Gates in Israel: Destabilizing Remarks

The more loudly American officials cry that the sky is falling because of the Iranian nuclear program, the more unstable the Mideast will become.

On July 27, during his recent trip to Israel, Defense Secretary Gates stated in a news conference:

there's no question that as Minister Barak said a nuclear-armed Iran would be profoundly destabilizing to the entire region and a threat to, certainly, to Israel and a threat to the United States and other states as well.

What are our leaders thinking when they speak in public?

It is hardly necessary for an official to understand complexity theory in order to see that one should never use an absolute phrase such as "there's no question" in reference to something as complicated as the process of destabilizing a region.

Would unprovoked nuclear aggression against Iran destablize the region? Does the further arming of nuclear Israel destabilize the region?

Gates is no chicken-hawk, neo-con servant of Israel. He was a CIA Russian analyst during the Cold War - remember, the half-century of stability resulting from a nuclear balance? I know, ancient history. But even if you have forgotten, Gates cannot have. Nuclear weapons can, handled with diplomatic expertise, be a stabilizing factor.

But suppose one wanted to destabilize the Mideast? What would help to turn the now anticipated Iranian entry into the nuclear club into a "profoundly destabilizing" event? Simple:

Scare everyone into believing that it would be the end of the world.

Scaremongering raises the likelihood of war over the short term by empowering Israeli warmongers (there may only be a handful, but they run all the major Israeli political parties).

Scaremongering also raises the likelihood of war over the long term by fairly inviting Saudis and Egyptians and Turks to cozy up to the world's first nuclear state in hopes of getting, if not an actual bomb, then at least some more of that technical assistance Pakistan was allegedly so generously passing around a few years ago (see Deception by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark for 449 pages of allegations and 83 pages of notes).

Finally, scaremongering encourages Iranians who see nuclear arms as the route to international prestige and respect. The absence of a serious, well-thought-out U.S. policy for persuading Iran to abandon the pursuit of nuclear arms only makes the American "sky is falling" screams all the more enticing to that group. One can just hear hardliners in the Iranian national security apparatus sneering at their more moderate colleagues, "You see! All we have to do is make the world think we might have one single little bomb, and everyone will be afraid of us. In fact, they already are!"

An Iran armed with nuclear-tipped missiles (very much more remote than the day Iran cobbles together its first untested bomb) might destabilize the Mideast, though that outcome is not automatic. Nuclear arms in South Asia certainly did destabilize that region, at least to the degree that India and Pakistan almost went to (nuclear) war. And the Cold War was nothing sane humans would ever want to live through again (yeah, yeah, I'm old enough to remember).

On the other hand, it might sober up risk-prone officials in both Iran and Israel. It might also persuade the U.S. to treat Iran with respect (you can tell when a state treats another state with respect: it negotiates to cut a deal rather than threatening, demanding, and issuing ultimatums with time limits).

The bottom line is that no one knows what the impact of nuclear arms in Iran might be. But the impact of screams about the sky falling by American officials seems fairly clear: it makes more likely the profound destabilization of the Mideast.

U.S. Policy Toward Iran: Reading Iranian Notes but Not Hearing the Music

I confess to indulging, perhaps too often, in the easy sport of sarcastically evaluating the behavior of our irrational, illogical, “pick up a rock to drop it on my own feet,” “cut off my nose to spite my face” leaders. Today, briefly, a more serious leaf shall flutter: consideration of the practical implications for nuclear policy toward Iran of viewing Iran as a complex system.

Evolutionary microbiologist Carl Woese has given a brilliant description of complexity in biology in a landmark review of the evolution of both the science of biology and life on earth. The part of Woese’s article that concerns me here deals with the dangers of reducing a complex problem (in his case, evolution; in my case, achieving a stable peace with Iran) to (artificial but comprehensible) components. He distinguishes "empirical" reductionism, i.e., the use of reductionism as a research technique, from "fundamentalist" reductionism, i.e., the belief that you are actually dealing with a simple reality in which the sum of the parts equals the whole. His essential message for all scientists is that:

1. "Empirical" reductionism is a perfectly reasonable crutch for understanding limited parts of a system;
2. "Fundamentalist" reductionism is a intellectually disastrous set of blinders precluding understanding of the whole system.

