Foreign Digest: Liberia, Iran, The European Monetary Union

Liberia

            Former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor was convicted in an international court for war crimes.  Not only did he oppress the people of Liberia, he aided the notoriously brutal rebels of Sierra Leone by trading arms for “blood” diamonds.  Taylor’s conviction in international court was the first for a head of state since the Nazi successor to Adolph Hitler was convicted in 1946.

Iran

            The results of the runoff of the Iranian elections confirm the point I made in my previous post on this subject – that the hardliners won the pseudo-democratic elections, but they control Iran regardless of the outcome of such elections.  The opposition was not permitted to participate fully in the election.  The only issue, therefore, was the independence of the president from the theocratic mullahs.  The election proved that he has none.  Meanwhile, Iran continues its nuclear program and its aid to Syria as its only Arab ally continues to oppress its people while the world dithers.

The European Monetary Union

            The presidential elections in France bucked the global trend toward the right in recent years.   The Socialist presidential candidate defeated the conservative incumbent, Nikolas Sarkozy, returning the Socialists to power for only the second time and the first time since the 1990s.  The 2012 French elections reflect the fickle nature of voters.  In systems where there is universal adult suffrage, voters tend to cast ballots based primarily on the economy, as well as personal perceptions about the candidates, unless there are major scandals, usually regardless of national security concerns or moral issues.  Thus, they elect one party to lead government and then throw out that party in the next election or two and then, in turn, throw that party out after a similarly brief while and return its predecessor to power, giving credit for prosperity to whichever party is in power and blame for recession to whichever party is in power, usually without factoring in the previous government’s policies or external factors beyond its control.  France had been an exception to the trend of changes in governments from one party to the other in the West in the first elections after September 11, as Sarkozy succeeded an unpopular government from the same party.  As President, he had presided over a warmer period of Franco-American relations, cooperated in the War on Terrorism, had led the effort to protect the Libyan people from Muammar Qaddafi and played a major role in attempting to resolve the European debt crisis.  Sarkozy had implemented some austerity measures to reduce French debt, as he had promised during his campaign, but was not as successful in winning as many reforms as he had hoped.  There will be parliamentary elections in June.

            The major issue in the French elections was austerity.  Although the differences between the two candidates were narrow, the Socialist promised more government spending.  Spending cuts are unpopular among the dependent class of voters who are allowed to elect leaders to take from those who have earned the money and distribute it to the dependent class, which is a legal form of stealing.  The election results in France were mirrored in the Greek parliamentary elections, which were part of a larger trend across Europe against government policies in regard to the European fiscal and economic crisis.  

          In Greece, the ruling center-left-right national unity coalition lost ground to the far-left.  Although the conservatives remain the largest party in parliament, no party won a majority of seats and no party could form a coalition, setting the stage for another parliamentary poll in June.  The far-left party won more votes than the Socialists, who were members of the pro-austerity governing coalition.  The vote for the far-left represented a popular rejection of austerity, as in France.  As I have posted before, the Greeks are unwilling to pay the price for their past overspending while the wealthier Northern Europeans, especially the Germans, are unwilling to continue to bail out the Greeks if they do not reduce their public debt.  The Greeks who voted against austerity are betting that the European Union is bluffing when it insists that Hellenic Republic must continue to reduce its massive public debt in order to receive additional bailout funds or be forced to abandon the euro and return to the drachma.  A Greek debt default and subsequent unprecedented exit from the eurozone would lead to uncertain economic shock to the European Union, the spread of fiscal contagion in the form of higher borrowing costs to the most vulnerable members of the eurozone, whose borrowing costs would rise even further, and a significant devaluation of the drachma, which would plunge Greece even deeper into a fiscal and economic abyss.  Greeks have already been withdrawing euros from banks in case of a return to the drachma, at the risk of a self-fulfilling prophecy that could further weaken Greek banks.  The uncertainty about the situation is discouraging economic activity and increasing interest rates in European states most vulnerable to contagion, thereby worsening the situation for the entire European Union.  Both the Greeks and the Europeans want Greece to remain in the eurozone, but contingency plans are being considered for a Greek exit, as the Northern Europeans are more confident that Spain and Italy can survive the shock.  The Greeks must continue to reduce spending or face the consequences while the Europeans must continue to assist Greece, should it want the euro to endure and to avoid an uncertain fate for Europe.