Tony Blair Continues to Instruct and Reform the World for the Better.

'In a letter to Nursultan Nazarbeyev, Blair told the autocratic ruler that the December 2011 deaths, "tragic though they were, should not obscure the enormous progress that Kazakhstan has made". Blair advised Nazarbeyev that when dealing with the western media, he should tackle the events in Zhanaozen, when police opened fire on protesters, including oil workers demanding higher wages, "head-on".

In the letter, obtained by the Sunday Telegraph he also suggested passages to be inserted into a speech the president was giving at the University of Cambridge aimed at counteracting any bad publicity. One read: "By all means make your points and I assure you we're listening. But give us credit for the huge change of a positive nature we have brought about".

The former Labour leader's consultancy, Tony Blair Associates, set up in the capital, Astana, in October 2011, signing a multi- million pound deal to advise Kazakhstan's leadership on good governance, just months after Nazarbeyev was controversially re-elected with 96% of the vote and weeks before the massacre' .Tony Blair advises Kazakh president on publicity after killing of protesters, The Guardian August 26 2014

Blair means well. Platforms for stability must be built first, even by dictatorship if necessary. That's realism. In Iraq, it was realism to invade and depose the dictator because he posed a threat. Other dictators do not pose threats. They promise reforms and Blair wants to facilitate them and mutually beneficial partnerships.

To be frank, people in Britain need to realise it's time to move on from the Iraq war. There is a vital need to engage in global reform processes that create wealth that raise the people up, not to destroy wealth and create horrendous uprisings from the bottom. There is a need to focus on the bigger picture.

The idea Blair is advising strong leaderships across the world for financial gain is absurd. Those who strive to succeed, those who were chosen by the people for the people are, so to speak, the chosen ones who accrue to themselves wealth through the grace of God.

The TonyBlairFaithFoundation has noble goals of stressing what true faiths, like Tony Blair's, have in common with one another. From Gaza to Glasgow, from Accrington to Afghanistan we are more together than ever before and, frankly, its perverted religion that thwarts noble causes such as democratic reform in Iraq.

Take Kazakhstan. It could be said that doing nothing is an option. It would be. But not engaging with Nursultan Nazarbeyev is a choice too that could result in people misunderstanding the real benefits of reforms that yield wealth in a widening cricle, not just for a few but for many other dynamic individuals too.

Blair is a gifted communicator who understands what it is like to be a reformer beset with carping critics who focus on the style rather than the substance. Blair's natural gift of empathy allows him to get strong leaders to think about how events in Zhanaozen could affect his image before the people.

Now where it is possible to get the strong leader to understands and identify in part with the audience, it is possible too to get the leadership and the state apparatus to start to empathise with those in the firing line and start to identify with them. So there would be far fewer tragedies in future.

Blair grasps that a blend of empathy and psychopathy could enable dictators across the globe understand that you've just got to focus on the sort of bad PR image you are going to give if the people are going to view on television those unpleasant signs of instability.

From Islamist protests in Cairo to the striking oil workers of Zhanaozen, the images those associated with being machine gunned down dead in the streets are going to be found to be offensive. Those associated with being crushed under tanks, for example, could well find these images somewhat oppressive.

What Blair could bring to regions where instability is a real media management problem is that he could advise strong leaders on how to make the people understand its difficult to take bold decisions and carry the people along with the reform process, as some, no doubt, shall fall by the wayside....

Gaza, Stop the War Protests, George Galloway and Anti-Semitism.

Owen Jones means well but he comes across as a studenty sort who is trying to stake out the politically correct position in such a way that would ensure the anti-war protests remain nice and inclusive instead of polarising Muslims and Jews on the issue of opposition to Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza.

As a consequence, Jones produces a series of high sounding generalisations which do not address the specific content of the utterances made by those opposing Israel or why they could be construed as veering towards a dislike of Israelis because of who and what they are.

'..antisemitism needs to be treated very seriously indeed. Attempts to belittle it are dangerous, allowing the tumour to spread unchecked. But...Israel’s assault on Gaza has highlighted another danger too  It has often been debated whether the charge of antisemitism is concocted against anyone who supports Palestinian justice or criticises the actions of the Israeli state'.

Evidently, there are vested interests at stake in defending Israel no matter what it does. There are arms contracts, large volumes of trade and Britain and Israel cooperate on security projects whereby they can learn how to use sophisticated technology to contain the threat of terrorism.

