Who should push the reset button?

American Exceptionalism has run its course over the last century. It is time to hit the ‘reset’ button! The world has changed during the last three decades. There are other cultures and civilizations that have emerged on the global stage. These emerging powers want a bigger role in reorganizing the world. This does not mean the diminution of the American power or prestige, it simply means that other countries expect similar reciprocation and respect from the United States of America.

Seventy years back another US President had to push the ‘reset’ button but those were different times and that was no ordinary President. We are talking about the legendary Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States. The situation is as dire as it was during the Great Depression, only the then impending World War II is now replaced by the ‘War on Terror’. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill knew how to win the World War II, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown have no clue how to win the ‘War on Terror’! Do we really need to wait for four long years?

What exactly is this ‘reset’ button? It means that the world has to go back to the default position and renegotiate its way into a new world order. Just like in 1945 the League of Nations had to be replaced by the United Nations, now the UN itself has to be replaced by something else. America and China would fight hard to retain the defunct United Nations Security Council. Sooner or later the US dollar has to be replaced as a reserve currency by something else. America would fight tooth and nail to resist that! The entire global financial infrastructure has to be replaced by another Bretton Woods type system. US would fight that too. Who will push the ‘reset’ button?

World is anything but flat!

What happened? It was supposed to be flat when Tom Friedman saw it! Well, he didn’t really see it himself; he was told by Nandan Nilekani of Infosys Technologies that “the world is flat”. Tom Friedman had no reason not to believe a successful entrepreneur like Nandan Nilekani. Tom was visiting China and India in 2004 probably expecting to see torture chambers and ‘jhopad pattis’ respectively. Instead, he saw the high-risers of Shanghai and Bangalore. He was being hosted by the billionaires of the two emerging economies. What more did he need for proof? Tom Friedman decided to write a book “The World Is Flat”, projecting China and India as the emerging super-powers at the cost of The United States of America. His book became an instant best-seller and Tom was a celebrity again! Well, it did not sit well with the ‘nationalists’ in America. I am talking about the ‘working class people of America’, you know, people like ‘Joe the plumber’. Tom Friedman was becoming controversial and he is too patriotic for that label. He decided to re-publish the same book with amendments. This is the time I fell off his train! I could no longer drink his ‘coolaid’. Tom has a fine brain but he is sounding too political these days.

Last night, Tom Friedman was the guest on ‘Charlie Rose Show’ for the whole hour. Obviously, he had come to promote his new book, ‘Hot, Flat and Crowded’ but landed up discussing America’s foreign policy options for the incoming administration. Tom’s ideas on the ‘war on terror’ sounded naive and off-handed. It wouldn’t have mattered but for the fact that the current President and the President-elect, both have read his books and do consider Tom’s opinions as matured and well-founded. Nothing could be further from the truth. Tom is very Jewish in his analysis. He has a very one-sided view of the Muslim culture and their aspirations. If Barack Obama was to rely on Tom Friedman’s opinions, we would be in for a very rocky time. Tom wants Obama to reduce America’s foot-print in Afghanistan which is understandable. What is frightening is Friedman’s statement that the ‘Afghanistan War’ is the secondary front. He believes that the United States needs to focus on the Iraq war and try and negotiate a desirable outcome and bring the war to an end. Tom is convinced that the heart of Middle East i.e. Iraq would eventually bring peace to the whole region. He forgot where the 9/11 attack was planned and by whom!

The Other Side of Outsourcing

Thomas Friedman Sums Up the Iraq War: “Suck. On. This.”

The Madness Of Tom Friedman

The war on terror needs new direction…

The United States may not have faced a terrorist attack on it’s soil since September 11, 2001, but it faces the terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan every day. The war on terror is completely undermined because of the safe sanctuaries available to the terrorists in the tribal areas of Pakistan. This is a no win situation for both, Pakistan as well as the United States. Pakistan has no control over these areas, never had. United States would face the same situation that the British faced and failed, all through the last two centuries. These areas are home to the ethnic Pashtuns who are angry with Pakistan and hate Americans. These Pashtuns sympathize with the Talibans, as they are predominantly Pashtuns too. The only way to fight this ‘Taliban Insurgency’ is to rapidly develop all Pashtun occupied areas, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Traditionally, the Pashtuns are kind and largehearted people. For the past few centuries, they became pawns of the ‘Great Powers’ game (Great Briton and Russia) and were thoroughly exploited by Russia, United Kingdom and the United States. The Pashtuns have been poor and insecure for a very long time. It is time that there is a long term “Marshall Plan” for this area and the ‘Pashtun People’. Fighting this menace with sophisticated weapons and high-tech equipment would yield very little. Pakistan may be complicit in some ways but can do virtually nothing to help the Americans. I hope some people in the State Department have brains to understand what I am talking about! These people are not terrorists. Terrorists have infiltrated their societies. Senator Barack Obama is absolutely correct, the focus must shift to Afghanistan.

President Bush is not a bad person at heart, he is being mis-informed and mis-led by the people around him. There are not many Afghan Americans in his administration who could help him better understand these societies. Even if John McCain becomes the next president, he would do the right thing. I have great confidence in either of these two candidates for President of the United States. My hope is that either one would chose a person like Chuck Hagel to be the next Secretary of State. Senator McCain must be very careful and not take advise from people like Robert Kagan. This lout, Kagan, is as dumb as a door knob and is very much responsible for the “War on Iraq”. There are plenty of such characters in various ‘Think Tanks’ around Boston, New York and Washington. Please be careful this time.