“Obama’s New West Asian Policy: Prospects and Challenges”-July 2009 Seminar at ICWA

"Obama's New West Asian Policy: Prospects and Challenges"-
Seminar at Indian Council of World Affairs on 13 July, 2009

"History is ruled by an inexorable determinism in which the free
choice of major historical figures plays a minimal role", Leo Tolstoy

After more than two years I went over to attend a seminar ,having been
forced to decline owing to ill health an all paid invite to
participate at the conference as one of the keynote speakers on the
issue of "The future of Turkish-Indian Relations " at Istanbul
,organized by Bogazici University-TUSIAD (Turkish Businessmen and
Industrialists' Association and Sabancı University Competitiveness
Forum in November ,2007.Normally during my visits to Delhi I delivered
lectures at universities in India .military colleges , IIC,FSI,
Habitat center and other centres. But since Oct 2007 I have been
laptop bound.

Most speakers and the audience at the seminar, barring a few
exceptions appeared to be brain washed by western corporate media and
its poor copy in India. Obama's speech inn Cairo came for praise (Can
one take seriously his claim that US cannot be at war with Islam -then
what all is going on ,war on Muslim countries for their oil resources
or strategic space for energy transfer etc) .

My observations, Amb Chhatwal , who presided , was kind enough to give
me 10 minutes, did not find much acceptance .Like Obama is but a
product of Chicago Jewish machine and those who have destroyed US
economy , contributed 600 million dollars for his election ,so what do
you expect. US are ruled by Military-Industry and energy complex and
that America is on fast decline.

Like downfall of both Greek -Roman -Byzantine and rival Persian led to
their decline after centuries of confrontation ,whose territories
were easily conquered first by desert Arab Bedouins and then Turkish
nomads .Similarly defense over reach and expenditure first brought
down USSR in 1990, now it is America's turn , which spends as much on
defense aka 600 billion dollars as the rest of world put together ,
equivalent to its trade deficit which has grown to 7-8 trillions
dollars of debt to China, Japan, Oil states and others .US has failed
to even tackle housing mortgage crisis ,it has still to face the
credit card crisis among others.

I might have succeeded in creating in the mind of the audience some
doubt about the invincibility of US power and its ability to recover
this time around. But I remain dismayed by Indian elites touching
faith in US capability, simple because they just follow western
corporate media (in US 5 conglomerates control 90% of media -BBC is
just a govt mouthpiece)
I wrote my first piece 'Decline of the American Century ' on 11 Sept ,
2002 on the anniversary of stunning attacks on symbols of US economic
and military power for Asia times a year earlier .It was Asia Times
most read piece and copied by dozens of websites mostly in the west
.It is reproduced in full at the end .

Since then I have written four more pieces on the subject .Many weeks
of surfing non-corporate media for facts and figures were consumed
.URLs are provided for those interested to pursue through them
.Decline and fall of US hegemony is there , if not like USSR then like
Great Britain after WWII. Like a new lean General Motors after its
bankruptcy.
Thambi Varadrajan recently wrote in Hindu that US has persuaded G-8
not to pass on enrichment and reprocessing technology to India .Did
not PM tell parliament in 2006 that India will have the same rights as
nuclear weapons states (US, Russia, China, France and UK) after
signing the Indo-US treaty .India has given up its strategic options,
annoyed Iran and lost independence of action. Whatever for? But no
discussion in Indian media .Let repeat again what Turkish Deputy PM
told me," Mr. Ambassador, you can not trust the Americans , not even
on what they have given in writing " Indians , claiming to have a
strategic alliance with US are such suckers! While US Nato ally Turkey
have intelligently remodeled their foreign policy, making up with
historical neighbours like Russia, Iran, Syria and ticking off Israel
when necessary.

Cheers and take care Gajendra 13 July, 2009 , Delhi .