Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 2
By Claude Salhani
Trend English Service Senior Editor Claude Salhani's article on the summary of the events that took place this past year, and what may be in store for the world over the course of the next year, has been published on Washington Times.
The article is presented below:
Double, double, oil and trouble, to paraphrase Shakespeare; those could be the key words for the coming year.
Oil and trouble, indeed. The two often go together well, and as the new year arrives, we traditionally look back at what we have accomplished and at what may be in store for the world over the course of the next 12 months.
Oh my, where to begin? There has been so much toil, oil and trouble during this past year that makes it hard to pick one series of events over the others.
Perhaps a good place to start would be with the most absurd story of the year. You guessed it - the brouhaha triggered by North Korea's lunatic dictator, Kim Jung-un and his threats to unleash nuclear war if the film in which he is portrayed is released. Bending under the threats, Sony Pictures, the studio that produced the film "The Interview," delayed its release. Talk about heavy-handed censorship.
Those who try to suppress the free flow of information fail to realize three things. First, as it's been said, "To censor a nation is to insult it." Second, in today's day and age it becomes increasingly difficult to control the flow of information owing to the speed and reach of the Internet and social media.
Third, every attempt to control or stifle an item, be it a book, a film or a cartoon, frequently ends up having the reverse effect on the intended target to be silenced. Such was the case with Salman Rushdie's book "The Satanic Verses," after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, issued a fatwa, or a religious edict, calling for the killing of Mr. Rushie. The book, a mediocre and difficult-to-follow narrative, jumped to the top of the best-seller list as a result of the ayatollah's fatwa.
Much the same scenario was applicable to the worse-than-mediocre film "Borat," by Sacha Baron Cohen. His fictitious character, Borat, made it one of the most talked-about films after the president of Kazakhstan took "Borat" to task.
For inane dictators and insane wannabe caliphs, 2014 was a fruitful year in that sense. Carving a piece of real estate out of Syria and Iraq, the group calling itself the Islamic State set itself up and began an orgy of evil directed at anyone not supporting it. Militants targeted minorities such as the Yazidis, the Turkmen, the Kurds and the Christians. They killed thousands of people, including a number of Western hostages, whom they beheaded in front of video cameras.
The group has started to become a serious threat to the region, pushing Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the Western powers to take limited military action against the Islamic State. The level of violence has rarely been seen in a region where bloodshed is never in shortage. Yet once again, the Middle East has managed to surpass itself.
Where will the Islamic State (or as it is sometimes, called ISIS or ISIL) be in 2015? Very likely, they will continue to rise through bouts of terrorism and fighting. It will very likely make some inroads in Lebanon, or at least will try, and will edge closer to Israel along the Golan, which could draw Israel into a limited conflict with the Islamic State. Ultimately, though, the Islamists will be defeated.
On a constructive note, one of the more reasonable voices from the Middle East, Jordan's King Abdullah, stressed that the Islamic State problem was primarily one that concerned Muslims and they had to take ownership of that problem.
The great surprise of 2014 was the declining price of oil on the international markets, from an all-time high of more than $100 per barrel to half that amount. This creates havoc in some oil-producing countries such as Russia. The Kremlin prepared its budget for 2015 based on revenue from oil selling at $100-plus. Now it's hovering at around $50 a barrel.
Talk about missed opportunities: The Western allies had the perfect opportunity to win the Russians over and to dissipate any reservations Moscow might have had about NATO and the West. Instead of alleviating those fears, though, the West and, more specifically, the United States, treated Moscow as though the Cold War were still going on. Russia did not help its case by its actions in Ukraine and Crimea.
Finally, despite President Obama's shortcomings in foreign affairs, his lack of a coherent policy on Syria, the failure of talks with Iran over the nuclear issue, the fiasco in Libya and the resurgence of terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2014 nevertheless closed on a positive note: With Mr. Obama normalizing relations with Havana, Americans may soon legally smoke Cuban cigars.
Claude Salhani is senior editor with Trend Agency in Baku. You can follow Claude on Twitter @Claudesalhani