A Global Stroke

COVID 19 pandemic has been compared to many things: previous pandemics, wars, economic recessions. It has indeed similarities with all of them. But Fareed Zakharia identified a critical area in which it is unique.

This epidemic is the first in human history to provoke a simultaneous freeze of all economic and most social activity.

More than a storm, or a hurricane, COVID 19 crisis resembles a stroke.

What a stroke does to the human body, the pandemic does to the social and economic system:

1. Impairs the whole social and economic system
2. Threatens life (making health every business' business)
3. Leaves sequels (V, U or L shape recoveries

We are still nowhere near to understand quite well what point 3 will look like. Will the economy get back on its legs? Will it do it soon? Will it recover completely or just partially?

Like after a stroke, life changes are unavoidable. Rebalancing social and economic life will be complex and require reinvention and repurposing. 

Like after a stroke, it will require for many of us to let go what was sure and safe and face more uncertain and unsettling times. 

For some of us, perhaps most, surely many, it will be life-changing.

We still can think it thr0ugh and come back of it better equipped for the next -which experts consider will likely come- 

In any case, this is not a crisis that can go to waste.

It will force critical changes such as:

1. Glocalization: bringing supply chains closer to customers
2. Nearshoring: opening opportunities for borders to become more integrated in mega regions
3. Replacing China with reliable partners
4. Reinventing industries such as tourism, hospitality, food
5. Precipitating virtual work and e-performance as the new standard for work
6. Addressing slow "U-shaped" recoveries around the world
7. A world of cheap money with all its opportunities and threats
8. Bringing health and healthcare into the economic equation and to the forefront of national priorities
9. Massive demand for retraining of millions of low-income workers in mass-employing industries (food, hospitality, tourism, travel)
10. Developing readiness and resilience for the next pandemic

The "shape" of the recovery will be uneven between US, EU, Asia and the developing countries and it's still too early to know if each economy will get back on its feet, use walkers, wheelchairs or remain bed-ridden for at least 2021.

Pandemic Crisis: It's SARS 2002 all over again - But worse. Things to do and not to do about it

The risk of a global pandemic the size of the 1918 Spanish Flu or the 16th hundreds Black Death has been there is plain sight since SARS outbreak in 2002.

Once controlled, only specialists and dedicated philanthropists like Bill Gates kept warning about a danger that was manifold more likely than global warming or another recession. Even more likely than a bear market.

Here are some readings for those who want to know more about 

1. A brief recent  history of Virus & Plagues
2. and what to do about it.

And here is more Bill Gates ideas about what to do with the coronavirus Second Coming.

As for now, two equally myopic approaches engage in political warfare: those who want to quarantine everyone until the vaccine is ready and those who want to start the Easter Parade and die for the economy.

Those are the options for those who drive into cul-de-sacs. There is no way to solve the problem as a "zero-sum" game. 

Those who want to channel their energy more productively (and sanely) may just turn off the networks engaged in political football look for fresher horizons and saner ways to endure what seems to be a long and bumpy way ahead.

Most are already turning to Zoom or WhatsApp their way to stay in touch with family, friends and some sort of businesses.  That's a good beginning.

Take a look for that at our coming www.ispiglobal.org events just divided into two areas:

1. How to stay in touch and sane
2. How to make a living while this lasts

Facing the Virus Flood, some are setting up a new network of virtual rafts rather than the Biblical Arch.

This author is one of them and will stay in touch.

Pandemic crisis: all bets are off - and neither markets nor government have a clear answer

A global pandemic that started largely unnoticed in China has taken over the entire world and all the forecasts with it.

What was underestimated as a new version of SARS has shown more like the deadly 1918 Spanish Flu

World wars and globalization operate in both cases as channels that spread the virus fast and below the radar. 

The "Spanish flu" didn't actually start in Spain, but was first reported there because it was the only country that had not censored news. In the case of China, this worked exactly in reverse, because the new virus became epidemic in a country under rigid press censorship since 1949. 

China had many reasons not to report the epidemic early, mostly economic, because its economy is heavily dependent on exports. And exports they did. 

Flights, conferences and cargo continued to flow even when the city of Wuhan -whose wildlife meat markets allowed the virus to jump from animals to humans- was closed during a first outbreak while all information was censored by the CCP. Nobody knows how many people actually died in Wuhan to this day.