The relevant quote of Woese is at the end of this article. It deserves careful reading, as does his whole masterful review of the origins of life and modern biological science. His bottom line is that falling into the trap of believing in reductionism as the road to understanding results in reading the notes in the score without hearing the music. Listen to an eager seven-year-old trying the notes of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto #1: that is how U.S. policy on the Iranian nuclear issue is being formulated – one note at a time without any sense of the music being played by a profound and ancient society trying to emerge into the modern world.

As U.S. decision makers wrestle with how to fit Iran into the international political system, they read the notes quite well - seeing a missile system here, an insult there, a political trend in the background. Sadly, they are tone deaf to the Iranian orchestra, with its complex interweaving of the themes of historical pride, patriotism, dedication to religion and culture, fully warranted security concerns, desire for modernity but not necessarily Westernization, desire for integration but not subordination to Israel, desire to see Iran once again assume its historical role as key regional player.

It is OK for decision makers to make practical use of reductionism to enhance their understanding of components of the international political system as long as they avoid falling into the trap of assuming that such an intellectual exercise will enable them to understand the real system. Obsessive fixation on the Iranian-Israeli nuclear dispute or the presumed attitudes of "mullahs," or the self-serving rhetoric of an individual politician is not OK.

What is Iran?

Where is it going?

What is the likelihood of its presenting a threat in the future?

To answer these questions, it is OK to reduce it temporarily in our minds to “the clergy” and “the security apparatus.” This useful crutch will enable some to become specialists on the former and others specialists on the latter. The specialists studying the clergy will immediately discover that “the clergy” is actually composed of bitterly contending factions split by such issues as the source of governmental legitimacy (Allah or elections or military force) and the morality of torture before trial and whether or not clerical corruption is acceptable. The specialists studying the security apparatus will immediately discover that “the security apparatus” is actually composed of bitterly contending factions split by such issues as the acceptability of corruption as long as it is corruption for the benefit of the IRGC and the rationality of a non-nuclear state pursuing a rhetorically aggressive foreign policy against nuclear-armed, arrogant, but highly insecure enemies.

Hence, the specialists will be forced to reduce further, visualizing a clerical component believing in the electoral legitimization of government and a security apparatus faction dedicated to international arms control. This momentarily pleasing step in the direction of greater realism unfortunately reveals a whole new layer of difficulty: every time one visualizes a group in hopes that it can be defined as a real, stable component of “Iran,” upon examination, it turns out that the group must be subdivided. The whole idea of reduction was to simplify, but things just keep getting more difficult.

Fortunately, there is an end point in this reductionist process in international affairs (perhaps not for our unfortunate biologist colleagues who smoothly move right past the organism to the cell and then the nucleus and then the genes and then the DNA and then…). In international affairs, the end point is the individual. That does not mean we need to understand everyone all the time, because most of the time, almost everyone is going about his or her life. There remains a large group of individuals we need to track, but the real problem is that these individuals refuse to stay in their boxes! Conservative clerics sometimes support the IRGC, which is undermining their control of the revolution. Conservative clerics also sometimes emerge (pardon my language) as champions of the people.

The boundary between a rubber gasket and a radiator is clear; the boundary between a clerical faction and a national security faction is not. Members change sides and sometimes stand on both sides simultaneously. The individual decisions about where to stand result from unique, individual calculations. One is reduced (again, pardon my language) to making, with physicists, general statements about the “average tendency” of individuals (molecules) under some specific conditions. For physicists, the specific conditions may simply be pressure and temperature. They do not know how lucky they are.

For students of international affairs, not only is the set of relevant conditions somewhat larger, but the set is not constant, nor, of course, does anyone know how to measure the state of the conditions with any precision. And I won’t even get into the absence of linearity. But this analytical cloud contains a silver lining: the more complex the structure, the more opportunities for influencing its behavior. All you have to do is figure out how it will react when you poke it.

Woese observed that “organisms are resilient patterns in a turbulent flow.” He could have said the same about cells and DNA strands. The remark also applies to societies and states and factions. All three try to maintain themselves in the face of constant dissipative flows of turbulence. It is fine to reduce Iran momentarily to the regime or the national security apparatus or the Ahmadinejad faction as long as you remember that those are all patterns with resilience, i.e., the ability to modify themselves (whether or not successfully) in response to their environment. We are not talking about fixed targets.

Even if Faction X at this instant plans a devious nuclear breakout and suicidal attack on Israel, Faction X could evolve. Or, if destroyed, it could be replaced by Faction Y, which would learn some lesson from the experience of having watched the destruction of Faction X.

