Living in the New, Splintered America

For those of you who were old enough to worry about the “mighty” Soviet Union in the 70s and 80s, you all lost sleep about nothing. News broke about the story of an ex-KGB analyst turned professor Igor Panarin predicting that the United States will fall apart in 2010. If this is the best that a KGB analyst and current US-Russia relations expert can come up with, they never stood a chance against the US or against anybody, for that matter. And of course, this theory currently has a huge following in Russia, so we can kiss goodbye any fear of Putin being able to turn Russia back to the old Soviet glory.

I don’t want to undermine the wishful thinking of an old dog, but there are gaping holes in his understanding of America. The very map of how he says the United States are going to be split up illustrates that he fails to show even a layman's knowledge of our great nation. Let’s examine his theory and see how likely these are and what could be the consequences.

Read on...

Digg

Three State Solution to Middle East - Bolton

John R Bolton writes in the Washington Post about a three state solution for middle east that is more sensible than any of the solutions that have been offered so far.

He writes,

Let's start by recognizing that trying to create a Palestinian Authority from the old PLO has failed and that any two-state solution based on the PA is stillborn. Hamas has killed the idea, and even the Holy Land is good for only one resurrection. Instead, we should look to a "three-state" approach, where Gaza is returned to Egyptian control and the West Bank in some configuration reverts to Jordanian sovereignty. Among many anomalies, today's conflict lies within the boundaries of three states nominally at peace. Having the two Arab states re-extend their prior political authority is an authentic way to extend the zone of peace and, more important, build on governments that are providing peace and stability in their own countries. "International observers" or the like cannot come close to what is necessary; we need real states with real security forces.

This is exactly what could be termed as a genius solution. Both Egypt and Jordan being Arab nations, the control from them would not cause any ethnic or religious side effects that could face if Israel is involved. The fact that Gaza belonged to the Egyptian territory before being taken away by Israel adds strength to the theory. Also, Egypt being a fairly strong and stable nation, can easily establish the necessary peace and democracy that the Gaza strip sorely lack currently. And once Egyptian border forces are in place, it is fair to expect that the rocket attacks from the strip would stop relieving Israel's complaints. Even though they are rivals, Egypt and Israel have kept away from tearing each other apart for decades now. Once they leave each other alone and once the Egyptian forces control the strip and makes sure that it conforms, there should not be any future issue.

On the other side on the West Bank, it is much calmer already compared to Gaza. However, being part of Jordan, a very reasonable Arab nation would do miracles in the tensions that invariably occur when Israel and Palestinians are involved. Already, Jordan is one of the nations that cause the least trouble to Israel.

The biggest winner of the situation would be humanity. The conditions in the Gaza strip has been pretty bad of late at least partly due to the Israeli embargo. Once it becomes part of Egypt, economic growth in the strip would lead to much more prosperity and success of humanity. The same holds true on the West Bank.