Cicero's Songs

Despite the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei and his wife, together with killing or wounding several senior members of the Iranian government on February 28th, Trump's war of choice against Iran appears to be facing significant problems. Firstly, the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran have not dissolved into chaos. They have moved quickly to install Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ali Hosseini, as the new Supreme Leader. Mojtaba Kahmenei is said to be very close the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and especially its paramilitary wing, the Basij. These are the two institutions that have been the primary organs of repression and are certainly responsible for thousands, probably tens of thousands, of deaths since the recent unrest began. The appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei, who is rumoured to have been wounded in the attack that killed his parents, is therefore not a sign that the Islamic Republic is seeking to moderate its positions. Sure enou...

 In 1989, the international norms that had held for decades. In the tumultuous autumn of 1989 the various governments of the Warsaw Pact fell in turn. "In Hungary it took six years, in Poland it took six months, In East Germany it took six weeks, in Czechoslovakia six days and in Romania it took six hours". Communism had collapsed under its own contradictions. As we read the headlines in January 2026, it is hard not to feel certain 1989 vibes. The end of Maduro in Venezuela, and now the explosion of unrest in the "Islamic Republic" of Iran. It is not easy to understand what is going on across the cities of Iran at this point, but one thing is very clear: the regime of the Mullahs is being shaken to its very foundations.  Tired of the casual brutality, corruption and incompetence of the clerical regime, the Iranian people are expressing a clear desire to end the broken system that has governed them for nearly fifty years. Meanwhile other authoritarian governments, in...

It is a basic contention of this blog that Donald J Trump is not fit for office. A crooked real estate developer with a dubious past and highly questionable finances. he has systematically lied his way into financial or other advantage. His personal qualities include vulgarity, sexual assault allegations and fraudulent statements on almost every subject.  He lost the popular vote by nearly three million votes. He has, of course, been under criminal investigation practically since before he took the oath of office. The indictment of some of closest advisers is just the beginning. His track record suggests that in due course there is no action he will not take, whether illegal or unconstitutional in order to derail his own inevitable impeachment and the indictments that must surely follow the successful investigation of Robert Mueller into his connections with Russia. However, all of that is a matter for the American people.  It is also a matter for the American people...

On August 9th 1974 Gerald Ford took the oath of office to become president of the United States. In his brief speech he said: " My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over... Our  Constitution  works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men." 43 years later, the American Republic is being tested in a way it has never been tested in the 241 years since the declaration of independence.  It is not just that Donald Trump is a vulgar, boorish, lecher . It is not just that he has consistently lied about his businesses and has consistently used mafia levels of intimidation and fraudulent promises in order to cheat his way out of trouble . It is not just that his absurd self-regard renders him utterly unfit for any public office. It is not even that Trump was over three million votes behind in the popular vote. There are three intersecting crises in America today. They are economic, political, and constitutional. The United States is no l...

In espionage the standard of proof is a variable measure. There are very few times that information can be said to be "beyond reasonable doubt". Nuances and circumstances acquire great significance and it requires an analyst with a deep sense of intuition to piece together an accurate narrative from small pieces of partial information. There may be much data, but to find the information it contains is like putting together a shattered mirror, where you do not know whether you have all the pieces. Thus intelligence can be a double-edged sword, and it is dangerous to rely purely on secret intelligence without bringing one's own sceptical biases into the equation.  Spies are much given to using two quotes from Sherlock Holmes: the first dictum is about positive truth: "once you eliminate the impossible, what ever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth". The second is "the curious incident of the dog in the night time" "the dog did noth...

Although the opinion polls are close, the betting markets barely move: the punters are still backing the United States to vote for Hillary Clinton and the United Kingdom to vote to stay part of the European Union.  Yet, just suppose the punters are wrong? Just suppose that the polls are right and the UK does vote to Leave. Firstly this would trigger an immediate resignation from David Cameron. His luck would have run out. The Prime Minister himself suggests that his successor is most likely to be a "leaver", "that is where the heart of the Conservative party beats". Despite his unhappy performance so far, that still probably means that Boris Johnson would be the next Prime Minister. The new PM would have a massive pile of problems to deal with on day one. Quite apart from the critical choices that he will have to make on behalf of the UK and it future relations with the EU, he would also have to steady the economic ship, which would be more than a somewhat rattl...

Students are meant to convulse - if one can not rebel during late adolescence, then pretty quickly you run out of time and the varied pressures of earning a living, maintaining a relationship and/or a family enforce a conformity of one sort or another. The inventive and occasionally wacky ways that students rebel stretch from placing traffic cones on the heads of statues, toga parties, to Trotskyism. Sometimes students get more serious and do things that require some kind of intervention, like an addiction to Class A drugs, attempted suicide and supporting Stalin (Yes, Seamus Milne, I am talking about you). So far, so juvenile. However, in both the US and the UK, there seems to have emerged a class of student whose infantilism rejects the entire course of Western civilisation. Someone has offended their feelings with statements that they disagree with. Yet instead of responding to a challenge to their point of view in the the approved academic way- with rational argument- th...

