Author: Brandon Christensen

Is President Obama the culmination of American Marxism?

Brandon Christensen Liberty , , , ,

I recently tried my hand at prodding Jacques to blog more often about Marxism and Marxist thought. As an immigrant from a country with a strong Marxist tradition and – more importantly – with his educational background (Stanford’s sociology department in the late 60s/early 70s; arguably the time period with the most sophisticated understanding of Marxist thought ever), I think he provides readers with a nuanced and sharply critical glance into Marxism, something that is very tough to do. Alas:

Brandon: Thanks for the suggestion and for the incense. However, the charm of blogging has much to do for me with following whatever my inspiration whispers at any one time. Once in a while, it lands on Marxism, not often. When it does, it’s often in the context  of conversations in French with French speakers. (You may have noticed something on my blog called, “Le dernier Communiste.” )

To the extent that I am impelled to do the needful rather than the natural, I direct my steps to whatever I think I do well and that is also in demand. In general, I am not sure waking up Marx for the benefit of young Americans is useful or much in demand. Almost no one in America calls himself a Marxist anymore . (There were many when I was young.) The people who would have been Marxists in 1974 call themselves “environmentalists” today.  Aside from this, I suspect
that the Obama administration is the result of wet dreams by Marxists of my generation but I don’t know how to talk about it. It’s just my sense of smell telling me.

I make a mental note of your expressed demand for Marxist critiques. In the meantime, feel free to pillage whatever you find on the subject in my blogs.

Oh, I’ve pillaged. His knowledge of Marxism is too important for me to ignore it. You can find Jacques’s thoughts on Marxism here. Jacques is also working on his memoirs, and you can find excerpts of those here (it’s also located on the top right side of the blog’s navigation bar).

As far as President Obama being the culmination of American Marxism, I think Jacques is woefully wrong. However, I also think Jacques’s assessment of Marxism in the US today (it’s irrelevant) is spot on. There is a recent, well-written essay in Dissent by a political scientist at Columbia arguing that the Obama administration is simply kowtowing to a neoliberal (and, by extension, racist) agenda, and this, I think, suggests that my suspicions are correct.

The success of Kalashnikov? Still elusive

Brandon Christensen Economics, History , , , , , , ,

Before the New Year I asked why the recently-deceased inventor of the AK-47 was able to become so successful. There were a couple of good responses from Paul and Roman, but Jonathan Finegold’s response is worth highlighting:

Whatever I once knew about the process of military procurement in the Soviet Union, I’ve mostly now forgotten. But, the AK-47 is just one out of many Soviet military inventions that have become mainstays of global militaries: T-54 and T-72 tanks, MiG-29, et cetera. The USSR was generally head-to-head with the United States in military technology, although arguably the U.S. started to pull away during the late 1980s. This legacy of military technology follows back to the Second World War, and even before. It was the Soviets, under the leadership of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who developed what is commonly known as “blitzkrieg” (typically associated with the Germans, who trained with the Soviets during the late 1920s and early 1930s). Their T-34 has become one of the emblem tanks of WWII.

But, rather than a success of the Soviet system, this should be interpreted as a failure. The criticism of socialism is not that it cannot achieve certain ends, or even that it cannot achieve these ends with success, in some sense of the word. The critique of socialism is that they cannot economize on the resources used towards achieving these ends, and that these ends are not representative of the general welfare of society. In other words, the capitalist system is the achievement of a plurality of ends; socialism is the opposite. The USSR put military success, especially in terms of “out-showing” their American rivals, over other ends, especially those of their people. Thus, despite the poverty of Soviet society, the USSR accomplished great military and scientific achievements. (This is why comments like “socialism works, because we were able to mobilize resources towards the war effort and mass produce more military equipment than any other country” is not a good response to the critique of socialism — it fails to grasp what the critique of socialism actually is.)

Contrast this with the United States, which achieved both great military and scientific achievements and improvements to the general welfare of society.

This helps to clarify a number of important concepts (including why socialism failed), but I’m still puzzled as to why Moscow allowed one of its products to be nicknamed after an individual at the height of the Cold War.

