The Gulf states get leverage on American politics through their close ties to the US oil and defense industries, who, even after seven years of Democratic Party control of the Energy and Defense Departments, still contribute more to Republican candidates.
Greece was a test, of whether a reasoned argument about the failure of past economic policies and the need to change could prevail inside the eurozone, given the politics and the ideologies of the other partners in Europe
Germany is trying to impose its model on the rest of the Eurozone – including its long-standing French “partners,” objects of derision for their unreformed statism.
The objective of the eurozone’s masters was not the search for a reasonable compromise but the punishment of a province that had dared to rebel against the empire.
