April 16, 2015: Germany, Japan, Cuba & Iran

They bombed Pearl Harbor and after we defeated them in World War II, with great loss of life and limb as American's invaded island after bloody island in the Pacific, after just few years of occupation, Japan became one of our closest allies.

They invaded and conquered most of Western Europe; exterminated more than 6.0 million Jews, homosexuals, and gypsies; and mercilessly bombed civilian populations in England and elsewhere. After we entered the war, they killed more than 300,000 U.S. soldiers. And yet, again, after the allies defeated them and after just a relatively few years of occupation, with our help Germany was rebuilt and became one of our closest allies.

As with Japan, this relationship endures.

So why is there such a big problem with Cuba and Iran?

We were versions of allies with both until 1959 when Fidel Castro seized power and quickly thereafter announced that Cuba was in fact a client state of our Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union. And, in Iran's case, we related well (perhaps too complicitously) until 1979 when the Islamic Revolution erupted and the new government, dominated by ayatollahs, captured and held hostage 66 American embassy workers.

Now, via his executive power, President Obama is moving rapidly to resume normal diplomatic relations with Cuba and there is evidence that Iran wants to make a deal with the West by agreeing to scale back its nuclear weapons program.

The former, normalized relations with Cuba, is long overdue and now all but certain to occur. The most significant resistance to such a deal is the demagogic posturing of presidential candidate Marco Rubio, whose parents were born in Cuba, and his pandering to the remnants of the Cuban-American community in the hope that they and other American Latinos will rally to support his ambitions.

There are also Cold-War-minded dead-enders who are still fighting the Soviets through its former proxy, Cuba.

Then of course there is the on-going resistance to anything Barack Obama wants to do, especially if it is potentially historic and would burnish his image as president.

Much more troubling is the widespread opposition among virtually all Republicans, and sadly many Democrats, who oppose the semblance of any deal with Iran, out of fear that they will be smitten politically by the Israeli lobby or yelled at by Benjamin Netanyahu.

If things were not to work out with Cuba, it would not be catastrophic. They are not strategic players and are no longer military allies of the Russians. No Soviet missiles with atomic warheads remain on the island and they are not in any way a threat to our security.

But unless the West is able to consummate a deal with Iran it is likely that we will be maneuvered into a war with them, siding with the Israelis and egged on by congressional hawks and passionate evangelical supporters of Israel. So this is quite serious and should not be a venue for political striving and demonologizing.

If we managed to overcome our hatred for the Japanese and Nazis and established sound and enduring relations with them, we should be able to do something similar with Cuba and especially Iran. But it is very much a we'll-see situation.

December 10, 2013--Cold War Redux?

Is the toppling of the statue of Lenin in Kiev a sign that the Cold War is finally fully ending or will there be a Russian response that will suggest it is being revived?

Is Beijing's move to begin the process of expelling Western journalists a sign that the Cold War with "Red" China is reheating?

Is North Korea's expansion of its no-fly zones and the beefing up of its military forces close to the border with South Korea another example of going back to the future?

Some are claiming that the presidency of Barack Obama is foundering, America's influence is waning, and this represents an opportunity for leaders who wish to extend their reach and power to take advantage of the situation.

Vladimir Putin has clearly made moves recently to expand Russia's influence, especially in the Middle East where he rescued Obama from his carelessly drawn red line about Syria's use of chemical weapons against his own people.

And in Ukraine, where there is an incipient revolt underway among those who want to see their country tilt toward Western Europe and not affiliate with the Russian led Customs Union, the government there, with clear Russian support, is as I write moving to suppress the uprising. Will we soon see Russian tanks on the streets of Kiev as we did in 1956 on the streets of Budapest to put down the Hungarian Revolution?

I would not be surprised.

China, in addition to playing with the idea to expel journalists who have been writing probing stories about corruption at the highest levels, has recently reengaged with Japan about control of a couple of rocky, uninhabited islands they both claim is in their historic and national interest. To underline the point, China established a "air defense identification zone," airspace that overlaps a region that Japan and South Korea claim is theirs to manage or is over international waters. To emphasize the point, the United States, without informing China, sent two B-52s into the disputed airspace as a way to demonstrate that we do not recognize China's claim of sovereignty and will stand by our two East Asian allies.

Will an unintentional incident ignite this now heating up situation? I would not be surprised.

And in North Korea, Kim Jong-un has purged his uncle and others in a move to consolidate his one-man rule--to secure his position as what they call the "unitary center." To underscore this he simultaneously made a series of moves to threaten South Korea and its principal ally--the United States. Like the Chinese, perhaps inspired by them, he is attempting to expand the area that he claims is essential to North Korea defending itself and has apparently resumed processing nuclear material to replenish North Korea's stockpile of atomic weapons.

This is sounding spookily familiar to me.

Though it is unlikely that China, Russia, and North Korea are seeking to precipitate an actual clash, there are so many moving pieces, so much bad history and national ego involved--including among the new Japanese and South Korean leadership (with the U.S. right in the middle)--that events could easily spin out of control. All at a time when our president has been seriously weakened and might be tempted to restore his credibility by allowing the tail to wag the dog.