Is free trade an expediency?

Brandon Christensen Philosophy , , , , ,

Jacques Delacroix makes an odd argument over at his blog Facts Matter:

Free trade is not a moral principle, it’s an expediency; violating the principle just costs money.

This argument comes after he admits that he would be very, very open to protectionism because of Mexico’s recent decision to denationalize its oil and natural gas industries.

Before I continue, who does Dr Delacroix think would benefit from a protectionist union with the United States?

Would he really advocate denationalizing the Mexican energy sector simply to force resources north of the border through a protectionist union? This seems to be the implication of his argument. If expediency is indeed Dr Delacroix’s excuse for free trade, then he automatically loses the argument to mercantilists (what, for example, sounds more expedient to you: A nationalized energy sector or free trade?).

It is precisely because of this automatic defeat that an 18th century moral philosopher (Adam Smith) decided to write a book on the moral superiority of free trade over protectionism (The Wealth of Nations). At its core, free trade is about the freedom of the individual to do what she pleases so long as no force nor fraud is involved. Once this underlying moral argument is understood, free trade can easily be seen as the natural outgrowth of such a philosophy.

Here is something to look out for as you read arguments put forth in the press: The moral argument. If an argument claims to have no moral underpinning it doesn’t mean there is no moral underpinning. It just means that the proponent of a said argument does not care for opposing or alternative arguments.

Ugh, this is getting convoluted so let me see if I can use an example. Suppose a politician or an academic is making an argument in favor of a policy (the policy itself is irrelevant). Suppose the proponent of this policy argues that the best reason to show support for his policy is because it will make everybody better off (it doesn’t matter how). Suppose further that this politician or academic claims that his policy is expedient rather moral, and that this in and of itself is one of the policy’s main features.

Would you support it?

Because throughout history most people have. This support is why we see a stagnation – of incomes, of years lived, and of innovation – for thousands of years in human history. The impact on mores that the expediency-over-morality outlook had on humanity can also be reflected in our utterly violent past.

I point out the difference between arguing from a moral standpoint and arguing from an expedient one because of the consequences that each of these approaches tend to produce. For example, Dr Delacroix also advocates military adventurism abroad in the name of expediency rather than morality. Can you guess why he still defends the actions of the Bush administration? But the Iraqis held elections, right guys? Right?

The moral thing to do – secure the lives and liberties of individuals first and foremost – is usually also the hardest thing to do, especially when people continually wave expedient choices in the faces of those who must choose. Yet I think that when and where this simple moral principle is able to gain a foothold in the minds of enough people, the rewards are ample.

Speaking of rewards, the ‘comments’ section at Dr Delacroix’s blog is currently inundated with speculation about whether or not Santa Claus was (was) really white-skinned. One reaps what one sows, after all!

What’s Up with New Zealand?

Brandon Christensen History, Law , , , , , , , , , , ,

Economist Scott Sumner’s 2010 piece on the unacknowledged success of neoliberalism (which I linked to yesterday and you should definitely read or reread) poses an interesting question:

There are two obvious outliers [to aggressive neoliberal reforms]. Norway, the highest-income country, is much richer than other countries with similar levels of economic freedom, and New Zealand, at 80 on the economic freedom scale and only $27,260 in per capita income (US PPP dollars), is somewhat poorer than expected […] Perhaps New Zealand’s disappointing performance is due to its remote location and its comparative advantage in agriculture holding it back in an increasingly globalized economy in which many governments subsidize farming.

Rather than challenge Sumner’s thoughts as to why New Zealand is much poorer (I think his guess explains a lot), I think I can add to it: The Maori.

The Maori are the indigenous inhabitants of New Zealand, and can be compared – socially – to the Native Americans of the New World or the aborigines of Australia. Unfortunately I know next to nothing about the Maori (or other South Pacific cultures), but I do know how to draw rough inferences about things by using data!

The Maori comprise about 15% of New Zealand’s population, whereas in other states settled by Anglo colonies the population of the natives relative to the overall population of the country is minute (aborigines in Australia comprise 3% of the population, for example, and in Canada and the US the indigenous make up about 2%).

