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As this column predicted over a year ago the United States was likely entering a new age of Jimmy Carter. Recalling the most incompetent and strategically myopic administration most living American can recall, 2009 has sadly evoked the Carter Administration.
In January 1979, just 31 years ago, Time magazine headlined a cover article “Crescent of Crisis” which illustrated an geographic arc ranging from Afghanistan and Iran in the East, Arabia in the center, and Somalia in the West. U.S. National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (one of Carter’s few competent foreign policy officials), stated, “An arc of crisis stretches along the shores of the Indian Ocean, with fragile social and political structures in a region of vital importance to us threatened with fragmentation. The resulting political chaos could well be filled by elements hostile to our values and sympathetic to our adversaries.”
He was right then and now. Then the world was on the cusp of the Iranian revolution, one of the key geopolitical disasters of the post—WWII era, which toppled the reformist and pro-West Shah and saw the country tumble back into the dark ages of Islamic fundamentalism. Then and now a radicalized Islam, confronted Pakistan and so much of the Crescent of Crisis from Afghanistan, to Iraq, and Somalia.
So let’s look at a few key issues.
War on Terror — While President Barack Obama will increase U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan and possibly get pulled deeper into the Pakistani vortex of violence, it appears Yemen could emerge as the nova star of violence in this deepening crescent of crisis. Yemen has long been a rats nest on the Arabian peninsula. The home of the bin-Laden clan, during the Cold War this mountainous land has long been a playground of PLO radicals, East German and Soviet advisors. Yemen has proved fertile ground for Al Qaida franchise operations and seems likely to play a wider role.
What started well before 2001, (with the bombing of the USS Navy ship Cole) in Aden harbor, continued through the decade, will probably realistically continue at various levels for a generation. Despite the often comfortable “September 10th mindset,” we must recognize that we are living in a post-September 11th world, like it or not.
The recently thwarted bombing of an transatlantic U.S. bound airliner, sadly underscores the “September 10th mindset” from both the Obama team and bureaucratic Homeland Security department who still are not connecting the dots, communicating with each other, or going beyond the bromides of the blame game. We can’t always rely on luck.
Iran — There’s a brewing revolt in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Teheran leadership continues to snub the international community and its embryonic nuclear program poses a clear and present danger to both Israel and the wider Middle East. The Obama Administration has showed perhaps fatal indecision. Content to contain the Atomic Ayatollahs through possibly tougher UN sanctions, (at what price to get Russia and Mainland China on board with a tough UN resolution?), the world could confront a nuclear weapons armed Iran sooner than we think.
However events work in strange ways. While the confrontational regime of President Ahmadinijad appears strong, internal discord, fueled by massive corruption of the ruling mullacracy, could see a brewing anti-Islamic revolt spill over into the streets. Is another Iranian revolution on the horizon?
Venezuela — Strongman Hugo Chavez pursues the path towards total dictatorship. Chavez has used, and indeed squandered, his country’s petroleum wealth envisioning a grandiose vision of a socialist Bolivarian Republic in Latin America. Assaults on political freedoms and property rights are common. Having attended Chavez press conferences, I concede that as with many dictators he has an uncanny if slippery “charm.” Venezuela’s drift towards dictatorship presents a clear hemispheric danger.
Europe — Ukraine will hold a vital election in mid-January. The pro-Russian stalking horse will likely win. Thus five years after the optimistic Orange Revolution, it appears that Ukraine may reenter the traditional Russian sphere of influence. Ukraine, has been bullied by Moscow’s “energy policies” and the elections would be a step towards validating political reintegration. There’s an underlying nervousness in East Europe concerning American intentions. Britain, on the other hand, will most likely oust an unpopular and corrupt Labor government in parliamentary elections slated for the Spring.
Green blackmail — The Global Warming lobby has morphed into a secular “religion” where seemingly sober scientific predictions are taken as unquestioned theological fact. Even after the crisis of the Copenhagen Climate Conference, the Global Warming mantra has become a near embedded hysteria among many. Yet recall the dire predictions of the feared Y2K global computer crisis a decade ago. Could global warning be the new Y2K?
Despite these challenges, let me wish my readers a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010!
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for WorldTribune.com.
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