How's This For a Script? Warning - It's a Tough Read.

Young men and women, conscripts, manning the ramparts at Festung (fortress) Europa as legions of desperate migrants approach seeking safety. As the steely commander shouts the order the young defenders reluctantly open fire on the horde knowing they have no other choice - the migrants carry among them a highly infectious strain of cholera.

Sounds like utter dystopia, doesn't it? Well, relax, there is no Festung Europa yet and no infectious horde is marching on Europe yet, but... an outbreak of cholera is now sweeping Iran and experts warn that the impacts of war, climate change and this year's powerful El Nino, create ideal conditions for it and other infectious diseases associated with extreme, mass suffering to spread rapidly and far. From Foreign Policy:

Although the scope of the current outbreak is moderate so far, with fewer than 11,000 illnesses confirmed, it has already spread across an expanse far larger than the 1997 epidemic, taken a greater toll in the Middle East, and still threatens to travel with refugee populations to a even wider geographic area. Moreover, there is ample reason to believe the official tally is grossly undercounted.

At least 2,000 people in Iraq have contracted cholera since mid-September, and Vibriobacteria have contaminated the Euphrates River, possibly the Tigris, as well. The epidemic is thriving amid a perfect storm of failed-state capacity in Baghdad, even worse “state” failures in Anbar province and other regions controlled by the self-declared Islamic State, encampments of millions of Syrian refugees and other homeless displaced people, and harsh downpours slamming parts of Africa and the Middle East thanks to one of the worstPacific El Niño climate events in recorded history.

On Oct. 26, the Syrian American Medical Society, a nongovernmental organization providing aid inside the war-torn country, said it was “very likely” a child living outside of Aleppo died from cholera, possibly due to a widespread contagion in the area. Since January, UNICEF has reported more than 105,000 cases of acute diarrheal disease in Syrian children inside the country, though no laboratories there are available to determine the infectious cause of most of the illnesses. Some, perhaps many, could be due to cholera.

And there’s reason to fear the epidemic could spread further afield, too. Turkish officials have assured their people that no cases of cholera have been confirmed among Syrian refugees living in that country. In Lebanon, where millions of refugees reside and government chaos is responsible for a nearly four-month cessation of garbage collection,doctors warn that conditions are ripe for an explosive spread of the disease. On Oct. 2,Greek health officials placed a Dutch tourist in treatment in Athens after the individual developed acute diarrhea on the island of Kos, a landing point for thousands of Syrian refugees. Although cholera was feared, it was never confirmed. Nevertheless, there isgrowing concern in Europe that with the refugees will come the Vibrio cholerae.

But this year’s cholera crisis already goes far beyond the borders of Iraq or even the lengths of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers.

...Cholera bacteria can travel from one place to another via two ways: through water systems or through infected people. When contaminated human waste is dumped into a river, cholera is carried downstream. Food that is irrigated with contaminated water, and then shipped to another region or country, may carry the disease to new areas if the produce is eaten raw and unwashed. In 1979, I was in a cholera epidemic in Tanzania that spread far and wide on cashew nuts that were packaged by the unwashed hands of people who were infected. International travelers may unknowingly carry cholera and pass it with their waste, spreading Vibrio bacteria from one country to another.

The El-Nino Conveyor.

Climate and weather play a key role. In the 1997-1998 epidemic, the disease’s spread was hastened by torrential downpours and mudslides from a periodic climate swing that occurs when transpacific winds change, for reasons unknown, pushing ocean currents out of their normal patterns. This weather pattern is called El Niño.

...By mid-October, the El Niño drama was clearly unfolding. The weather system was blamed for holding toxic air in a stagnant dome over Singapore, sending killer typhoons across the Philippines and Southeast Asia, causing a drought in usually drenched parts of West Africa, and showering parts of East Africa with sporadic rains of such force that mudslides and floods resulted. Changes in the hunting patterns of King Penguins have been blamed on El Niño, along with an overall East African drought so dire that the United Nations warns thatsevere food insecurity may loom. And on Oct. 25, an atmospheric scientist from Colorado State University credited El Niño with feeding Hurricane Patricia, which had record-breaking winds as high as 200 miles per hour.

El Niño’s impact on the Middle East, coupled with climate change, has been two-fold: First, temperatures from southern Iraq all the way into Turkey reached record highs this summer, topping more than 122 degrees Fahrenheit. The entire region is now locked in a severe drought, worse than the one some have credited with spawning the Syrian uprisings of 2011 that led to the Assad regime’s crackdown and current civil war.

Climate change, meanwhile, has hit the South Asia/Middle East region with severe drought causing some major rivers such as the Tigris and Euphrates to be dammed by the countries they pass through. This slows or halts the flow of the rivers increasing the growth of cholera bacteria. Getting ISIS to open the Ramadi dam they control will not be easy. Meanwhile the river water and produce grown with that water become increasingly dangerous.

The Good News

So far the cholera that has spread from the Middle East into Africa is just one strain, Inaba, that is relatively easily treated and for which an effective and inexpensive vaccine is available but there are inadequate stocks of it. The World Health Organization (WHO) has a million doses but it intends to use half of that to vaccinate 250,000 displaced people in government-controlled regions of Iraq.

The Future

More than 10 million Iraqis, Syrians, and Kurds are now living in squalor, displaced within their own countries or in refugee settlements in the region. Among refugees over the last four years have been outbreaks of measles (1,000 cases currently inside Iraq), typhoid fever, hepatitis A, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and even polio, which was once all but eradicated from the Middle East. Conditions are ripe for a cholera epidemic that might take hold for a very long time.

Epidemiologists have been warning us for years that mass-migrations of the sort foreseen for much of this century will trigger and spread highly lethal epidemics. We live in a world in which more than one in three has no access to basic sanitation. In the Third World more people have cell phones than the number with toilets. Putting these people to flight from any cause - war, famine, water shortages, sea level rise, whatever - magnifies the risk of rapidly spreading, lethal epidemics.

This cholera epidemic is the world's wake-up call. Will we even hear it?

It is  

Canada Advances to Top Tier Warmongering. Congratulations All.

Also Available in Green

Did you hear the news?  Pakistan has inked a deal to buy eight modern Chinese submarines.  Pakistan, yeah.  And the Pakistan navy is looking at developing nuclear warheads for the torpedoes and cruise missiles those subs carry.  What do you think of that?  Does it evoke any sort of visceral reaction in you? I wouldn't bet on it.

Those familiar with this blog know that I devote some time monitoring arms races underway in many corners of the world but especially in the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia and, of course, Russia and Eastern Europe.  They're all little beehives of martial adventurism and incipient mass mayhem.

