Tag: politics

• Fatal Vital Signs: Why Fiji’s Sugar Industry Must Be Allowed to Die

  By the numbers, our sugar industry is no longer a struggling patient—it is a corpse kept warm by political ventilators. Under the previous regime, the Fiji Sugar Corporation bled $543 million in losses. Since the Coalition took over in 2022, it has haemorrhaged a further $106 million—achieved despite a $200 million government debt write-off. Production languishes at 1.33 million tonnes, far below the 1.5 million tonnes required to justify the current $85-per-tonne subsidy.

  When an industry loses a billion dollars across two decades, requires constant taxpayer top-ups, and fails to achieve economies of scale, it is not a commercial enterprise—it is a charity case. Yet we persist, primarily because of politics.

  The ICU Delusion

  Sugarcane farming has devolved into a “mom-and-pop” hobby. The children of farmers have fled to tourism hubs and supermarket packing sheds; they refuse to endure backbreaking labour for cents on the dollar. Traditional knowledge was deliberately not passed on, because parents wanted their children to escape the drudgery. We now face an aging farmer base with no succession plan.

  Meanwhile, the land lies fallow. One encounter with a tenant selling leased TLTB land for $100,000 an acre—land choked with para grass, no road access, no power—exposes the speculative fantasy propping up this industry. It is not farming; it is waiting for a payout.

  Politics Over Economics

  The National Farmers Union has dug in, demanding the government negotiate directly with them and threatening to boycott the 2026 harvest unless a $60-per-tonne delivery price is met. This is political hostage-taking, not economic negotiation. The union refuses to acknowledge global realities where Brazil, Australia, and India have mechanized and driven prices into the dirt. Instead, they demand ever-higher subsidies while resisting structural reform.

  Proposals to legislate maximum production and nationalize idle farms are equally misguided. We cannot cure an industry by forcing farmers into it with legal coercion. If you have to threaten farmers with nationalization to make them farm, the industry is already comatose.

  The Unforgivable Sin

  The most damning aspect is the opportunity cost. Why is the Fijian taxpayer pouring hundreds of millions into an unviable crop, while iTaukei non-sugar farmers receive virtually nothing?

  Consider the structural inequity:

  · The State subsidizes cane growers (predominantly Indo-Fijian lessees) to the tune of $85 to $106 per tonne, guaranteeing an income regardless of global market prices.

  · Meanwhile, iTaukei landowners receive paltry, below-market rent via the TLTB—paid late, undervaluing their ancestral inheritance.

  · iTaukei farmers who wish to diversify into ginger, turmeric, kava, or vegetables receive a fraction of government attention and none of the guaranteed subsidies sugar farmers enjoy.

  This is not just economic failure; it is a profound governance failure and a breach of fiduciary duty to the traditional custodians of the land. We are using public funds to trap one community in generational debt while another sees its land utilized for pennies on the dollar. The $105 million annual loss is effectively a transfer of wealth from the general taxpayer to a politically influential, shrinking minority of sugarcane growers. Landowners are left with degraded soil and cheap rent, while the Minister smiles and tells farmers in Labasa to “diversify”—without providing the capital that sugar subsidies so wastefully absorb.

  The Do-Not-Resuscitate Order

  It is time to issue a DNR order for the sugar industry. We must stop confusing nostalgia with national interest. The government should initiate a managed wind-down:

  1. Cease the Subsidies: Announce a three-year sunset period. No more taxpayer top-ups. Let the global market price dictate the farm-gate price. If it is unviable, it dies.

  2. Compensate Transition: Use the money saved from annual $100M+ losses to fund a massive vocational training programme for all farmers—sugarcane growers, iTaukei landowners, and non-sugar farmers alike. Teach them commercial alternatives, aquaculture, or agro-tourism.

  3. Empower the Landowners: Rewrite the TLTB framework to give landowners autonomy to form agricultural corporations, develop commercial plazas, and lease to productive ventures—not just sugar monoculture.

  For 56 years, politicians have deceived farmers to secure their votes, promising salvation while presiding over decline. The NFU and the Labour Party cannot be allowed to hold the nation hostage over a crop that no longer pays its way.

