Comments by kiratwan

Saudis got upset in 1978 and liberally financed
(along with Kuwait)the invasion of Iran by Saddam Hussein
in 1980 till the monster turned against
them. According to WikiLeaks,King Abdullah
(Saudi snake charmer)urged Americans to cut the head of
the snake( Iran).America is trying hard.
Will the snake prove to be slippery remain
to be seen.

Whenever the group grows bigger, splits become
inevitable. People compete for power and the losers
form their own separate groups. Same phenomenon
occurred in Christianity and the communist party.
At times one or the other group will be weaker
and the conflict will seemingly subside
temporarily. The permanent rapproachment will
take place when freedom of religion is accepted
by both the groups. However it must be pointed
that most of the violence is initiated by Sunnis
( I am not a Shia)particularly by Salafis andDeobandis
in Pakistan.

It is a very positive, though long awaited,
development. It will benefit the people of both
the countries. The big risks are, as pointed out,
the incident of terrorism by the religious goons
who hate peace with India and BJP government in India after 2014
which may create new hurdles to chock off the relations.
Both governments move at veryslow pace
and the removal of the non-tariff barriers
will take time. It won't be surprising
if it takes five years to cross $10 billion
mark in trade.

Since mid 90's American economy has been running
on bubbles- Telecom, Dotcom and Housing.
These were like steroids for athletes. It was
not sustainable. Middle class has been denied
the fair share in the earlier booms with tiny raises
that barely matched inflation. They resorted
to home equity loan facilitated by the boom in
housing. Housing prices have declined and there is
not much home equity to borrow against. This has
dampened the demand. Obama or anybody can't do much.
Federal Reserve has taken many bold monetary measures
to stimulate the economy. Whatever anaemic growth is due the policy action of central bank.
US economy is just like an aging athlete experiencing
decline in energy, agility and ability. Go East for
opportunity. Portuguese are going to Brazil, Angola, Spaniards are going to Argentina. American can go to China, Vietnam and S. Korea.

India's exports to USA are tiny -$25billion
in economy of $15 Trillion. India is not impacting
US economy. May be "made in China" is inferior
but their exports are 5 times India's. Go figure
it when you are sipping your tea.

Just and predictable system of laws.
Where did you read that?
The court decides by the way wind is blowing.
It okd to hold Jose Padilla for years
totally incommunicado without trial.
Ditto for Bradley Manning. Not to mention
all the black folks who have been at
the receiving end of injustice.

He is dead. His wives were in the
custody of Pakistan and they confirmed it.
However, wives were not allowed to talk to
anyone except Pakistani secret service.When
it comes to Pakistani secret service who knows?

TE won't report the story of Jose Padilla
who has been detained in USA on terrorism charges
(not tried and found guilty) who hasn't been
allowed to see his lawyer, family for two years.
Bradley Manning who provided documents
to WikiLeaks has been tortured, humiliated,
held in solitary cell without trial.
This is happening in democracy where the
rule of law prevails. You guys don't comment
on Padilla and Manning and bunch of others
because they are in USA and not in China.

"Strong opposition party".
Modelled on Republican party in USA?
How so many problems from drug abuse,
healthcare to fiscal management have
been solved with the active support of
republican party.The president, described
as the most powerful man, couldn't appoint
head of the consumer protection agency is
another matter.

There are thousands of activists in USA who are
unhappy with wealth gab by 1% and their enablers
in the congress. On May 1st 66 were arrested.
Where would they go? They want fairness and justice
which the democratic capitalist system in America doesn't provide.
Every country on earth has dissidents. Name one country that doesn't?

A single GDP number based on arithmetic average is
is not a good indication of economic well being.
Consumption statistics reflecting modern standard
living,e.g, cars/hundred,SFT of housing, house
ownership percentage,food consumption,health care access,education level,etc, will be better indicator. Quality factor can be used for adjustment. As an example, housing in India can't be compared with USA. Indian houses generally lack air conditioning, heating ,running hot water,toilets and in many cases 24 hours of electricity.Average education in BRIC countries is inferior to the education in the west. That is why there are so many Chinese, Indian and Brazilian students in the west. PPP is not a good measure.The statistics take long to gather and differences in inflation rate
make it outdated quickly.