Facing the pandemic, The Economist defined two courses of action:

1. Suppression

China operated in the same manner that caused this and other SARS-like outbreaks: using the absolute power that dictatorships have to censor to also close the city and accesses and let people trapped inside to make sure there was not possibility of spread.

That stopped the diffusion but only temporarily. Once the locks are relaxed, the cases spike up again because those who weren't exposed to the virus can't develop defenses against it.

In addition, if it's not possible to "seal out" cities for more than 3 or 4 months like China did, once the virus "left the barn" it continues to spread. Most EU countries have such dense and close cities that it's almost impossible to do what China did with Wuhan.

Finally, suppression also presents the additional challenge of economics: it creates a cascade of paralysis in vital value chains and critical supply and demand.

2. Mitigation: 

South Korea and Singapore used massive and quick testing to detect and isolate the infected, stalling successfully the spread without massive economic paralysis. Once again, this requires a rare combination of tests availability and organized action, much easier in these two countries that in larger ones.

Mitigation might not stall the economy immediately, but it might overwhelm healthcare resources between 6 to 8-fold their capacity to treat the infected.

US has been oscillating between 1 and 2, with a Federal government leaning towards the second and large states and cities like those in California and New York trying to follow the the first approach. 

US's federalist, decentralized and non-universally covered healthcare and "divided government" type of governance makes the country extremely difficult to work without resorting to special executive powers such as those vested to POTUS during world wars and the Great Depression.

Understanding why Trump won, wins, and could likely be reelected

Those who didn't vote for Trump and those who actively hate his very provocative public behavior seem unable to understand the reasons of his growing domestic support, his foreign policy's successes and the sustained economic boom he presides and encourages.

Watching some documentaries may help those who are not hostages to the oxymoron of partisan logic and thinking. Turning off CNN, Fox, Breitbart, MSNBC and PBS can be a good start. Read books and the reasoning of the other side of your ideological and political spectrum instead.

Let's begin with the contempt and condescension towards Trump's intellect and his supporters':

Hillary Clinton has yet to realize why she blew her own  "blue wall" in the Midwest -the only wall she could break through- and why her party has left her for the Far Left, that blames her for not having been even more wrong about understanding the "Somewhere" voters that used to vote Democrat. 

One good start to understand why middle America's Obama voters turned into Trump voters is reading J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy :

And the more in depth sociological and demographic-based analysis in Charles Murray's "Coming Apart":

In his book "The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics" British sociologist David Goodhart explains this "cognitive the same phenomenon between Remainers and Brexiteers in UK as well. He does it in terms of "anywheres" -college educated urban professionals with global skills finding jobs around the world - coming apart from "somewheres" -trades-trained suburban multi-generational blue collar workers losing their jobs to globalization and "creative destruction" fueled by "anywheres'-.

Even if you are an "anywhere" -or perhaps especially if you are one of those "anywhere" worried about the apparent right-turn in US and Western Europe voters- it's still time to look at the other side of your spectrum and remember that elections not only have consequences,  but lessons that if not learned, may come back with a vengeance.

Relax, give yourself time to open your mind to the other side's views and give a second look at how and why Donald Trump became our 45th president in 2016.

And if you think Trump is dumb and ignorant in political matters you should also check this long interview he gave David Rubinstein well before he decided to run for office a second time. 

There is a method to Trump's "madness", to his deliberate incivility towards others, and to his very New York-real estate-mogul bargaining tactics. And that method is by any means any less astute than Washington DC politicians grandiloquent rhetoric. 

Those who look down on Trump's intellect or political acumen could use some recent memory to look at how their previous forecasts based on that premise make them look now:

Love's Labor's Lost: Londonistan fuels Brexit

Just days ahead of a pivotal parliamentary election, a new terrorist-inspired stabbing at the London bridge brings to the front page what has been behind the growing momentum for Brexit.

It is clear that for most UK voters the reality of "Londonistan" -as the growingly insulated and non-integrated fundamentalist enclaves are called in London- is one of the key reasons for breaking with the European Union "Schengen" immigration policies.

The unintended -and unattended- effects of what in practice is an "open- and cross- border" policy that allows low-income Muslim and Eastern European cheap labor workers to establish in the UK has been a national uproar for two clear reasons: economic and cultural.

