Author: Sourabh Gupta, Samuels International

On February 18th, President Obama personally welcomed His Holiness the Dalai Lama to the White House, drawing the predictable ire of the Chinese leadership. As if in response, on March 1st, Beijing named its hand-picked Panchen Lama to its top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. In 2013, it is speculated the young lama will be elevated to the prominent political position of vice-chairmanship of the National People’s Congress. With Beijing gradually moving towards engineering a similar schism in the revered institution of the Dalai Lama by way of issuing regulations that purport to manage the reincarnation of living lamas, an altogether more purposeful negotiating approach by the Dalai Lama vis-à-vis Beijing is imperative. Read more »

Author: John W. Lewis and Robert Carlin, Stanford University

It is routine in US foreign policy for a pot not boiling over to be moved to the back burner. But precisely because the North Korean issue is not boiling, it might offer an all-too-rare chance to make progress with Pyongyang. Over the past several months, the North has signalled publicly and privately that it is in engagement mode. In Washington, arguments abound about whether or not this is a stall tactic or a trick, but we will never know if we do not move ahead with serious and sustained probing of the North’s position. So long as our government sticks to an all-or-nothing approach in terms of Pyongyang, the opportunity to advance vital US security interests in northeast Asia could be lost. Read more »

Barack Obama has approved more drone attacks, killing more civilians, in one year than George Bush did in 8.

The current President has increased the number of troops in Afghanistan by 34,000, guaranteeing more dead, maimed and dispossessed Afghan civilians in the here and now and the years to come.

He has spread the war into Pakistan with hundreds of thousands dispossessed and thousands dead.

Obama has escalated the dispute in Yemen, helping the dictatorship there kill civilians and combatants.

His troops occupy Haiti to bring it under direct US control.

Obama is threatening Iran for daring not to toe the US line. He wants to increase sanctions (an act of war) against the dictatorship and the people of Iran. 

The logic of US imperialism drives Obama to kill innocent people and those resisting foreign invaders, just as it drove Bush to do the same in the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

This logic doesn’t change from President to President. They are as much the puppets of the vast forces they control as are we the ruled. Read more »

A number of US financial blogs are reporting that Ben Bernanke faces a chance of failure to be confirmed by the American Senate for a second term in office.

James Bianco at The Big Picture has all the details, and there’s also coverage at Naked Capitalism.

What’s the big picture here?

On the short term political front, Scott Brown’s win in Massachussetts exemplifies the frustration felt by many with politics as usual. Whether it’s expressed as concern over deficits (and that’s a much more salient touch point with Indendent voters on health care than the rhetoric of the wingnuts), or just as disgust with the jobless recovery’s disjunction with business as usual on Wall Street, there’s no doubt that an election year is starting to focus minds on the politics of financial decision making. Read more »