By Corneliu Pivariu. The latest parliamentarian elections in Iraq, held on May 12th, 2018, designated the 329 members of the Council of Representatives – the unicameral parliament which, in its turn, would, according to the constitution, elect the prime minister and the country’s president. Initially they were to be held in September 2017 and were postponed due to the fights against Daesh. In the mean time, a referendum for independence was organized whereby 93% voted for independence from the central government in Baghdad. The government led by prime minister Haidar al-Abadi responded by closing Erbil International airport, by taking over the control of the borders between Kurdistan and the neighbouring countries, by taking over the control of all disputed territories, including the town of Kirkuk (using the militias al-Hashd al-Shaabi – Popular Mobilisation) and, afterwards, through negotiations, the results of the referendum were formally cancelled. Reflecting the internal restlessness and the lack of political maturity, more than 200 parties were registered for the elections and at the end of the registrations on the electoral lists, 27 coalitions were to be found grouping 143 parties while the other parties participated independently. The participation to vote was the lowest since Saddam Hussein’s regime was overthrown in 2003, namely 44.5%. That proved the population’s lack of confidence in the current Iraqi political class and, in a way, the sense of resignation to the difficult situation the country is going through. Following certain suspicions of fraud, the parliament ordered on June 6th a manual recount of the votes but on June 10th a warehouse where about half of the ballots were kept burned down. No party or electoral alliance acquired the majority that enables the appointment of the prime minister and afterwards forming the government and that is why during the first meeting of the newly elected parliament, at the beginning of September, not even the chairman of the parliament could have been elected. The Alliance for Reform (in short in the Arabic language Saairun – Forward) acquired unexpectedly good results and its main component, the Islamic Party of Integrity, (known also as Sadr Movement) led by Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric known for his nationalistic attitude and an opponent of both Iran and the USA and who proved, over time, he was not consistent in his attitude, something he did recently when refused to back Haidar al-Abadi for a new mandate after he initially agreed to. An important role will play the Kurdish representatives who gained 47 seats and may determine which governing coalition will be. Nevertheless, their condition of lifting all restrictions imposed and Kirkuk’s returning to Kurdistan administration remains in place. The next meeting of the newly elected parliament is to be held on September 15th, yet in all likelihood itwill not succeed in unblocking the situation having in mind the latest domestic developments especially in the oil rich Basra region, south of the country, where violent demonstrations and confrontations resulted in 14 dead. Prime minister Abadi visited the area and decided the creation of 10,000 new jobs and underlined the dysfunctionalities of an artificially bloated government apparatus. Nevertheless, the population have much bigger discontents related to the public services (mainly water supply), economic inequities and unemployment. 60% of Iraq’s population is under 25 of whom 20% are unemployed. The subsidized economy characterizing the current situation in Iraq led to the redistribution of oil revenues to different parties which, in their turn, appointed in public positions loyal followers and not efficient specialists. Besides, Iraq is seen domestically as a failed state whereby the central government is concerned with how to steal the country’s resources and not how to rule through a real sharing of power to the benefit of the common citizen. The confrontation between the USA and Iran for influencing the process of forming the government, the Iranian general Kasem Suleimani, the head of Pasdaran actions and those of the American Envoy for the Global Coalition against Daesh, Brett McGurk are obvious signs of this dispute which should be added to this difficult domestic situation which will last for many years. Under such circumstances, Iraq’s future doesn’t look too well. ———————

About the author:

Corneliu Pivariu Military Intelligence and International Relations Senior Expert A former first deputy for military intelligence (two stars general) in the Romanian MoD, retired 2003. Member of IISS – London, alumni of Harvard – Kennedy School Executive Education and others international organizations. Founder of INGEPO Consulting, and bimonthly Bulletin, Geostrategic Pulse”. Main areas of expertise – geopolitics, intelligence and security. ————- Corneliu Pivariu. Photographer: Ionus Paraschiv.

By Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic. The major new report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in Korea on October 8 (2018), is nearly 800 pages long and includes more than 6,000 scientific references. However, it can be summarized in just few sentences with absolutely horrific implications: The average global temperature is now 1.0°C above its pre-industrial levels.That increase is already causing more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, and is damaging untold number of land and sea ecosystems. A 1.5°C increase, likely by 2040, would make things worse. A 2.0°C increase will be far worse than that. Only radical socio-economic and politico-diplomatic change can stop catastrophe. The world’s leading climate scientists have warned that only a dozen years are left for global warming to be kept to a maximum increase of 1.5°C. Beyond that an irreversibility effect would be set in motion: even half a degree increase will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat, hence poverty for hundreds of millions of people. To avoid the most serious damage requires transforming the world economy within just a few years, said the authors, who estimate that the damage would come at a cost of a fantastic, and rather fracturing, $54 trillion. This transformation goes – of course – beyond what we usually label as ‘economy’. It will require a change of entire human dynamics; modes and preference of how we extract, manufacture, distribute, consume, spend, live, travel, power all that, think of and teach about it. Reactions are unfolding: “Limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels would be a herculean task, involving rapid, dramatic changes in the way that governments, industries and societies function” – says the Nature magazine. Science Daily predicts: “Limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society … With clear benefits to people and natural ecosystems, limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared to 2°C could go hand in hand with ensuring a more sustainable and equitable society”. Unholy war against everything beautiful on this planet Nevertheless, for the informed and willing, all was clear already with the Rio summit. Back then, I was quick to react: it was me being among the very first in Europe to conceptualise and introduce (and set as obligatory) the subject of Sustainable Development (along with Environment Ethics) in the universities of Europe. Thus, for the past two decades I’ve been teaching my students that: “Currently, the amount of crops, animals and other biomatter we all extract from the earth each year exceeds what such a small planet can replace by an estimated 20% – meaning it takes almost 14,4 months to replenish what we use perannum – in consecutive 12 months – deficit spending of the worst kind.” Lecture after lecture, generation after generation, decade by decade, I have sought to educated my students that: “Through pollution and global warming are legacies of products, processes and systems designed without thought to the environmental consequences, cohesion of international community along with rapid introduction of new international policiesand strategies in a form of clean practices and technologies holds the solutions (e.g. promoting greater coherence between energy, research and environmental policies). Since the environmental degradation (incl. the accelerated speed of extinction of living species – loss of biodiversity) knows no borders – the SD (Sustainable Development) is a matrix of truly global and timeless dimensions.” In the meantime, the Climate Change nihilists and prepaid lobbyists dominated media and our entire social narratives by accusing this sort of constructivism and predictive education as an environmental alarmism and scientific sensationalism. This is how we lost almost three decades from Rio over Johannesburg, Copenhagen, Kyoto and Paris to come to our current draw: an abyss of “only 12 years left” diagnosis. How shall we here and now reconcile our past optimism about the possibilities and the current pessimism about our probabilities? How to register our future claims rapidly and effectively on preservation of overall human vertical when we systematically ridiculed and dismissed every science short of quick profit (or defensive modernization), when we pauperized and disfranchised so many people on this planet in the past few decades like never before in history? Hence, rapid and far-reaching changes to almost every facet of society are needed to avoid catastrophic climate change, reforms far beyond anything governments are currently either doing or planning to do.Additionally, it requirescomplete reversionof our life styles and socio-economic fashions, passions and drives – e.g. elimination of “here-us-now” over-consumerism of everything tangible and non-tangible. Planet devastated by anti-intellectualism Are we able to mobilise our socially fractured, and anti-intellectualised globe that fast and that solid? The world must invest $2.4 trillion in clean energy every year through 2035 and cut the use of coal-fired power to almost nothing by 2050 to avoid catastrophic damage from climate change, according to scientists convened by the United Nations. That of course includes elimination of oil and gas from our Primary Energy Mix (PEM) as well as total eradication of the ICE-powered cars (both diesel and petrol). All that is required within the following decade. Which kind of existential stress this new “Cambrian explosion” will cause on adaptive and non-adaptive inorganic clusters and systems of our biota, and its group dynamics? What impact it will have on the traditionally automotive-industry leaning regions, and what on aviation industry – which, at least when comes to continental Europe, could have been grounded decades ago – since even at our current technological level, railroad transportation would be cheaper faster safer than using planes?What implication does it bring to the extremely crude-export dependent Middle East, which is situated in a center of our planet but at the periphery of human progress? Finally, who will invest to such a change? The insurance and RE (reinsurance) industries are on a brink of ‘impossibility to perform’ clauses – as the severity and frequency of (the so-called) ‘natural occurrences’ (such as floodings, hurricanes, wet monsoons, conveyer belt currents and temperature shifts, glacier retreat, etc) makes the insured case incalculable and unpredictable. The link between Climate Change and global financial crisis triggered by the insolvency of major investors is thereby established. This is to name but few of numerous implications and unanswered dilemmas yet even unasked question[1]. No doubt, our crisis is real, but neither sudden nor recent. Our environmental, financial and politico-economic policies and practices have created the global stress for us and all life forms of this planet. Simply, our much-celebrated globalisation deprived from environmental and social concerns, as well as from a mutual and fair cooperation(instead of induced confrontation and perpetuated exclusion) caged us into the ecological globalistan and political terroristan. (Acidifying of oceans and brutalization of our human interactions are just two sides of a same coin. What is the social sphere for society that is the biosphere for the very life on earth, since what  we euphemistically call anthropogenic Climate Change is actually a brutal war against nature.) The world based on agreed principles that – besides businesses and governments – involves all other societal stakeholders, re-captured global cohesion and commonly willing actions is not a better place. It is the only way for the human race to survive. Deep and structural, this must be a crisis of our cognitivity. Thus, the latest Climate Change (CC) Report is only seemingly on Climate. It is actually a behavioristic study on (the developmental dead end of) our other ‘CC’ – competition and confrontation, instead of cooperation and (all-included) consensus. Simply, it is the Report on our continued global Jihad against the cognitive mind.   About the author: Anis H. Bajrektarevic,   Vienna, 10 OCT 2018 anis@corpsdiplomatique.cd Author is chairperson and professor in international law and global political studies, Vienna, Austria.   He authored six books (for American and European publishers) and numerous articles on, mainly, geopolitics energy and technology.For the past decades, he has over 1,200 hours of teaching on the subject Sustainable Development (Institutions and Instruments). No Asian century is his forthcoming book, scheduled for later this year. —- [1] Still today, sustainability is lacking an operational definition: There is a controversy whether to consider a human-made capital combined with a natural capital (weak sustainability) or separately (strong sustainability). The central to this question is to which extend a human capital or rather technology can substitute the loss of natural resources.