TFF Associates & Themes Blog

Posts Tagged ‘2017’

By Jan Oberg


Lund, Sweden – October 13, 2017




With his speech today – half an hour ago – U.S. President Trump has taken a huge step into uncharted territories.


One that implies a 60-75% risk of leading to a US attack on Iran.


Behind him stands the hardline militarists whom he has himself appointed. 



Secondly, neo-conservative individuals and think tanks who have brought the world only a series of failed wars and unspeakable human misery since the invasion of Afghanistan.


Third, the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex, MIMAC, that is outside real democratic control and pushes relentlessly for ever-increasing armament and wars and serves the public all kinds of weird, fake images of what threatens the US. 


Further, pro-Israeli and pro-Saudi lobby organisations and extremely wealthy individuals who buy political influence and thereby destroy the very foundations of democracy and free opinion formation.



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Against these numerically tiny elites stand virtually the rest of the world, including NATO allies and the EU.


They’ve all communicated very clearly to the President how important it is for all involved that he re-certifies the immensely important and historically unique Iran nuclear deal of 2015, or the JCPOA.


As is usual for failed US foreign policy there is no comprehensive strategy and no exit strategy. Having no diplomatic relations with Iran for decades, Trump lacks appropriate channels of communication.


He also lacks basic knowledge of the country. (Whereas the Iranians know the West). His bizarre image of the country as presented in this speech bodes ill in every respect.


Seldom has a Presidential speech been so filled with psycho-political projections of one’s own dark sides on the adversary as this. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jonathan Power

April 4th 2017

The long talked-about referendum in Turkey will happen on April 16th. In effect voters have to decide whether the president, Recep Erdogan, in theory the incumbent of a relatively modest political post, should now be given the powers of the president and prime minister together.

Combined with a large majority in Parliament he would have enormous power to shape Turkey around his pro-Islamic agenda. Although working within a democratic system Erdogan is in many ways a populist, rather in the mould of President Donald Trump.

Shortly after his Justice and Development Party first won an election in 2003 I was in Turkey and my first question to the people I interviewed was does the party have a “secret agenda”- that is was planning at some future date to make the country Islamist. “Definitely not”, was the almost universal response.

How wrong they were. Or perhaps they weren’t. Maybe over the years Erdogan has changed his spots.

Either way Turkey now confronts a situation where populism, Islamism and nationalism are becoming Turkey’s dominant forces. This is dangerous for Turkey.

Its highly educated, secular-minded, middle class will have less influence and indeed will be singled out and prosecuted, as many journalists, professors, novelists and judges are these days. Turkey will become even more anti the European Union – and what a mistake it was not to admit Turkey when twelve years ago it was knocking loudly on the door and was rebuffed.

The Islamist forces so strong today would have been Read the rest of this entry »