Interesting piece in today's Guardian about how the West's mega-billion dollar annual arms sales to our 'Middle Eastern allies' (snicker, snicker) is destabilizing the region.  On this score even Canada gets special mention.


The Middle East is plunging deeper into an arms race, with an estimated $18bn expected to be spent on weapons this year, a development that experts warn is fuelling serious tension and conflict in the region.

Given the unprecedented levels of weapons sales by the west (including the US, Canada and the UK) to the mainly Sunni Gulf states, Vladimir Putin’s decision last week to allow the controversial delivery of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran – voluntarily blocked by Russia since 2010 – seems likely to further accelerate the proliferation.

That will see agreed arms sales to the top five purchasers in the region - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Egypt and Iraq – surge this year to more than $18bn, up from $12bn last year. Among the systems being purchased are jet fighters, missiles, armoured vehicles, drones and helicopters.

...“It’s crazy,” says Ben Moores, author of IHS Jane’s annual report on arms buying trends. “The one Canadian deal alone – to supply Saudi Arabia with light armoured vehicles – will account for 20% of the military vehicles sold globally in years covered by the contract. And this is just the thin edge of the wedge. Saudi has booked enough arms imports in 24 months for them to be worth $10bn a year.”

...as Tobias Borck of the Royal United Services Institute points out, states in the Middle East are now more prepared to use the weapons they are buying.

“[The] Saudi-led military operations in Yemen [are] the latest manifestation of Arab interventionism, a trend that has been gaining momentum in the Middle East since the uprisings of the Arab spring,” he says. “Middle Eastern countries appear to be increasingly willing to use their armed forces to protect and pursue their interests in crisis zones across the region.”

Referring to the inconsistent approach by key security council members towards arms control in the region, he adds: “There are a lot of different streams feeding into this arms race.

“On Syria’s chemical weapons and the Iranian nuclear programme the two issues were ringfenced as pure arms control questions. When it comes to how we perceive our arms sales – whether they are British or US or whatever – it tends to be seen as a domestic economic issue – protecting our factories.

“That neglects the regional political dimensions, with arms sales taking place with a lack of regard for that context and without long-term strategic awareness.”

...Omar Ashour, an expert on Middle East security issues at Exeter University, adds another caution, this time over the intentions of the new Saudi-led Arab coalition, warning that its interventions are unlikely to contribute to stability.

...Speaking to the Guardian last week, he added: “On top of that, the increases in arms sales are bound to be extremely destabilising. At the moment most of the interventions have been against softer targets – Saudi Arabia targeting guerrillas in Yemen; Egypt against Bedouin in Sinai; or strikes against ragtag armies in Libya.

“But if the ‘soft’ keeps being hit hard they won’t remain soft. They will find their own patrons and proxies and hit back and it will lead to a vicious cycle.”

Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at Sipri, which maintains a database tracking arms contracts, raises another concern. “Something that doesn’t get mentioned is the complete lack of interest in arms control among the countries in region. It is not in the minds of leaders and decision-makers except for the need to arm to defeat any potential opponent.

“There is already instability in the region on several levels. You have instability in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. There is instability between Iran and the Gulf states. What is important now is how the massive expansion of the armed forces of Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar will be seen as posing a clear threat to Iran.”

Borck adds a final warning: “If you are going for an ever-bigger hammer, then the more desperate you are to make every problem a nail.”

In summary, Stephen Harper just inked a massive deal to perpetuate the Middle East conflicts and ensure that the region remains destabilized for years, possibly decades to come.  Yet, at the very same time, we're over there bombing one bunch of bad actors in order to restore stability to the region.  Neat trick, eh? What do we have in mind for a third act?  It should be pretty exciting for laid back Canada.

While I'm on the topic of warmongering and this insane global arms bazaar, I thought I'd share with you an investment analysis that arrived in my inbox yesterday concerning industry giant, Lockheed Martin.  The title speaks volumes:

"Lockheed Martin: Well-Positioned To Take Advantage Of Global Destabilization"

You can't make this stuff up:

With the huge ramp up in geopolitical tensions and global conflict, the international markets are becoming much more relevant for Lockheed Martin. As such, Lockheed Martin's decision to put increasing emphasis on international expansion is extremely smart. The company even plans to have its international segment account for at least one-quarter of its total sales. Given how much worse geopolitical tensions and conflicts have gotten in the last few quarters, Lockheed Martin will very likely be able to follow through on its international ambitions.

The Middle East, in particular, represents huge opportunities for Lockheed Martin. With conflicts in the Middle East escalating, the company's sales to the region will surely constitute a huge portion of its international business segment. Just recently, another Middle Eastern conflict emerged in the form of a rapidly destabilizing Yemem. The Yemen situation has gotten so bad that Saudi Arabia is now basically in a proxy war against Iran. Given Lockheed Martin's somewhat close relationship with Saudi Arabia, this conflict should present the company with plenty of new opportunities. In fact, CEO Marillyn Hewson met with several senior Saudi Arabian leaders to discuss new business opportunities.

The Middle East is just one of many promising international markets for Lockheed Martin. From increasing missile defense system sales in conflict zones such as Eastern Europe (e.g. MEADs sales to Ukraine) to jet deals in the APAC region(e.g. F-35 sales to South Korea), Lockheed Martin is building a formidable international presence. As international tensions/conflicts are only getting worse, Lockheed Martin has an opportune chance to cement its global presence.

Maybe Harper should dispatch Old Leatherback, Joe Oliver, over to the ME as Canada's ambassador for warmongering.  This is just getting started and there's countless billions to be had with the race going to the quickest.

Even Diplomats Admit Our Middle East Policy is a Mess.

Of course it's a mess bordering on schizophrenia.  We can't figure out which side we should be fighting, Sunni or Shia.  We're bombing Sunnis on behalf of the Shia in Iraq and, soon enough, Syria but we're backing the Sunnis in their air war against Shiite rebels in Yemen.  Next year we might switch sides again.

What's going wrong here, what's missing?

I think I know.  We're succumbing to a messed up foreign policy because we haven't yet accepted that we've become unwitting warriors in a religious civil war underway in the Muslim world.  It's Saudi Arabia versus Iran, Sunni versus Shiite, and we're reduced to proxies, muscle for one side against the other.  Why should they do the heavy lifting when we'll show up to do it for them?

800-front line jet fighters sitting in the hangars of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf States, all of them within easy striking distance of ISIS, so why are we sending a six pack of aging CF-18s 10,450 kms, the distance from Cold Lake, Alberta to Kuwait?  Their kit is mainly newer than ours and often better.  These Arab states are literally awash in F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, Eurofighter Typhoons, Panavia Tornadoes and Mirages of all varieties.  So, why us?



