Some days it's hard to be an old-fashioned globalist

Now even Angela Merkel has to deal with the rising tide of nationalism.  It was too easy for too many of the elite to forget that opening borders, encouraging European integration, and fighting climate change has a cost for a lot of people.  They're tired of paying that price.  And even if some of it is a misperception of the consequences of globalization, that perception is important.  Let's see if she gets the message.

Merkel -- and Davos -- Rebuked in Germany | RealClearPolitics

The Poland march shows the normalization of the country's far right

In my memery, Poland has always been a country with a love of freedom, and a love for the Catholic Church.  But now we see what happens when nationalism means that freedom only applies to "my" people and "my" church.  The idea there could be universal values doesn't seem to register with these marchers.  I can understand wanting to protect your sovereignty, especially when it has been so hard to win and to keep.  The strong cosmopolitanism of the EU is a hard sell, and it will remain so for a long time.  But that doesn't imply a celebration of hate, and that is all too often what we are seeing.

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Poland has a long liberal tradition, but we may be asking more of them they they are ready to handle.  If Britain can leave the EU, Poland can too.  Not NATO--I've found Poles far more interested in NATO than in the EU.  A Catholic Turkey seems to be where this is headed.

How the Poland march shows the normalization of the country's far right - The Washington Post

Baathism: An Obituary / The End Of An Ideology | The New Republic

Something to think about, as the slow collapse of Syria proceeds, is the ideas that created so many countries like it.  Like Communism, yet another God has failed.  But another one waits in the wings...

The bombed-out remains of the Baath Party Headquarters in Baghdad. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The political and cultural landscape of the Middle East, post-Baath, will be pockmarked by blighted zones that might otherwise have been a prosperous Iraq and Syria, if only the Baathist doctrine had not destroyed those countries. A cloud of intellectual bafflement and paranoia will hover overhead, consisting of the confused thoughts of everyone across the region who, in the past, talked themselves into supposing that Baathism was a good idea. And more than visible will be the triumphant zeal of Baathism’s principal rivals in the matter of grandiose revolutionary ideology—the champions of the single Middle Eastern millenarian doctrine still standing, once the Assad regime has finally gone. These will be the Islamists.

How long till we get out of the millenerarian mindset?  A little humility can go a long way to making the world a much better place.  It's people with a direct line to the truth who too often turn into monsters.


Baathism: An Obituary / The End Of An Ideology | The New Republic

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It was a matter of time

Mubarak is out because he had outlived his usefulness to the military, and now more of the Egyptian people are realizing it. The big question: will the military find enough common ground with the Islamists to keep control of the sectors each cares about the most?

Well, *that* didn't take long...

One day after the US forces officially leave Iraq,

Nuri al-Maliki plunged Iraq into political turmoi by ordering the arrest of Tareq al-Hashemi, his respected Sunni vice president, on terrorism charges.

Further escalating tensions, he also asked parliament to hold a no-confidence vote to allow him to dismiss Saleh al-Mutlak, the Sunni deputy prime minister, who angered Mr Maliki by describing him as a "dictator" during a television interview last week.

Mr Hashemi was briefly detained after being escorted of a plane at Baghdad's airport, where he was attempting to catch a flight to the Kurdish city of Irbil, prompting speculation that he was attempting to flee.

Although Mr Hashemi was released, three of his bodyguards were arrested for "suspected terrorist activity". Following frantic negotiations brokered by the United States and Kurdish political leaders, Mr Maliki was said to have agreed not to implement the arrest warrant for now. 

But last night, judges barred Mr Hashemi from travelling overseas shortly before the arrest warrant was formally issued. Tanks were also deployed outside his home, as well as outside the houses of Mr Mutlak and a third senior Sunni politician.

It's not unexpected, but you'd hope he'd at least have the courtesy to not immediately embarass President Obama.  I suppose nobody wants to late to the Civil War.

Oil on the flames (cute title, huh?)

Exxon-Mobil is throwing in with the Kurds in the upcoming battle over Iraq.  The battle takes off again.

Whatever the prospects of finding oil in the north of Iraq, observers are surprised that Exxon is prepared to hang its future in Iraq on the outcome of the power struggle between Iraqi Kurdistan and the central government. Control of the right to explore for oil and exploit it is crucial to the authorities on both sides since they have virtually no other source of revenue. 

The Kurds have won a degree of autonomy close to independence since the fall of Saddam, and the ability to sign oil contracts without reference to Baghdad will be another step towards practical independence and the break-up of Iraq. A parallel would be if the Scottish government were to sign exploration contracts in the North Sea without consulting London. 

What makes the Exxon-KRG deal particularly inflammatory, says Mr Shahristani, is that three of the six blocs where Exxon is planning to drill are understood to be "across the blue line – that is outside the border of the KRG". This means they are in the large areas in northern Iraq disputed between Arabs and Kurds since 2003, but where the Kurds have military control. 

The government must now decide if it will make good on its threats and replace Exxon at a mammoth oil field called West Qurna 1 at the other end of the country, north of Basra. Iraqi oil officials hint that Royal Dutch Shell might replace the American company. 

Both sides have much at stake. The Iraqi government is totally reliant on its oil revenues to pay its soldiers, police force and civilian officials. It needs vast sums to rebuild the country after 30 years of war, civil war and sanctions. In 2009, it began to expand its oil industry by signing contracts with firms such as BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon to boost production in under-exploited and poorly maintained fields. 

These companies thereby gained access to some of the largest fields in the world, each with reserves of more than five billion barrels. Vast sums are being invested, mostly around Basra in the south of Iraq. Oil output, now at 2.9 million barrels a day, is due to rise to a production capacity of 12 million b/d by 2017, potentially putting Iraq on a par with Saudi Arabia as an oil exporter.

Since the Kurds have had a bad deal for generations, my sympathies are with the Kurds.  But even if they succeed to get the state they want, the transition is going to be hard.

Exxon's deal with the Kurds inflames Baghdad