Posts Tagged ‘Barack Obama’

Lawrence Summers withdraws from consideration for Fed Chairman

Posted: September 15, 2013 in Uncategorized
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Summers, one of the candidates as new Fed Chairman for January, has retired from the nomination panel.

This is a positive for the market as he has been seen a disruptive character and enemy of Quantitative Easing.

This also signal the weakness of President Obama after the Syrian failure and put him in an awkward position in the incoming US Debt Ceiling debate.

Syria and Russia scored a great victory against the US.

Syria has hailed as a victory (as it is – tehre is not even an agreement on the consequences in case of infringement) and Secret Service confirms that the special unit 450 has already started dispersing the chemical weapons in secure facilities also in Lebanon and Iraq.

Russia stands to gain a major influence in the ex Soviet States and achieved a psychological win both for Russia as alternative Superpower (which is not) and also distract the attention from the current Russian economic woes.

Unfortunately President Obama in this round reminded me of President Carter….and then came President Reagan. Let’s hope.

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Syria: Obama’s Bluff

Posted: September 2, 2013 in Uncategorized
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People is starting wondering what is happening.

The issue is that when Obama laid the RED LINE (August 2011) he thought that no-one was going to cross it.

The facts have now disproved him and now he has to face the consequences: punish Syria in a not really wanted confrontation or let the red line be crossed and be considered a “paper tiger”.

Unless he attacks all the red lines with various countries (Iran, North Korea, but also China and Russia) will be rendered invalid and the US will not be seen as a credible superpower with consequences on the entire US foreign strategy for the year to come.

The only potential other solution is a coup d’etat that takes out Assad. The issue with this solution is that only Iran or Russia could try to orchestrate such an event…and they will ask for great compensation for the favor. Probably too great.

So Obama is opting for the best option of asking the Congress for approval – so taking time to form a “coalition of the unwilling”.

Who could have called Obama’s bluff?

There are two parties who definitely could have achieved that:

a rogue part of Assad’s army (like his brother)

a Saudi sponsored faction (rebels or even Saudi’ General Intelligence Presidency’.

I personally lean towards the first.

But all the Middle East is on a tension alert…some news that have been missed by the media:

– Egypt: A Panama’s ship as been attacked in the Suez Canal (insurgent defeated)

-Egypt: A bomb as been found and rendered useless in Alexandria main train station

-Israel: a bomb as been found and rendered useless in Jerusalem

Update:

One of the reason of the delay of the attack has to do more with Realpolitik than anything else. The US need to make a show of force with a limited strike that does NOT topple Assad. Why? The two main rebel forces (there are close to 1,000 rebel groups operating in Syria) are clearly Al-Qaeda supported group…so their victory against Assad would be even more dangerous than Assad itself

A Syrian deadly chessgame

Posted: August 27, 2013 in Uncategorized
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Obama bluff has been called and there will be war. And there will be death. Americans will be again seen as heroes and ruthless killers at the same time.

Obama last year declared that a gas attack would be a clear red line because he thought Assad was not so stupid to conduct one.

What really happened, nobody will know. has it really been staged by rebels to provoke an attack (smartest move from rebels on a verge of defeat- but they do not seem to have the weapon delivery systems to conduct such an attack – US “Mission Impossible” kind of spies? Difficult – Saudis spies….that could have a chance). Was it Assad? He is not stupid…I do not think so. What I think (and it is of no consequences) is that some rogue part of the Syrian Army (Assad’s bloodthirsty brother or  some Iranian proxy) did it.

As a famous Italian comedian, Pirandello,  says ” It is so (if you think so)”.

The reality is that the Obama’s bluff has been called and war will be. Otherwise Iran and North Korea and anyone else (Russia, China) will know that their own red line do not exist.

Obama clearly does not want “boot on the ground” and has delivery weapon systems to proceed with “stand off attacks” (attacks carried from outside the Syrian airspace). 4 US Navy Destroyers are already in place. Strategic bomber can attack from bases in the UK and Saudi Arabia and the US 5th Fleet with two supercarriers are less than 48 hours away. There is at least one nuclear sub around there.

Thursday the UK Parliament has been urgently recalled.

What Syria (and its allies) can do. Syria has a good air defense system, but very limited offensive capacity (specially considering that they cannot risk to “disturb” also Israel. Iran can be a nasty surprise probably asking Hezbollah to attack/kidnap Westerners in Lebanon. Russia has already played its card with Snowden.

So it should be limited. But war is war. And oil and gold will start running again (well they already started) and the market will have its own (overdue) correction.