Policies that assume rigidity on the part of a society or state or regime or faction create a pressure (in the turbulent flow) that inhibits the evolution of that entity; acting as though your adversary will inevitably engage in “evil” behavior is a self-fulfilling proposition and thus irrational. It is not in one’s interest to force an adversary to engage in the behavior one dislikes.

I realize full well that all of the dedicated decision makers who took the time to read this far will by now give up. They got the message: this is just too complicated! My theoretical argument may be correct, but they don’t have time to engage in the meticulous, delicate, ever-so-cautious poking of the system to see how it will react that my argument mandates. Folks, nuclear war is serious. There is another alternative. As for you decision makers, if you don’t have the time or energy or dedication to lay out a rational foreign policy, then retire and write a spy novel.

APPENDIX: Woese on Reductionism

We cannot proceed further without clarifying and discussing what is meant by reductionism. The stakes here are high because the concept is deeply woven into the fabric of modern biology, and biology today has hit the wall of biocomplexity, reductionism's nemesis. Thus, a topic that previously had been left for the philosophers and scientific dilettantes has suddenly become a very real and global issue for the practicing biologist. “Reductionism” is a confused and cathected issue at the moment, in large measure because biologists use the term in two senses, usually without distinguishing them. This we now have to do. We need to distinguish what can be called “empirical reductionism” from “fundamentalist reductionism.” Empirical reductionism is in essence methodological; it is simply a mode of analysis, the dissection of a biological entity or system into its constituent parts in order better to understand it. Empirical reductionism makes no assumptions about the fundamental nature, an ultimate understanding, of living things. Fundamentalist reductionism (the reductionism of 19th century classical physics), on the other hand, is in essence metaphysical. It is ipso facto a statement about the nature of the world: living systems (like all else) can be completely understood in terms of the properties of their constituent parts. This is a view that flies in the face of what classically trained biologists tended to take for granted, the notion of emergent properties. Whereas emergence seems to be required to explain numerous biological phenomena, fundamentalist reductionism flatly denies its existence: in all cases the whole is no more than the sum of its parts. Thus, biology of the 20th century was in the strange position of having to contort itself to conform to a world view (fundamentalist reductionism) that 20th century physics was simultaneously in the process of rejecting. In a metaphysical sense, molecular biology was outdated from the onset! What makes this curious period in biology's history doubly bizarre is that a fundamentalist reductionist perspective wasn't even needed in the first place in order to study biology on the molecular level. The simple empirical reductionist outlook would have done just fine, and technology was moving us in that direction anyway! It will be interesting to see what history has to say about the biology of the 20th century….

molecular biology could read notes in the score, but it couldn't hear the music. The molecular cup is now empty. The time has come to replace the purely reductionist “eyes-down” molecular perspective with a new and genuinely holistic, “eyes-up,” view of the living world, one whose primary focus is on evolution, emergence, and biology's innate complexity.

Factional Strife in Iran

Each day brings new moves in the factional war in Tehran, invalidating the previous day's understanding of "kto-kvo" [who, to whom], as a student of Stalinism might say.

Ahmadinejad has fired his intelligence chief, Mohseni-Ejei. This was reported in a none-too-friendly article in the hardline Kayhan newspaper. Here is what Global Security had to say about him (apparently in 2005):

Hojatoleslam Gholam-Hussein Mohseni-Ejei is a graduate of Qom's Haqqani School, and many other alumni are active throughout Iran's government, sine in some of the most sensitive positions of power. The Haqqani School is noteworthy because it serves as a connection between so many individuals, but nowadays it also denotes an extremist school of thought advocating violence against one's enemies and strict clerical control over social and governmental affairs.

Judging from the above analysis, the struggle over control of the Ministry of Security and Intelligence amount to a fight between the ascendant IRGC faction and the retreating clerical faction. From the perspective of the Iranian man in the street, it is hard to discern any “good guys” in this struggle. Power corrupts, as the occasional thinking American or Israeli will understand all too well.