  Fiji does not need to produce raw sugar for the world. Fiji needs to produce prosperity for all its citizens. That starts by pulling the plug on a dying industry and directing resources toward the living, breathing farmers—iTaukei and otherwise—who are ready to grow something more valuable than a colonial relic. The time for bold, uncomfortable decisions has arrived. The sugar industry is on ICU, and for the sake of our rural economy, we must let it go.

  2026.06.24

• A Decade After Brexit: Reflections from a French Farmhouse

  Nine years ago, in the heart of French wine country, a group of friends gathered for what was supposed to be a week of simple pleasures. 

  The rural district of Les Marronniers is the kind of place where time moves differently. Vineyards stretch toward the horizon, stone farmhouses hold centuries of stories, and the air carries the scent of earth and aging oak. It was there, in our friend Helena Eversole’s typically French farmhouse, that far-flung friends reunited for a week of wine, dining, and reminiscence.

  But as dusk settled each evening and bottles of local Bordeaux were uncorked, our conversations drifted from shared memories to the question of Brexit.

  The Leave campaign had promised something seductive: “Take back control.” For millions, that slogan spoke to unease about where the globalized world was headed—tighter borders, reclaimed sovereignty. For others, Brexit meant a transformed Britain: a “Singapore-on-Thames,” a deregulated, low-tax competitor ready to strike trade deals with the wider world.

  Around Helena’s table, lively discussions went late into the night. One saw liberation. Others warned of isolation and economic self-harm. “We’ll be free,” one friend insisted. “Free to make ourselves poorer?” another countered. Neither could predict just how right—and how wrong—they would both turn out to be.

  A decade on, the data tells a sobering story. Published economic research estimate that Brexit reduced Britain’s GDP by upto 8% by 2025 and a 15% drop in trade. As The Economist argued, “Brexit lingers like a toxin in the economy’s bloodstream”

  The promised Singapore never materialized. Britain under Thatcher had prospered by shaping free trade rules. But now, as the world fragments into competing blocs, Britain has “fallen through the cracks.” When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, another cost emerged: British defense firms have been largely shut out of the EU’s rearmament programme. Brexit’s cost was never just economic.

  Harder to measure is the cost of what Britain didn’t do—years consumed by revolving-door leadership and endless debate over how to leave. Meanwhile, public sentiment has soured. The share of Britons who say Brexit is worse than expected has nearly doubled.

  Yet Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, now leads national polls, eroding Labour and Conservative dominance. Brexit continues to define voting lines, with Reform appealing to older, less-educated voters driven by cultural anxiety.

  The lesson of the past decade is that there are no clean exits and no clean returns. Reversal is unrealistic. Some advocate a Swiss-style arrangement—a patchwork of treaties to align with the EU on trade, science, and security. Britain would become a rule-taker rather than a rule-maker. Imperfect, but perhaps necessary.

  I think back to Les Marronniers—the long dinners, the clinking glasses, the discussions stretching late into the night. None of us sensed that the world was shifting. Old certainties were crumbling. And Britain had chosen to walk away from its nearest neighbors.

  Helena’s farmhouse had stood for centuries. It had seen France and Britain fight, and it had seen them reconcile. As we sat there in 2017, we wondered what the future held.

  A decade on, the question remains. But the debate has shifted. It is no longer about whether Brexit was right or wrong. It is about what comes next—for Britain and for the millions who will live with the consequences for years to come.

  The vineyards endure. The wine still pours at Helena’s Les Marronniers farmhouse and the conversations continue.

  2026.06.22

• The Solidarity Debt

  When the decapitation strikes came, the Western assumption was clinical: remove the head, and the body collapses. Instead, Iranians who had recently protested did not celebrate—they rallied. This was not an endorsement of the Supreme Leader; it was an assertion of civilizational sovereignty. From Alexander to the Mongols, from the British to the Americans, invaders have misread internal fractures as weakness, only to discover that Persian identity, Shia mourning culture, and a deep distrust of foreign domination form an alloy, no missile can shatter.

  The West views Iran through the regime; Iranians view it through the lens of Iran. Survival, however, is not legitimacy. The people set aside grievances over justice, freedom, and economic despair to face a common enemy. That sacrifice was a down payment on a promise: We stood by you; now stand by us.

