabs—governments and publics—will find themselves facing harder choices, not easier ones. They took it for granted that the Bush Administration could not solve their problems, but they grew comfortable lining up in opposition to the long arm of U.S. intervention. In the aftermath of U.S. elections, the problems they face are as acute as ever, their awareness of those problems is higher, and they have lost their ability to tar reformists as American stooges. Their choices have become harder, not easier.
| The Democrats' War
Stephen Zunes | December 1, 2006 With power comes responsibility. Once they take over both houses of Congress on January 3, the Democrats will have the responsibility to get American troops out of Iraq as soon as practicable. Read more
Afghan Approval of the Karzai Government and Western Forces,Though Still Strong, Is Declining
December 14, 2006: Stephen Weber and the staff of W.P.O.: A majority of Afghans express support for both the government of President Hamid Karzai and the presence of NATO forces. A new poll for WorldPublicOpinion.org finds that this support is declining, however, and that a majority of Afghans express frustration with the pace of reconstruction... Read more
A New Study / Hichem Karoui (SSRN) Islamism and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Gulf between Two Agendas
The New Geopolitics of Empire : by John Bellamy Foster Today’s imperial ideology proclaims that the United States is the new city on the hill, the capital of an empire dominating the globe. Yet the U.S. global empire, we are nonetheless told, is not an empire of capital; it has nothing to do with economic imperialism as classically defined by Marxists and others. The question then arises: How is this new imperial age conceived by those promoting it? Read more
Hamas and Palestinian Religious Moderation by Mohammed Dajani
A key question raised in the aftermath of the Islamic Resistance Movement’s (Hamas) victory in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections of January 20061 is how to interpret such a victory in free and democratic elections? Could it be interpreted as a shift towards fundamentalism on the part of the Palestinians? Have the Palestinians turned their back on a Fateh-style secularism and religious moderation to embrace instead religious radicalism? Or could it be that the Palestinian people, in their search for identity, have decided to opt for religious, rather than national, identity? Read more | Burhan Ghalioun to WSN :
US-Europe and Arab Interests Behind the War in Lebanon
Syria Living Without Perspective
No Progress For Democracy in War Environment
You Cannot Join the Democratic Club Without its Members' Agreement
Democracy Is Not The Exception : Despotism Is
The Arab World Believes in the USA
The Arabs Cannot Build Democracy Without External Support
Abstract : We went to this interview with professor Burhan Ghalioun carrying two kinds of questions : the first was in direct connection with the ongoing war in Lebanon; and the second is more related to local issues, such as democracy and a diagnostic of the situation in Syria and other Arab States. M. Ghalioun is a French-Syrian professor of political sociology at the Sorbonne University (Paris III); he is also director of the Sorbonne’s CEAOC (Center of Arab Studies and Contemporary Orient) and the CEMAOC (Center of Arab World Studies and Contemporary Orient). He has published more than 30 books about the Arabs, the Muslims, and the struggles of the modern times. He is a recognized authority in this respect.
المغرب: من الإصلاح الهرمي إلى الانتقال الديمقراطي؟
نظمت مؤسسة كارنيغي للسلام الدولي في واشنطن يوم 1 نونبر 2006 لقاء نوقشت خلاله "ورقة كارنغي" بعنوان: المغرب: من الإصلاح الهرمي إلى الانتقال الديمقراطي؟ من تأليف مارينا أوتاواي و ميريديث رايلي
شارك في اللقاء مارينا أوتاواي مديرة مشروع كارنيغي للشرق الأوسط وويليام زارتمان من جامعة جون هابكنز، وعبد السلام مغراوي من مؤسسة الولايات المتحدة للسلام. قامت بوساطة الجلسة ميشيل دن، كبيرة الباحثين بكارنيغي ورئيسة تحرير نشرة الإصلاح العربي
للاطلاع على النسخة العربية لورقة كارنيغي، اضغط هنا.
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