Book Review – “Our Last Best Chance”

I was walking down a street in a quaint little town with a couple of friends on Monday and saw a bookstore which I ducked into to basically window shop. I ended up seeing a book titled: “Our Last Best Chance” by King Abdullah II of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Although I ended up losing track of my friends and spent about 20 minutes searching for them, I consider my purchase of this book to be one of the best impulse purchases I’ve made in the recent past. So why do I think so highly of my purchase? Only because I think it’s one of the books I have most enjoyed reading in the last half-decade or so. And these are my reasons:

Unique position of the author. King Abdullah of Jordan is a leader in the Middle East and has actively been involved in brokering peace deals in the region. However, the source of his importance – and by extension that of his kingdom – is not due to military might or abundant mineral wealth. Jordan is not an oil producer like the Gulf states neither can anyone say that its armies are a match for the Egyptian, Iranian or Israeli armies (the military juggernauts of the region). However, King Abdullah has advanced the role of reformer and peace maker adopted by his late father: King Hussein. Due to Jordan’s position as one of only two Arab countries with a peace treaty with Israel and its cordial relationships in the Arab community, its kings have served as mediators in the region. An ailing King Hussein (battling cancer) made a trip from his deathbed to Camp David to encourage the late Yasser Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu in talks brokered by President Clinton in 1998. His son: King Abdullah has also made great strides over his decade of ruling the kingdom, with GDP growth averaging 7% over the last decade. Jordan’s economy is regarded as the freest in the region, even ranking above good performers such as the UAE and Lebanon. It has more Free Trade Agreements than any other country in the region, it has a well developed services sector and it is emerging as a key financial center in the region with many leading companies such as Aramex (the leading logistics firm in the region) having their headquarters in Amman. To cap it all, his wife: Queen Rania has been involved in championing women and children rights globally while his younger sister is a Brigadier General in the Army and a Military Attaché with paratrooper wings!. King Abdullah has also established the first co-educational prep school in the region with full financial support for indigent students. I guess by now it should be obvious that the man is one of my favorite world leaders!

Good Layout. If I had to pick my favorite characteristic of the book, it will be its layout and organization. I think leaders who write autobiographies have to thread a fine line and exercise judgment regarding how personal their books should be. You don’t want it too personal or you may start to feel like a teenager’s diary and you don’t want it to be too high sounding or lofty, or else it may read like a position paper or (worse!) a United Nations resolution. I think with this book, King Abdullah got it just right like Goldilocks. The 1^st third of the book dealt with his family’s historical role as guardians of the holy places of the region, his family life growing up and the institutions - such as Deerfield Academy (a New England prep school in the US) and the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst - that shaped his worldview and provided the basis for some of his most enduring friendships. The 2^nd third of the book provides a good ringside account of various events in the region through his lenses as a young army officer and a confidant of his father. He wrote about various clandestine trips with his father to broker peace between various warring parties and he provided insights into the character of many leading figures in the region (including Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu). The last 3^rd of the book was more “macro” in nature and dealt with his big picture ideas of why the world should care greatly about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, his views on radical Islamism and his vision for a more prosperous, harmonious and stable region. I really enjoyed this part of the book because it speaks a lot about his character and strength of conviction to offer bold recommendations for moving forward even if some powerful interests may disagree with him.

The author’s pragmatism. The final quality that really made me enjoy the book is the author’s clear-headed pragmatic view of the world and of the harsh realities that his kingdom and region faces. I view myself as a pragmatist and I have always harbored a slight distaste for really passionate “true believers” who adopt a “my way or the highway” attitude as I believe human progress is best assured by reasonable, pragmatic people making compromises in pursuit of their enlightened self-interests. The author writes about the fine balance that his father had to take during the 1^st Gulf War and how he struggled to seek grounds of agreement between Saddam and western powers. He also talked about his own efforts to prevent and lobby against the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 but detailed how he came to reconcile himself to the inevitability of President Bush’s decision to go to war and the need to ensure that Jordan maintained a degree of neutrality that will prevent its economy from taking a hit. I found his descriptions of his travels to Washington interesting, especially the way he convinced the US government to give up its request to stage combat troops out of Jordan. All through the book I detected a certain unwillingness to demonize people with differing opinions, always realizing that world leaders are only acting in their national interests and that in most human affairs there are few if any moral absolutes. Today’s terrorist may become tomorrow’s statesman, a foe today an ally tomorrow with alliances and allegiances as fleeting as shadows. I admit this is not the most flattering picture of humanity but human beings are only human and I appreciate the king’s candidness in acknowledging that in his book.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and I think it will be great not only for people interested in the Middle East but also for everyone interested in deciphering international politics and the psychology of world leaders.

Going Green – The very pressing case for “Black Swans”

I go to graduate school at a university which can be described as “ground zero” for the environmental movement in North America, that’s if anywhere can be described as such. I was also fortunate to take a class on environmental policy these past few weeks and this exposed to some of the latest thinking in the fields of conservation, solar energy, windmills etc. Although I cannot in good faith describe myself as an environmentalist or activist of any sort, I am enough of a pragmatic business person that I realize the clear and present danger posed to the world by the warming climate and degrading environments.