  The $300 billion the West dangles is beside the point. Iran’s true wealth is human—engineers, poets, women, diaspora—but trapped in a siege mentality that equates internal reform with capitulation. The regime’s paradox is cruel: to protect the nation from foreign domination, it has domesticated a form of internal domination that alienates the very citizens who just proved their loyalty.

  Consider Fiji. Tourism publicists have long known that our strength is not merely our coral reefs, but the living culture, warmth, and dignity of the iTaukei. Travelers return speaking not of beaches alone, but of the warmth of our smiles, lovo feasts, and genuine hospitality no resort can manufacture. Yet internal empowerment has historically lagged external recognition. The nation must learn what our promoters already know: strength lies in elevating its indigenous population, not sidelining them as a backdrop.

  The same applies to Iran. Its true potential is not missiles, nuclear thresholds, or regional proxies. It is the engineers who kept the internet running during cyberattacks, the women who organized neighbourhood defense networks, the ethnic minorities who defended borders they are often told do not belong to them. They are not subjects to be policed; they are the nation’s enduring asset. Outsiders—whether Western strategists or Chinese investors—already see their value. The regime’s task is to see it first.

  If Iran honours its civilization, it must recognize that its greatest threat today is not the US or Israel, but the gap between external resilience and internal stagnation. Post-war solidarity is fleeting. If not seized to address economic decay, social restrictions, and political exclusion, it will curdle into bitterness more potent than pre-war protests.

  Realizing Iran’s potential requires three shifts, all flowing from valuing its people:

  First, economic renewal—unleash the private sector, tech startups, and diaspora returnees as partners, not potential dissidents. Iran cannot rebuild on oil rents alone.

  Second, civic integration—the Kurds, Baloch, and Azeris are pillars, not minorities to be managed. True peace requires constitutional recognition of this mosaic, just as Fiji’s path to stability is through acknowledgement and entrenchment, not erasure, of its indigenous people.

  Third, a new social contract for women—they defended the nation while demanding their place. The regime cannot ask them to die for the flag and then deny them the right to live freely under it. Like Fijian women, they are the architects of the next generation.

  History will not judge Iran by whether it survived a foreign onslaught—empires have survived before. It will judge whether Iran used that survival to become a nation that does not need to suppress its own people to repel its enemies. The West’s colonial mindset assumes reform comes from outside; true reform must come from within, born of the same defiant spirit that just repelled aggression. Iranians are the nation. The regime must prove it belongs to them, not above them.

  Just as Fiji’s publicists grasped that our islands’ magic lies in our indigenous people, Iran’s rulers must grasp that its true strength lies in its own citizen who chose solidarity over fragmentation. The window is narrow. If the regime mistakes wartime loyalty for permanent acquiescence, it repeats the fatal error of every empire that misread its own subjects. But if it seizes this moment—making peace with its own people, recognizing them as its greatest asset—Iran will not just survive. It will thrive as a sovereign civilization, finally at peace with itself.

  That is the peace that matters. That is the favour that must be returned.

  2026.06.22

• The Iran-Türkiye Condominium: West Asia’s New Geographical Order

  The Fall of the Old Guard

  The post–World War II order is dead. Nowhere is that truth more stark than in West Asia, where Iran—by geographic presence and civilizational endurance—has survived the US-Israeli war and now firmly controls the Hormuz Strait.

  A decade ago, Western strategists could sketch the region’s power map with confidence. Egypt commanded Arab political weight. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE anchored Gulf economic might under an American umbrella. Iraq and Syria contained Iranian influence. Today, that map is torn up. The center of gravity sits in Ankara and Tehran, while the Gulf monarchies have been exposed as brittle dependents—caught in a conflict they neither chose nor can control.

  The events of the past three weeks have only confirmed this reality. The US-Iran framework agreement, signed on 18 June, represented not merely a ceasefire but a formal acknowledgment that American primacy in West Asia has been superseded. But we must be precise about who has superseded it—and who has not.

  The War That Backfired

  The US-Israeli war against Iran, tacitly supported by the GCC in late February, was meant to cripple Tehran. Instead, it accelerated the emergence of Iran and Türkiye as West Asia’s indispensable powers. A war for American deterrence achieved the opposite.

