Greece, France, Egypt, Syria, etc

This summer the United States political system is virtually on hold. Most acknowledge that nothing much will get done until next year when either a reelected Barack Obama or a newly elected Mitt Romney will take office. The American economy is, as always, the number one issue in the election. While issues of foreign policy and cultural issues that are perpetually in conflict will influence some votes for most it is the economic issues which will be the deciding factor.

With our own pending election to ignore Americans for the most part have not been paying attention to what goes on in Europe, The Middle East and the rest of the world. Here, however, is a news flash. What happens in these countries might affect people in this country more than what any President of our own country does. Or said another way, how the United States President handles what happens in these countries might well be more affecting of us than anything they do domestically.

In Greece today they had what seems like the fifth election so far this year, that may be exaggerated but who can keep up. The results today indicate that the Center Right parties have won enough seats to form a coalition of those that support taking measures to keep Greece in the Euro zone. Thus far these measures have been to cut and cut and cut some more. We, on the outside looking in, can all say that of course the Greeks need to make cuts, that they have been spending in a totally unreasonable, unbalanced way. Even if all these things are true, in the end, the Greek citizens have to accept whatever proposals are handed down. Thus far, mo matter how many elections they have, the measures proposed have not worked and have not been embraced. For me there is no reason to think this will change. The Germans are really the only country that has prospered under the Euro and they will insist on austerity measures to continue propping up Greece, Spain and other countries failing in the Eurozone. This is not over, not settled and could still all fall apart. Greece, Spain, Italy, their economies are in collapse and their governments and participation in the Eurozone could collapse as well. If this happens no one knows what this will mean for the European economy or the World economy. It has to at least be noted how ironic it is that again German hedgemony, this time economic, has the power through domination of other European countries to cause the world a whole lot of problems.

France had a new Presidential election a month or so ago. Nicolas Sarkozy lost his office as the French tired of his act fairly quickly. A more left leaning politician, I forget his name, has won the office and has promised, while not making radical change, that he will be much less inclined to austerity measures being considered by Sarkozy.

Moving to the Middle East Syria moves closer and closer to a Civil War. What has been going on in Syria is a travesty. Could the United States provide air cover for the Syrian rebels. Of course we could. The problem is that in the case of Syria, Russia has been much more strident in advising that they would not consider this a good thing. What happened in Libya, it seems to depose Quadaffi, is not as acceptable in Syria. Assad in Syria certainly is even more involved with terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. It seems likely that for that reason alone he provides a valuable counter balance to United States interests in the region. For this reason Russia has an interest in propping up Assad. The people and citizens of his country struggle each day however.

Perhaps most significantly Egypt has had, in the eyes of some Western observers, a coup as it's Generals are making very apparent that their influence is not abating and they have very little incentive or plan to cede power to any Democratically elected government. This is not getting much play in America right now but this story may be the most important. What happens in Egypt could trigger a conflict throughout the Middle East.

So the next time you see Romney and Obama pointing fingers and discussing some silly inane thing remmeber their are important things going on in the world and how the next President handles these will have a great impact on us all.