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Spengler thinks Syria is next.
… As I wrote in Food and failed Arab states (Asia Times Online February 2, 2011), the newly prosperous consumers of Asia have priced food grains out of the reach of the destitute Arab poor. This is a tsunami which no government in the region can resist. Of all the prospectively failed states in the region, Syria seemed the least vulnerable, with a determined and vicious regime prepared to inflict unspeakable brutality on its opponents, and its inability to contain unrest is a frightening gauge of the magnitude of the shock. …
… What are essentially dictatorships like Syria rule through corruption. It is not an incidental fact of life, but the primary means of maintaining loyalty to the regime. Under normal circumstances such regimes can last indefinitely. Under severe external stress, the web of corrupt power relations decays into a scramble for individual advantage. The doubling of world food prices over the past year has overwhelmed the Assad family’s ability to manage through the usual mechanisms. The Syrians sense the weakness of the regime, which rests on the narrow base of the Alawi religious minority.
Virtually every sector of Syrian society has a grudge against the Assads, most of all the Muslim Brotherhood, which led an uprising in the city of Hama in 1982 that Hafez al-Assad crushed with casualties estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000. Ethnic fractures have not yet contributed to the unrest, but the country’s Kurds are “ready, watching and waiting to take to the streets, as their cause is the strongest”, as Robert Lowe, manager of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics, told CNN on March 24.
From the Straits of Gibraltar to the Hindu Kush, instability will afflict the Muslim world for a generation, and there is nothing that the West can do to stop it. Almost no-one in Washington appears to be asking the obvious question: what should the United States do in the event that there are no solutions at all?
No one, that is, but US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who told Washington Post columnist David Ignatius March 22 that “the unrest has highlighted ‘ethnic, sectarian and tribal differences that have been suppressed for years’ in the region, and that as America encourages leaders to accept democratic change, there’s a question ‘whether more democratic governance can hold … countries together in light of these pressures’.” The implication [Ignatius writes]: ”There’s a risk that the political map of the modern Middle East may begin to unravel too, with, say, the breakup of Libya.”
The Defense Secretary’s Delphic utterance suggests that he has learned a great deal since the 1980s, when as the Central Intelligence Agency’s Russia desk chief he refused to believe that the Soviet Union was headed for a crackup. This time he foresees the chaos to come. But Gates, along with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, already has announced his eventual departure. …
Same thought from Elliot Abrams in WaPo.
While the monarchies of the Middle East have a fighting chance to reform and survive, the region’s fake republics have been falling like dominoes — and Syria is next.
The ingredients that brought down Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia were replicated in Egypt and Libya: repression, vast corruption and family rule. All are starkly present in Syria, where the succession Egyptians and Tunisians feared, father to son, took place years ago and the police state has claimed thousands of victims. Every Arab “republic” has been a republic of fear, but only Saddam Hussein’s Iraq surpassed the Assads’ Syria in number of victims. The regime may cling to power for a while by shooting protesting citizens, but its ultimate demise is certain.
The Arab monarchies, especially Jordan and Morocco, are more legitimate than the false republics, with their stolen elections, regime-dominated courts and rubber-stamp parliaments. Unlike the “republics,” the monarchies do not have histories of bloody repression and jails filled with political prisoners. The question is whether the kings, emirs and sheiks will end their corruption and shift toward genuine constitutional monarchies in which power is shared between throne and people.
For the “republics,” however, reform is impossible. Force is the only way to stay in power. …
Jeff Jacoby catches Newt Gingrich in a debate with himself.
NEWT GINGRICH sees himself as a statesman, a public-policy sage, and a potential president of the United States. The former House speaker has written more than 20 books, produced a half-dozen documentaries, and launched organizations that focus on subjects as varied as health care, the importance of faith and free markets, and the interests of American Hispanics. It is clear that Gingrich is smart, curious, articulate, and energetic. He is never at a loss for words, and he has an opinion on everything.
But is he serious?
For someone who holds himself out as a public intellectual, Gingrich comes across all too often as more glib than thoughtful — more interested in joining the fray than in expressing carefully worked-out ideas. When he takes a strong stand on a controversial issue, it’s never clear how much conviction and deliberation have gone into it. He seems to think and speak at full gallop, tossing off opinions as fast as they come to him, less interested in being right than in being heard — and in taking shots at the opposition. Of course it is in the nature of American politics that Republicans criticize Democrats, and Democrats disparage Republicans, but Gingrich professes “to rise above traditional gridlocked partisanship.’’ And yet Newt the Republican combatant is a much more familiar figure than Newt the nonpartisan visionary.
Consider the former speaker’s position(s) on Libya. …
Amity Shlaes writes on the importance of ending federal funding of NPR.
That tricky Vivian Schiller. That flatterer Ron Schil-ler. When Americans talk scandal, they talk names, not ideas.
The recent resignation of National Public Radio’s head, Vivian Schiller, came after her fundraiser, Ron Schiller (no relation), was caught on tape pandering to a group posing as wealthy potential donors from a fictitious Muslim organization.
Entrapment is creepy. But this story serves as a reminder of a genuine problem at NPR. This problem is not personnel; it is, as the Marxists would say, structural. NPR’s staff and friends pretend that NPR isn’t such a big deal, that it’s just one creature in the great forest of talk radio, which happens to be funded–but only fractionally–by the federal government. Hence the outrage at congressional efforts to take away that small fraction.
But the reality is that NPR is not one among many. It’s a Tyrannosaurus rex, whose every move pounds the forest floor. The reason for this is not the money NPR receives from the government but the colophon of authority that federal subsidy confers. Having the government’s seal makes NPR respectable, and that, in turn, gives it access to customers, including tender young ones, whom Fox can never reach. The same holds for another meat-eater in a region of vegetarians: the Public Broadcasting Service. …
Remember Jimmy McMillan’s “The Rent is Too Damn High” party in NY City? Nicole Gelinas says actually the rent is too damn regulated.
New York has controlled the rents on “private” apartments since after World War I. The city determines annual rent increases for half of its roughly 2 million rentals. Another nearly 800,000 apartments are “free market,” in buildings too small for regulation or built after the 1970s. The state rules that govern these “tenant protections” expire in two months.
So why does nobody care?
The clue as to why the public is not up in arms right now won’t be found at either extreme of the city’s wildly diverse rental market.
Sure, we’ve all heard about 98-year-old great-grandma who would lose the $400 apartment she’s lived in for eight decades — and about the guy who rents a place in the Time Warner Center for $50,000 a month.
But the truth — which New Yorkers have gradually absorbed despite politicians’ best efforts — is in the boring middle. …