"We’re not taking sides against a Shia faction [on behalf of] a Sunni faction,” insisted a State Department spokesman, Jeff Rathke. “We’re trying to promote a dialogue process in which the views of all Yemenis can be taken into account, and it’s the Houthis who have refused to engage in that dialogue.”

This, of course, is pure bullshit.  The Saudis have been dropping American and Israeli-made ordinance, including cluster bombs, on Yemen's Houthis for months now as discovered by Vice News.  Everybody wants to pretend this just started. That's nonsense.

The US has also denied it is overtly working in concert with an Iranian-backed assault on Islamic State militants in Tikrit, arguing that their interests only temporarily overlap.

But Rathke revealed the conflict in Yemen had been raised at a meeting between John Kerry, the secretary of state, and his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif during talks in Lausanne that are separately aimed at reaching a treaty with Iran over its nuclear programme...

“Yes, it is messy. It is contradictory. That’s foreign policy,” a former US ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine, told the Guardian.

“As opposed to seeing it as ad hoc … I would prefer to see it as tailored to local circumstances,” she added. “I would be more concerned if we had some sort of overly rigid policy. I think that would do us less good.”

Hey, I've got just the idea to sort this out.  Wednesdays and Thursdays and every second Monday we'll bomb Shiites.  The other days we'll bomb Sunnis.  There, perfect.

Washington's Quagmire Mentality

When it comes to Iraq, or the rest of the Middle East for that matter, America is operating on a number of assumptions rooted in fantasy.  These false assumptions ensure that America will keep getting itself trapped in quagmire.

Andrew Bacevich, former US Army commander turned academic, knows a good deal about Iraq.  The Columbia professor commanded US troops in Operation Desert Storm and his son was lost to an IED during Operation Enduring Freedom.

Inside the Beltway, policymakers, politicians, and pundits take Iraq’s existence for granted.  Many can even locate it on a map.  They also take for granted the proposition that it is incumbent upon the United States to preserve that existence.  To paraphrase Chris Hedges, for a certain group of Americans, Iraq is the cause that gives life meaning. For the military-industrial complex, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Considered from this perspective, the “Iraqi government” actually governs, the “Iraqi army” is a nationally representative fighting force, and the “Iraqi people” genuinely see themselves as constituting a community with a shared past and an imaginable future.

Arguably, each of these propositions once contained a modicum of truth.  But when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and, as then-Secretary of State Colin Powell predicted, broke the place, any merit they previously possessed quickly dissipated.  Years of effort by American occupiers intent on creating a new Iraq out of the ruins of the old produced little of value and next to nothing that has lasted.  Yet even today, in Washington the conviction persists that trying harder might somehow turn things around.  Certainly, that conviction informs the renewed U.S. military intervention prompted by the rise of IS.

...otherwise intelligent people purporting to believe in things that don’t exist -- can be applied well beyond American assumptions about Iraq.  A similar inclination to fantasize permeates, and thereby warps, U.S. policies throughout much of the Greater Middle East.  Consider the following claims, each of which in Washington circles has attained quasi-canonical status.

* The presence of U.S. forces in the Islamic world contributes to regional stability and enhances American influence.

* The Persian Gulf constitutes a vital U.S. national security interest.

* Egypt and Saudi Arabia are valued and valuable American allies.

* The interests of the United States and Israel align.

* Terrorism poses an existential threat that the United States must defeat.

For decades now, the first four of these assertions have formed the foundation of U.S. policy in the Middle East. The events of 9/11 added the fifth, without in any way prompting a reconsideration of the first four. On each of these matters, no senior U.S. official (or anyone aspiring to a position of influence) will dare say otherwise, at least not on the record.

Yet subjected to even casual scrutiny, none of the five will stand up.  To take them at face value is the equivalent of believing in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy -- or that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell really, really hope that the Obama administration and the upcoming Republican-controlled Congress can find grounds to cooperate.

As for the stabilizing effect of US troops, Bacevich points out that this has seldom occurred.  To the contrary, it has often destabilized countries where American troops have been based.  

Iraq and Afghanistan provide mournful examples. The new book “Why We Lost” by retired Lieutenant General Daniel Bolger finally makes it permissible in official circles to declare those wars the failures that they have been.  Even granting, for the sake of argument, that U.S. nation-building efforts were as pure and honorable as successive presidents portrayed them, the results have been more corrosive than constructive.  The IS militants plaguing Iraq find their counterpart in the soaring production of opium that plagues Afghanistan. This qualifies as stability?  

The Middle East is no longer strategically vital to the United States.  The energy dependence the US once had on the ME has been superceded by events. 

Access to Gulf oil remains critically important to some countries, but surely not to the United States.  When it comes to propping up the wasteful and profligate American way of life, Texas and North Dakota outrank Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in terms of importance.  Rather than worrying about Iraqi oil production, Washington would be better served ensuring the safety and well-being of Canada, with its bountiful supplies of shale oil.  And if militarists ever find the itch to increase U.S. oil reserves becoming irresistible, they would be better advised to invade Venezuela than to pick a fight with Iran.

Does the Persian Gulf require policing from the outside? Maybe. But if so, let’s volunteer China for the job. It will keep them out of mischief.

As for America's supposed Arab allies:

For decades, Saudi Arabia, Planet Earth’s closest equivalent to an absolute monarchy, has promoted anti-Western radical jihadism -- and not without effect. The relevant numbers here are two that most New Yorkers will remember: 15 out of 19.  If a conspiracy consisting almost entirely of Russians had succeeded in killing several thousand Americans, would U.S. authorities give the Kremlin a pass? Would U.S.-Russian relations remain unaffected?  The questions answer themselves.

Meanwhile, after a brief dalliance with democracy, Egypt has once again become what it was before: a corrupt, oppressive military dictatorship unworthy of the billions of dollars of military assistance that Washington provides from one year to the next.

Bacevich says it's long past time that the United States had a realistic assessment of its supposed ally, Israel:

For the government of Israel, viewing security concerns as paramount, an acceptable Palestinian state will be the equivalent of an Arab Bantustan, basically defenseless, enjoying limited sovereignty, and possessing limited minimum economical potential. Continuing Israeli encroachments on the occupied territories, undertaken in the teeth of American objections, make this self-evident.

It is, of course, entirely the prerogative -- and indeed the obligation -- of the Israeli government to advance the well being of its citizens.  U.S. officials have a similar obligation: they are called upon to act on behalf of Americans. And that means refusing to serve as Israel’s enablers when that country takes actions that are contrary to U.S. interests.

The “peace process” is a fiction. Why should the United States persist in pretending otherwise? It’s demeaning.