As a consequence, it is convenient to accuse those criticising Israel as 'anti-semtitic'. But, then again, the word 'Islamophobia' is deployed in a similar way to mean a critic of an Islamist political movement, a person critical of Islam as a religion, or somebody who does not like Muslims.

Words and their meanings matter. To be against Israel's policy is to be anti-Israeli or, better, against Israel's policy on Gaza'. The danger of using words such as 'anti-Zionist' is that they could be taken to mean being against far right Israeli nationalism or against the existence of a Israel as a country.

The fact is that it is sometimes difficult to work out whether those 'taking a stance' against Israel are not rationalising darker motives not necessarily related to the actual situation in Gaza: a brutal but regional conflict but not the site of some cosmic battle between world historical forces.

Leaders of the Stop the War Coalition themselves are hardly paragons of peace. George Galloway's rhetoric is often violent and intemperate. His defence of Gaza and refusal to 'accept Israel' is not about anti-semitism but he likes to give his Bradford West electors the impression he rejects its right to existence.

With Galloway ( whom Jones never criticises due to the need to retain 'solidarity' no doubt ) the Gaza conflict provides an opportunity to advance a career in the doldrums after the Soviet Union fell and his attachment to Hamas and Hizbollah comes from their opposition to the US Imperialists.

This is a form of solidarity that works negatively. Hamas and Hizbollah are only aligned in opposition to Israel and so is Galloway. In fact, neither movement has much time for each other in the context of the Sunni-Shia sectarian division that have opened up over the conflict in Syria.

One reason Israelis and their Jewish supporters feel 'picked on' is that while Muslims across the Middle East are in the process of murdering one another on a large scale, there is a perception that most Muslims in the West unite on loathing Israel and that there must be a sinister agenda against them in Europe.

'One retort repeatedly offered is that Israel is itself the source of antisemitism; that its brutality towards the Palestinian people encourages hatred against the Jewish people. This is a nonsense, like rationalising anti-Muslim prejudice as the inevitable consequence of Islamist fundamentalist terror; responsibility for prejudice lies with the prejudiced. Most of us are quite capable of opposing brutality without turning into bigots. Racism needs to be eliminated, not excused'

It may well be a nonsense but it is nevertheless a rationalisation that is implicit in the sort of placard that is often held up by Islamists on anti-war marches. Jones refers to the infinite world of idealistic 'oughts' without looking at the grubby reality of what 'is' to be found on the 'anti-war left'.

One example would be the placard that reads 'Stop the Genocide of Gazan children'. The implication could be ( beyond mere hyperbole ) that if Israel is committing the genocide of the children, then maybe some genocides are better than others because they do not target only children.

Genocide talk as regards Israel, as opposed to the more obvious and provable accusation of war crimes, tends to have a sinister edge to it. If Israel is held to committing genocide, especially of children ( forget the adults then ), then, perhaps, Hitler should have finished off all Jews.

So there are no grounds for the assertion 'most of us' are able to oppose brutality without turning to racial hatred. The historical record nowhere bears that out as an absolute certainty. And if racism is considered a form of evil, then evil is an ineradicable part of human existence.

Wherever, one group so defined on the basis of ethnicity, creed, religion or race has leaders playing on unique victimhood the better to advance one set of power claims against an 'existential' rival or enemy, then aggressive instincts of hatred can, indeed, be rationalised.

So there is little purpose in mentioning the real effects of anti-semitism by pointing to the Jobbik in Hungary and by ignoring the sort of irresponsible propaganda that does inflame feelings against Israelis in Britain as opposed to their government ( not least as a great majority support it over Gaza )

So Jones focuses ( rightly) on the need of a British anti-war movement over Gaza to put pressure on the British government on arms exports and so on. But he goes on to provide his own form of deflecting attention away from intolerant forms of activism within Britain by pointing to anti-semitism elsewhere.

Hungary is a convenient choice because Jones knows that there are very few Muslims living in this Central European nation. So he can position himself as anti anti-semitic without needing to deal with its existence within Britain, even if it is bound to be exaggerated by uncritical apologists for the Israeli state

So Douglas Murray was no doubt trying to smear the entire protest march against Israel's war on Gaza as being 'anti-semitic'. The problem is unless the anti-war movement ( such as it is ) rejects intemperate demagogues such as Galloway, amongst others, it is always going to play into the hands of established interests.

