Trump’s Racism in Context

Representative Maxine Waters, who last year referred to Crimea as ‘Korea’, continues to appear on news programs, topping her accusation that Donald Trump is a racist by pointing out his good relations with Vladimir Putin.

More importantly, it has taken five months from the time Nazis held a torchlight parade in Charlottesville, Virginia in protests that ended up with many injured and one dead, for the American media to dare to condemn President Trump for calling certain countries ‘shitholes’. If you’re wondering what could possibly explain this failure, I suggest it is only partly due to journalists’ need to maintain access to important new sources. It’s primarily about America’s overall lack of ideological literacy, which includes knowing which other attitudes accompany the rough division of the world into ‘right’ and ‘left’.

European journalists, brought up on the history of the Second World War against fascism, in which socialists and communists played major roles in local resistance to Germany while the Soviet Union defeated the Nazis in Eastern Europe. cover the campaigns of fascists, communists and every conceivable ideology in-between. Thus they reported Charlottesville in its political context, calling out the Alt-Right demonstrators as fascists.

The failure of the US media to do likewise allowed Steve Bannon to become increasingly influential in the Trump White House, as currently acknowledged by references to his one remaining ally, Stephen Miller who at thirty-two is probably the youngest Presidential Senior Policy Advisor in history. Even people who have never seen the Italian classical film ‘The Conformist’ that depicts pre-war Italian fascists, instinctively fear him, and he is the only person I have ever seen go toe to toe with a tough anchor like Jake Tapper.

Their prolonged sparring match over media coverage of the Trump White House and the Alt-Right in general is illustrative of a major world turning point: the historic left-right divide is now subdividing into a Caucasian minority and what I call the honey-colored majority and its supporters, known as ‘multiculturalists’. On both sides of the Atlantic, the Alt-Right represents a desperate attempt by Caucasians to cling to power in the face of their arithmetically determined minority status. Unfortunately, lacking ideological literacy, the American press is incapable of contextualizing the President’s reference to ‘shit-hole’ countries, able only to point out that it makes the US look bad.

Deena Stryker is an international expert, author and journalist that has been at the forefront of international politics for over thirty years, exlusively for the online journal “New Eastern Outlook”.

China Increases Its Influence Over Afghanistan

It’s hardly a surprise that the United State is not the only state to recognize the geopolitical importance of Afghanistan, since China does it too. Therefore, it’s been strengthening its influence on the situation on the ground. Ever since 2011, when the Heart of Asia summit was launched, China has been making every effort to establish better ties with all the countries engaged in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Beijing would organize all sorts of meeting with its regional partners, including Iran, Pakistan and Russia, while working closely the quadripartite coordination group that consists of Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States and China, and with the Taliban, after which one of which its most powerful wigs temporarily ceased its military activities within Afghanistan.

However, over the last three years China was growing increasingly more interested in establishing closer ties with Afghanistan. After the withdrawal of the better part of the occupying forces, that primarily consisted of US servicemen, Beijing sent a group of officials led by Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Kabul. In fact, over the past three years, Beijing would provide more assistance to Afghanistan than over the preceding thirteen years.

Chinese interests in Afghanistan

The reasoning behind Beijing’s motivation has been pretty clear all along, sine it hasn’t been simply pursuing a gradual decrease in the number of NATO troops deployed in Afghanistan to reduce the influence that Washington can enjoy in the country, but it would also seek to create a “buffer of stability” around China’s national borders. At the same time, official Beijing is forced to realize that as long as the situation in Afghanistan remains unstable, NATO and US forces will have a pretext for prolonging military presence in the territory of this state, in the immediate proximity of China’s provinces.

In addition, it was of extreme importance for Beijing to ensure a secure implementation of its On Belt, One Road economic initiative, to weaken the positions of various terrorist groups operating in the region, including ISIS. Radical Islamists keep ensuring that the Central Asian remain a potentially explosive political space, with a large number of sleeping cells and religious extremist groups being dispersed across the region. This allows radicals to keep Beijing at all times worried about the situation at home, that can get out of control quickly if these radicals are to be supported by external destructive forces. What’s even worse is that the ever present tension in the Central Asia can potentially jeopardize the promising One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative that implies China’s economic to the Central and South Asia.

