Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
This week I am addressing themes I see playing out in 2016.
A number of systemic, structural forces are intersecting in 2016. One is the decline of Great Power leverage.
Once a nation's civil society--broadly speaking, the institutions of social cohesion--has been shredded so that power rests in the hands of the few, the nations becomes exquisitely vulnerable to coups and regime change.
From an escalating crisis in Saudi/Iranian relations to crashing markets in China, the prospects for peace and prosperity in the new year seem dim.
With the world once again gripped by the latest Middle East snafu in which suddenly every Gulf State has found itself in the worst diplomatic crisis with Iran in 30 years which, incidentally, started after Saudi Arabia executed a Shiite cleric in its biggest mass execution yet, unleashing righteous Iranian anger at its action, many have forgotten - if only temporarily - about Europe's biggest crisis at the moment: the onslaught by over one million refugees, who are desperate to escape from the political disaster that are the broken states of Syria and Iraq.
The British prime minister has been urged to clarify the role the UK Government played in voting Saudi Arabia on to the UN Human Rights Council. The leaders of the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats are calling on David Cameron to come clean on the issue. The calls follow the kingdom’s execution of 47 people in a single day which sparked outrage across the Middle East.
Over the weekend, a series of dramatic events stemming from Saudi Arabia’s execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr plunged the Mid-East further into chaos.
The torching of the Saudi embassy in Tehran prompted Riyadh to cut diplomatic ties with the Iranians and on Monday, Bahrain quickly followed while the UAE recalled its ambassador.