In any case, a purge of the intelligence ministry now appears under way, a step that one could be excused for finding rather curious when the Ahmadinejad Administration is simultaneously advocating a purge of reformers. The explanation may be that Ahmadinejad and his IRGC backers simply do not view popular pressures for civil rights or electoral reform as a significant challenge and perhaps indeed welcome the protests because it gives the military an opportunity to equate chaos in the streets and democracy and the “foreign threat” with its real enemy – the old clerical revolutionary generation. Rafsanjani’s well-known corruption just makes it all the easier for the IRGC to pose as the nation’s savior while it consolidates power. (For an analysis of Ahmadinejad’s predicament, see here.) As for Rafsanjani, he has been humiliated again by apparently being forced out of the normal rotation to deliver the Tehran Friday prayer sermon, yet another sign that the clerical faction favoring compromise is on the defensive.

As for the winners, two men are emerging in control of intelligence: the commander of the Basiji, Hojjatoleslam Hossein Taeb, and Hojatoleslam Ahmad Salek, Khomenei’s representative in the IRGC counterintelligence department. Salek has been accused of overseeing the torture of arrested protestors.

Two questions are immediately pertinent:

1. Ahmadinejad’s fortunes are greatly buttressed by fervent support from some highly-placed clerics (e.g., Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami and Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi). How long will Ahmadinejad be able to count on splitting the clerics? Will they become uneasy at the prospect of taking orders from the IRGC, especially now that hardline cleric Mohseni-Ejei has been fired? Interestingly, Mohseni-Ejei is from the Haqqani Seminary in Qom founded by Ahmadinejad’s mentor Mesbah-Yazdi.
2. Will the unity of the IRGC collapse?

Clearly, the Western image of the Iranian regime against the masses is far too simplistic. The image articulated by Ahmadinejad supporters of a strict IRGC combating corruption is hardly persuasive, given the extraordinary degree of IRGC corruption. But the recent removals of some clerics high in intelligence circles and their replacement by other clerics who seem equally conservative and have military/intelligence backgrounds indicates that the image of the IRGC against the clerics is also too simplistic.

It is hard to imagine what a conservative Shi’ite clergyman who risked his life for the revolution against the Shah’s corruption and oppression can be thinking today. Indeed, the Shah would be increasingly comfortable in the militarized Iran that seems to be emerging.

Curiously, Salek vociferously opposed Ahmadinejad’s effort to appoint a first vice presidential candidate in the face of the opposition of Khamenei himself. Could this be a hint that what is really happening is that a Khamenei-conservative clerical old guard-IRGC faction is emerging in opposition to moderates, corrupt clerics, protestors…and Ahmadinejad, whose temperament may be making him an unwanted ally?

American Double Standards

Here's a simple but absolutely fundamental point (written by a courageous mystery blogger who visited Israel) that every American needs to understand:

we've got a major double standard when it comes to the moral outrage we express. For example, what about the hundreds of thousands of brutally murdered Iraqis and Afghanis we are responsible for? Where is the moral outrage over that? Where is the moral outrage over the countless Palestinians slaughtered in cold blood for no other reason than the fact that they are Palestinian? People die on a weekly basis at the hands of Israeli soldiers in the village of Nilin, people who are peacefully and NON-VIOLENTLY protesting against the military dictatorship and occupation they are living under. Why aren't we demanding accountability from the Israeli Government and insisting that Palestinians should have the right to protest without fearing for their lives? Did we see the pictures of the dead children in Gaza as a result of Operation Cast Lead? Where is our support for the Palestinian people in their struggle for justice against a truly brutal and inhumane regime? And just yesterday a U.S. drone is reported to have killed 60 people at a funeral in Pakistan. My point is, we are selectively and blindly supportive when it suits our interests or aligns with our world views, meanwhile our own government is making bloody messes the world over.

I just wonder how many Americans do understand this...

The ease with which we murder innocent farmers indicates what happens when double-standards are allowed. It is, by the way, ironic that this American murder of Afghan cucumber farmers occurred; as the Israeli war against Palestinians heated up a decade ago and collective punishment became an ever-more-obvious part of Israeli policy, the export of Palestinian cucumbers was one of the targets of Israel. Stop and ask yourself: When a cucumber farmer in a war zone is prevented from raising his crops, where is he likely to turn for support?

But back to the double standard. Everyone was outraged at the murder of one young lady on the streets of Tehran a few weeks ago. Where is the outrage, where are the demands for an investigation to punish the U.S. military murderers of these cucumber farmers (if that is indeed what they were)?

Recession? What Recession???

