Trump's solo act can't compete with the
hard rock presidents from the electric east
Those were
the days, during the Cold War 1960s and 1970s, when the earth was actually
ruled by rock supergroups – from Cream and Led Zeppelin to Yes and Emerson,
Lake & Palmer.
Welcome back my friends to the show that never
ends – and the post-truth geopolitical remix of the supergroup. Meet The
Sanctioned; a multinational band starring multi-instrumentalists Vladimir
Putin (Russia), Xi Jinping (China), Hassan Rouhani (Iran) and Recep Tayyip
Erdogan (Turkey).
As the whole rock universe knows, The
Sanctioned run the relentless risk of being outshined – in the form of
multi-layered sanctions – by undisputed glitter solo act Donald Trump (US).
The two real virtuosos in the band relish
playing in perfect synch. Putin may indulge only the occasional Jimmy Page solo
(as in Caspian-launched missiles against Daesh in Syria); he’s more like Keith
Emerson invoking the Russian classical composer Mussorgsky. Xi is fond of
orchestral Pink Floyd-esque concept albums, in the New Silk Roads mould.
Rouhani could be Jack Bruce in Cream – supplying those subtle moments of
faultless musicianship. It’s Erdogan who’s irresistibly attracted to summon the
back door man’s antics of Robert Plant.
As for Trump, he’s no Dylan – and certainly not Roger Waters;
more like Ted Nugent with some Black Sabbath overtones.
As for Trump, he’s no Dylan – and certainly not Roger
Waters; more like Ted
Nugent with some Black Sabbath overtones.
So what will The Sanctioned come up next? A doozy like Deep
Purple without Gillan and Blackmore or an epic like ELP’s Fanfare
for the Common Man?
The Fanfare for the Common Man geoeconomic
scenario reads like this.
Putin-Xi – as in the Russia-China strategic partnership – offer
Erdogan membership of both the BRICS (as in BRICS Plus) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organizations
(SCO). Erdogan, on the record, has already manifested interest in both.
Turkey pulls out of NATO. The Turkish military
will squeal, but Erdogan, after the failed 2016 coup – of which he was alerted
by Russian intelligence – now controls the military.
Beijing and Moscow offer an array of trade deals; Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has already offered trade in their own
currencies. Erdogan for his part said Turkey is ready to begin
using local currencies in trade with Russia, China, Iran and
the EU.
After Turkey restructures its US dollar debts,
China buys up the Turkish lira off foreign exchange markets – an easy play for
the People’s Bank of China (PBOC). Ankara is already planning to issue
yuan-denominated bonds. China’s ICBC already announced a $3.6 billion loan for
energy/transport.
In sharp contrast to the Washington Consensus,
Erdogan very well knows that Turkey cannot “rewrite the crisis management
playbook for emerging markets” by surrendering to IMF austerity. An answer
would be to increasingly rely on the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank
(AIIB).
Then most of the scenario – SCO, BRICS Plus, AIIB, trade
bypassing the US dollar – is replayed with Iran, as in those days when Pink
Floyd used to engage in full encores of Dark Side of the Moon.
A new
sell-out album
The Sanctioned’s new album (in 180g vinyl plus all
formats/platforms), titled Eurasian Integration, is
destined for multi-platinum status and to fill multi-purpose arenas from Izmir
and Hamadan to Chongqing and Vladivostok.
It features Iran as an even more crucial hub of the New Silk
Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – in conjunction to the new
connectivity drive between Russia and Iran signed at the landmark Caspian Sea Convention.
In a parallel track, the China-Kazakhstan-Iran
connectivity corridor already features freight trains plying the route all the
way to the Iranian Caspian port of Bandar-e Anzali.
Another key track in the new album revolves
around the BRICS’s Contingent Reserve Agreement (CRA), decided at their latest
summit; a mechanism to de-dollarize economies which will be expanded as the
BRICS turn into BRICS Plus.
After signing an interim agreement three
months ago, Iran is already on the way to engage, by the start of 2020, into a
full free trade deal with the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). Turkey will
follow.