There are several ways you can take a front row view of the daily battles in Cyber space. The Norse Platform displays about 1% of the attacks that go on across the Internet every day. It should be a firm resolve of all Internet users to disinfect their system as often as practical. It also speaks volumes about the current state of global politics. Mind you watching the attacks- mostly from China against the USA- is strangely compelling, as you can see here .    Those are real attacks and real damage is cause each time.

The American Constitution is a practical document, not holy writ as so many Americans might have you believe. It has its fair share of holes- as was most recently shown in 2000 when despite a popular victory of over a million votes, Vice President Al Gore was defeated by George W Bush in highly controversial circumstances . However in its practical way is sets a regular round of elections, with the election date being the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The 2012 election is thus due on Tuesday 6th November. It is an election in many states for the Senate, and in all states for the House of Representatives, on the ballot are innumerable state offices, from to sheriff to comptroller, to district attorney. Of course this is a leap year, and as a result the top of the ballot is reserved for the election of the President and Vice President of the United States- the two most senior officials of the Republic. OK, so its an important election, and it is also a close one......

In the United Sates as much as in Britain, the idea of a political elite attracts fear and loathing in equal measure. "Elitist" is a political insult in both political cultures. It is important for aspiring politicians that they sell themselves as normal plain folks. So it is that we get the uncomfortable spectacle of various politicians trying unconvincingly to mix it with the proles. Yet what are we to make of the latest twists in the bizarre saga of Sarah Palin? It becomes clear that as candidate for the second highest office in the United States, she knew so little about international affairs, even of the closest ally of the US, that she proposed talking to the Queen in order to ensure continued British presence in Iraq . This doltish woman could have been a heartbeat away from supreme power in the United States- the worlds most powerful state! Now of course we can say that she was an exception- but she isn't. Stupidity seems to be no hurdle to gaining political...

The fact is that the financial crisis was rooted in a failure of politics in the first place.  The changes to mortgage regulation under President Clinton forced US banks to enter the "sub-Prime" Market in the first place. The Banks, attempting to improve- as they hoped- the riskiness of these loans, bundled them with safer loans in order to try to insure themselves. Meanwhile, the monetary management by the global central banks was very loose: interest rates were historically low for a prolonged period. The implication was that there had, under the influence of new technology, been a significant improvement in capacity. In fact as we now know, both low rates and nominally higher growth were being maintained by a dramatic expansion of bank balance sheets. The innovation was simply in finding ways to expand global liquidity. Finally the banking system imploded. The next- disastrous- decision was political: to take the banks into public ownership. This transferred a private se...

Amid all of the controversy over the downgrade of the United states debt rating from AAA to AA+ by Standard & Poors- which seems to have resulted in the early exit of the President of S&P , Deven Sharma, from his job- it is easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. In Estonia there has been a mild celebration at a two notch upgrade in the Estonian credit rating to AA-, that is to say only three notches below the United States and just one below Japan (according to Moody's, another one of the big three rating agencies, which now also includes Fitch). The celebration was rather mooted simply because the value of such a rating is no longer the unquestioned blue ribbon it once was. Although, for regulatory reasons, investors are compelled to pay attention to ratings, the fact is that much of the latest credit crisis came about when structures, such as CDOs, which had been rated AAA by the agencies (largely, it should be said, for technical reasons) turned out to be worthle...

It is a saying attributed to Huey Long, the one time Governor of Louisiana, that "If Fascism ever comes to America, it will arrive under the disguise of Americanism". As I contemplate American politics in the second decade of the second Millennium, I am beginning to wonder what is coming next, because it is hard to believe that the money soaked banalities of the Republican straw poll in Iowa constitutes much that is particularly optimistic. The decline of America has been predicted for most of its history, Clemenceau famously once said that "America is the only country to have gone from barbarism to decadence, without the usual interval of civilization". Yet, in fact the United States has overcome many serious challenges in the past, not least the existential challenge of the civil war, and proved itself a robust and flexible political entity and an economic and social powerhouse. If, as a foreigner, I can hardly share the jingoist sentiments of many of its booste...

The fact that the United States political class as a whole clearly lacks the will to raise taxes is the fundamental reason behind the downgrade of the US credit rating. The inability of the Congress to understand that it is not just about the ability to spend less money, but to raise more revenue that underlines the strength of a country's credit rating is why America now faces an undeniable crisis. Unless the Americans can get their house in order, the market will force ever more stringent restrictions on the freedom of action of the Federal government, the State governments and indeed all US based borrowers. Although this downgrade has been predicted for some time, it is only now that market capitulation accepts the horrible truth: the US has neither the capacity nor the political will to pay its bills in full. Doubtless it will be President Obama that pays the political price, but ultimately this crisis is the fault of the Republicans: the wastrel President, George W. Bush and ...