Recession? What recession? The recession ended last fall, the minute all those Wall Street millionaires taking their sabbatical in Washington gave themselves that miniscule $700 billion bailout during the final days of the neo-con gang and then grabbed a couple trillion more from front-man Obama. As for you unemployed folks on Main Street, well, you're not "in recession;" you're just doing what the poor have always done: coughing up.

Federal bailout inspector Neil Barofsky has warned in testimony to Congress that the total bailout commitment our politicians have made on behalf of the American people may amount to a maximum, in the worst case, of $24 trillion, an idiotic sum. Treasury assures the American people that as of today the figure is only $2 trillion, i.e., about equal to the total US GDP this year. No one knows exactly because everyone is working as hard as possible to keep everyone else from finding out. Also, while it will almost certainly end up worse than Treasury’s optimistic “so far,” if the economy recovers smartly and honest recipients of Washington’s generosity pay the government back, then the theoretical $24 trillion figure will not be reached. Now, I trust you all feel good and will go out and spend…spend…spend!

One of the most serious themes in Barofsky’s orchestra of doom came from Treasury: its rush to undercut Barofsky—who is charged with inspecting Treasury’s behavior—should make all you patriotic, respectful citizens who love and trust your government think twice.

Beyond that, of course, lie all sorts of other issues. In a country that needs to add some 125,000 employees per month just to break even, 250,000 jobs were lost in July…and it was treated as good news!

The next curiosity was the drop in the size of the workforce. All the wars of the ruling elite are not yet sufficiently severe to achieve this, so either people suddenly stopped having babies (a good idea, given the state of things, perhaps, but not one yet known to have occurred) or healthy unemployed workers are giving up on getting employment. If they are fixing up the tent cities or otherwise engaged in useful work, that’s fine, but something tells me this growing army of the healthy unemployed probably represents a net loss of national productivity and happy citizens.

Then there’s that limitless taxpayer-funded safety net for irresponsible Wall Street financial gamblers…well, they aren’t gambling any more, are they? As always, when they speculate and win, they keep their profits; but now, when they speculate and lose, they get refunds from the taxpayers. (Yes, the same taxpayers that may have invested their money on Wall Street in the first place; your subsidies do not pay you back – they just pay back Goldman Sachs.) Most of you probably don’t know that the U.S. actually has a senator who is not a member of either the Republican or Democratic branch of the Conservative (i.e., Money/War) Party that rules this country: Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Here’s his take on Wall St./Washington corruption:

Stepping up a campaign for Federal Reserve accountability, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday questioned whether some of more than $2.2 trillion in secret subsidies went to Goldman Sachs and other bailed-out banks now planning to shower executives with huge bonuses. Sanders voiced his concern in a letter to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and during remarks at an Economic Policy Institute conference. Goldman Sachs yesterday reported that its profits surged on second-quarter income of $3.44 billion. The turnaround came less than a year after reckless investments by Goldman and other Wall Street firms triggered a worldwide recession and drove many rivals out of business.

With the good times rolling again on Wall Street, Goldman repaid its $10 billion taxpayer bailout and now plans to dole out the biggest bonuses in its 140-year history. The investment bank reportedly plans to pay as much as $20 billion this year in bonuses and other compensation, about $700,000 per employee. Goldman is one of 10 big banks that announced plans to return bailout funds so they could evade restrictions on executive compensation and bonuses.

“The question I have is how do we know that right after Goldman and other banks pay back billions to the Treasury, the Federal Reserve doesn’t turn around and provide them with billions more with no strings attached?” Sanders asked. “The answer is that we don’t know. Ben Bernanke refuses to say.”

That's good politics, I suppose, but surely Sanders understands the real issue is two-fold:

1) the continuing lack of transparency both on Wall Street and in Washington;
2) the "moral hazard" problem - bailing out the crooks (or, perhaps, just idiots) who caused the recession without punishing them simply rewards them for their criminally irresponsible behavior and ensures that it will be repeated.

Iraqi Carnage

The horrifying Iraqi carnage over the weekend brings to mind the ragged old bumper sticker that still scowls from the back of my car: "Iraq Is Arabic for Vietnam." Those responsible for the U.S. invasion of Iraq--and they are not limited to one faction or one party--still try to assuage their guilt by portraying the endless domestic strife being suffered by that defeated and destroyed society as somehow demonstrating that the U.S. should prolong its colonial adventure. From a moral perspective (not that morality enters into their thoughts), one could perhaps argue that, "we broke it, so we must fix it." But the Iraqi china being smashed by the American bull could be excused for having a different perspective.