  Before February 2026, the Gulf states had leveraged hydrocarbon wealth into a model of economic integration—technology, logistics, finance—that kept Washington invested in their security. But that model rested on a fragile assumption: that US protection would remain reliable and the Gulf could insulate itself from regional storms. The war shattered both. As Tehran retaliated against US bases across the region, Gulf states found themselves in a security trap—unable to join the war offensively, yet unable to prevent their territory from becoming a battlefield. Their strategic restraint signaled that the US guarantee is conditional at best.

  Analysts warned that if Iran survived with even limited control of the Strait, it would amount to a strategic defeat for the US, Israel, and the Gulf. After months of war, the regime stands. Tehran can punish Gulf economies at will—targeting energy facilities, disrupting the Strait, launching drone campaigns—while Washington had no political endgame.

  The Only Axis That Matters: Iran and Türkiye

  Much has been made of Israeli alarm over a “Türkiye-Qatar-Pakistan axis.” But this framing confuses tactical mediation with strategic weight. The axis that truly matters is not Türkiye-Qatar-Pakistan—a coalition of a rising power, a US-protected gas emirate, and a subcontinent-focused state. It is the geographically ordained bipolarity of Iran and Türkiye.

  These two powers possess what no other regional actor can match: military depth, demographic weight, geographic centrality, and genuine strategic autonomy from Washington. Between them, they command West Asia’s northern and eastern arcs. They are the only indigenous great powers in the region.

  Iran: Survival as Victory

  Iran now firmly controls the Hormuz Strait, through which a fifth of global oil passes. It has shown it can impose direct costs on the Gulf. Militarily weakened by the US-Israeli offensive but diplomatically rehabilitated by the agreement, Iran emerges in a paradoxical position of strength. It has traded military confrontation for international legitimacy, secured the rehabilitation of its economy, and retained its regional network intact—from Baghdad to Beirut, from Damascus to Sanaa. The agreement has not dismantled Iranian power projection. It has brought Iran back into the international system while leaving its strategic depth untouched.

  The GCC’s restraint throughout the war now reads for what it was: a signal that they view Tehran as an unavoidable permanent stakeholder, not just an adversary to be contained. That is a profound shift.

  Türkiye: The Northern Pole

  Türkiye’s rise has been quieter but equally significant. Ankara welcomed the ceasefire, warning that instability in Iran would sharpen anxieties over Kurdish militancy, refugees, and border security. By positioning itself as a stabilizing power and diplomatic interlocutor, Türkiye has enhanced its standing while avoiding direct costs. Its strategic autonomy—moving between NATO, Russia, and regional actors—has become a valuable asset.

  Erdoğan has made Türkiye’s position unambiguous. He declared that Israeli aggression in Lebanon and Syria had reached a point where it threatened Turkey directly, and called Israel the single biggest obstacle to regional peace. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking alongside Russia’s Sergey Lavrov in Moscow, welcomed the US-Iran agreement but crucially called for it to evolve into “a structural and lasting security architecture rather than a temporary period of calm.”

  That phrase captures Ankara’s ambition. Türkiye is not interested in episodic crisis management. It is seeking to institutionalize a new regional order in which it is a permanent rule-setter—the Ottoman inheritance reframed for the twenty-first century. Crucially, Türkiye has drawn a red line over Lebanese and Syrian territory, declaring that Israeli operations there now threaten Turkish security directly. Under the old American-anchored order, no such red line existed.

  Managed Bipolarity

  This is not a partnership in perfect harmony. Türkiye and Iran are rival civilizational powers with a long history of strategic friction. The more precise framework is managed bipolarity—two hegemons who converge sufficiently on the containment of Israeli expansionism to cooperate diplomatically, while competing for influence across the Arab world’s contested spaces. But on the foundational question of this historical moment—that the old externally-imposed order must be replaced by one reflecting the region’s own balance of forces—they are aligned. That alignment is sufficient to constitute a genuinely new architecture.

  The Coming Reckoning for the GCC

  The states that bet on the old order—Bahrain, UAE, and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia and Qatar—now face a reckoning. They signed the Abraham Accords and backed the US-Israeli war premised on American durability. Every premise has been shaken.