The problem is that 'anti-war protest' really often means an ideological siding with Islamist forces as opposed to the more obvious point of a protest which should be focused on trying to advocate Britain is not complicit in what Israel is doing in pursuing war not diplomacy.

The 'anti-war movement' contains leading figures who, even if they may not peddle anti-semitism, do come out with absurd conspiracist ideas on geopolitics and the Middle East whether on Gaza ( or even on ISIS as being backed by Israel ) that feed a paranoid world view.

The existing 'Stop the War Coalition' is simply headed by a coterie consisting of the dregs of the communist left whose tendency to rationalise totalitarianism ( Galloway and journalist Seumas Milne being the supreme examples ) discredits anti-war causes and puts off sane conscientious people.

It is possible to be against the war crimes committed by Israel and against the insane suicidal strategy of Hamas. But in the 'Stop the War Coalition' this sort of nuance is not permitted and only those propaganda slogans that boost outrage and hatred are promoted.

It's depressing but the reality is that there is never going to be a sensible open discussion of Israel and Palestine that does not lurch into accusations of complete collective guilt and innocence on one side and counter accusations, spiralling paranoia, outrage and pyschopathological venom :i.e. pure hatred.

The real question is :Who benefits ? Clearly, those making a career from demagogy such as Galloway on Iranian funded Press TV, neurotic ex-revolutionary leftists who need a cause to glom on to in order to raise them from otherwise wholly deserved obscurity as leaders of sectarian revolutionary utopian cults.

Yet the impossibility of a sensible debate without platform posturing and soundbites from the self appointed 'anti-war' types benefits those defending Israel unconditionally as they can point to the opposition to Israel as Hamas supporting maniacs and 'extremists'.

Egypt: On Calling the Coup that Wasn't a Coup a Coup

No longer is there any serious dissent about British foreign policy objectives in Parliament. Britain has no real independent foreign policy any more. It is a small medium rank power which has a permanent seat on the UN security Council only as a legacy of the Second World War and its status then as an imperial power.

Effectively, Britain follows or anticipates the foreign policies of Washington whose approval is needed and wanted. So the focus of opposition parties has shifted more to criticising the way the policy is presented and delivered as opposed to having any dissent as to the objectives nor wisdom of the foreign policy

So the shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander's line on the Egyptian coup that cannot be called a coup by Washington lest it is obliged to suspend the $1.3 billion subsidy it provides to the generals to buy US military hardware is to tell Britain he thinks it really is a coup.

Initially, there was a dispute about acknowledging whether a coup had taken place. I understand the caution in western capitals in the days that followed Morsi's exit: careful language was chosen to try to secure crucial influence with Egypt's new rulers.

How many Western diplomats with positions of power and influence have called it a coup ? The EU's Lady Ashton has not. The only reason Alexander calls it a coup now is because he wants to differentiate himself from those who are not calling it a coup because the US cannot call it a coup.

Many people across the world know it's a coup, some why Obama and Hague won't call it a coup and most don't care that Douglas Alexander is now calling it a coup because Hague cannot. The rest of Alexander's article is a mere string of banal and robotic 'public diplomacy' platitudes

The foreign policy of arming the Egyptian generals remains an unquestionable foreign policy.

'There has been speculation that Egypt would react to the suspension of EU or US support by ditching its peace treaty with Israel or abandoning its fight against the Islamist terrorist threat in the Sinai peninsula. But those policies are clearly in the country's interests, and the generals will not abandon them'

Nor is the US or Britain 'abandoning' the generals. The policies are also in the interests of the USA which is why it funds the generals and why they think they can act as a law unto themselves by attempting to eliminate Muslim Brotherhood protesters and liquidate it as a terrorist organisation.

'the scale of the violence now being witnessed confirms that the army is not the solution to Egypt's continuing crisis'.

What scale of violence would Alexander have considered necessary to provide a 'solution" ? A lower scale ? Only 200 or so ? The hapless New Labour appointee Cathy Ashton talks almost comically of "confidence building measures" between the 'interim government' and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Baroness Ashton, ex-CND administrator and national treasurer, met representatives of other EU states with a $400 million arms trade with Egypt and have decided belatedly to 'suspend' export licenses for the tear gas and rubber bullets that the Egyptian security forces are using 'disproportionately' at present.

The EU High Commissioner has declared that “Member states also agreed to suspend export licences to Egypt for any equipment which might be used for internal repression and . . . review their security assistance with Egypt” This does not mean, however, that all military hardware is being cancelled.

