The use of cultural and religious ties has strengthened Turkey’s hand in the Balkans. However, the AKP is conscious of the image it is presenting to the West, where skepticism of Turkey’s commitment to secularism is increasing after recent events in the Middle East have suggested that Ankara is aligning with the Islamic world at the West’s expense.

Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the administration identified Iran and Syria as the next stage of “the road map to war”. Code named by US military planners as TIRANNT, "Theater Iran Near Term". The scenarios identified several thousand targets inside Iran as part of a "Shock and Awe" Blitzkrieg.

NATO troop deployments, utilization and upgrading of bases, armed combat operations and naval surveillance now occur on the borders and off the coasts of China, Iran and Russia. There are no longer buffer states between NATO and major non-NATO nations in Eurasia.

The termination of the Turkish-Israeli diplomatic relations will have important repercussions for both Israel and the U.S. interests in the Middle East. Consequently, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the termination tinting the image of the U.S. to a new low in the Middle East.

Serbian economic policy needs to undergo tectonic changes as soon as possible in order to preserve what has left of remaining national wealth and eventually to build up export-oriented production.

There is a clear temptation for the West to extricate itself from the errors of the Greenspan asset bubble, the Brown credit bubble, and the EMU sovereign bubble by stealth default through inflation. But that is a danger for later years. First we have the deflation shock of lives.

America's biggest creditor - China - has called our bluff. As the Financial Times notes, the head of China's biggest credit rating agency has said America is insolvent and that U.S. credit ratings are a joke.

Separatist regions in Europe and around the world will draw their own conclusions from the decision, thus precipitating unnecessary confrontations between separatists and central governments, but without any real guidance beyond the specifics of the Kosovo situation.

For the U.S. and the EU, Kosovar Albanians, having enjoyed almost nine years of UN administration and NATO protection, could not be expected to wait any longer for their freedom, while the Palestinians, having endured over 40 years of Israeli occupation, can wait forever.

The request refers to the conflict as “The International Combat Conflict” whereas the grave war-crimes of the Geneva Convention would only be applicable if there was an international armed conflict.