The quest to defeat terrorism is Quixotic at best:

Like crime and communicable diseases, terrorism will always be with us.  In the face of an outbreak of it, prompt, effective action to reduce the danger permits normal life to continue. Wisdom lies in striking a balance between the actually existing threat and exertions undertaken to deal with that threat. Grown-ups understand this. They don’t expect a crime rate of zero in American cities. They don’t expect all people to enjoy perfect health all of the time.  The standard they seek is “tolerable.”

...aspirations to eliminate terrorism belong in the same category as campaigns to end illiteracy or homelessness: it’s okay to aim high, but don’t be surprised when the results achieved fall short.

Eliminating terrorism is a chimera. It’s not going to happen. U.S. civilian and military leaders should summon the honesty to acknowledge this.

What would be the scariest thing Washington could do to its Middle East client rulers?  Leave.  Tell them they're on their own, Israel included.  Just stop supporting them.  No troops, no cash, no weapons unless they serve America's interests.  Eventually America must tire of being bled out by enemies and supposed friends alike in the Middle East.

And if Washington is going to persist and continues to implement a foreign policy based on fantasies, why should Canada enroll in America's Foreign Legion?  With our belief-based government that persistently follows gut instinct instead of fact, appearance over substance, we're highly susceptible when America goes bonkers.

Driving Round Pegs Into Square Holes - Why We Keep Screwing Up in the Middle East

Since 1918 when the defeat of the Kaiser's Germany triggered the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the West has established a reputation for screwing up in the Middle East.  It can be said to have begun with the French and British carving up the place to suit their interests, drawing straight lines where none existed before, corralling often hostile ethnic groups into artificial countries with names like Iraq, Iran and Syria.

For all of that, we've never screwed up quite on the scale as our adventures in the Middle East/South Asia in the 21st century.

At the start of this business, almost a century ago, there was a fellow we didn't listen to, Colonel T.E. Lawrence, aka "Lawrence of Arabia."  We didn't listen to him then and that was a screw up.  We haven't listened to him ever since and that remains an ongoing screw up.

John Hulsman, president of a global political risk consultancy, writes that it's time we finally accepted the wisdom of Lawrence.

T E Lawrence, a man who through both theory and practice established himself as the regional Middle Eastern expert par excellence in the early twentieth century, followed a very simple but very different analytical route to wisdom: the actual study of others, rather than the narcissistic devotion to being only able to see the world through one’s own point of view.

As Lawrence put it, there is a seminal way to avoid these nasty surprises: “experience of them [local peoples], and knowledge of their prejudices will enable you to foresee their attitude and possible course of action in nearly every case.” In other words, true analysis is more about them, and less about us. US secretary of state John Kerry – a man seemingly perpetually surprised that the world does not operate like a Boston dinner club – would do well to take note.

In psychology, the capacity for taking others’ perspectives onboard is referred to as having a theory of mind, an understanding that others’ internal experiences are different from one’s own. In a common test for autism, a school-aged child is shown a bag of, say, sweets. Then, the child is shown that the sweets have been removed and replaced with pennies. The child is asked, “What would another person think is in the bag?” If the child answers “pennies,” that child has no theory of mind. This deficit can, in extreme forms, render a person almost unable to interact with others in a recognisably social way. The same problem writ large in Western policy has crippled strategy in the Middle East for over a century.

For example, in modern Iraq, failure to determine the true local unit of politics has been the original sin. That unit has remained the fiercely independent ethno-religious groupings of the Sunni, Shia, and the Kurds, rather than the Western preference for some sort of imposed, centralised, Iraqi construct. This analytical failure has unsurprisingly spawned the chaos of the past century.

For example, in modern Iraq, failure to determine the true local unit of politics has been the original sin. That unit has remained the fiercely independent ethno-religious groupings of the Sunni, Shia, and the Kurds, rather than the Western preference for some sort of imposed, centralised, Iraqi construct. This analytical failure has unsurprisingly spawned the chaos of the past century.

For as Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds is how the locals primarily see themselves, rather than as Iraqis, as Westerners desire. The long-time rulers of Mesopotamia, the Ottomans, had known better. They had divided the region up into three separate provinces of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul, respectively dominated by the Shia, the Sunnis, and the Kurds. For in the end, reality will out.

Lawrence also said that “the beginning and ending of the secret of handling Arabs is unremitting study of them”, at least in part to develop a theory of mind – their mind, to be exact. Until we learn to stand in the shoes of the people of the region and analytically look at the world the way they do, we cannot hope to guess the decisions they will make, the help they will accept, the reforms they will adopt, the deals they will uphold – and the fears to which they will fall prey. Until we demonstrate a theory of mind, Lawrence’s lessons will have to be learned again and again.

Isn't it time we stopped screwing up?

In Drought News

Central America continues to reel under severe, multi-year drought.  Guatemala has declared a state of emergency in 16 of the country's 22-provinces.  Experts believe the impact on agriculture could soon leave hundreds of thousands of families without food.

As America's west coast and southwest continue to be plagued by drought, an article at Treehugger examines how Americans might look to Canadian waters to ease their pain.  The article revives a long-forgotten idea to dam James Bay and divert the excess freshwater via canal to Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. Presumably the diverted James Bay water would then be drawn into the U.S. via the Mississippi River.

In Australia, farmers are bracing for a possible, late season El Nino to worsen an already serious drought.

When a scorching drought struck eastern Australia in 2006, cattle farmers Robyn and Paul Kendal had to slaughter nearly all their livestock and spend around a year of their normal turnover on feed to keep the remainder alive.

With a recurrence of El Niño, the weather pattern behind the drought, looming and dry conditions already affecting an area larger than South Africa, another major drought could be one struggle too many for farmers such as the Kendals.

"In 2006, we saw the lowest amount of rains here since records began...and we still haven’t recovered from that even today," said Robyn Kendal, whose 3,000-acre (1,215 hectares) cattle farm is about 500 km (300 miles) southwest of Sydney.

China's agricultural heartland is said to be experiencing its worst drought in 63-years.  In Brazil, severe drought is impacting agriculture and urban water supply. The city of Sao Paolo could run dry within a few months.

Across the Middle East and East Africa, most of the conflict hot spots - Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia and Sudan - reveal how destabilizing drought can be in vulnerable countries.

The good news is that world cereal grain production is up this year thanks to good crops in the U.S., the E.U. and India.

And the Walls Come Tumbling Down

Another look at the century old and ongoing, lethal aftermath of the way Britain and France carved up the Middle East following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire post WWI.  It's a topic addressed here in several posts, the most recent just yesterday.