The relatively large percentage of indigenous citizens in New Zealand can better explain why New Zealand is an outlier among rich countries, but I also think it’s important to ask why the Maori (and other indigenous populations in Anglo-settled colonies) have failed to match the demographic trends of their European and Asian counterparts.

Institutions are, to me, the obvious answer, but I’m curious as to what the rest of you think. I’d also like to add that I don’t think enough of us think about the issue of land (as in ‘land, labor and capital’ when we discuss the huge demographic gaps found between – for lack of better terms – settlers and natives in Anglo-American countries).

Around the Web: Highly Recommended Reading Edition

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , , , , , , ,
  1. Fantastic post about Uganda’s role (and a Ugandan’s perspective) in the ongoing South Sudan conflict.
  2. Sexual mores: Love in a cold climate. I live in California, but my ancestors come from the frozen wastelands of Scandinavia and northern Germany. Rawr!
  3. The unacknowledged success of neoliberalism.
  4. One of my favorite bloggers (Scott Sumner) is joining one of my favorite group blogs (EconLog). I’m a huuuuge fan of group blogs (they’re pretty much the only type of blog I read), so I hope he decides to stay on as a permanent contributor.
  5. Inglorious Revolutions. Why the West is kinda, sorta hypocritical when it comes to the Arab Spring.

From the Comments: Incentives, Academe, Science and Grants

Brandon Christensen Comments , , , , ,

In my experience scientists [including social scientists and including me] are incented to get more money for their research. The effects of funding on research can be worrisome. For example for reasons of politics and public opinion a disproportionate amount of money was devoted to HIV research. By disproportionate I mean that in my opinion there would be more bang for buck on bigger public health problems like malaria, certain cancers etc.

However does that mean that I should doubt the findings of the virologists, immunologists, and all the other -ists doing the research? I think not. Certainly not in the aggregate. Chasing the bucks might lead them to doing research in the ‘wrong’ area so to speak but it won’t lead them to falsify their results.

This is from Dr Amburgey (he’s real) and it comes from an exchange on climate change/global warming. I raised a concern I had about the incentive structure built into the scientific community of the West, but Dr Amburgey’s logic has put my skepticism to rest.

2013: Thanks for a great year

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links ,

Today marks NOL‘s third year of existence.

It’s been a great ride so far. Below are some of our most popular posts of the year, but first I’d like to highlight the new ventures of some of our guest bloggers over the year.

As far as top 2013 posts at NOL goes, here are some of the most read:

Guillermo Pineda’s post “El grave error del libertarianismo guatelmateco…” was the most most-read post of 2013.

Andrew Roth’s post “Impeach James Clapper” was also a viral hit and Fred Foldvary’s “New Mexico’s Police Breaking Badly” spent a few days at the top of /r/libertarian’s front page.

Warren Gibson’s “Open Season on White Males” was his most popular 2013 post, and his 2012 post on “…Raising the Minimum Wage” went viral.

New notewriters Adam Magoon’s “Debunking the Wage Slavery Myth” and LA Repucci’s “Statists applaud death of unarmed mother…” garnered a lot of reads and our Russian correspondent’s (Evgeniy) debut post “Just to say hello” was wildly popular as well.

Judging by the amount of reads Jacques Delacroix’s post on “Unequal Poverty…” received, I think it’s safe to say that it proved to be controversial, and Payam Ghorbanian’s guest post on the recent Iranian nuclear talks garnered the most reactions.

Rick, Audrey, Michael, Tibor, Jesper, Matthew, Claudio and guest author Peter Miller all put in valuable time to contribute to a better understanding of liberty and freedom. Our third year is going to be our best yet, so don’t go anywhere!

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
  1. An Israeli (grad student) and an Iranian (grad student) on the way forward
  2. An Anarchist’s Proposal for Limited Constitutional Government
  3. Red White: Why a Founding Father of Postwar  Capitalism (Keynesianism) Spied for the Soviets
  4. Is Fascism Returning to Europe?
  5. Freedom of Speech: True and False (Duck Dynasty edition)

Happy Holidays

Brandon Christensen Liberty

I hope everybody is enjoying their holiday season. I know I have been. My apologies for how slowly things have been going here at NOL, but things’ll pick up again once the holidays are over and life gets back to normal.