Love's Labor Lost I: it's the economy, again.

Attracted by the availability of welfare state serviced, low-income migrants have overwhelmed the resources of the healthcare and housing systems and crowded-out low income workers who feel betrayed by their traditional Labor union party which they see in cahoots with "anywhere" mobile elites traditionally favoring globalization and gentrification.

Love's Labor Lost II:  the culture clash.

On top of the economic conflict, a sizable part of the UK immigration adds a couple of cultural explosive deal-breakers: anti-Western religious indoctrination and beliefs and islamic fundamentalist terrorism.

The latest stabbings follow a string of attacks that started with the 2005 London bombings but more dramatically spread into the civil society with stabbings and violence in almost all major cities where Muslim fundamentalist immigrants settled for jobs without proper cultural assimilation.  "Londonistan" ghettos grew out of a toxic combination of anti-Western fundamentalist indoctrination and "multi-cultural", "salad-bowl" progressive policies.

The result is in full display: a turn against the EU and for Brexit and a deep and longer-lasting social conflict that will traumatize UK for years to come.

Like in Shakespeare's high comedy,  it's time for getting wisdom out of humiliation and for abandoning ideological posturing.  

The politics of impeachment favor Trump's reelection

The Virginia flip shows how vulnerable could Trump be to a moderate Democratic opponent that appeals to middle Americans, keep taxes low, healthcare private,  and goes for a 2020 election win. But the current 24+ Democratic field shows no one in that category with chances of winning the nomination. 

Each crowded Democratic primary debate is a painful reminder of the McGovern (1972), Mondale (1984), Dukakis (1988) and Kerry (2004) fiascos. All these extreme liberal candidates ended crushed in landslides and in the Electoral College, which reflects more moderate state views. 

Source: Voting America

Lacking competitive candidates or -more importantly- moderate policy proposals, Democrats have turned to two self-defeating tactics: trying to unseat Trump through impeachment and relying on further polarization and anti-Trump feelings.

The first option seems tenuous at best, considering that the Senate is in GOP control and the second complicates the first even more, because anti-Trump-only attacks on the solidly 40 percent-popular Trump increases pro-Trump turnaround even more than anti-Trump voters.

Turning to far Left policies such as "public option" -code words for taking away private healthcare from 167 million American voters-, 54 trillion-dollar tax-hike-funded schemes to "reduce inequality" and embracing identity politics even amongst their own candidates makes general election prospects even more remote for the Democrats.

On top of all this, the economy for the 2020 election clearly favors Trump chances just at a time when the Democratic contenders announce wildly unpopular big tax hikes and unpaid spending schemes.

Virginia shows that swing voters are available, but still scared behind the Impeachment + Trillion Tax Wall far left Democratic candidates and House erected between them and "Anybody-But-Trump" alternatives. 

Add to that wall creepy legacy moderates like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton's third run. And now comes Mike Bloomberg.

Trump welcomes impeachment in its current form as his safest path to get reelected, and even get immunity from some of his obvious legal challenges in a second term.

The other great candidate to beat him -the economy- looks even more reluctant to challenge him than the far Left democrats.

The Wizzard of Oz Presidency? II: A Stable Genius with No Clothes and No Friends

The Trump's presidency is trying hard to make sense of the chaotic twists and turns of its foreign policy.

The unexpected and hurried withdrawal from Syria has been exposed as mostly unplanned, incoherent and self-defeating. Key allies such as Turkey, NATO and the kurds have been left in chaos, set against each other and deeply upset and deeply distrustful of Donald J. Trump and his emasculated Department of State and intelligence officials.

Returns are clearly negative and start mounting to levels that made the most sycophantic loyalists such as Fox News anchors, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and golf buddy Lindsay Graham break files and distance from the self-proclaimed "very stable genius" tweeting policy 180s at odd hours from the White House.

The difference between genius and foolishness has always been hard to judge in politics, but at this point President Trump seems lost in a fog of war of his own making,  a dangerous mix of reality show-like daily spats and consequential, long-term 180 degrees turns and counter-turns. 

Foreign policy is way too complex to trust a single individual -even a very stable genius- bouts of intuition. Particularly when such intuitive impulses come in 30 minute-sequences. 