We're now witnessing the walls, built by the Brits and the French in carving up the region to suit their convenience, beginning to crumble.   Will the west now step in to shore up their malignant handiwork even as it collapses under the weight of irreconcilable ethnic and religious tensions?  From The Independent:

...for the first time in over 90 years, the whole postwar settlement in the region is coming unstuck. External frontiers are no longer the impassable barriers they were until recently, while internal dividing lines are becoming as complicated to cross as international frontiers.
In Syria, the government no longer controls many crossing points into Turkey and Iraq. Syrian rebels advance and retreat without hindrance across their country's international borders, while Shia and Sunni fighters from Lebanon increasingly fight on opposing sides in Syria. The Israelis bomb Syria at will. Of course, the movements of guerrilla bands in the midst of a civil war do not necessarily mean that the state is finally disintegrating. But the permeability of its borders suggests that whoever comes out as the winner of the Syrian civil war will rule a weak state scarcely capable of defending itself.

The same process is at work in Iraq. The so-called trigger line dividing Kurdish-controlled territory in the north from the rest of Iraq is more and more like a frontier defended on both sides by armed force. Baghdad infuriated the Kurds last year by setting up the Dijla (Tigris) Operations Command, which threatened to enforce central military control over areas disputed between Kurds and Arabs.

Dividing lines got more complicated in Iraq after the Hawaijah massacre on 23 April left at least 44 Sunni Arab protesters dead. This came after four months of massive but peaceful Sunni protests against discrimination and persecution. The result of this ever-deeper rift between the Sunni and the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad is that Iraqi troops in Sunni-majority areas behave like an occupation army. At night, they abandon isolated outposts so they can concentrate forces in defensible positions. Iraqi government control in the northern half of the country is becoming ever more tenuous.

The history of the outright, self-serving duplicity of France, Britain and, to a lesser extent, Czarist Russia is fascinating and reveals plainly how they planted the seeds of the ongoing and endless conflict that wracks the Muslim world to this day and will continue into the future.

Not surprisingly, the leaders of the 30 million Kurds are the most jubilant at the discrediting of agreements of which they, along with the Palestinians, were to be the greatest victims. After being divided between Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria, they sense their moment has finally come. In Iraq, they enjoy autonomy close to independence, and in Syria they have seized control of their own towns and villages. In Turkey, as the PKK Turkish Kurd guerrillas begin to trek back to the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq under a peace deal, the Kurds have shown that, in 30 years of war, the Turkish state has failed to crush them.

But as the 20th century settlement of the Middle East collapses, the outcome is unlikely to be peace and prosperity. It is easy to see what is wrong with the governments in present-day Iraq and Syria, but not what would replace them. Look at the almost unanimous applause among foreign politicians and media at the fall of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011, then look at Libya now, its government permanently besieged or on the run from militia gunmen.

It's no wonder that London, Paris and Washington wrestle with how to deal with Syria?  What are their choices but to bow out entirely or attempt to reinstate a 21st century equivalent of their early 20th century fiasco?

Don't Buy That New Atlas Just Yet

Somewhere down in the crawlspace is my highschool atlas from the 60's.  I have kept it as I have the four or five 'updated' atlases I picked up over the intervening years.  It's a lot of fun to go back and see maps of countries that are no more, empires that have broken up.

We may be needing another update soon if Asia Times is right.  It's the latest voice to suggest we'll soon see a new face on the Middle East.

National borders from the eastern Mediterranean to the Iranian border were made after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. Britain and France, with little consideration for sectarian or ethnic realities, drew lines across the area and established the new countries of Iraq and Syria.

As authoritarian regimes disappear under the weight of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the ongoing uprising in Syria, regional boundaries may be redrawn by indigenous peoples and regional powers. Five new states could emerge: Shi'ite Iraq, Sunni Iraq, Sunni Syria, Greater Kurdistan, and Shi'ite Syria.

It's a good article with detailed explanations of  how and why Syria and Iraq could soon fracture along traditional ethnic lines.  A similar breakup may be in the cards, eventually, for Muslim South Asia where the Balochs and Pashtun may seek to breakaway from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Deja vu.  I just discovered that I first used the title of this post back in September, 2008.  Hmm... could it be that change is the one thing that never changes?

The Middle East, 2012 - All Embers and Kindling

The Middle East is a smouldering mess that could erupt into a regional conflagration this year among Sunni and Shiite Muslims as well as Israelis.  That's the assessment of the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs.

The UN warns that 2012 could see an escalation of conflicts in Syria and Iraq that could spill over into Lebanon and even impact Iran.  If Syrian dictator al Assad is toppled analysts believe it would weaken Hezbollah which might present Israel with an irresistible opportunity to take them out.

Iraq is heading back to where it was in the first years following the ouster of Saddam, namely civil war.   As discussed before the New Year, Iraqi Kurds could fuel the Arab Iraqi conflict in the south.

Food and water shortages are expected to worsen throughout the Middle East, a problem compounded by corrupt and incompetent governments.   With their economies still in tatters, the nations of the Arab Spring still have no solutions to that other flashpoint, youth unemployment and inequality, particularly among unemployed university graduates.

The best hopes for a spread of democracy throughout the Arab world may have passed.   This year could see counter-revolutions and the restoration of authoritarian governments, particularly in Egypt.

Democracy if Needs Must West of the Suez, Just Not East

Asia Times' columnist 'Pepe Escobar' claims Washington and the Arab League despots are on the same page.  Revolution is tolerable west of the Suez but the status quo is to be maintained by whatever means in the Persian Gulf.

Saudi media may slam Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his lethal strategy against his own people. But Libya and Saudi Arabia are equals. Gaddafi has laid out the counter-revolution playbook; bomb the fight out of the protesters. His winning strategy is the same as Bahrain's, with crucial Saudi help.

As far as the inextricable Saudi/Washington nexus goes, democracy may be acceptable for Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. But it's a very bad idea for Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other friendly Gulf dictatorships. United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a close meeting in Paris with special envoy of the Libyan transitional council Mahmoud Jabril. They discussed "how to step up the level of US outreach''. This after the Barack Obama administration had coined the neologism "regime alteration" for its new Middle East strategy.

So "outreach" means talking to pro-democracy "rebels", while "regime alteration" means endorsing brutal crackdowns against pro-democracy protesters. The proof that the policy is official is that Jeffrey Feltman, the assistant US secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, has been at the US Embassy in Manama since Monday - where he oversaw, live, the Saudi invasion and the subsequent bloody repression of the Pearl/Lulu roundabout (50 tanks, heavy armored vehicles, several helicopters). This is the fourth time Feltman visited Bahrain in one month.

