The US president-elect has signalled a desire to find common interests between Washington, Tehran, Baghdad, Kabul and Islamabad, writes TONY KINSELLA
TOMORROW MARKS the 90th anniversary of the armistice that ended the first World War. It will also be exactly a week since Barack Hussein Obama was elected as the 44th president of the USA.
One of these historical dates marks the end of a pointless and barbaric conflict driven by an exaggerated and distorting focus on minor differences between nations and peoples. The other signals a general indifference on the part of US voters to a candidate's skin colour. Indifference to a difference which has been made unimportant - and a testimony to our human capacity for progress.
Although there are over two months to go before president-elect Obama takes office on January 20th, he is already clearly in power, if not in office. His preparations and preferences will influence centrally the deliberations at next weekend's G20 global economic summit in Washington.
We are already hearing from Cassandras who warn that Obama, however sympathetic we may find him, has been elected president of the USA and that since he will determinedly defend US interests, the rest of the world is bound to suffer.
Such "them versus us" thought processes belong more to yesterday than today, as Barack Obama argued in an interview with the Washington Postback in March 2007. He talked of his belief that politics has seen enough of "either/or", and of his desire to shift to "both/and". It was this desire that led him to undertake what he called "the risks and difficulties and challenges and silliness of a modern presidential campaign".
Escaping a deep and prolonged economic depression depends on our collective ability to tear up the rule books that have failed us, to invent new ones, and to combine to our mutual advantage. Half of our planet's population, over three billion people, live in China, India, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Their understandable and legitimate desire for a version of the lifestyles we enjoy offers a primary source for systemic economic growth.
Yet our planet cannot satisfy those desires through a use of the slash-and-burn approach which characterised western development. An important element of recovery in the developed economies depends on our ability to develop and produce renewable energy technologies, hybrid and electric vehicles.
The dollar surpluses of the oil-exporting countries and Asia underpin the borrowing requirements of the developed world. Their participation in the G20 process is thus essential. The rapid decline in the price of oil suggests that speculation played a greater role in its rise last summer than has been hitherto acknowledged. Such speculation largely emanates from hedge funds. These entities, in dire need of cash to meet their obligations, are dumping oil futures and driving down price.
Hedge funds have switched to betting on currency collapses. Hans-Günter Redeker, chief foreign currency strategist of BNP Paribas, warns that "Major players . . . like hedge funds . . . are betting on the decline of eastern European currencies."
Regulating the activities of hedge funds, two-thirds of which are based in offshore tax havens, is thus vital for developed economies, emerging economies, oil producers and global banking stability. The G20's ability to agree on such areas of common concern, and set out a timetable for addressing them, will heavily depend on the group's adopting of a "both/and" approach. Such an approach may be novel, but it can also offer attractive, realistic and mutually beneficial alternatives for all protagonists in hitherto confrontational zones such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran.
The US both wishes and needs to withdraw its occupation forces from Iraq. Its UN mandate expires at the end of the year, and the only legal basis for troops remaining after January 1st, 2009, depends on an agreement with Baghdad.
Iraq needs to find a modus vivendi between its Shia, Sunni and Kurdish communities. Iran benefits from a stable Iraq, on condition that the Shia majority are secure. It is therefore in Tehran's interest to support an agreed US withdrawal from Iraq. Tehran has a clear interest in seeing a more stable Afghanistan on its eastern frontier and in the emergence of an effective government in Kabul - not least because of Iran's growing, though officially denied, epidemic of heroin addiction.
We desperately need to stop referring to "the Taliban" as though there was a uniform political continuum between the former tyrants of Kabul and all those who now offer armed resistance to Nato forces in their country. Most capitals have already accepted the need for a political solution in Afghanistan that will involve some arrangement between the more realistic resistance elements and the better parts of Hamid Karzai's government. A settlement acceptable to a majority of Pushtu would defuse many of the tensions along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, thus isolating al-Qaeda elements in the region.
Washington could intensify its covert security pressure on al-Qaeda while dropping its rhetorical insistence on the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). Obama would benefit from disavowing Bush's references to the Axis of Evil. It would require only a little more diplomatic dexterity to reassure Iran in terms of its national security fears. Associating Iran with such moves would meet Tehran's often clumsy and menacing expressions of desire for engagement with the rest of the world. Iran's quid pro quo would have to be, perhaps quietly, abandoning the more worrisome aspects of its nuclear programme.
Under a "both/and" approach, the common interests of Washington, Tehran, Baghdad, Kabul and Islamabad could be addressed, whereas an "either/or" approach has only distinctly unpalatable scenarios to offer. Obama has articulated his desire to shift from "either/or" to "both/and". It is a shift from which we can all benefit - we need only apply the lessons of 90 years ago.
