New directions for my blog and key issues to be analyzed - RFC

Dear friends,

After taking some time off to think things over I have tentatively come up with a general plan for this blog and I now want to share it with you.

The main difference with the previous orientation of this blog is that I want to switch from what was mainly a clearinghouse for information taken elsewhere interspersed with occasional original analyses to a more balanced mix of original analysis and highly relevant articles taken from outside the Imperial Homeland (after all, why duplicate the mostly excellent efforts of Counterpunch, Antiwar, Informationclearinghouse and many others?)

Originally, my aim had been to raise the alarm and show that all indicators and warnings were pointing to an upcoming "dawn of darkness" (aggression on Iran, Fascism in the USA, Neocon wars all over the Middle-East, etc.). I will now simply assume that my readers already understand this and instead of "preaching to the choir" I instead directly focus on the main aspects of the events unfolding before our eyes.

I have identified a number of key areas which, in my opinion, deserve a special scrutiny:

Internal US political developments: barring a highly unlikely miracle, an openly Fascist president will succeed Bush the Lesser in 2008 (see my article on this issue here). When it becomes clear to most Americans that their country is ruled by a Soviet style Nomenklatura composed as much of Democrats as of Republicans a period of civil unrests will begin which will be brutally crushed by the huge internal security/police/prison complex which has been built over the past decades and basic civil rights will be abolished under the pretext of some emergency.

External US policies: the Neocons will further strengthen their control over US policies in general, and foreign policy in particular. Even self-evident US national interests will be totally subordinated to the Likud's view of Israeli national interests. As a result, the US foreign policy will be highly aggressive in the entire Middle-East resulting in more violent conflicts. The USA will also follow a radically anti-Russian stance in all aspects of its foreign policy, even when that places US national interests at risk.

Developments in Europe: the new "Imperial" agenda of the USA will be made far worse by the gradual takeover by crypto-Neocon politicians in Europe. If Dubya lost a 'poodle' with Blair's departure he is now getting an entire kennel of poodles with the likes of Sarkozy, Brown, Merkel, etc. The European public opinion will be outraged by this and massive civil disturbances will result.

Israel's crucial choice: Israel is facing an absolutely crucial, truly existential, choice. It has to choose between persisting in being a "Jewish state" or it can decided to become a real democracy. The fact is that due to a long series of huge miscalculations on the part of the Israeli elites a two state solution is now impossible. Jimmy Carter is quite correct when he says that the alternatives are peace or Apartheid, his mistake is that he limits his analysis to the Occupied Territories whereas this choice is exactly the same for Israel proper. As long as Israel persists in being an "ethnic state" there will be no democracy and no peace and the only way to finally end this conflict is to have a one man one vote multi-ethnic and multi-religious state of Israel. Since the vast majority of Israelis, terrified of their Arab and Palestinian neighbors, are not willing to even discuss such a solution, the bloodshed can only become much worse in the years to come.

The real 'axis of evil': four countries will play a particularly dangerous and outright 'evil' role in the Middle-East: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan and, of course, Israel (the latter running the show). While Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are breeding grounds for Wahabi/Salafi extremism, Turkey and Israel are Fascist (regional) superpowers which will, with full US backing, attempt to use the former two in their struggle against Shias all over the Middle-east.

Wars in the Middle-East: the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will continue and will be "enhanced" with the inevitable Imperial aggression against Iran. There is also a strong possibility of a US/Israeli fueled civil war in Lebanon. The war in Iraq will draw in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran. The war Iran will be the Empire's "Stalingrad" in a sense that it will mark the "beginning of the end" for the Empire, albeit at a huge cost for the entire Middle-East. Initially, the Empire, aided by its faithful corporate propaganda machine, will appear highly successful and the Iranian response will appear weak but within less than 60 days following the beginning of the attack the collapse of the US policy in the Middle-East will become evident. It will take many years for the Empire to fully collapse, but from the day of the attack on Iran its decline will be inexorable.

A collapsing US economy: the costs of the Imperial wars, the fall of the dollar, the rise in the price of oil, the inevitable consequences of US economic deregulation, the breakdown of the social infrastructure inside the US will all contribute to a general collapse of the US economy resulting in even more violence abroad and in the Imperial Homeland.

A clueless American peace movement: with a few notable exceptions the US peace movement is clueless and lacks a unifying vision to seriously challenge the US Nomenklatura. The fact is that most Americans have now been thoroughly brainwashed by the corporate media and while they are able to generally oppose the Neocon policies they cannot identify, or meaningfully challenge, the forces and mechanisms which make them possible in the first place. Their is, of course, an intellectual elite in the antiwar movement, mainly on the left, which has a far better grasp of the nature of the beast, so to speak, but it is small, divided and out of touch with the prevailing 'redneck' culture which has been carefully nurtured by the US elites.

A resurgent Russia: under the leadership of Vladimir Putin and his likely successor, Sergei Ivanov, Russia will regain a lot of its former power. The state apparatus in general, and the armed forces and intelligence agencies (SVR, GRU, FSB) in particular, will jointly work to reduce US influence in the so-called "near abroad" (the countries for the former Soviet Union bordering Russia) where US Imperial stooges will run into trouble economically, politically and socially. The Empire will be too busy elsewhere to make much of a difference in this process. The new Russian power will also be felt in Eastern and even, to a lesser degree, in Western Europe. Russia, in partnership with China, will gradually seek to diminish US influence in the international scene.

The collapse of the Monroe doctrine: lead by the example of Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, Latin American countries will free themselves from the capitalist economic model, will assert their economic and political autonomy from the Empire and will gradually isolate US stooges, such as Colombia, in Latin America. As in the former Soviet Union, the USA will be too busy handling other crises to successfully oppose this process.

These are, in my opinion, the key areas upon which I want to concentrate in the future.

I would very much like to hear your reactions to this analysis and to my new plans for this blog.

One of my hope would be that the readers of this blog would offer most suggestions, questions, comments and criticisms which, in turn, would result in more interesting discussions. This blog should become as much as forum as an information source.

Please drop me an email, or post here, to let me know what you think, ok?

Kind regards,

The Saker