The predictable Saudi-orchestrated counter-revolution has transformed demands for justice, dignity and equality into the newest, deadliest, incarnation of a Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian war, so that imperiled Sunni regimes may once again invoke the specter of a Shi'ite crescent.

Peace in the Middle East Isn't About Land But Water

Israel wouldn't still be occupying the West Bank in the Palestinian territory if it didn't sit atop a very large freshwater aquifer, a resource that Israeli leaders openly declare essential to the very existence of their state.  That makes the Israel-Palestine conflict intractable, utterly incapable of a negotiated peace.  Israel is not going to give control of that water back to its rightful owners, the Palestinians.   All this nonsense about "roadmaps" and peace initiatives is pure crap.   Until someone comes along who can force Israel back within its 1967 borders it won't happen.

The unrest that is spreading today throughout the Middle East is just a taste of what is to come thanks to the double whammy of freshwater depletion coupled with the impacts of global warming.   A region with a growing population that already lacks sufficient freshwater is going to have much less.

Fortunately, I guess, the Swiss and the Swedes are optimists.   They think if the Middle Eastern states do a collective Rodney King and all agree to "get along" they can avoid having to go to war over water.   That's the conclusion of a report from the Strategic Foresight Goup, "The Blue Peace."

The report gives a pretty stark look at the water problems that now confront Israel and its Arab neighbours.   The river flow of the River Jordan was 1,300 million cubic metres in 1960.   It's down to 100 MCM today.  Iraq's freshwater lifelines, the Tigris and Euphrates, are now threatened by its upstream neighbours, Syria and Turkey, which are having to confront their own freshwater challenges.  Egypt faces a similar threat from its neighbours upstream along the Nile.

The Dead Sea is rapidly shrinking.  In the 60's it was 390 metres below sea level.  Today it's 420.  Today its surface area has shrunk by a third and, unless the decline is arrested, the sea will be a mere lake in 50-years after which it may disappear altogether.

I really don't think we're doing any favours to the Palestinians or the Israelis by all the farcical talk about peace negotiations and return of territory.   That is absolutely putting the cart ahead of the horse.   It virtually guarantees a continuation of the futility of all the past efforts.   The way forward must begin with the water issue and that means Israeli agreement to a deal with the Palestinians on that damned aquifer.  Israel's claw has to be pried loose from that resource.  So long as Israeli control of that aquifer remains unchallenged it has no incentive to negotiate a settlement and that's too dangerous a situation to leave unresolved.

Washington Can't Fake It Any Longer

The United States seems determined to undermine whatever credibility it still holds in the Middle East.  It got caught napping on Tunisia.  It tripped and stumbled and damned near fell flat on its face on Egypt, lurching awkwardly as it transferred its support from Mubarak to the demonstrators.  Now that unrest is spreading to the Gulf States the US has turned catatonic.

America is watching its once powerful hegemony in the Middle East fade and crumble.  For all the pretence, it never was more potent than the fear that once kept Arab people enslaved to their despotic, usually pro-American masters.  Once that fear goes, the game's up - for tyrant and Washington alike.

The White House did nothing to help America yesterday when it stood against the 14-other members of the UN Security Council and vetoed their resolution condemning all Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory since 1947 as illegal.   The US didn't just abstain.  It vetoed the resolution, killed it dead.  The by now standard Obama mealy-mouthed explanation was that, while America agrees the settlements are illegitimate, the resolution harmed chances for peace talks.

What peace talks?  There aren't any and there won't be any.  There was the dodgy, backroom deal Fatah was willing to make with the Israelis that essentially sold out the people it purports to represent.   Even that ridiculous capitulation was unacceptable to Netanyahu.  There are no peace talks and for Washington to pretend otherwise only further undermines its credibility with the Arab population.

If a widely liberated Middle East emerges from the current turmoil, "pro-America" may no longer be the default option.  Other interests may rise to displace American hegemony, quite likely a basket of influences ranging from pan-Arabic nationalism to stronger ties to China, Russia and Europe.

America may be about to learn a hard lesson, that the first criteria to be an "honest broker" is honesty.   That's a quality that has been gravely discounted in Washington for years, decades, an era.   America came to believe it could substitute military prowess for diplomatic honesty and, for a good long time, it worked.  But it's not working any more and from Latin America to Africa to the Middle East the American way is being rejected.  It is in decline.  The US is no longer the only game in town.  Bush/Cheney showed the world that even its gargantuan military machine can be brought low by small numbers of Lilliputians armed with Korean-war vintage assault rifles.

America can't fake it any longer.  It either has to bring Israel to heel or watch its influence in this it's most strategically critical region bleed out onto the floor.

"Off With Their Heads!" Two Down, Who's Next?

If we've learned one thing about Egypt it's that usually nothing is at it seems.  Hosni Mubarak has resigned.   Of itself that means very little.  The important thing is that he didn't just hand the reins to his vice president, Suleiman.   He transferred power to the Egyptian military.  It is what it is but I'm guessing what it's not is constitutional.  Presumably Egypt has some fixed provisions for succession in the event the chief executive becomes incapacitated.  In other words, Mubarak's resignation would automatically initiate his succession.   But in this case Hosni seems to have toppled his own government, sort of staged his own coup as it were.

This may well be the end of Mubarak's National Democratic Party.   That would be a good thing, perhaps even essential to the evolution of democracy in Egypt.   If the country is to go forward it needs a clean break between the military and civilian institutions, something that was never thought necessary in the  entire, post-Farouk era.   Now it will be up to the military to create a venue for organization of genuine political parties and the election of Egypt's first democracy.

Tunisia obviously lit Egypt's fuse but the toppling of Egypt's regime could well spill over into Yemen, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and possibly even Iran.   This poses no end of uncertainty and problems for the West and for Israel.  Nothing scares us more than when we can't buy our allies.

What Does Global Warming Have to Do with Hosni Mubarak?

Any farmer will agree that rain is a double-edged sword.   Receiving rain is vital to growing crops but only when it arrives at the right times and in the right amounts.  Too much rain at the outset can leave the farmer unable to plant a new crop.   Once the crop is in, too much rain can cause it to rot in the ground.   Even after the crop is grown, too much rain can prevent the farmer from getting onto the field to harvest the crop.   Too little rain during the crop cycle can prevent germination, stunt growth or simply burn out the crop.   Too little rain is the lesser of the problems thanks to the irrigation options made possible by rivers, lakes and aquifers - until they're exhausted.