Alexander follows the routine line about the aid not being stopped for 'humanitarian reasons, the usual rationalistation offered by greedy overdeveloped states feeling guilty at their role in trying to control the energy resources of other lands by putting something back into their economies.

'Through its aid, Europe has a responsibility to advance our commitment to democracy and human rights. And European co-operation with Egypt could not continue as normal when civilians are being killed and basic rights are undermined'.

But only some arms deals used for 'internal repression' are being cancelled as there is no full arms embargo being proposed as there was on Syria as civil war broke out there. The reason is that security in Egypt is important because many EU states have failed to take 'energy security' and self sufficiency seriously enough in the past.

A great deal of Liquified Natural Gas ( LNG ) comes from Egypt and via it from the Gulf states such as Qatar. States such as Spain and Italy are especially dependent upon gas from North Africa. Britain has energy interests as well. One third of all gas in Egypt is controlled by the British BG Group.

As this EU report makes clear from 2009,

'The EU is particularly vulnerable to such events and trends, as it holds less than 2% of world gas reserves even though gas accounts for about one quarter of its gross domestic energy consumption.To make matters worse, indigenous production is stagnating and set to decline, while consumption is on the rise and will keep growing, driven primarily by the electricity generation sector and households'.

The quest for diversified supplies of gas ( the sort of diversity liberal elites do not like to mention in regards to the transcendent communitarian values of the EU ) means that Egypt is crucial to advance this strategy. Much of the LNG has to go through the Suez Canal and Gulf of Aden.

The security of the sea passage from the Mediterranean down through the Red Sea is, therefore, a vital interest. Without the Egyptian army there can be no prospect of 'stability' and the fear is that terrorists could menace oil and gas pipelines to EU states as well as its trading partner Israel.

The EU report states it baldly 'Most new discoveries of economically exploitable gas over the past two decades have been in the Middle East'. Moreover, if LNG is not to go through Russia, which uses gas as a diplomatic lever, new sources need to be tapped and shipped via Egypt.

This is the reality that people in the West do not want to hear. They are uncomfortable truths. Many liberal left progressive elites probably try to convince themselves that they can magically  combine 'democracy promotion' with the support for undemocratic governments in the region such as Saudi Arabia.

Hence the vacuous 'public diplomacy' line,

'The decisions and declarations made at this sensitive time matter to the credibility with which the west's voice is heard not just in Egypt but across the Middle East. It is vital that people believe the west's commitment to democracy is real'.

In Britain and across Europe an urgent, serious and mature discussion about this as a matter of emergency needs to be conducted.

Why the US will not call the Egyptian Coup a Coup.

The Egyptian police's killing of 82 protesters in Cairo who were demanding the the deposed President Morsi be reinstated, has led to accusations of Western hypocrisy for not calling the coup a coup or condemning it forthrightly as they should have been doing.

This is seen as standing in contrast to when Britain and the US lambasted Assad in Syria for crushing opponents in 2011 with his military and thus precipitating a civil war. Typical was Nabila Ramdani's column in The Observer yesterday,(The Arab spring is being stifled by the force of arms.)

'The grotesque murders of ordinary Egyptians by their own military says everything about the non-progress of the Arab spring.. ..Tahrir Square came to symbolise the fleeting glories of the Arab spring...world leaders such as Barack Obama endlessly pledged to stop dictators "killing their own people".' 

The fact is that the 'Arab Spring' of 2011 took Washington by surprise no less than the coup and the military takeover of June 3 2013. Obama was content enough to allow Mubarrak to rule provided he looked after US interests, glad to see him be removed peacefully and satisfied enough with Morsi being president.

Instead of bewailing US foreign policies for their supposed inconsistencies, it is better to understand that Washington is less bothered with democracy so much than with stability. If democracy serves stability in Egypt, then the US would support that. So, at present, Washington is hoping that the 'new transition' suceeds.

Clearly it is highly improbable that a military takeover and the use of force to quell pro-Morsi protesters is not going to radicalise those Islamists who were always wary of the MB embracing the ballot box was a waste of time. To a certain extent, the army can then benefit from posing as a 'force for order'.

Moreover, a great number of Egyptians themselves clearly welcomed the coup as protecting the 'Arab Spring'. The army could only act because it knew that Sisi would have popular support. That was nothing to do with Washington and there is no evidence the US authorised them to act.

