These were the events that mattered this week in Gorilla’s world:
*UN Follies: President Obama made his first General Assembly speech and presided over a Security Council meeting that passed a resolution in favor of nuclear disarmament. Gorilla thinks that none of this will be remembered a month from now.
*The Summit Of Shaking Hands: President Obama found out yet again that neither Israel nor the Palestinians are serious about peace. So, a bit of blunt speaking and a handshake sealed 8 months or so of pointless diplomacy. Gorilla suggests that it will be at least a year and/or another Israeli election before much happens in that part of the Middle East.
*The G-20 Follies: Now a larger and more unwieldy group than the G-8 is able to agree on nothing. We want the Europeans to cut back their presence in the IMF, they want us to cut back on the presence of our bankers. Gorilla thinks the next financial bubble is underway, so there’ll be a year or two of messing about ineffectually with finance before we can all resume panic stations.
*The Secret Iranian Nuclear Facility: Well, not so secret any more. It’s hard to understand why everyone is so worried about a fifth-rate regional power that we could destroy in five minutes if a single nuclear warhead was launched at Israel or Europe. Gorilla believes all of the sturm and drang about Iran is leading inevitably to a bilateral deal being cut within the next 12 months.
*Health Care Reform: Still going nowhere. Gorilla thinks it would be nice if nominally Democratic Senators decided to go along with the last 2 elections and vote Democratic, but he’s not holding his breath. A bill by November, full of sound and fury, signifying not very much.
*Catching A Possible Bomber: The Nail Varnish Remover Terrorist may not be a serious threat, but at least the FBI didn’t manufacture this case (unlike those in Texas and Illinois). Gorilla thinks we’ll learn something about how fanaticism develops in and is exported by semi-failed states, but we won’t learn anything much about what we can do about it.
*The V Word: Back again to remind us, 35 years on, that listening to your commanders on the ground is as good a way to lose wars as any. Gorilla does not think the Pentagon will get the troops it wants in Afghanistan and we’ll be phasing out of there within 12 months.
