As of now Barack Obama has secured enough delegates to clinch the nomination for the presidential elections in November 2008. This much was never in serious doubt since Super Tuesday in March. It would not be correct however to believe that given the unpopularity of the Iraq War and George W Bush that a Democratic victory is a sure thing. Nothing can be further from the truth. Obama has avery tough fight on his hands and can use evry vote he can cadge out of a reluctant electorate. For ...
There is an air of confidence in the Obama camp; and this air of confidence is premature. I watched the interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, and I felt that the magic touch which enabled Barack Obama to connect with his audience was just not there. The hectic campaign season has perhaps taken its toll. It would be utterly wrong on the part of Barack Obama to assume, given the unpopularity of the Iraq War and the state of the economy to assume that victory is just round the corner. While it is ...
The great writer and Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison wrote once that "White skin notwithstanding, Clinton is our first black president. Blacker than any actual person could ever be elected in our childrens' lifetime". With this kind of endorsement, it is hard to fathom the fact that his wife hasd dropped to single digits as far as Arican-American vote is concerned. The real reason for this fall is not hard to find. The highly negative campaign she ran against Obama made many believe that she...
One may say that November is still far away, and so there is no need to hurry over the nominations. However, this is the first time in recent memory that so late into the primaries, and yet no clear front runner is in sight. For the Republicans it appears that John McCain will, falling short of a major catastrophe, be the Republican nominee. The Democrats are doing, as always, what they do best, destroy each other with a vehemence that even the Republicans cannot match. The exit of John Edwar...
Let me start with a confession, because I do not want Dr Guy or Parated2k to accuse me of anti american sentiments. I am in a country that routinely sends criminals to Parliament, murderers are appointed ministers and the sons of politicians can rape and pillage with impunity. So when I express a genuine admiration for the civilised political discourse in the USA, I am not being condescending or being sarcastic. I am critical of certain aspects of Bush with respect to Iraq, but what I am writ...
Everyine blames the poor pollsters for predicting an outright win for Barack Obama in the New Hampshire primaries. In fact he got 37% of the ballots cast, exactly as predicted by the opinion polls. The figures for Hilary Clinton were wrong and were off target by 13 % points. Everone expected Obama to win and with the momentum of 2 victories he was to sail through to South Carolina where the African American votes were his for the taking. That at least was the conventional wisdom. But the upse...
The successful assasination of Ms Benazir Bhutto did not come as a surprise to me as I had virtually predicted it in an earlier blog. And dont jump to conclusions, I am continents away. Let me begin by saying that the death of this brave, courageous and at times imperious woman is a tragedy and my heart goes out to her three children and her mother.But in politics we must not let sentimentality cloud our vision, we must see the reality for what it is. Benazir Bhutto took the wrong decision...
A few days back I had predicted that the US support to "democracy" by brokering a power sharing arrangement with the Military regime in Pakistan will lead to instability in the region: the attack on the cavalcade of Ms Bhutto in Karachi proves that my assessment was right. The return of Benazir Bhutto to Pakistan at this juncture is not in the interest of peace in the region: her covert endorsement of US military strategy in the "War against Terror" has made Ms Bhutto's posion extremely vu...
When Great Powers collapse they do so in a spectacular manner. The Fall of Rome, the Mongols, the Chinese Empire and of course the latest on the block, the US Empire have all presented a awful and yes, a frightful spectacle. Why did the US fail in Iraq. This question will be debated for years on end and will provide the grist for several doctoral theses over the years. I see the collapse of US power in Iraq from two distinct points of view: Strategic and political. The Iraq study group made a...
The US invasion of Iraq has had one major consequence on the population of Iraq: It has splintered the population of that country along sectarian lines and the rift seems to be getting wider than ever. The previous regime has ensured stability in the region through a mixture of quile, strong-arm tactics and plain old fashioned terror. Whatever may have been the faults, real or imagined, of Saddam Hussein, no one can accuse the regime of playing hookey with the task of governance of the coun...
There is a strong feeling among Republican faithfuls that George W Bush took them on a merry goose chase all over the wilds without even once gracefully accepting the core values and beliefs of the conservative sections of society. The Republicans might even in the Presidency in November 2008 because as things stand there is no White Male candidate in sight and it is therefore unlikely that Hilary Clinton will get the kind of support that a strong white male candidate can get. And if her runn...
There seems to be an emergining consensus amongst the US military establishment: there is every danger of the US occupation of Iraq collapsing in a medley of confusion a la Vietnam. One factor that nobody talks about is the fact that the leadership has lost the conviction that the Iraq War can be won and to ask the military to carry on a failing mission is only counterproductive. The surge of 21,000 more troops has not eased the security situation in Ieaq and the Baghdad security,plan has all...
The Baghdad Security Paln has been launched with great fanfare. The al Maliki Government and the Secretary Defence, Dr Robert Gates were both extremely optimistic about the success of this Plan. A week into the operation and six appache helicopters later the Plan has slowly, but surely, begun to get stuck. Let me state that the paln was well thought out and could have worked has certain basic conditions been met. First, there was need for the sectarian violence to be tamed through a politica...
Finally the US voting public has awoken to the fact that the Iraq War into which President Bush plunged his unsuspecting people is virtually lost. Even Republicans are breaking ranks and are calling for the withdrawal of troops and the Bush strategy of escalation, euphemestically caslled "surge" will come a cropper. Having said the obvious let me move on to the issue at hand. Barack Obama made a fine speech at Springfield, standing on the very steps that Lincon had walked 160 years earlier...
The state of the Union Speech was a piece of political theatre and it cerainly set the Republican fox amongst the Democrat pigeons. George Bush, struggling for political relevance did what every politician is distress does: he coopted the entire Democrat agenda for himself. This astute move will ceratinly gain him some political mileage, but the conservatives will feel that they have been betrayed and the Democrats will feel upstaged. This round to George Bush. The Democrats realising the g...