I hope you all stay tuned!

Kalashnikov, hero and inventor, is dead, but how did he do it?

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Economics, History , , , , , , ,

Mikhail Kalashnikov is dead. From the LA Times:

Weapons designer Mikhail Kalashnikov, […] The creator of the legendary AK-47, which became widely known as the Kalashnikov, […] died Monday […]

Over six decades, Kalashnikov’s cheap, simple and rugged creation became the weapon of choice for more than 50 standing armies as well as drug lords, street gangs, revolutionaries, terrorists, pirates and thugs the world over.

Here is a great piece by CJ Maloney celebrating the AK-47. What I really want to know is this: How was such an invention able to be created in the Soviet Union?

The only option I can think of is that the military-industrial complex of the USSR was so powerful and influential that incentives actually drove innovation in that sector of the economy.

But even this doesn’t fully explain how Kalashnikov was able to invent the gun, patent it, put his name on it, and reap the benefits from creating it in the first place. How could any of this be possible in a command-and-control economy?

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Links , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This is the 69th installment of ‘Around the Web’. Giggity!

  1. guaranteed income vs. open borders; Economist Kevin Grier weighs the options
  2. How poverty taxes the brain; A sexy-sounding female gives us the low-down
  3. The origins of Northwest European ‘guilt culture’; Evolutionary anthropologists are so, soooo cute
  4. The ‘thoughtful libertarian’ subreddit; Finally!
  5. Is Christmas efficient? Only an economist (Tyler Cowen) could ask such a thing
  6. God, Hayek and the Conceit of Reason; Concise essay by Jonathan Neumann in Standpoint
  7. Milton Friedman’s 1997 musings on a common currency in the European Union: The Euro: From monetary policy to political disunity

Right-wing Marxists and the libertarian’s lament

Brandon Christensen Politics , , , , , , , ,

Daniel McCarthy, the editor of The American Conservative, has a post up on the current “liberal” (Leftist) misreadings of how politics actually works:

Politics is just magic to [Leftists]. (Some of this comes of drawing the wrong lessons from Alinsky and Gramsci—wrong lessons the activist right is now busy committing to memory.)

The “lessons from Alinksy and Gramsci” that the Right is currently incorporating into its political program are none other than the tactics Leftists used during the heyday of communism to gain political power in the West.

Unfortunately, I think the Right is making a big mistake by copying a program that has failed the Left. Has it failed the Left? Or is communism an inevitable failure and tactics had nothing to do with it?

Governance is affected by movements. Does the Right want to be the new authoritarians? They’ve always been less authoritarian than the Left, but I see this changing especially if the Right continues to borrow tactics and ideas from the communist Left.

What is interesting is to watch how this all plays out. The Left’s playbook consists of delegitimizing people rather ideas or institutions. This leads to misdirected anger and makes it easier for opposition movements to seize the levers of power. It worked in the Anglo-American world, to a large extent (look at our educational systems, for example; they’re run by Marxists), but never more than superficially. Everybody knows, for example, which institutions have been captured by the Left. They know which institutions are Left-wing and which ones are not.

Why Rightists would want to copy this failed tactic is beyond me. The strength of classical liberalism has always been the resounding truth within its creed. It is truth that we march into battle with, not cheap tricks or ploys from the gutter.

It seems to me that the Right’s embrace of communist tactics comes mostly from one influential group of people in the US: conservative intellectuals with cultural ties to the Catholic or Mormon churches. To me I find this very weird, and while weirdness is definitely something I appreciate in my personal life I truly hope these tactics don’t trickle into the intellectual wing of the libertarian quadrant.

The spectacle of conservative intellectuals mimicking their Cold War adversaries two decades after winning – outright – the war of ideas is pathetic. You know where the ‘comments’ section is!

Weekend Question: What to do about the violence in South Sudan?

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , , , , , , , , ,

As many of you may know, the recently-minted country of South Sudan has descended into civil war. I’m going to show you how this violence was actually predictable, but first I want to point out a couple of things.

