Hegemony and Iran, Revisited.

Last month I wrote two posts, Resource consumption and hegemony, roadblocks to the future? and Democracy in retreat? where the subject of American hegemony was addressed. Then later in a post,My Persian Sons I wrote of my connection with Iran.

Today, Tom Barnett has two posts that offer more on the subjects. The first is a comment on a review of Parag Khanna's book,Waving Goodbye to Hegemony by Robert Jordan Prescott at House of Marathon, A Global, Multi-Civilizational, Multi-Polar Muddle, I concur with Tom's view that this is "beautifully written."

The second post that struck home with me was a lengthy post about Iran,Same old in Iran where Tom takes the time to follow up on an article by Thomas Erdbrink in the Washington Post entitled, Iran's Clerical Old Guard Being Pushed Aside. After reading the Post article, I found Barnett's comments even more helpful, in that he added the icing on the cake to explain in detail what the original piece addressed. He begins:

With any revolutionary state, the original leadership generation ages out, usually without grace and with plenty of regrets. They see what could have been and what it's turned out to be. They look back over past decisions, and realize they would have done things differently if given the chance again to rule. They typically split across two impulses: 1) they should have been more stringent re: the revolution; and 2) they should have moved more decisively to normalize the revolution's relationship with the outside world.

And cuts to the chase with:

Fascinating stuff that shows, in my opinion, that Iran's revolution is hardly unique or unknowable or "irrational." Instead we see the same old, same old: corrupt ideologues versus less corrupt technocrats. Both think they can revitalize the failed revolution, and both are wrong. But with oil prices lubricating the regime's failures so nicely, the outcome of this yin-and-yang-like struggle may go on for a while, meaning we better be ready to seize our chances for soft-kill strategies when the technocrats are in power.
That, and we should pray for the Supreme Leader's imminent demise.

A fine bit of analysis by a man with a masterful eye on the horizon.

Postscript:
Additional insight about Iran, can be found at MilitaryHistoryOnline.com where an article entitled, Special Feature: Reflections on Iran. is a very informative report with pictures.

Democracy in retreat?

The previous post about Waving Goodbye to Hegemony called into question the future role that the United States will play in world affairs. Germain to that argument is the role that democracy will play in the future.

An old professor I once had, told his world history classes that it all boils down to "it's the money stupid." Kinda sounds like a political slogan.... But...is that always the case?

A recent article in the Financial Times by Niall Ferguson entitled, Feature: Slow but sure looks at the current state of democracy in the world.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/56514caa-cbb2-11dc-97ff-000077b07658.html

He asks:

Has the democratic wave broken? Is the tide of political freedom now ebbing after the spectacular flow that began in 1989? Recent events on nearly every continent certainly give real cause for concern to those who dream of a world governed by the ballot box rather than the bullet. But they may also provide an overdue opportunity to think more realistically about the way the process of democratisation works.

The article goes on to highlight the countries that have retreated from democracy and those who have found economic success, sans a democratic system.

However, recent economic developments have weakened such arguments. The world economy as a whole has never enjoyed a boom like that of 2001-07. Yet democracy has gained little from all this prosperity. Moreover, the most rapidly growing economies in the world since 2000 have not been the democracies

Ferguson offers a different view to explain the success of democratic systems by examining England's democratic heritage.

The England of the 1860s was, in short, hardly a model democracy, quite apart from its still-restricted franchise. Was there corruption? By today's standards, certainly. Were the rich over-represented? Without a doubt. Yet three things are striking about the system Trollope so vividly describes. First, the political elite were agreed in condemning any kind of political violence - even the threat of it - out of hand. Secondly, those in government did not hesitate to leave office, and all its perquisites, if they felt their parliamentary position to be untenable. Thirdly, the overwhelming majority of MPs on both sides accepted the sanctity of the constitution and supremacy of the law.

Ferguson offers only one panacea for ensuring democracy's will again flourish. That being the respect for the rule of law.

The key to spreading democracy is clearly not just to overthrow undemocratic regimes and hold elections. Nor is it simply a matter of waiting for a country to achieving the right level of income or rate of growth. The key, as Stanford political scientist Barry Weingast has long argued, is to come up with rules that are ''self-enforcing'', so that the more they are applied, the more respected they become, until at last they become inviolable.

Our own system on some days calls into question whether those with wealth and power are willing to leave the stage gracefully. As the election approaches all concerned Americans should pause and consider the future they want for their children.

Resource consumption and hegemony, roadblocks to the future?

The title of this post will become apparent in the final paragraph. The following links will paint a picture that calls into question the ability for any nation to independently solve the growing challenges of resource allocation and supply, as their populations, demand goods and services on par with the core industrial nations. This apparent reality acts as a major roadblock to any nation becoming or retaining total dominance over the world.

I was perusing allroadsleadtochina.com and two posts caught my eye. The first was discussing China's recent drought and how it is effecting their economy and future.

http://www.allroadsleadtochina.com/index.php/2008/01/18/why-chinas-recent-drought-matters-to-you/

A few days later another post appeared that told of the growing coal shortage that was causing power shortfalls.

http://www.allroadsleadtochina.com/index.php/2008/01/24/people-may-think-i-am-overreacting/

The second post has a link to an article by Martin Wolf in Financial Times, examining how China is changing the world.