Trump's language has also deteriorated dangerously from his usual one-liners to bursts of fury and personal aggression towards formidable foes -such as House Speaker Pelosi-, heads of state -such as the President of Italy-, his own appointees -from DOJs to DoDs, to DoEs to Fed Chairs- and critical allies such as the President of Turkey, EU, NATO, Canada, G7 and G20.

Those who want to keep hope and positive expectations towards the atypical president they voted in office have an increasingly hard time. 

Those looking for a method in the madness, a strategy behind stratagems are finding more the latter than the former. And stratagems that might work in closing a one-time, zero-sum real estate deal, a TV contract or handling a poker hand are a poor substitute for strategy.

Those who try to find pragmatism as a positive in Trump's over-simplistic and changing choices instead of poll-driven domestic populism are likely deluding themselves.

Those who asked for a wrecking ball to wipe out US government have certainly gotten what they wished for. Only that the wrecking ball operator seems increasingly erratic and unable to distinguish between his circunstancial political enemies and the columns that support vital institutions.

Trump's leadership style is becoming worryingly similar to that he showed in his reality show "The Apprentice".

Only that this time he's also one of them.

The Art of the Debate

Among the finest arts in which the English-speaking tradition excels perhaps the most revealing is that of the debate. To make my point clear I must ask the reader to watch some video samples that illustrate it along this article.

In the first video above, recorded at the Oxford Union, British MP Daniel Hannan debates defenders of the Occupy Wall Street movement from US and UK. 

Regardless of our opinion on the subject matter -expounded with an unusual clarity by Hannan and his rivals-  three key principles that make the debate worthy stand out:

1. Clear concepts
2. Clear presentation
3. Self-deprecating and reflexive humor

In a good debate done according the English tradition, debaters and public engage actively in exploring, testing and challenging ideas. Debaters might get most of the spotlight, but even those watching a video recorded years before become engaged in a superior mental exercise akin to a fencing match of minds. Even better for those who experience a change of mind as they let the arguments and counter arguments sink in and shed light over different sides of a problem, for that is the ultimate, Socratic intention of the English debate. 

Debaters not only must present their points using clear and compelling examples, analogies and evidence with ease and humor but listen actively to their opponents'. Replies are much more important than assertions. They must be delivered showing respect and empathy for the legitimacy of the rival thought before turning it around or upside down to drive the point in the audience's minds. 

In the second example, taken from Intelligence Squared,   a Catholic Bishop, a Conservative MP, the notorious atheist Christopher Hitchens and gay actor and dramatist Stephen Fry show different ways to argue their extremely opposed views without talking past each other nor losing respect for their opponents.

Finally, the last three pieces from Oxford Union show how radically opposite views can be debated without losing respect for the opponent. 

Three different positions on Occupy Wall Street from 

Cornell West

PM Daniel Hannan

And Anthony Fry

In all the cases, notice how each debater listens carefully to the opposing arguments before addressing them and drives his or her points by turning them around. When that's not possible, the rebuttal fails and the point is conceded.

It takes many centuries to distill a true civil society. And many years of formal education to learn the rules for fruitful disagreement. 

Oxford Union and Intelligence Squared are two of the finest sources to learn more about the art of the debate so sorely missing in our public life today.

Anglosphere vs Eurosphere: the future of EU

The anglosphere has succeeded in bringing together 53 diverse countries much more effectively than the European Union. By respecting their member states "freedom under law" and staying away from Napoleonic central planning, the Anglosphere has been able to achieve the same objectives than the European Union still struggles to accomplish.

I just returned from a trip to a UK where I had time to engage with pro and anti Brexiteers and get a better grasp of what is behind and beyond Brexit.

It is clear to me that beyond the shock of the immigration crisis, terrorism and the loss of blue collar jobs lays a much deeper and ancient cultural gap between Great Britain and the Continent -as they used to call Europe in the old days-.

Well before EU and the process of creating an Eurosphere that started after WWII there was an Anglosphere across the English channel, the Atlantic and in all continents where European and British colonies settled with their mother tongues and culture. 

At a time when Europe and UK contemplate Brexit, is good time to realize about the existence of an "anglosphere" as a non-exclusive alternative to the "European Union" continental project.  It was called Commonwealth and it hsa continually expanded to 53 countries, 26 million square miles and 2,460 million people since its last constitutional update in 1949.

The roots of the Anglosphere go back to 1215, when the Magna Carta established for the first time in human history that rulers should obey their own laws.