It is strange that Nabila Ramdani expected the situation to somehow be different. The US funds the Egyptian army to an annual tune of $1.3 bn to uphold Egypt as a bulwark of Western geostrategic interests, especially its pacific relations with Israel and the rich Gulf states that provide the West with oil.

That economic overdependence upon oil from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf has not changed since the growing involvement of the US there and in Egypt and its determination to prevent another oil price shock such as that of 1973. Egypt is a strategic oil transit state with pipelines heading West and the Suez Canal.

In Libya, the West obviously welcomed the popular armed uprising against Gaddafi's regime. Western politicians invoked Gaddafi's threat to destroy the opposition in Benghazi as a pretext to justify providing air support and determine an outcome that was suited to its interests.

Britain and France in particular were prepared to intervene to remove the dictator because, de facto, he no longer could preserve stability in an oil rich land.  Yet, as usual, the idea a military intervention to hasten regime change would create stability was an illusion.30,000 have died since the war ended.

The fact that the British PM David Cameron is not condemning the coup while he was prepared to protect civilians in Libya is because it was in what he believed to be both Libya's and Britain's best interests. Again why Nabila Ramdani expects Britain not to act to protect its perceived energy security interests is odd.

Moral outrage from critics of Western foreign policy is as boring and predictable as politicians trotting out humanitarian concern as a way of rationalising their interventions both to themselves and to a public that demands cheap oil but does not like the idea of wars to ensure that.

Countries such as the US and Britain need start to take overdependence upon oil from the Middle East itself as a national security issue. Pretending they can reorder the region to will when the autocratic regimes they once backed crumble by then switching to backing democracy is a recipe for disaster.

Western foreign policies are based on an inconsistent devotion to being greedy for resources and feeling guilty about the necessary consequences that stem from a history of incessant interference in the affairs of Middle Eastern nations, a recipe for disaster that could drag down Western powers along with it.

Why the US Cannot Call a Coup a Coup .

"We have had a long relationship with Egypt and the Egyptian people and it would not be wise to abruptly change our assistance programme.. ..The smart policy is to review this matter...There is not a simple or easy answer here"- Jay Carney, US spokesman.

The US is clearly hamstrung on the military takeover ( i.e coup ) because it cannot be seen to be be backing the army against the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood when it is backing the Sunni insurgents in their struggle against President Assad's Alawi Shia regime in Syria.

In Syria the Muslim Brotherhood has been a major component of the armed opposition to Assad backed by Turkey, a NATO nation, and the removal of Morsi has deprived them of one of its most significant backers and ideological support from its original homeland.

It would be absurd for the US to openly back the army takeover as its erstwhile enemy Assad has claimed "What is happening in Egypt is the fall of what is known as political Islam..whoever uses religion for political aims, or to benefit some and not others, will fall".

Despite the predictable claims that the CIA just must have been behind the coup ( without any evidence ) there was absolutely no interest the US could have had in either backing one or even being seen to back on. It has taken the US by surprise and it has no idea how to react.

In fact, only Tony Blair has openly criticised the Muslim Brotherhood and advocated working with the new government, something that clearly has more to do with his obsession with the idea that 'inactivity' is a policy choice with consequences too ( mostly due to his role in the invasion of Iraq ).

The US is probably hoping that the killing of 51 Muslim Brotherhood supporters cannot lead to a reaction strong enough to pose serious resistance to the military's position in Egypt which it secures through its funding. If some radicals resort to terrorism, then the US can justify that subsidy.

If, however, if the calls by the Muslim Brotherhood leaders to 'rise up' go beyond street protest, leading to further provocations and heavy handed military responses, the potential for serious civil conflict will grow and this is bound to call into question the wisdom of giving arms to the Syrian insurgents.

Some Considerations on Hypocrisy, Double Standards and Inconsistency.

I have been pondering a lot recently on the nature of hypocrisy  Most people seem to think hypocrisy means doing one thing and acting in another way from the position of the self righteous accuser who is somehow above ever doing so himself. It is a constant human trait that seems to have developed in recent years.

In fact it seems to me that the vast majority of comments, outrage and fury on online blogs, fierce polemics over foreign policy, anti-war marches or calls for 'intervention' consist of trying to prove that the other person is a hypocrite or has double standards ( and are these exactly the same thing anyway ?).

For example British foreign policy is criticised because it is hypocritical in opposing Iran and calling for 'regime change' there and in Syria while Saudi Arabia remains a key ally and strategic partner. No doubt that's a double standard but is it one forced upon Britain by over dependence upon oil ?