  1. Why did South Sudan get international recognition and not Somaliland, which has been a functioning democracy for about twenty years now? I’ve got two theories: One of them has to do with Islam. The peoples in what is now South Sudan are Christians and animists and the Arabs they were fighting in Khartoum were Muslims. Theory 2 has to do with Western pseudo-guilt associated with its past, state-sponsored racism. The peoples of South Sudan are black and the people running Khartoum are not.  Neither of these theories makes sense, mind you, but I think this actually bolsters my thoughts on ‘why?‘.
  2. Where did the violence between South Sudan and Sudan go? These guys were duking it out over an oil-rich region just a few months ago and now I can’t find much about the conflict. I’ll bet Khartoum’s disappearance has to do with both Western threats and the realization that it could accomplish more behind the scenes, so to speak, by playing its former enemies (various black ethnic groups) off on each other.
  3. The violence between former allies in war against Khartoum is also worth musing about, if only for a moment. A bunch of different ethnic groups were former allies in the war against Arab Khartoum and now they are at each other’s throats. I don’t think ideology, specifically ethno-nationalism, is an issue here…yet. It won’t be for a long time. Ethno-nationalism seems to be something that shows up within a society after years and years of botched efforts by elites to mold a nation out of a post-colonial state.

Ok, back to the issue at hand. I’ve blogged a little bit about secession before, and one thing I like to remind readers of is that there is an underlying concept that is much more important than case studies. For instance, you can probably get a much better understanding of what is going on in South Sudan by reading this old piece by yours truly:

In fact, the West could help to turn this disaster into something quite worthwhile: Build an international consensus and recognize the independence of the fiefdoms.  If the West does this now, there is a good chance that local players will be more agreeable in their claims on territory.  To secure independence from a Leviathan like Libya would guarantee a period of time for the local fiefdoms to regroup and rebuild what Ghaddafi had destroyed.

A parallel can be drawn to the velvet divorce of the Czech Republic and Slovakia just after the collapse of the USSR.  What made the divorce “velvet” was international cooperation.  When the international community doesn’t play the game smart, however, divorces look more like Algeria, Indonesia, the Congo basin, the Balkans, and, of course, Somalia.

If the West is to “do something”, and I think it should in most cases, then pursuing diplomatic relations that focus on decentralized governance and international trade are a good way to start.

Can you see how this works? Just replace ‘Libya’ with ‘South Sudan’ and ‘Ghaddafi’ with ‘Khartoum’ and you have the right parameters in place for what needs to be done in regards to making secession in failed states work (I blogged a little bit more about these parameters in South Sudan here as well).

Here is the relevant map for our weekend question:

This is a map of South Sudan’s ethnic groups. It looks like Switzerland, to be honest, but unlike Switzerland South Sudan does not have the same institutional structures in place. Nor does this new country have the full support of the international community. There are plenty of condescending Leftists “monitoring” the country inside and out, but that’s about it.

If the West wants to play a role in helping to avert a violent downward spiral, then it would do well to quickly recognize the futility of South Sudan’s existence and start acknowledging the legitimacy of the fiefdoms. You know where the ‘comments’ section is!

The Iranian Nuclear Deal: An Agreement for All

Brandon Christensen Current Events, History, Politics , , , , , , , , , ,

[Editor’s note: the following is a short essay by Payam Ghorbanian. Payam was born in Tehran, Iran. He got his bachelor of science in Engineering from Zanjan University in Zanjan, Iran. He has been participating in liberal political activities and he was involved with some think tanks in Iran. He is doing research in the field of international relations and Iran’s foreign policy as an independent activist. He is now living in San Jose, California.

I cannot endorse this essay, but I am excited to post it because of its potential as a conduit for intercultural dialogue and exchange. I have left his essay largely intact, but did break up some of his longer paragraphs for clarity’s sake. Thanks to Payam for taking the time to write this.]