Unfortunately, those who start wars are seldom held responsible for their sins...especially when they win. That failure of victorious societies to look in the mirror not only leaves the defeated in chaos but inevitably comes back to haunt the victors.

The slaughter generated by the U.S. invasion of Iraq continues, even as American politicians, desperate to avoid admitting their sins, race forward as fast as they can toward the next war. Why attack Iran? Well, for one thing, it will take the minds of memory-challenged Americans off the past sins of their leaders.

Questioning Assumptions: Israeli Security

The Israeli governing elite generally accepts without serious question a consensus opinion that Israeli security requires a hardline policy toward Iran of demanding unilateral concessions.

Might the alternative, a mutually acceptable compromise, offer an alternative path to security?

A. Could Israeli officials design a set of trade-offs that could enable both countries to move step by step toward a position of mutual security?

B. Would security based on the same rules for each side be more stable than security based on a position of Israeli strength vs. Iranian weakness?

C. What impact would such an Israeli policy have on Iranian security politics?

Netanyahu's Myth of an "Iranian Threat:" An Israeli View

An Israeli political scientist has courageously denounced Israeli politicians for using the myth of an Iranian threat as a "political tool."

As Israeli politicians hype the “Iran threat” in order to cement their tenuous hold on power, remain in the limelight, distract Washington from resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and pressure naïve Congressmen into providing more weapons, an Israeli professor* has the following to say in the Israeli Israeli press about Netanyahu’s myth of Iran threat:

There is no need to hear the repeated declarations by Benjamin Netanyahu, his political allies, his aides (particularly Uzi Arad) and senior officers to know that the state of the Iranian regime and the perception of the looming Iranian nuclear threat has become a political tool for them….

Does Iran indeed pose a real existential threat rather than an imagined existential threat against those states that are threatened by it, particularly Israel?

The answer is that there are three basic reservations regarding these much-talked-about concerns over Iran.

First, like other small states, Iran seeks to attain nuclear weapons in order to deter other nuclear-armed states from attacking it. So if Iran is not attacked, it will not attack.

Second, Iran's goal is primarily to boost its influence in the Muslim world.

Third, and most important, with the exception of two atomic bombs that were needlessly used by none other than the democratic and liberal United States - since Japan was very near surrender - no other country possessing nuclear weapons has used them.

The other reasons for not using nuclear weapons are numerous. The main reason is these states' fears, including Iran's, of a response by other nuclear-armed countries. Even if any country, including Israel, were to be attacked by an Iranian nuclear weapon, other countries would respond with force. This is not because of the damage that would be caused to the attacked country, but particularly due to the fear that they too would be harmed.

Other reasons for refraining from using nuclear weapons include moral considerations, fear of mistakenly striking allies in the region, concern over widespread destabilization and other related factors.

The conclusion is that even if Iran attains nuclear weapons, it does not pose a real existential threat to other countries, Israel included. It would behoove Israeli politicians and defense officials to take these considerations into account and cease disseminating statements about the existence of this threat and military operations against Iran.

* The author is Professor Emeritus Gabriel Sheffer, political scientist, retired from Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Pakistan Trumps Afghanistan

Losing Pakistan would be far too great a price to pay for any imaginable outcome in Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s Frontier Post, in an editorial lamenting Washington’s attitude toward Pakistan, has asked a fair question:

President Barack Obama's anointed viceroy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke says militants are crisscrossing between the two countries of his domain. Then, why is the American army in Afghanistan not stopping their trafficking on its side? Why too are not the NATO forces and the Afghan army? Isn't it their job? Or is it written in scriptures they all will sit in their secure bases away from the border, keep munching on burgers, expect the Pakistani military to do this job all alone and pass judgements on its act?

This question is not only reasonable but important because it must be in the minds of many Pakistanis. The absence of a good answer from Washington can only undermine U.S.-Pakistani relations. For the U.S. to fight a war in Afghanistan may or may not be rational; the answer, I admit, is debatable. But what is not debatable is the vastly greater significance of Pakistan. To wreck US ties to Pakistan and, worse, to wreck Pakistan in the process of fighting an inept American-style war in Afghanistan would make the Afghan war a disaster regardless of who ends up in control of that country.

Washington Creating Wall Street Frankenstein

Washington is merrily creating a new Wall Street Frankenstein that will rob you blind…and cause another recession as the impoverishment of America accelerates.