An abrupt increase of ISIS activities in Afghanistan and Central Asia have been a point of China’s increasing concern, since this threat can only be countered with the assistance of regional players along with the steadily increasing anti-terrorist efforts of China and Russia. Beijing believes that ISIS militants are capable of infiltrating China’s territory through the Pakistan-China border in a bid to somehow attempt to derail OBOR.

China and the fight against international terrorism

In this regard, in recent years, China has launched the fight against international terrorism, joining its efforts with the countries of Central and South Asia, especially with Afghanistan, while advocating an increase in security spendings for regional players to be able to effectively counter the growing terrorist threat. It’s no wonder then that Beijing has been at the helm of pretty much every major anti-terrorist exercise for a while now. Such a policy is being pursued by Beijing largely due to the fact that according to its estimates in the medium to long term, when the conflicts that are raging across the Middle East would end, ISIS would eventually make Afghanistan along with other Central Asian states a go to area of operations.

For these reasons, ever since 2016, China’s authorities have been strengthening their state borders, while holding anti-terrorist exercises of its own. It’s also curious that according to today’s Chinese legislation, Beijing may consider deploying its troops in the territory of a neighboring state in an event that would present a major threat to China’s national security.

If one is to take into account Russia’s experience of providing assistance to Damascus in its anti-terrorist efforts, while taking into account the desire of the US to increase its influence in Afghanistan and other countries of the region, China’s politicians may be planning an increase in the investments provided to the states of the region.

As for the strengthening of China’s cooperation with Kabul in the ongoing anti-terrorist struggle, Beijing’s decision to assist the a latter in the creation of special units designated for mountain warfare is particularly noteworthy. In particular, as it’s been noted in mid-August by the press secretary of Afghan Ministry of Defense, China will finance the creation of a special forces unit in Badakhshan, which will be ensuring security in this mountainous province on the very border with Tajikistan. Beijing has not simply pledged to create the necessary infrastructure, but to support the unit with weapons and necessary equipment as well. Prior to than, China’s top brass would announce its intentions to provide Afghanistan with 73 million dollars in military assistance.

Vladimir Platov, expert specialized on the Middle East region, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.“ 

Iran’s Economic Recovery Surprised Us All

“Generally speaking, America is not keen on independent countries. America is not keen on people’s freedom. America is keen on countries that completely surrender themselves.” – Iran’s Rouhani

Iran’s economic comeback from the P5+1 nuclear agreement has surprised most of the world, despite the question of US Treasury approval still hanging over the final banking arrangements for many of the bigger trade deals. Iran has a lot of experience in contingency planning from its decade under UN sanctions, and wants to protect itself as much as possible in the future from a repeat performance.

Teheran is now trying to boost trade with the West to balance out what it already has in Asia. It wants the broader political benefit from having more major investor countries not wanting to see abusive sanctions reapplied to Iran at the whim of a new US president or EU parliament.

Iran’s economic planning is complex in its layering and diversity, and identifies replacement partners in its long-term planning so it is never overly dependent on any country. By avoiding debt funding, it has drawn the ire of the banksters, as they hate nothing more than an example of successful, large-scale development without their bondage.

Hence we have seen an array of Iranian joint banks formed for specific trade partners, such as Russia. Iran wants to have as much two-way trade as possible to make its international relationships rock-solid for the long term. Also, during the worst of the sanctions, the nations of China, South Korea, India and Japan were the major buyers of Iran’s oil. Iran has rewarded them with early access to some of its major, new domestic infrastructure projects; and in return, their imports of Iranian oil have gone up significantly.

When a country, even one with a lot of natural resources, finally comes out of a long period of economic sanctions, it has a long list of pent-up demands for domestic projects with many competing sectors fighting to be at the front of the line. But major infrastructure is the mother’s milk which trickles down into all sectors of the economy.

There is a holy trinity that gets top priority. This consists first of cranking up energy exports to maximize foreign exchange earnings to lubricate Iran’s rusty economic wheels. Second comes power, with new electrical generation production. And third comes transportation, a huge task just in itself, because it includes everything from new ports and rail lines to domestic and international airline expansion and new planes.

Energy infrastructure

Iran did not start its post-sanctions recovery flatfooted. It had oil production capacity already in place for its big four Asian market customers – China, India, South Korea, and Japan – entailing 75% of Iran’s total oil sales, so those export earnings went up quickly. Iran had earlier focused on increasing its gas production to be able to fulfill 100% of domestic demand. That valuable commodity could then join oil as a big export earner, and it appears gas will surpass oil in the future.