"The world is changing China. But China is also changing the world. It is the world’s fastest growing country and the biggest capital exporter; it possesses the largest foreign currency reserves and is already the world’s third-largest trading entity; it is the largest consumer of metals and the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide; and, quite soon, it will also be the world’s largest consumer of primary energy."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/442ec948-c7c1-11dc-a0b4-0000779fd2ac,s01=1.html?nclick_check=1

These articles come as a harbinger of the difficulties that China and unmentioned India, share as they try and overcome the anchor that massive populations have on their future growth.

I had no sooner finished reviewing these posts and decided to publish a link to them, when several of my fellow bloggers posted a link to an article in the New York Times by Pagrag Khanna entitled, “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony” .

He teases the reader by imagining the United States world position in 2016.

"It is 2016, and the Hillary Clinton or John McCain or Barack Obama administration is nearing the end of its second term. America has pulled out of Iraq but has about 20,000 troops in the independent state of Kurdistan, as well as warships anchored at Bahrain and an Air Force presence in Qatar. Afghanistan is stable; Iran is nuclear. China has absorbed Taiwan and is steadily increasing its naval presence around the Pacific Rim and, from the Pakistani port of Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea. The European Union has expanded to well over 30 members and has secure oil and gas flows from North Africa, Russia and the Caspian Sea, as well as substantial nuclear energy. America’s standing in the world remains in steady decline."

Like many who have commented on this article. I have my reservations about it's message.
Mark at http://zenpundit.com/ says:

"My reaction to Khanna’s essay, distilled from his upcoming book The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, are mixed. Clearly, great effort and thought that has been put into this project by the well-read Mr. Khanna and his Thomas Friedmanesque globetrotting reportage is nothing but impressive. Clearly, Parag Khanna “gets” that globalization is a dynamic and complex system with interdependent “frenemies”; which I infer that he splices liberally with geopolitics and the hard cultural conflict of Sam Huntington. A synthesis of civilizational conflict and convergence."

Khanna's article is a worthwhile read that adds to the dialog on the United States role in the 21st Century. I found that after blaming Bush, and throwing the United States on the ash-heap of fallen empires, he offers up five solutions for regaining our position as the moral beacon for the rest of the world.

"Taken together, all these moves could renew American competitiveness in the geopolitical marketplace — and maybe even prove our exceptionalism. We need pragmatic incremental steps like the above to deliver tangible gains to people beyond our shores, repair our reputation, maintain harmony among the Big Three, keep the second world stable and neutral and protect our common planet. Let’s hope whoever is sworn in as the next American president understands this."

The great strength overlooked in Khanna's piece is the resilience of the United States to change and adopt. I have written several times about my confidence in our greatest asset, our people who have come here, assimilated and given the ability to pursue their ideas, have overcome many of the scourges that have plagued mankind. To offer just an example of this innovative spirit I turn to a post by Steve DeAngelis where he writes about, Technology based reductions in energy consumption.

http://enterpriseresilienceblog.typepad.com/enterprise_resilience_man/2008/01/technology-base.html

The post tells of Thomas Edison an American, giving the world the electric light, and about new innovations that will not only provide light, but cut consumption of the energy used to produce light.

"Technology is a wonderful thing, but as my recent post about the Japanese trying to develop robots to replace an aging workforce highlighted, you can't easily take humans out of the equation [Demographics and Robots]. Politicians in the U.S., like those in Japan in counting on technology to solve problems, rather than risking the ire of voters by asking them to change their lifestyles. The case in point is energy consumption. Stephen Mufson, writing in the Washington Post, writes about how the Energy Bill passed by Congress and signed by the President in December will change the products consumers buy in the future ["Power Switch," 20 January 2008]."

I enclosed Steve's post to offer an example of how our innovative nature can offer solutions that will continue to benefit mankind while preserving the resources to maintain that future. The problems faced by all countries will soon level the playing field. China, has a ticking demographic time bomb that has exploded periodically in the past five thousand years and reset their clock back to the starting gate. The Russian Bear has always sought it's own den and resisted becoming someones pet, IE, the EU. The EU faces the challenges of dormant nationalism that trumps Germans, Italians and Frenchman abandoning their heritage to see themselves identified as Europeans. The United States must face the reality that continued massive consumption without investment, is like eating our seed corn. The role of the Americas, led by the U.S, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and their brethren nations are removed from the linked continents of Europe and Asia and offer a unique platform to lead by example, influence and innovation.

Even I, a right of center boomer, long for a change in direction. Every horse, no matter how good burns out and you need to switch horses in order to keep going, even if it means changing horses mid-stream. How I differ from Mr. Khanna's view is in the confidence I have in the resilience of the American people to challenge the future. Every single person in the America's from Native Americans to the latest birth today, carry the genes of someone who was looking over the horizon for a better future. That fact is our greatest resource.