The corrupt bailout deal Washington made with Wall Street is simple: Wall Street can play games with your money just like before, except that this time, if they lose your (investors’) money, you (taxpayers) have to compensate them (Wall Street – not the investors, who might be you). So Wall Street is free, indeed encouraged, to make all the same irresponsible gambles that created the current recession all over again, only this time “Wall Street” is even more centralized than before, which makes it more dangerous and make further political corruption (i.e., bailouts without financial transparency) more likely. Bottom line: before we even get out of the current mess, we are busy paving the way to a repeat performance…and the road to this hell is not paved with good intentions. Tighten your belt: for the average American, the good times are not coming back.

For the details, consider the following assessments of our predicament by Robert Reich and Paul Krugman.

Robert Reich:

The resurgence of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs gives both banks more financial clout than any other players on the Street -- allowing both firms to lure talent from everywhere else on the Street with multi-million pay packages, giving both firms enough economic power to charge clients whopping fees, and bestowing on both firms even more political heft in Washington.

Where are the antitrusters when we need them? Alternatively, why isn't the government charging Goldman and JPMorgan a large insurance fee for classifying both firms as "too big to fail" and therefore automatically bailed out if the risks they take turn sour? Instead, we've ended up with two giants that now have most of the casino to themselves, are playing with poker chips backed by taxpayers, and have a big say in what the rules of the game are to be.

When JP Morgan repaid its federal bailout of $25 billion last month it was, like Goldman, freed from stricter government oversight. The freedom has also allowed JP, like Goldman, to take tougher and more vocal stands in Washington against proposed financial regulations they dislike.

JP is mounting a furious lobbying campaign against regulations that would funnel derivatives trading through exchanges where regulators can monitor them, and thereby crimp JP's profits. Now the Street's biggest derivatives player, JP has generated billions helping clients navigate these contracts and assuming counter-party risk in such transactions. Its derivatives contracts were valued at roughly $81 trillion at the end of the first quarter, representing 40 percent of the derivatives held by all banks, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. JP has played down its potential risk exposure from these derivatives contracts, of course, but anyone who's been paying attention over the last ten months knows that unregulated derivatives have been at the center of the storm.

Paul Krugman:

…by rescuing the financial system without reforming it, Washington has ... made another crisis more likely.

Let’s start by talking about how Goldman makes money.

Over the past generation — ever since the banking deregulation of the Reagan years — the U.S. economy has been “financialized.” The business of moving money around, of slicing, dicing and repackaging financial claims, has soared...

Such growth would be fine if financialization really delivered on its promises — if financial firms made money by directing capital to its most productive uses, by developing innovative ways to spread and reduce risk. But can anyone, at this point, make those claims with a straight face? ...

Goldman’s role in the financialization of America was similar to that of other players, except for one thing: Goldman didn’t believe its own hype. ... Goldman, famously, made a lot of money selling securities backed by subprime mortgages — then made a lot more money by selling mortgage-backed securities short, just before their value crashed. All of this was perfectly legal, but the net effect was that Goldman made profits by playing the rest of us for suckers.

And Wall Streeters have every incentive to keep playing that kind of game.

The huge bonuses Goldman will soon hand out show that financial-industry highfliers are still operating under a system of heads they win, tails other people lose. ... You have every reason, then, to steer investors into taking risks they don’t understand.

And the events of the past year have skewed those incentives even more, by putting taxpayers as well as investors on the hook if things go wrong. ... Wall Street in general, Goldman very much included, benefited hugely from the government’s provision of a financial backstop — an assurance that it will rescue major financial players whenever things go wrong.

You can argue that such rescues are necessary if we’re to avoid a replay of the Great Depression. In fact, I agree. But the result is that the financial system’s liabilities are now backed by an implicit government guarantee.

Now, the last time there was a comparable expansion of the financial safety net, the creation of federal deposit insurance in the 1930s, it was accompanied by much tighter regulation, to ensure that banks didn’t abuse their privileges. This time, new regulations are still in the drawing-board stage — and the finance lobby is already fighting against even the most basic protections for consumers.

If these lobbying efforts succeed, we’ll have set the stage for an even bigger financial disaster a few years down the road. The next crisis could look something like the savings-and-loan mess of the 1980s, in which deregulated banks gambled with, or in some cases stole, taxpayers’ money — except that it would involve the financial industry as a whole.