May 2018 – Hans Sluga Blog

The Battle for Hegemony in the Middle East

The current American administration appears set on all out conflict with Iran. In this endeavor it has allied itself unconditionally with Saudi Arabia. Is this a clear-sighted policy? In an uncompromising speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation, Mike Pompeo, the new American Foreign Secretary, today, May 21, 2018, threatened that "Iran will continue to feel the 'sting of sanctions' if its doesn’t change the 'unacceptable and unproductive path it has chosen. These will be the strongest sanctions in history by the time we are complete'.” Bloomberg News adds in its report on the speech: "The former CIA director essentially demanded Iran’s total submission without offering anything in return aside from the hazy prospect of sanctions relief at some future date." There is no doubt that the Iranian authorities will find this offer as unacceptable as it is meant to be. Thus, the stage is set for more confrontation.

Here is an exceptionally insightful critique of this course of policy from May 2017 by an Israeli analyst.

How many is too many? Do we still need to think about overpopulation?

Our politicians do not like to speak about overpopulation out of fear for the pious who believe that human beings ought to multiply. Left-wing ideologues argue that there is no such thing and that every apparent problem can be solved through a more equal distribution of resources. Enlightened progressivists are confident that there will be a technological fix. Economists tell us that we need continuous growth and hence more consumers. And the statisticians are confident that the growth of the human population will eventually slow down. We are, in reality, already bursting at the seams; numerous ecological problems are due to the fact that there are already so many of us. We need to think harder about the problem, something we find hard to do. We need to consider what the size of the human population should ideally be? And if we are already overloaded, we must also ask how we can reduce the size of the population in a humane way. We need to ask what obligations we have to coming generations.

The state of emergency is the new normal

Ever since the attempted coup two years ago, on July 15, 2016, Turkey has been in a state of emergency. But for the eyes of the casual visitor this is in no ways visible. In Istanbul and Ankara life proceeds, so it seems, as usual.

The caves of Cappadocia

Cappadocia in the southern corner of Turkey is a region of unearthly beauty, far removed, so it seems, from the currents of modern life. But it has a turbulent past and perhaps even a message for our own day. Syria and the Kurdish areas of the Middle East are close by. Cappadocia was once a crossroads for conquerors, Hittites, Persians, and Romans, Seljuks and Turks. Early Christianity took roots here but eventually was forced to hide away in the caves that pockmark the region.