Next came finding investor partners to build new oil and gas refineries for regional customers and LNG gas exports to new markets. A dozen new refinery projects are being put out for tender bids now. Some of these are joint energy field and refinery deals, like the one where Hyundai Engineering is planning to invest $3.2 billion, with most of the financing being provided by South Korea.

Iran claimed last week to have $80 billion in oil and gas deals in negotiation, but a cloud still hangs over it, with regard to the US Treasury Department not throwing a curve ball. Trump’s campaign pledge to tear up the Iran deal has been backed off of, for now; but we won’t know for sure until these deals begin to be finalized whether Trump might try to hold them hostage, which would make the foreign partners involved very unhappy.

In the first deal of its kind, Turkey and South Korea have pooled efforts to build and operate five new gas-fired power plants, a $4.2 billion investment, with a combined generation capacity of 5,000 megawatts. Iran has targeted a need for a $25 billion investment in electric power generation.

Russia is helping to refurbish some of Iran’s older nuclear plants and planning to build two new ones. They have a joint bank set up to handle their trade as protection from any bush-whack sanctions by Mr. Trump.

Transportation infrastructure

India is helping Iran expand its Chabahar port facilities on the Gulf of Oman. The mid-term plan is to connect the port to a new rail line going north into Afghanistan, where Indian exports from Mumbai can flow into undeveloped Western Afghanistan, and raw material exports can flow back south. Even the US is onboard this project.

US General John Nicolson, commander of combat operations in Afghanistan, told a Senate hearing that the Chabahar port-rail link will allow a faster and less expensive shipping route, versus the Pakistan route now being used.

In mid-March, a two-day conference was held on trans-Asia freight rail connectivity. While the focus was on more efficient shipping within South and Southwest Asia, the planned railway would link up with the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) connecting Russia, Iran and India, and be in place to tie into the New Silk Road between Asia and Europe. In March, Iran and Azerbaijan inaugurated their 10-km rail link, one of the final mission pieces of the NSTC.

Over the next ten years, Iran is planning seven new international airports for its planned new fleet of 500 long-haul planes. The Imam Khomeini International Airport will undergo a massive upgrade to expand passenger capacity from the current 6 million to 50 million passengers. Orders are being placed for twin-engine domestic market haulers.

One of the problems facing Iran’s growth is the shortage of water, which is driven by drought and a history of short rainy seasons. The current economic expansion is going to add more pressure to what is already a big problem. Water conservation methods are already in place; farmers have switched over from thirsty crops like wheat and corn to crops like saffron, but which have a limited market.

Plans are in progress to install desalination plants along Iran’s Gulf of Oman to support the coastal development there, and then pipe water into Iran’s southeastern interior where rainfall is the lowest. This would cover 45 million people in 17 provinces, via a series of 50 facilities. The first major effort will be at the Bandar Abbas port at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, with a pipeline north to Kerman province.

Iran is also concerned about a heavy government project footprint strangling private investment, as diversified employment is an area that needs to be stimulated. Teheran is formulating private investor incentives in the absence of a viable sovereign guarantee. There are many issues still remaining to be worked out, which a willing Iran and willing investors will eventually sort through. At the end of the day, Teheran claims it wants no segment of its society to feel left behind.

The IMF weighs in

Even the IMF recently hailed Iran’s economic recovery, citing its higher oil production and exports as the main drivers. I have strangely noticed that no one mentions the billions that Iran was owed by its oil customers – funds that they had been holding during the sanctions period, which was a significant cash injection during a critical time. Inflation had been brought under control, and the medium-term economic growth was anticipated by the IMF to be in the 4.5% range – one that a lot of countries would like to have.

We will see if Trump puts his foot on the Iran recovery brake pedal by keeping the Treasury banking clearances needed to close a lot of these big deals in limbo – trying to extort something from Iran that he can take credit for by being Mr. Tough Guy. We will have to wait and see, as Mr. Trump already has a legacy carved in stone for being Mr. Unpredictable.

Jim W. Dean, managing editor for Veterans Today, producer/host of Heritage TV Atlanta, specially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.