Sunday Posts

Is Donald Trump mad? That's the question that popped out in my mind as I engaged with the very unlikely New York Times piece When The Leader of the Free World is an Ugly American ,which argues that Trump's Foreign Policy approach is consistent - contrary to the claims made by the Foreign Policy establishment in America and elsewhere - with the longstanding American approach that put the American national interest above everything else. It is powerfully argued, and maintains that the Liberal commentators may be getting fooled by their own rhetoric of globalism. Can this indeed be right that there is method in Trump's madness, or what is portrayed as madness? Indeed, it is rather easy to convince myself that Trump is mad if I look at Facebook. A number of Facebook posts confirm a number of psychologists said so. Indeed, we are at a time of implosion of Facebook itself, proving that it may be just showing you what you already believe. So, more you click on posts t...

I maintained social media silence on the playing out of the American election, despite the alluring narrative of this being Wall Street versus the world. Despite, admittedly, there was much at stake: If Wall Street could impose its views of the world on America, the World would have been in line, with the guns and bombs and enough American young men still ready to sacrifice their lives without really knowing why. While I got up early enough on Wednesday to catch Obama give his victory speech, and exclaimed on Facebook that he seemed to have got back his oratory just in time, this was very different from what I did four years back: Sat through a night of vote counting, in a hotel in the middle of a business trip, just because I hoped that this President would be different. In 2008, in a world of continuous war, terrorist attacks and recession, I needed the hope as badly as anything: I surrendered my sense to the blind belief that if someone looked different, he must be. Obama turne...

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Today can be anything: Start of a prolonged war of civilizations or the end of it. Let us hope it is the end, as it appears to be. The most important figurehead of Islamic extremism is gone. This may not weaken the Al Queda units across the world in real terms, because of their decentralized nature, but this should rob them of their most recognizable icon and the most effective recruitment tool. This should lead to a thaw in Afghanistan, give Americans the breathing space they need. This should allow other Muslim leaders to emerge in the limelight, hopefully with more moderate voices. On America's side, this may mean a boost for Obama, which should be good for America and the world. Obama isn't unduly combative, not a war president like his predecessor. He is measured and cerebral - he took great pains to emphasize that America is not at war with Muslims - and he understands the dangers of stoking the flames more than anyone else. While the dancing crowds outside white house an...

Visit msnbc .com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy This is a great speech handling a difficult subject. The President took great care not to sound too jubilant , as Military Leaders often do, and offend anyone. Instead, he was on the message about not fighting against Islam, not fighting against Pakistan, and not fighting against the American right. His usual restrain works against him when Americans want emotion - as it did during the Deepwater Horizon crisis - but it served him well in this speech. Someone commented on Twitter - we are possibly watching a great second coming of Barack Obama.

President Obama had to muster all his oratorical skills to deliver this year’s State of the Union address, just as Americans started blaming him for their plight. He had a lot at stake. He was under pressure, this being another election year, from his own party and those who voted for him. He had to answer his critics – those who are thinking that he is trying to do too much and those who are thinking he is doing too little – and show the country that he is still in control and setting the agenda. It was, in all, a difficult speech, he had to strike a balance at every step, and he had to answer the critics and naysayers while calling for an end to ‘an election every day’ and unnecessarily divisive politics. Clearly, his greatest worry is the economy. Justifiably so, especially as the employment figures look dismal. Even when business outlook has started looking up and other economic indicators are also on the way to recovery, there are fears that America is looking at a jobless ...

This article in Foreign Affairs was worth reproducing here, in the context of what I wrote about Obama's Nobel Speech and the requirements of pragmatism as John Gibb pointed out to me. This is written by ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI, who was the U.S. National Security Adviser from 1977 to 1981. His most recent book is Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower. From Hope to Audacity | Foreign Affairs One can read the article by clicking on the link, but a registration will be required, which is free of cost. I shall encourage you to register. However, I have also reproduced the text here for convenience, and to be used in the context of the ongoing conversation. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The foreign policy of U.S. President Barack Obama can be assessed most usefully in two parts: first, his goals and decision-making system and, second, his policies and their implementation. Although one can spea...

