‘Honest’ Broker – United States Foreign Policy!
The Buddhist Jataka that travelled to Victorian England!
India and Honest Brokers
There is this Buddhist Jataka story which we have all heard.
Two cats go to a monkey for help in dividing some eatable equally. End result – the monkey gets everything. The cats, nothing. ‘Honest’ brokers are the monkey which leaves nothing for the cats.
Hillary Clinton assured a nervous gathering of Foreign Policy analysts that the world is counting on the USA today as it has in the past. When old adversaries need an honest broker or fundamental freedoms need a champion, people turn to us. When the earth shakes or rivers overflow their banks, when pandemics rage or simmering tensions burst into violence, the world looks to us. (via Remarks on United States Foreign Policy).
In real life
What is left of Pakistan after US finished with brokering Pakistan’s future? After the West carved up the Ottoman Empire, and divided the Turkish possessions among their puppets, what is left of the Middle East? With oil, Big Oil, oil politics, oil-dollar, oil prices at stake, can the US be a honest broker.
Tell that to the birds.
With oil at stake, how 'honest' a broker can the US be? (Cartoon by Pat Oliphant). Click for larger image.
Can there be a ‘honest’ broker?
This idea that there cannot be ‘honest’ brokers, made Buddhism so popular all over the world. Not pretty statues and musical chants. In the last 200 years, भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra has gone into regression. But, in this period, the world has also learnt more about the limitations of the Desert Bloc ideology.
People get ready!
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- A Salient Fact About US-Israeli Relations (Several Billion, in Fact) (outsidethebeltway.com)
- Barack Obama agrees to form joint national security body with UK (guardian.co.uk)
- A call for change – Obama has ‘failed,’ Pawlenty says (politico.com)
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The monkey – cat story is excellent.. very apt to describe present day situation
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