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Keith E Rice's Integrated SocioPsychology Blog & Pages

Aligning, integrating and applying the behavioural sciences

‘international relations’

Iran: Jaw, Jaw or War, War?

Early in June the Israeli airforce carried out an exercise – sending 100 F15s and F16s out over the Eastern Mediterranean and Greece – supported by aerial tankers for in-flight refuelling. It was an impressive logistical feat and is being portrayed in the media as a dry run for bombing the Iranians’ principal nuclear facility at Bushehr. Interestingly it was not the Israelis or any of the other Middle Eastern states which ‘leaked’ the story but the Americans – with the spin that the Israelis were demonstrating to Tehran that they do have the capability of getting as far as Bushehr. As the news leaked (June 20), the Israeli government stepped up the war of words with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (struggling to regain domestic credibility after more corruption allegations) saying: “Iran will not be nuclear.” Even more ominously Deputy Prime Minster Shaul Mofaz told journalists a strike on Iran was now “unavoidable”. Arch neocon John Bolton, one-time US ambassador to the United Nations, has gone on record as saying he believes Israeli will strike in between the presidential election in November and the inauguration of the new President. A strike before the election might influence it unduly; if Barack Obama… Read More

Africa: the KEY Question (Debt Relief, Development & Values)

by Alan Tonkin With the impetus of the ‘Make Poverty History’  campaign growing stronger and stronger day by day as we approach the Gleneagles summit, I’m delighted Alan Tonkin has allowed me to reproduce this new feature from his Global Values Network web site. (GVN is one of the most advanced in the world at using Spiral Dynamics to monitor shifts in societies and assess impacts at both national, international and even global levels.)  Alan’s piece is a thoughtful but impassioned piece for the G8 leaders to adopt a multi-vMEME approach to the many different problems facing Africa.   In considering the current debate around the forthcoming G8 Meeting to be held at Gleneagles in the UK and the position of a number of the G8 countries on debt relief, there is little doubt that there are high expectations that the developed nations will go some way to resolving the debt burdens of the poorer countries, particularly in Africa. Africa is the only continent where living standards have declined over the last 20 years. To some extent this is due to the debt burden many countries carry and their repayment commitments but in many cases this is also the result of dictatorships, poor governance and… Read More