"Freedom Under Law" 

remains the core shared principle that serves as a common framework for countries in the Anglosphere.

United by a shared language and colonial past, in which they fought against each other and British rule, English-speaking countries remain and thrive as a de facto global community that has achieved all the goals proposed by the EU in a much more effective way.

The Anglo-speaking nations are the most successful, entrepreneurial, free and innovative nations of the world.  They have risen the standards of living, pushed the boundaries of knowledge and innovation and created the most treasured and successful institutions of freedom.

The Euro zone and the Anglo zone are veering apart, driven by opposite economic, cultural and social models.

• The Euro zone economic model is based on state capitalism, high taxation and regulation, strong and expensive welfare states and shared control over monetary emission. 

• The Anglo zone economic model is based on market capitalism, low taxation (compared to the Euro zone), looser regulation and minimal welfare states with nation governments retaining control over monetary emission.

• The Euro zone cultural model is based on complex, comprehensive Napoleonic-type laws and high levels of labor costs and unionization, with large public employment and government bureaucracies. 

• The Anglo zone cultural model is based on common law (UK has no written Constitution save for the principles), lower levels of labor taxation and unionization, with restrained public employment.

• While in the Euro zone government is viewed as a source of security and social prestige, in the Anglo zone government is viewed as a "necessary evil" and suspicious of red tape, bureaucracy and patronage.

These traits explain why the EU came about as a formal union -with even a formal Constitution and Euro parliament- while the Anglo zone remained a loose "commonwealth" or cultural community and kept strict government independence.

When it comes to trade, the Euro zone is free trade-averse and protectionist -hence the problems with the Irish "backstop" and the default "protective" tariff barriers to non-members- whereas the Anglo zone is more pro free trade and its countries in principle see lower tariffs as a way to stimulate their economies and tariffs in general as barriers to wealth creation.

Brexit in UK and Trump in US have shown a clear preference for one-on-one looser trade agreements. Their condition of members of a cultural and historical Anglosphere  might evolve pretty soon in a regrouping by trade zones across continents and in competition or at least outside the Euro zone framework. 

The Anglo zone countries and economies have been growing at a faster pace than the Euro zone ones and their difference in economic performance and models are pulling them apart.

Brexit and Trump's MAGA are just the first step towards new alliances between US and UK and with the other more dynamic economies of the Anglosphere, such as Singapore, Hong Kong and India.  

The unusual participation of India's PM, Narendra Modi in a Trump rally has sent a strong signal of the acceleration of this process. Thanks to its large English-speaking population and its British and Anglo-like institutions India is better suited to collaborate with US and UK than Communist China.

The Sino-American trade war has provided an opening that both India and US are exploiting to enhance their bargaining positions with China, that remains to a larger extent a less-integrated outsider.

The main reason for this is China's lack or weakness of the equivalent to the Anglo zone key institutions (rules) that Hannan summarizes as three "irreductible elements":

First, the rule of law. The government of the day doesn’t get to set the rules. Those rules exist on a higher plane, and are interpreted by independent magistrates. The law, in other words, is not an instrument of state control, but a mechanism open to any individual seeking redress.

Second, personal liberty: freedom to say what you like, to assemble in any configuration you choose with your fellow citizens, to buy and sell without hindrance, to dispose as you wish of your assets, to work for whom you please, and, conversely, to hire and fire as you will.

Third, representative government. Laws should not be passed, nor taxes levied, except by elected legislators who are answerable to the rest of us. 

We are experiencing a tectonic shift and realignment of the world economy that -in spite of Trump's belligerent rhetoric-  may end strengthening rather than weakening globalization by forcing protectionist and closed economies like EU and China to open their markets and play by the common rules.

As a matter of fact, a recent book on Brexit by Jochen Buchsteiner has recently underscored the existence of two kinds of "Brexiteers": isolationists and nationalists such as Nigel Farage on one hand and those who seek international alliance with other fellow members of the Anglosphere under much more open and free trade-friendly conditions.