As EU companies leave sanctioned Iran, Chinese and Russian
companies go into overdrive. As the US Congress slaps a nyet on
Turkey buying F-35 fighter jets because Ankara is buying the Russian S-400
air-defense system, Boeing and Airbus in Iran are bound to lose market share to
Russian jets such as the MS-21 or the IL-96-400M.
And as Iran-Turkey trade gets a boost, Turkish
Stream – the Russia-Turkey strategic energy partnership – is far from being
derailed.
Erdogan knows very well how Turkey is the
quintessential East-meets-West strategic connector across Eurasia. And he knows
what’s he’s really “guilty” of: buying the S-400s, ditching the “Assad must go”
obsession, advancing Turkish Stream and insisting Turkey will continue to buy
Iranian oil.
So as he perfects his Robert Plant
impersonation – “You need coolin’/ Baby I’m not foolin’/ I’m gonna send ya/
back to schoolin’” – Erdogan is doing the math on how a New Silk Roads
partnership among equals, in tandem with a close relationship with the AIIB and
the EAEU may be way more profitable than a toxic cocktail of oversized NATO, no
EU and IMF neoliberal austerity.
That partly explains Ankara’s whirling dervish dance away from
US T-bills, bonds and notes by over 50% since the end of 2017. While, in
parallel, Moscow and Beijing (followed at a distance by New Delhi and even
Ankara itself) keep piling up gold anticipating the extra bonanza of Eurasian
Integration, the hit album.
A very handy thermometer of Erdogan’s
popularity may be found in Fatih, a pious, working-class neighborhood on the
European shore of Istanbul.
Fatih mirrors Erdogan’s immense popularity all across Anatolia. Whatever his
notorious, incandescent illiberal traits, Erdogan’s development program is not
only about more mosques and more malls. The AKP over the years did manage to
set up a quite decent universal healthcare insurance system – including the
upgrading of public hospitals – as well as a pension system.
Now it’s time to deliver again – nationally
and globally.
Calling
all Eurasian young dudes
Meanwhile, Russia will keep developing a very sophisticated
strategy across the Black Sea.
In no time, Putin has already reshaped the Black Sea –
geopolitically and geoeconomically. The graphic symbol is the sumptuous Kerch
Strait bridge to Crimea – an engineering tour de force
inaugurated only three months ago.
Putin’s multi-instrumental riffs are
ubiquitous. Erdogan gets S-400s, nuclear power plants and Turkish Stream (which
also benefits vast tracts of southern Europe). Rouhani and the Central Asians
get a Caspian convention and the prospect of a succession of energy deals.
Damascus and Tehran – with Ankara a little far behind – get to see the possible
end of the tragic Syria war cycle.
As Erdogan progressively moves Turkey’s
reserves to yuan – and gold – benefits can accrue from more interaction with
the BRI/EAEU/SCO galaxy in everything from electronics and nuclear technology
to advanced weapons. And further connectivity may entail, for instance, Chinese
goods transiting through Russian ports in Krasnodar and Crimea to Turkish ports
in the Black Sea.
The Black Sea, for all practical purposes, is
being configured as a Russo-Turk Mediterranean Sea – much as the Caspian is now
configured as a Central Asian, non-NATO, Mediterranean Sea.
In parallel, The Sanctioned is also enjoying a
guest performing appearance by the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim al-Thani,
instrumental in the offer of a $15 billion loan to Ankara. And this after Qatar
restored good relations with Iran, including energy collaboration on the shared
South Pars/North Dome – the largest gas field on the planet.
It’s crucial to consider that in the event the
Qatar-Turkey Combined Joint Force Command may “disappear”, for some reason, the
path would be open for a nasty, joint Saudi/UAE invasion of Doha,
with major consequences; the double confiscation of the Qatari
sovereign wealth fund and North Dome – to the benefit of salvaging the sinking
“Vision 2030” House of Saud.
What’s certain for now is that The Sanctioned face a real
threat of having Eurasian Integration –
the hit album – dispatched to the bottom of the charts, with the corollary of
having new BRI and EAEU connectivity routes to Europe via crossroads Turkey
partially blocked or at least seriously disturbed.
As the (real) David Bowie wrote it, for supergroup Mott the
Hopple: All the (Eurasian) young dudes, carry the news.