When it comes to agriculture, global warming is a real bugger.  It's not just that some places get quite a bit warmer.   It's that global warming can sharply alter precipitation patterns, triggering floods and droughts of increasing frequency and severity.   A warmer atmosphere carries more water vapour, itself a greenhouse gas.   That water vapour is liquid water that used to be on the surface, some of it available for irrigation.   Yet what goes up must come down, somewhere.   And when it does come down it's more likely to be in flood-triggering torrents than were experienced before current levels of global warming arrived.   When that's coupled with particular weather events, like the central Pacific La Nina we're currently experiencing, you get massive storms and mega-flooding in places like Australia, Sri Lanka and swathes of South America.

These rains and floods have all but erased from the public consciousness the droughts of last summer.  We tend to forget these things as soon as the next shiny object appears before our eyes.  Yet those droughts did occur and led to widespread crop failures.   And now, thanks to the droughts and floods, we're about to see food shortages and possibly all-time record food prices that, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization warns, could just be here to stay.

So, global warming is already contributing to lasting food shortages and high food prices.   You know what compounds that?   Income inequality compounds that which is why the tyrannical regimes we prop up in the Middle East are right now rushing about to implement food relief programmes fearing they might just be the next Tunisia.  It's a game they've played before.   They learned it from the Pharaohs.   Yet the game has changed in one critical way.   Food shortages and high food prices once were cyclical problems.    They were periodic.   Now the UNFAO predicts they may be turning into the norm in some parts of the world.

The old regimes in these regions aren't equipped to survive such destabilizing stresses.   As I've explained at end before, disparity, inequality is much less of a problem in times of growth and surplus.  It becomes a huge, even dangerous threat to governments and societies in times of protracted, even permanent shortages.

When planning is based not on growth but on allocation or rationing it shifts the focus from opportunity to inequality. People look for a lot more equality in sacrifice than in prosperity. We can become very egalitarian when we perceive that to be vital to our self-interest.

As reported yesterday in Britain's The Telegraph, these same despotic rulers will soon have to deal not only with chronic food shortages and price problems but also with severe freshwater shortages.   This is a region that the West considers strategic to its interests that is falling to the impacts of climate change that we aren't even interested in trying to arrest.   Yet we know that we could stop all CO2 emissions today and it would not prevent climate change impacts from substantially worsening for the rest of this century.

So there you have it.   The industrialized West has beset the Middle East with the destabilizing impacts of anthropogenic global warming undermining the stability of that region and jeopardizing our strategic interests in it.  It's not just the Middle East that's going to pay the price.    A lot of others, including us, will deal with the blowback from this.

Let Them Eat Cake

I guess it's in our nature to want to treat the unrest sweeping the Arab world as an expression of an unquenchable thirst for democracy.   Unfortunately that's not true.   Fortunately what is going on is much greater than a mere demand for democratic reform and, because of that, regime change in the Arab world is far more likely to happen.

One reason the upheaval, that began in Tunisia and currently is spreading through Egypt and soon may topple the ruling government in Yemen, is so unfocused is that the dissent is much more broadly based than we often perceive it.   Some are, in fact, seeking democratic reform.   Others, however, are much more concerned with stunted economic opportunity and social mobility.   For others yet it's all about hunger and the inability of their government to keep food staples affordable.

In a few days, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will be releasing its latest Food Price Index.   December, 2010 was the record index score but the January figures are expected to be very close to the all-time record.

Punishing food prices can sometimes trigger food riots as seen in many countries in 2008 but rarely lead to the sort of upheaval that triggers regime change.  They do, however, created broad based discontent.  What's confronting autocratic Arab rulers today is the perfect storm of political and economic upheaval reinforced by unrest over food prices.  

Autocrats throughout the Middle East are cottoning on to the need to marginalize the political and economic dissent by disarming general discontent over food prices.   In hopelessly undemocratic Kuwait, the national assembly has passed a $5-billion food aid package.   Get this, each Kuwaiti citizen will receive an allotment of $3,850.   That is accompanied by distribution of certain food staples free of charge.  Kuwaiti authorities put it down to celebrating the golden jubilee of independence next month, the twentieth anniversary of liberation from Iraqi occupation and to honor the five years of the emir’s ascendance to power.   Yeah, right, sure.

But it's not just democratic reform, economic stagnation and food prices that will be plaguing the region this year and for a good time to come, possibly decades.   Add to that regional water crises.   The Telegraph reports that, in this region, water riots are next:

"Water remains a more problematic commodity than food and fuel: though cheap in its natural state, it is expensive to process and expensive to transport, especially in the quantities necessary for agriculture," according to a report released last month from the Washington-based, Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Past water shortages have been temporary or small-scaled; future groundwater depletion will be massive and effectively permanent."

As I've argued at length, we are witnessing the emergence of destabilizing forces unlike any we have known for centuries, perhaps even in the history of mankind.   Add'em up - climate change, the freshwater crisis, floods and droughts in increasing frequency and severity, desertification, deforestation, air/soil/water contamination, overpopulation, resource depletion and exhaustion, disease migration, species extinction, sea level rise and associated issues of inundation and surge flooding - those are already setting in.  Add to those global security threats including terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and wars of sustenance.   Soon to come will be climate-driven mass migration.

So the best Mubarak and other ME autocrats can hope for is to buy a little time because the problems they're struggling to overcome today are changing from periodic to permanent and they're only going to continue to worsen.   The Century of Revolution is upon us.

How the Mighty Have Fallen

Dubai used to be the playground of the Middle East sporting enormous wealth and some of the most spectacular architecture on the planet. For a lot of ambitious Europeans and North Americans it was the place to be, emphasis on "was."

Dubai's prosperity depended entirely on its neighbours' prosperity. They have oil, Dubai has none. Dubai was literally fueled by their oil profits. Even since the global slump, however, Dubai has been running on empty.

A lot of those foreigners who thought the sky was the limit bought expensive cars and even more expensive homes that suddenly became much less valuable once Dubai's economy tanked. Now ultra-modern Dubai clings to some old ways, one of them is the Debtor's Prison for folks who can't pay their creditors. That caused a lot of Westerners to leave Dubai quite abruptly and with no notice. Dubai's airports and streets remain littered with very expensive cars, marques like Mercedez Benz, BMW and the like.

According to the local paper, The National, the abandoned luxury car problem has become so bad that new cars lose half their value the moment they're driven off the dealer's lot:

Last year, the value of a new saloon or 4x4 fell immediately after purchase by about 20 to 35 per cent. This year, the loss is between 35 and 55 per cent, according to Pradeep Ramakrishnan, the head of used-car operations at Swaidan Trading, the Peugeot dealer for Dubai and the northern emirates.“They have fallen drastically,” he said. “The market is very erratic but, basically, this drop is because many used cars are on the market.