As Congress prepares to vote on he increase in the US debt ceiling, it is salutary to reflect on the way that a routine Congressional vote has very nearly turned into an existential crisis for the United States itself. We can hope that the vote marks the nadir of the US crisis, and indeed there are some signs that, despite recent disappointing growth numbers, America may now be turning the corner. In the UK too, several indicators are showing some improvement: in particular the Coalition is currently ahead of its plans in the process of deficit reduction. The determination of the British government has been rewarded by Gilts now trading inside US Treasuries for the first time in many years. The political horsetrading in the UK has actually led to progress in deficit reduction, a sharp contrast to the US which still faces a rising tide of red ink, unless the growth outlook improves soon and the politicians continue to bicker. So if the US has indeed avoided the catastrophe of default, ...

Oliver Cromwell is one of the more quotable political figures in history. From his instruction to Sir Peter Lely to "Paint me as I am, warts and all", to his irate dismissal of the rump Parliament: "You have sat here too long for any good you have been doing lately. Depart I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, Go!", Cromwell is still widely quoted, even if people may not be conscious of the source. It was this last quote that came into my head as I contemplated the self serving cant put out by the Tea Party Congressmen in the seemingly never ending debate to increase the US debt ceiling. As various of the malcontents noisily slipped away to various chapels to commune with their Creator in a hypocritical display of discount piety, I began to believe that it might be impossible for any bill to be passed by the House of Representatives. In the end, one has been, passed, albeit an unworkable one and even that only by the slimmest of margins. I was n...

The US Republicans are in real danger of not being able to deliver any deal at all. There is a better than 60% chance that no deal can be done to raise the US debt ceiling before August 2nd. In which case the US AAA debt rating is now 80% going to fall this week. We are being constantly bombarded with the quote from the half American, Churchill: "the US always does the right thing, after it has exhausted the alternatives". Yet, what happens if the House Republicans do not do the right thing and the United States of America defaults on its debts? I think the enormity of that question provides its own answer. We are seven days away from a fundamental break down in American power. If the US defaults, it is not the same as previous crises: it will substantially and permanently degrade US standing in the world. All of the U-S-A chanting fans will be chanting for a degraded power. Those politicians who pretend that the US is an untouchable power will be seen for the frauds that th...

I see Glenn Beck has managed to show a fine display of human fellow feeling by comparing the Norwegian victims of the right-wing murderer to the Hitler Youth . Nice. But then again the US ultra-rightists are not noted for tact or, indeed, intelligence. His fellow travelers continue to hold the World hostage through their manufactured deadlock of the negotiations to raise the US debt ceiling in the US Congress. Vince Cable, in his usual blunt way, has called those Congressman and Senators responsible "Right Wing" nutters. Hard not to disagree, when we hear that the leader of the refuseniks would not even take the telephone call of his head of state. The US AAA debt rating is now quite likely to go. If the deadlock continues, then the damage of a default will be permanent. Once it becomes clear that the leverage created in the Western world since 1945 is now no longer sustainable, even by the US Federal Government, then a major financial reordering is set to take place. In 19...

As the Libyan despot Gadaffi murders his way across the wreckage of his country, it is beginning to look as though the rebellion stands on the brink of defeat. While Britain and France are trying to muster support for the interim government in Benghazi, continued air raids and merciless attacks with heavy weapons are slow prizing away their grip, even on the eastern half of Libya. It is an appalling situation. In the face of this obvious crime, President Obama seems content to pose as a neutral- seeking a no fly zone- when the time has long past where this would be successful- or other measures that might have the support of the United Nations. Yet the UN is crippled by the determined resistance of the Russian and Chinese governments to international intervention to protect human rights. After all, both Russia and China may face democratic uprisings again soon. Meanwhile the Obama administration, weary of corralling NATO in Afghanistan, does not find any other multi-lateral forum ...

OK so the State of Delaware may not have elected a Witch ("I'm not a Witch, I'm not a Witch..." WHATEVER). However the United States has elected an awful lot of people whose opinions do not vary a whole lot from such simple superstition. Evidence gathered from peer reviewed papers is not the way that the US Congress conducts its business. Over 95% of the members of Congress- both new and old- have no Scientific background whatsoever. There are more people in American politics who say that they believe in the "literal truth" of the Bible than those who acknowledge the demonstrable truth of the theory of evolution by natural selection. If you can not base your political ideas on the Scientific method of sceptical empiricism then you might as well believe in witchcraft and spells to put things right. It is through such methods that we have been able to start to catch the merest glimpse of the spectacular wonders of the Universe, and our place within it. It is...