However, a lot of what I have been hearing has been along the lines of why we should conserve more and consume less energy. I do not think waste is good and I think the energy-intensive lifestyle of the developed world is less than ideal but I also realize that the world cannot conserve its way out of the crisis that confronts it. One person I really respect in the environmental debate is the Silicon-Valley Billionaire: Vinod Khosla, co-founder of SUN Microsystems and former big-hitting partner at the VC firm: Kleiner Perkins. I have listened to some of his speeches and I am more than impressed by his pragmatic approach to the entire issue of climate change and conservation. The Economist recently ran a piece about him and some of the investments he has made in the “green” space. And they all seem to have something in common: a high probability of failure mixed with the potential to be significant game changers.

The first of Mr. Khosla’s assertions is that of the “Chindia price”: basically the price at which a product or service will become generally accepted by the poor and emerging middle classes of China and India. The mistake many people make in the environmental lobby is to think that because a product has gone mainstream in Northern California, Germany and Scandinavia then the world has a workable product. Consumers in these markets have shown a willingness and ability to pay a premium for environmentally conscious products. However, this works for them because they are typically well-heeled and educated. However for consumers in markets like China and India, paying extra for a “cleaner” or “greener” option just would not cut it. Given that these will be the fastest growing consumer markets in the world, they will ultimately be the test case for any new technologies that will replace current fossil-fuel based technologies. And for this people, price is key! Mr. Khosla illustrated this by saying that for electric cars to make a real dent they must approach the “Tata Nano price”. I could not agree more.

The 2nd and probably more important theme for the article is the need for the world to concentrate on finding game-changing “black swan” solutions to our problems. We are not going to “LED light” and “low-flow toilet” our way out of the challenges that face. We need to come up with solutions that ensure that consumers can continue with the lifestyles they’ve grown accustomed to and what’s more? we cannot deny the hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians coming out of poverty the washing machines and machine dryers they’ve been waiting for. The world has got to find a way to do this cost-effectively.

This brings us to why “black swans” are the solution that the world’s business, political and scientific leaders should concentrate on. A lot of the technologies that are being discussed represent incremental progress that may move the needle a bit but will not ultimately provide the “oomph” that the world needs. The world is so bad at forecasts, imagine if someone had tried to forecast intercontinental travel at the turn of the 20th century. Their forecasts would have been way off because they would have based their forecast on the technologies available at the time: steam ships, railroads etc. They would have absolutely no idea that airplanes will be invented by the Wright Brothers in 1913 and the invention of the airplane totally changed intercontinental travel. Anyone in 1990 that was asked to forecast telecom penetration in developing countries would have grossly underestimated the future as no one knew of the technological innovations that dropped the cost of telecoms equipment and made the cellphone ubiquitous. Bill Gates once said in the 1980s that he saw no reason why anyone will need more than 64KB of computer memory and he is a really smart guy! To solve the world’s toughest environmental and social problems, everyone needs to be on the lookout for black swans and game changers. Incremental progress won’t cut it and that’s why my fingers are crossed for Mr. Khosla’s investments.

Before the world forgets…

The first two months and counting of 2011 has ushered in tremendous winds of change across the Arab world, in particular the Maghreb countries of North Africa. The young year of 2011 has witnessed the ouster of two long-standing leaders in the region – Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Furthermore, the United States is leading a coalition of western and Arab countries to bomb targets in Libya in a bid to force Qaddafi out of power and prevent the continued slaughter of civilians.

While the Maghreb has certainly deserved the attention of the world leaders due both to the scale of the protests and the wider Middle-East’s role as the world’s gas tank, it is also important for world leaders not to lose sight of trouble brewing is less conspicuous places. It has become easy for the world to forget the tragedy that is going on in the Ivory Coast, where a president who the world has acknowledged lost the general election still manages to cling on to power. This is despite the United Nations, United States and the African Union’s recognition of his opponent: Allasane Quattara as the legitimate president of the country.

Despite calls for him to step down, the incumbent “president” Gbagbo remains entrenched in power and the calls have become less stringent and fervent as the crisis in the Middle East as now become front-burner in the minds of world leaders. This ought not to be so as an incident that started off as a power struggle between two politicians is fast approaching the scale of sectarian clashes and civil war. With Gbabgo already encouraging civilian supporters to join in the “battle” against Quattara and the battle lines being drawn once again along North-South lines.

The country has in the meantime defaulted on its Eurobond interest payment, further putting pressure on potential issuances by African countries and raising the cost of issuance for those who manage to do so. The country’s famous cocoa industry has also come under a lot of strain as the fighting has caused disruptions in the supply chain and this has had a non-trivial effect on the global cocoa industry. Adding to the already bad situation is the contagious tendency of civil wars in Sub-Saharan Africa with fighters drifting off to cause trouble in nearby countries and refugees from war-torn countries placing strains on already stretched social services in neighboring countries. A full blown civil war is something the world has to prevent in Ivory Coast and the international community must find a way to diffuse the tension and restore calm! I salute the world’s courage in Libya but I think Ivory Coast should not be forgotten!!