When protesters for 'anti-war' groups use oil interests as a trump card to prove British foregn policy is evil without noticing how dependent the economy is on it, no less than others in the developed and rapidly developing world, are they being hypocritical by refusing to pose the question that way?

After all, it is not easy to point the finger at the government invading countries for oil while not calling on British people to think about energy alternatives or to draw attention that most of them benefit from having continued supplies of relatively cheap oil ?

If that were the case, then the majority of British people are as responsible as their rulers in not being prepared to give up their high octane lifestyles in order to reduce the consumption of oil. Could a politician really expect to be re-elected if he argued that we need to cut down on car use and consumption?

Pat Davers responded,

How many of the people who said that the Iraq war was “all about oil”, stopped using oil, or even made a serious effort to reduce oil consumption?

Perhaps the anti-war marchers might not even welcome that question because the assumption tends to be that the only real beneficiaries are the oil corporations, the financiers of pipelines and building companies investing in infrastructure.

It is convenient to 'explain' the conflicts wracked Middle East as whay 'they' in power are causing to happen because it means that 'we' are only responsible for getting rid of 'them' without thinking about whether it is 'we' who make that foreign policy possible through oil consumption.

The thing is though, that the world is a horrible mess of competing interests and conflicting priorities to the extent that none of us can be completely consistent in our outlook, and such we’re all guilty of hypocrisy, which after all, is no worse than “the tribute that vice pays to virtue”. It’s still worth pointing out some of the more blatant examples though.

Yes I agree. But it's difficult not to come to the conclusion that in Britain many self proclaimed 'official' opponents of wars seem to take the role of the accuser when they themselves belong or have belonged to revolutionary sects backing murderous violence.

Many Stop The War activists are hypocritical in the deepest sense because they are not only not pacifists at all but want to simplify the world into black and white binary categories of Good ( i.e us ) versus Evil 'them' ( the evil hideous capitalist-imperialist British government ).

A lot of leading StWC do not actually care about 'stopping wars' even if they could since the aim in to turn outrage into support for their propaganda. A lot of protest, without any attempt at understanding what is really driving them, is a form of look-at-me narcissism.

There are legitimate protests against the arms trade and the repellent policy of supply arms to Saudi Arabia, a country that has funded and backed the Taliban but remains the lynchpin of US and UK strategical designs for the balance of power in the Middle East.

Evidently, the scale of the arms sales to Saudi Arabia, a regime far more repressive and fanatical and brutal than that in Iran, exceeeds what could even be vaguely defined as its proportional defence needs. Quite obviously it's about enriching British arms manufacturers.

Yet without the over dependence upon oil and gas, Britain ( and other Western nations ) would not be so bound to support appalling regimes nor be drawn into the danger of risk and bad foreign policies such as those of Iraq, Libya and, if Hague gets his way, Syria.

Most British opponents of the war must know that high oil consumption is a major factor behind the USA and Britain, with other EU nations sitting on the fence, promoting these interventionist foreign policies as the old order crumbles in the Middle East.

Yet too few of them publicly advocate that Britain becomes energy independent or have the will to mention these frightening facts or propose constructive alternatives to the public. They must prefer to bask in the feeling of self righteousness that comes from being 'right'.

Even so, most informed people know anyway that British foreign policy is based on schizophrenia and double standards. So, while it is still worth pointing out what British interests really are when proposing 'intervention in Syria, energy conservation has to be an issue.

And that might involve advocating that people would need to change their lifestyles, stop using their cars as much, not fly EasyJet so often and to let people know how intimately tied up high octane consumerism is with oil dependency and conflicts over resources.

Notes on Hypocrisy, Double Standards and Self Righteousness.

On the subject of double standards and hypocrisy, the current crisis in Syria is instructive. The trio of Western Powers ( the USA, France and UK ) explicitly demands that the Assad regime should go or, in actual fact, be overthrown when it comes down to it.

This demand is explicitly justified by claiming that they have the moral high ground as Syria is a dictatorship, we are democracies and Assad's forces are attacking their own people and civilians.

No mention is made of the fact that Saudi Arabia is the West's main ally in the Middle East, apart from Israel, and that the former is a theocratic dictatorship backing Sunni jihadists in Syria.

The problem is that international politics in the West since 1990 has become less about cautious diplomacy and far more about competing radical visions about reordering the world according to ideological precepts.