On November 24, Iran and the P5+1 group have reached to a historical deal on Tehran’s nuclear program at talks in Geneva, Switzerland. We might have difficulty to understand this process, the process which turns out the agreement to be real, so we must particularly take a look around to the real position of this group of countries plus Iran. It’s one of the Iranian’s attitude and way of thinking to say what they wanted to get and what they really ended up to.

In Iran, Hassan Rouhani was elected as a president on Jun 15, 2013. He is also known as one of the three people who talked to McFarlane in the Iran-Contra affair in 1985 about buying weapons during war between Iran & Iraq. During campaign for presidency, he said an extremely hopeful statement about nuclear program. He said: “It is good for nuclear centrifuges to operate, but it is also important that the country operates as well and the wheels of industry are turning.”

After he got elected, he put his faith in the right person and chose Mr. Mohammad Javad Zarif to be the minister of foreign affairs with the complete authority in action. Mr. Zarif was the permanent representative of Iran to the United Nations from 2002 to 2007. He is really familiar with the international policy regulations and the United States’ policy. Therefore, he was chosen to precede Iran’s nuclear negotiations and it was decided that the entire process would be carried out solely within his team.

It was one of the toughest situations for Iranian policy even though the middle class, especially the people who are living in the large cities, are incredibly united and hopeful for solving this nuclear issue; however, the extremists criticized any approach to any kind of agreement. For several years people of Iran have been feeling how sanctions can really cripple their destiny, economy, and their society structure. As a result of these effects, the rates of unemployment, bankruptcy, addiction, divorce, and prostitution have increased without any official and governmental justification. Therefore, we can consider the November 24th, 2013 as a distinguished and remarkable day in Iran’s modern history.

With the above introduction, let’s go through the text of the agreement for some details. It has been said:

“ … from the existing uranium enriched to 20%, retain half as working stock of 20% oxide for fabrication of fuel for the TRR. Dilute the remaining 20% UF6 to no more than 5%. No reconversion line…Iran announces that it will not enrich uranium over 5% for the duration of the 6 months.”

Although Mr. Zarif announced that according to the agreement, enriching uranium under the 5% is now acceptable and claimed it as a big win for Iran, the majority of the people in Iran really do not care about this subject. They expect the removal of all sanctions and this was the reason that they were following the negotiations and they remained awake up until the agreement came out, which at that time was really late at local time in Iran.

After all these trials and tribulations, now you can find out how hope for the future can make our nation more united. The people clearly understand that it is not the end of the negotiations and it is just the start of long way and they are looking forward to the next 6 month. For the people, it is not just about nuclear program; it is more about their life and their children’s future. President Rouhani is now in the right place and with the supports of Iranians. We hope his social policy would be more flexible as well and we can see more freedom in the society.

We are not going to discuss here the Europe United’s policy during this long term negotiation with Iran. They always want to reserve the important positions for themselves; however, they usually get to every negotiation which others have already accepted. For the people of Iran, the Europeans are best known as those trying to prolong every issue.

On the other hand The Europeans always push the solution to the curb and then try to get back to the first step and ultimately get to the agreement and to take one step further. With flopping back and forth, the conclusion usually would never come out. People of Iran had been disappointed of this kind of policy. From Iranian’s point of view, France should be responsible for the last unsuccessful talks on November 9th. Unfortunately they are unreliable partner for this region.

After all these, it is now time to shift our focus to the president Obama’s foreign policy about Middle East during the last year. Not that far ago, Syria used chemical weapons and crossed the red line, which was mentioned by president Obama before. Moreover, United Nation confirmed that there was no doubt of such use of chemical weapon from Syrians regime. However, instead of taking military action, president Obama decided to follow Russians in this crisis and he still tries to solve this issue through the UN. As a fact, it is clear that in order to go through the UN path to solve this crisis, United States has to deal with Russians and Chinese, since they have the authority to block international actions through the Security Council.

It is a fact that the Syrian’s people have been killed during the last three years. However, it seems that this fact is going to be ignored and denied. On the other side, Obama’s policy in this case would let the conservative countries like Qatar or Saudi Arabia to take part in this eternal disaster.  They can easily get rid of their extremist religious groups by allowing them to attend in this catastrophic war in Syria. Also due to the fact of this important unsolved problem in Syria, the pressure of human rights activities and other internal problems in their countries would be neglected. With this aspect of Syria’s crisis and also the failing of Arab spring, having an agreement with Iran is essential for Obama’s policy to get through these consecutive unsuccessful affairs. However, Israel’s prime minister tries to call this agreement as a historical mistake.