...The fall in value of new luxury cars was even greater, he said – at least 55 per cent – because so many people wanted to get rid of them. That was confirmed when, in one day, The National spotted more than 60 cars, many high-end vehicles, abandoned on the streets of Dubai. Many had fines outstanding.

It's easy to tell the abandoned cars. In Dubai a car doesn't have to sit too long before it's covered in a tell tale coat of sand.

With Friends Like This

And we wonder what drives moderate Muslims into the arms of Islamist extremism.

In Saudi Arabia, a court has refused to grant a divorce for an 8-year old girl sold by her father to a man an even half-century older than his bride. From The Guardian:

Lawyer Abdu Jtili said the divorce petition was filed by the unnamed girl's divorced mother in August after the marriage contract was signed by her father and the groom. "The judge has dismissed the plea because she [the mother] does not have the right to file, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty," lawyer Abdullah Jtili told the AFP news agency.

A spokesman for Human Rights Watch says this case matches a pattern of divorced fathers using their children to exact revenge on their former wives.

If we in the West are serious about bringing reform to the Middle East we're going to have to start with our supposed friends - Egypt and Saudi Arabia. We've chosen, instead, to back anti-democratic, repressive regimes because we fear democracy. That's right, we fear democracy. We fear democracy would lead to the election of governments that hold a resentment toward us. So, better than a democracy we don't like, no democracy at all suits us just fine.

Arms Race Update - Russian Warships to Syria

One geopolitical goal of the United States is to get the Russian navy out of Sevastapol, its Black Sea base in the Ukraine's Crimean peninsula. The idea is that, without this base, the Russian navy's ability to project power in the Meditterranean is crippled.

Russia, which despite what John McCain says, is sliding back into Cold War mode, is moving to counter the US by establishing a naval base in Syria. Now, according to The Guardian, the Syrian fishing port of Tartous is being dredged to make way for the Russian fleet:

"Tartous is being dredged and renovated to provide a permanent facility for the Russian navy, giving Moscow a key military foothold in the Mediterranean at a time when Russia's invasion of Georgia has led to fears of a new cold war.

The bolstering of military ties between Russia and Syria has also worried Israel, whose prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was in Moscow yesterday seeking to persuade the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, to stop Russian arms sales to Syria and Iran. Mr Olmert later said he had received assurances that Russia would not allow Israel's security to be threatened, but offered no indication he won any concrete promises on Russian arms sales.

Igor Belyaev, Russia's charge d'affaires in Damascus, recently told reporters that his country would increase its presence in the Mediterranean and that "Russian vessels will be visiting Syria and other friendly ports more frequently".

That announcement followed a meeting between Medvedev and the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, at the Black sea port of Sochi in the immediate aftermath of Russia's victory over Georgian forces and its recognition of the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - actions Assad supported. "

The move is giving Israel fits. The prospect of a reinvigorated Russian-Syrian military alliance is troublesome. Russia is already talking about selling Syria a sophisticated surface to air missile system the only obvious target for which would be Israeli warplanes wandering into Syrian airspace.

The Guardian also mentions that modern Russian anti-tank weapons found their way into the hands of Hizbollah during the 2006 war with Israel and resulted in the destruction of some 40-Israeli Merkova tanks.

Moscow will be watching the votes come in on November 4 and it's a safe bet that a McCain victory would only ratchet up Russian efforts to counter America's muscle in the Middle East.

Water, It's the New Oil

Looking for a good investment? Have a look at the leading companies in the rapidly expanding, global water supply industry. There are a lot of places in the world where people lack access to clean, fresh water and that's a growing market at least for the century to come. What's more, people who need fresh water will pay what it takes to get it. Life itself doesn't really work too well without it.

Water as a commodity. It's something a lot of Canadians have fretted over for years, the idea of somebody selling our stock of freshwater to foreign bidders. Keep your eye on that.

An interesting development in the US southwest where water is becoming increasingly scarce. It arises out of the apportionment of water between agriculture and domestic use. About three-quarters of their fresh water supply is earmarked for agriculture. People gotta eat - or do they? Some clever farmers in the region are reportedly now getting into the business of selling water they might otherwise be putting on their fields. They're not selling their quota, just the water. That means they're taking a common resource, privatizing it and putting it onto the commercial market. The best thing is they never pay dime one for the water itself. They get it so they can grow crops. The new way, however, cuts out all the bother of planting and irrigating and harvesting. You simply sell what you never produced in the first place. Neat trick, eh?

"Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink."

For some people - a lot of people actually - the danger is too much water, sea water to be specific. Rising sea levels forecast to result from global warming pose an enormous problem to the Middle East. Egypt's Nile River is especially vulnerable to rising water levels and the associated infusion of salt and brackish water. The UN Environment Programme estimates it could result in the displacement of between two and four million Egyptians by 2050.

Sea water levels don't have to rise very much at all before they begin salinating the groundwater supplies of particularly vulnerable spots like Gaza. A little salinity in groundwater can be incredibly destructive. It's widely believed that the ancient Mesopotamian civilization was destroyed when they rendered the once richly fertile lands of the Tigris and Euphrates delta utterly sterile by centuries of irrigating with brackish water. The salts don't wash away. Instead they accumulate over time until the soil becomes incapable of supporting plant life. Remember how the Romans took revenge on Carthage?

Sea water levels are also expected to wreak proper hell on security in the Jordanian, Israeli and Palestinian areas (and, please, don't send me e-mails screaming that there is no Palestine).

The report entitled Climate Change: A New Threat to Middle East Security, by the non-governmental organisation Friends of the Earth Middle East (FOEME), was presented at the annual UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia.

It believes climate change could act as a “threat multiplier”, exacerbating water scarcity and tensions over water between nations linked by hydrological resources, geography and shared borders, particularly in Jordan, Gaza and Egypt.

“Poor and vulnerable populations, which exist in significant numbers throughout the region, will likely face the greatest risk”, says the study.

Okay, this isn't the delusional ranting of some whacko, leftie NGO. It's a reality already recognized in studies by very hard-nosed Israeli hydrologists who argue fiercely that Israel needs to keep a permanent hold on the Golan Heights and the West Bank for its own hydrological survival. They worry that a Palestinian West Bank and a Syrian-controlled Golan will leave Israel at the mercy of its enemies for essential access to freshwater.

Of course there's always desalination plants. Sure, but not really. Desalination plants use a lot of fossil fuel and generate a lot of contamination of coastal waters but the product they produce, while economically feasible for urban consumption, is way too expensive to quench the enormous thirst of the agricultural sector.

“Economic unrest across the region, due to a decline in agricultural production from climate impacts on water resources, could also lead to greater political unrest, posing a threat to current regimes and, thereby, affecting internal and cross-border relations,” the FOEME report claims.