By comparison, Russia and China do not base their foreign policy on trying to overthrow regimes or demand adherence to human rights and to promote democracy but only its own power interests.

In that sense, powers that do not share the liberal internationalist stance of the USA and EU are not seen to be as hypocritical as they make no high standards they can be called to account on by internal critics. 

The accusation of double standards is harder to make if a Power does not flaunt its proclaimed standards of democracy and human rights as a means of what is often seen as rationalising the same Great Power interests.

The noble idea of human rights has become a tool of the USA to put forth a messianic vision in which it can do no fundamental wrong as it uses Great Power status to advance democracy.

If "regime change" brings about a new "free" country as in Afghanistan or Iraq that is seen as great or, at least, an improvement: if not then it must at least by pro-Western in its foreign policy.

The current mess in Syria shows that humanitarian concerns and rhetoric about the Assad regime is used by liberals such as Secretary of State Clinton to support regime change by stealth as only the USA has the right to intervene in Syria to support the Syrian opposition.

To do so by aiding "the Syrian opposition" to co-ordinate militias, many of which are Sunni fundamentalists backed by the Saudis is not considered important: as our foreign policy is conducted by democratically elected governments, they still must be better than those backed by Russia or China.

This conceit is a dangerous one as the choice in practice is often between a secular dictatorship and a dysfunctional democracy in which rival sectarian militias jockey for control. 

That was seen in Iraq in the aftermath of the US invasion of 2003 and still is as Sunni jihadists carry out fresh bomb attacks against the Shi'ite government. Again it is happening in Syria and the Western Powers have learnt nothing.

Realism is not cynicism. There are many on the left who fail to grasp that too. In fact foreign policy controversies are often about whether to back a foreign policy if it is an agent of progressive global change of not. And that often hinges around whether the USA can be that agent or not.

Now there are those who tend to assume it is an Empire an so never can be. Chomsky is that his belief in the fundamental malignity of US exceptionalism is itself based on an exceptional view that as a democracy "we" can change the world if "we" change our foreign policy first.

In reality, the other Great powers have their agendas and in practice there are limits to what the West can do and which it needs to learn. And one of those is to believe it can bring about a globe of liberal democracies using force as the midwife of history.

By comparison bringing up the role of China in Africa is often a large omission by leftists in the West who used to continually claim to be concerned with the fate of the continent, opposing South African apartheid and the Rhodesian government in the late 1970s.

The usual waffle about only being able to change "our" foreign policy ignores the obvious fact that those who profit from "anti-westernism" like Mugabe are part of a non aligned bloc which includes those such as Hugo Chavez who are supported by many Western leftists such as John Pilger.

China makes no claim to improve human rights there at all but operates on a "no strings attached" policy. This means corrupt dictatorships are supported with weapons if China gains the concession to mine precious minerals in return for infrastructure projects.

When the insurgents in Libya was supported by the USA, France and UK, Pilger wrote,

"Africa is China's success story. Where the Americans bring drones and destabilisation, the Chinese bring roads, bridges and dams. What they want is resources, especially fossil fuels. With Africa's greatest oil reserves, Libya under Muammar Gaddafi was one of China's most important sources of fuel"

This is curious. In what way is propping up dictatorships a "success story" ? Really ? In Zaire where African's are slave labourers ? Unless Pilger is suggesting that the West's foreign policy is so bad that China's seems better only by comparison, this comes close to rationalising dictatorship.

The best thing in the circumstances is to understand why this Great Game for resources is driving conflict, the better to try to avoid it. For  another source of hypocrisy is the one where people say "No War for Oil". Iraq and Libya were about oil, but what do people think powers the economy ?

If a lot more focus was put on finding alternatives to oil and stating clearly why these resource wars are happening, a sane alternative can be put forward. That should, in fact, be the starting point of any constructive solution to the reality of our time-wars for resources.

For isn't it hypocrisy to insist we deserve higher living standards and growth ( what many on the left and liberals regard as "Progress" when that necessarily means more oil must be forthcoming ?

Or would people prefer to give up their cars, learn to live with far less ? Is that something consumers in Western democracies want ? Have anti-war organisations posed that question to the public ?

Note, this does not mean endorsing wars for oil: just that people ought to heed what Tolstoy said "everybody thinks about changing the world: too few about changing themselves" . Rather than screaming self righteous slogans, espousing hysterical forms of anti-American vitriol and posing as though that can make the world better.