Great Britain has recently announced that they are concerned about total failure in Iran because of sanctions. After Great Britain evacuated all embassy staff from Iran in November 2011, now it seems that they are going to open relations with Iran following the election of President Rouhani. Undoubtedly they know the Middle East region much better than anyone else. They know this failure can affect Afghanistan, Iraq and the entire Middle East region. As a result, Britain has consecutively tried to help Iran and U.S. to approach to the final steps of negotiations.

On the other side, China is known as fatal mistake in economic partnership for Iranians during the last 10 years. Chinese took advantage of unjust situation of Iran and also destroyed industries in Iran are caused by importing cheap Chinese products. They have initially accepted the UN sanctions and have blocked about 50 billion dollars of Iran’s money in their banks; however, they ultimately should be happy of this agreement which definitely will moderate oil price and open up the gate of Iran’s market for Chinese investments.

Clearly with their foreign policy being so close to Iran, it is just a pose for Chinese in order to help them to precede their policy in southeast Asia using Iran’s threat for pushing away Chinese threat. Couple weeks ago they extended “air defense identification zones” which it seems will be accepted by United States. There is a common trend for all nations which can be written in this way that you are not going to consider as a powerful country if you just want to please yourself.

Finally, Russia should be indeed considered as the biggest winner of this agreement as well as the Middle East situation. Moreover, with the intent of being leader of the entire world, they forced other countries to accept their decisions on Syria’s crisis and by having this virtual confidence, now they really have plans to ruin all aspects of the free world. On September 12th, President Putin decisively took an issue with president Obama. His article was about United States people and he mentioned: “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional.”

However, president Obama decided to ignore this article and show respect to the new Russia. I believe working with Russia about Syria’s crisis and choosing non-interventionism for Ukraine crises would be one of the Obama’s failures in the U.S. foreign policy. Now this agreement would help Russia and obviously president Putin to take the rein of power more and more. At the end if Russia and China find out that there are not any obstacles around, they will never ever conceal their ambitious points.

From the Comments: Iran, Nationalism and Satire

Brandon Christensen Comments, Current Events, History , , , , , , , , ,

Siamak helps to clarify some things about contemporary Iranian culture that have been mischaracterized or misunderstood in the West:

Great article. About Iran part I wanted to leave a comment about two things. Fernanda Lima’s facebook page issue was so insulting and shameful. But it’s not like that Iranians are really blaming her for not having hijab. It was a sarcasm of state-run media. It was like now that we don’t have any hope for state TV to stop censorship you why didn’t you wear a better clothes. State-run TV does show foreign eomen with no hijab in movies, news, etc. But those beautiful breasts…! :-)

You should recognize the Iranian culture to know what I mean. Although it was insulting and shameful but they’re not really blaming her. It was a sarcasm of Iranian media.

The second part goes to the Iranian Nationalism. You’re right. After the Islamic Revolution, Islamic republic was completely against nationalists. That time most of the political groups were Islamic groups or Radical communists and socialists. The only liberwl group were called Nezhat Azadi (Liberty Movement) which were Moderate Liberal Muslim Nationalists. After the revolution Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic groups were completrly against nationalism. They were thinking that Islam should be the common thing between all Iranians. After 1998 that president khatami came this was going to change and Nationalism was again advertised by the government. Extreme nationalism in Iran is sourced from these two events: showing disagreement with the Islamic Radicals and the great history of Iran which has made Iranians extremely illusory about themselves.

Me myself think I’m a nationalist. But there’s a bit difference. Nationalism is not a goal for me. It’ just a medium or instrument for me. I completely believe in globalization and Peter Singer’s globalization is one of my favourite books. But I think nationalism is a medium to get closer to modernism. That’s it.

I suspect Siamak’s nationalism is a lot like the American libertarian’s patriotism.