What a funny analysis! I don't think Americans
or Turkey will invade Iran militarily. The most
likely action will be the bombing of nuclear
facilities and probably the air bases. Americans
have learned their lesson from two wars in the last
10 years.
Turkey will host some sort of anti-missile
facilities aimed against Iran. This is one reason
why Iran is not agreeing to holding the talks
with P5+1 in Istanbul.
Also Turkey is playing a leading role to topple
Assad's regime in Syria.This is the reason
for American support.
Interesting that The Economist gets its pointers
from the white house or state department.I always
thought that the foggy minds at the Foggy Bottom
are woefully short on ideas.

True. Unfortunately, Americans achieve the wisdom
when they are retired at 75 and spending
most of their time either on the golf course
or in doctor's office.
In the old societies like Japan, China people
have distilled the norms of behaviour over
centuries that have proved acceptable to large number of people.
Americans believe in inventing the wheel
in each generation.
The traditional societies become oppressive and experimental ones
violent and chaotic with prisons jam packed.

There were better American candidates available
for the job. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia university
has done lot of work on poverty alleviation programs
and advised many governments on development.He
would have provided good leadership.
Obama is not well known for picking people
for the job. Some of his staff in economics
and finance agencies is less than stellar.

No mention of "reset" diplomacy with Russia.
It seems to have failed. Relations with China
are tense. Despite her closeness to Jewish
community in New York she couldn't make much
headway in Middle East peace process.US and Egyptian
relations in the next few years will be scrutinized
closely. Her early statements on Egypt showed
confusion.
American influence in Asia will depend on how
well it handles its fiscal problems and how
Afghanistan works out in the next few years after
striking out in Iraq.After Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan,
I am not sure which countries need
America for stability. She is intelligent and likeable.

Besides political fragmentation, India has a
serious leadership problem. Prime Minister
ManMohan Singh is a brilliant economist but not
politcal savvy.This cerebral man is nearing 80 years
and run out of energy in dealing with the venality
of Indian politicians. Sensing the weakness, populist
leader in coalition are blocking the reforms.
India needs dynamic young leader who can relate to
people the way PM Nehru did all over the country.
In the absence of national leader, regional parties
have gained power and hold the coalition government
to ransom. No young leader is on the horizon and it
will be a long time before India achieves political
stability and bold reforms.

The victory belongs to Afghans who defeated two
superpowers-soviets and USA/Europe.
USA will be better off fixing democracy at home.
It has become very corrupt, ignoring people
and selling out to the wealthy. Superpacs,
wealthy individuals like Sheldon Adelson, Koch Brothers,wall street have purchased the ethically challenged politicians.Afghans should stay away
from such a system.

Afghanistan is a mess. India should avoid
sending any troops.Let Afghans sort things
out themselves. Hopefully, West has learned
a lesson of their folly and India should
harbour no illusion of its capacity to solve
other countries problems.

If NATO was successful Pakistan won't matter.
The failure necessitates finger pointing. How
could a well trained and well equipped army not
achieve the desired results? It hasn't. We need
scapegoat. Pakistan may be duplicitous but is
not the cause of the travails in Afghanistan.
Pushtoons are not push overs. keep in mind it is
not Afghanistan that is fighting ISAF but only
a section of Afghans. They are not going to
give up till NATO forces are out. The time
frame of 2013 or 2014 doesn't make any difference.
US military is tired too. So many soldiers have
done multiple tours of duty and are psychologically stressed out.
This incident could be result of stress.
It is important to face the facts and expedite
the departure. It will be far more damaging to break
the army by prolonging their agony.
The civil war after NATO pull out is inevitable.
There is nothing that Obama or Cameron can do
to avoid it.

Signs of recovery are everywhere except in Europe.
America is growing slowly again but it is also adding
public debt at a high rate. At some point the markets
will baulk at financing the ever mounting debt.
There is no plan for handling this problem
and there won't be anyone till it becomes a crisis.
India and China are slowing down. These two countries
and Brazil will be interesting to watch for
the ways
they avoid middle income trap.All three won't.
China and to some extent India are fuelling the growth
of Africa and Latin America. Their slow down will affect these two regions. Growth will continue
but there won't be a boom.