The world is divided on what President Obama said, and did not say, in his Nobel Lecture. An unlikely recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, he felt hard pressed to present a justification for his various wars, but he should not have. The prize, in the world's eyes, was given to Obama The Symbol - of culmination of a long struggle of rights and dignity of the African-Americans - than Obama The Man. But, President Obama turned it into an endorsement of himself and his actions, and in doing so, he ended up justifying wars as a legitimate, and unavoidable, instrument of state policy. The point is, of course, that wars are not justified. In Obamaspeak , there were wars between armies, and then wars between nations, which has now turned into wars within nations. But, despite this evolutionary formula of war, there are some things which never changed. First, wars were between interests, which saw the world as a zero-sum equation, and parties which wanted to take all and leave none. Second,...

No non-violent movement would have been effective against Hitler's armies! Yeah, right, only if the British and the French did not think they were too clever and they are actually preparing Hitler to contain the soviets, there would be no Hitler's army. Nor will be Saddam Hussein's, few decades later, if the United States and Saudi Arabia did not want to use him as a prop against Iran. The point is there are always solutions other than war, if you accept equality of rights - of voicing an opinion, maintaining freedom and of earning the daily bread - for everyone. I am actually surprised President Obama said this. He was receiving a Nobel Peace Prize. In my mind, that prize is given to honour extraordinary individuals who followed the path of peace in the face of extreme difficulties. Like Martin Luther King, who Obama mentions. Gandhi, who he does not mention because he never got a Nobel, but in fact, mentions in context - in that extraordinary comment he made. Presiden...

The news that overshadows any announcements made in the G20 this week is that Obama 'snubbed' Gordon Brown. The British media went on an overdrive on the leak that while Downing Street wanted an one-on-one with the President on the sidelines of the UN meet or the G20, no such meeting could be organized. Gordon Brown had to be satisfied with a walk and talk discussion with President Obama in the kitchen of the UN, though he had a 'substantial discussion', following the Downing Street communique. The British media obviously did not like this: President Obama failed to call Gordon Brown immediately after taking office, he landed up in London a few months later and gifted the Prime Minister a set of DVDs which did not run because of the wrong region coding and finally this! President Obama does not seem to have any time for the 'special relationship' that the British assume that they enjoy, and he is making it way too obvious for the British tastes. What is going o...

Change is on the air. The old power alignments seem to be all changing. Consider this: The British Prime Minister requests for a private meeting with the American President, and does not get one. He has to do with a few minutes conversation around the Kitchen table at the UN, while the President holds meetings with the heads of states of Japan, Russia and China. Russia says that they may climb down from their opposition to a sanction against Iran. The President of Iran addresses the UN, as does Colonel Qaddafi of Libya. The President of Iran says that it will shake any hand that has been honestly extended to it. What is going on? There seems to be a clear realignment of the United States Foreign Policy, and the shift is towards realism. Eight years of George Bush and a shaking up of the financial markets made it necessary to look at the foreign policy agenda with a fresh pair of eyes. That seems to be happening now. It is no longer the democracy in the middle east zeal; it comes from ...

To someone who grew up in India, and knew what it meant to have below par healthcare and greedy doctors, and then lived in Britain and experienced NHS , world's greatest mystery is indeed why do Americans fear the idea of universal health care . The news have it that tens of thousands marched last week protesting against the government spending money on health care reforms, which will cover most people in America and possibly fix a broken system. But, truth be told - my wonderment did not start in the last few days; I have always found it baffling that Americans do not like the idea of government paying for health care , and label it 'socialism' for some unfathomable reason. I would have tucked it away in my brain as another peculiarity of the strange country which is possibly the most religious in the world but holds the right to own a gun so dear to its heart. But, America's refusal to let its government spend money on health care is more serious than that and ...