Buchsteiner's argument underscores the characteristics of the Anglosphere identified before:

“The Britons have created a strange sociotope for themselves,” Mr Buchsteiner writes, “with a spaceship-like capital city whose international character overshadows all other European metropolises.” Here, “Openness, revolution and tradition are uniquely entangled…In all their urbanity and exceptionalism [Britons] are a strange people.” He suggests that as America turns away from Europe and Asia rises, Brexit might turn out well, though he acknowledges that only time will tell. Mr Roche is less cautious. Brexit, he says, will mean Britain’s rebirth—albeit as a low-tax, low-regulation Trojan horse for American, Chinese and other intercontinental interests at the doors of Europe. “Far from sinking, England [sic] will be renewed. And Elizabeth II will doubtless celebrate her 100th birthday in her revitalised country, confident of itself and prosperous.”

The idea of Brexit as a "Trojan horse" for China and America sounds as exaggerated as the idea of an EU as a "Trojan horse" for the interests of France and Germany. Such distrust and apprehension are the results of centuries of European and World wars between the Euro and the Anglosphere.

It is worth asking whether it would not be more productive to follow rather than opposing those large cultural divisions and seek "soft" versions not only of Brexit but of the EU itself, ditching those elements that are clearly incompatibles, such as trying to combine open borders with welfare states or free trade within with trade barriers without.

Perhaps once Eurocentrists and Anglocentrists have exhausted all other alternatives they might find common ground in common sense.

The Art of the Bluff: Iran loses its hand badly

Bluffing can be a good thing: Iran's overshot fires back, Trump's punt gives US the upper hand 

Moving in a new twist in the bargaining process with Iran, Trump refused for the second time the Iranian bait and gambit by not taking immediate military action.

He also distanced from the Iranian "hawks" by firing John Bolton and distancing from PM Netanyahu. 

In doing so, Trump is trying to find his own path between EU's and Obama's capitulation to Iranian nuclear blackmail and his own hard-right, "neocons" hawks. 

The tactic seems to be working in giving Trump more bargaining power with both sides while keeping his base for the upcoming elections.

Meanwhile, back in Iran the continued sanctions seem to be working by exacerbating internal pressure from the powerful Bazaar on the Iranian dictatorship

while keeping pressure on moderates to come to the bargaining table with concrete and verifiable commitments. By not taking the military option after the drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, Trump has left the Iranians the impopular decision of doubling down with the attacks, which would force the EU to support joint and protective military measures on its own budget.

Trump -who makes no illusions about being popular amongst EU's embattled liberal leaders- is trying to achieve through pressure what Bush 41 achieved by his long-time connections. 

Once again, anti-Trumpism looks disoriented with POTUS 45's moves. They cannot certainly claim that the president is war-mongering like they did with Bush 43 nor criticize him for not attacking Iran -this would force them to align with Israel, something neither EU nor US liberals can do without paying a heavy price with their new electoral base, increasingly formed by anti-Israel, Middle East immigrants.

Trump had his own initiative through his son-in-law Jared stalled a year ago. Although it failed, the plan reflects a more pragmatic approach than the Israeli far right has been proposing.  

Iran: Sanctions are working

After two decades of being pampered with US and EU diplomatic gloves without stopping its Hezbollah and international terrorism sponsorship, Iran seems to be responding to bare knuckle financial sanctions better. Iranians are no longer buying into the "Great Satan" rhetoric that the aging Islamic Republic regime used 50 years ago to shift the blame for its dismal economic performance and systemic corruption. These Iranians are far more westernized and sophisticated  than their parents generation and therefore, harder to bamboozle. 

They haven't experienced a heavy-handed US foreign policy nor the abuses of the Shah. They have instead lived under the corruption and mismanagement of the mullahs and military Guard. 

Under the Islamic Republic regime, the country became increasingly dependent on oil prices. The bonanza of 2000's high prices favored imports, discouraged production and encouraged rampant corruption.  All those problems are now coming back to roost.

They also learned from their 2009 failed upraise to work in tandem between young, college-educated activists 

and the powerful economic forces of the Bazaar.

If Donald Trump gets reelected -as most analysts think- the pressure on the elites of Tehran will become unsustainable. For those who follow the twists and turns of Middle East politics, the question about Iran is no longer "what" will follow the aging regime but "when".

The fall of the Iranian regime will reverberate in all of Middle East and also Latin America, where Hezbollah and oil dollars -the military and economic arms of the regime- still sustain large networks of money laundering, drug trafficking and far-left, anti American regimes and organizations.

For more on this subject, check Michael Rubin's article.