  Bahrain and the UAE are now exposed on multiple flanks: caught between an American patron recalibrating its commitments, an Israeli partner increasingly isolated from the new regional consensus, and an emerging bipolar order constructed without their input. Their most likely path is quiet hedging—softening public identification with Israeli positions, deepening economic ties with Türkiye, expanding back-channel contacts with Tehran. But the window for comfortable hedging is narrowing. The longer they remain identified with a receding order, the less leverage they will carry when they eventually seek terms with the one that is rising.

  Lebanon: The Proving Ground of Bipolarity

  Lebanon is the theatre where the Iran-Türkiye bipolarity is being tested in real time. Israel’s continued strikes on south Lebanon, even after the agreement, reveal the central tension of this transitional moment. Netanyahu, sidelined from the deal, is using Lebanon as the one theatre where he can still project agency. In doing so however, he is accelerating the dynamic that isolates Israel further.

  Erdoğan’s red line over Lebanon and Syria—declaring that Israeli attacks threaten Turkey directly—is an unprecedented assertion of Turkish strategic depth into the Levant. Iran, meanwhile, retains Hezbollah as its Lebanese strategic depth. The two hegemons do not coordinate perfectly, but they converge on a shared outcome: the stabilization of Lebanon as a buffer state within the new order, not as a perpetual battlefield for Israeli operations.

  For Israel, this is the core dilemma: military operations in Lebanon that once carried manageable costs now risk triggering a broader regional response that the new Iran-Türkiye bipolarity makes structurally coherent for the first time.

  No Plan, No Order—But Geography Has Reasserted Itself

  By launching an ill-defined campaign against Iran without a credible endgame, Washington accelerated the very realignments it feared: the rise of Iran and Türkiye and the exposure of Gulf dependence on an unreliable protector.

  The new global architecture will not be designed in Washington. It will be contested in the Hormuz Strait, on the Türkiye-Iranian frontier, and in boardrooms where Gulf investors decide whether to bet on the dollar or the renminbi. Geography has reasserted itself.

  The only indigenous geographical powers with the strategic autonomy, military depth, and demographic weight to shape West Asia’s future are Iran and Türkiye. Their bipolarity—rivalrous but convergent on the rejection of external domination—is the defining structural fact of the region.

  The question is not whether the old order is gone. It is whether anyone has a plan for what replaces it. The answer, increasingly clear, is that no external power does. The region is building its own order—around its own geographical poles.

  2026.06.20

• Beyond the Chokehold: A Call for Solar Sovereignty

  My wife and I had been discussing solar power. Retirement brings a certain slo-mo consideration to everything—there was always a reason to wait for tomorrow, next month, or after the next trip. Then the world intervened, and that slow deliberation was jolted into fast-forward.

  First came the Iran-US war. Then the Hormuz Strait effectively closed. The strategy was to strangle Iran’s economy—and it succeeded. But it also strangled the global economy, including ours here in the Pasifika. For small island nations utterly dependent on shipped fuel, the pain arrived as fast as the breaking news. Higher prices at the pump. Canceled cargo shipments. EFL, Fiji Airways, and our inter-island ferries burning cash they do not have.

  Earlier today, Foreign Minister Sakiasi Ditoka offered a glimmer of hope: global fuel prices have dipped to around US90–$100 range. But here is the cruel arithmetic of island dependency—he cautioned that Fijians will wait. There is a “lag time” between international purchases and local supply. While the world pays $83, we continue to bleed at the old rates until the delayed shipments catch up. We are always the last to feel relief and the first to feel the squeeze.

  To his credit, Minister Ditoka has been tireless. He travelled to Singapore—the origin of our supply chain—to secure assurances that Fiji’s shipments would not again be pushed to the back of the queue. He travelled to Australia, securing $30 million in budget support and discussing strategic fuel reserves in Geelong with Viva Energy. Talks are even underway with Korea, Malaysia, and the United States. These are the frantic, expensive shuttles of a nation trying to secure a lifeline it does not control.

  Yet reading between the lines, the truth is unavoidable. Singapore confirmed it cannot control global prices. Australia admitted its own reserve situation is challenging. And even if we build regional storage or bulk-buy with neighbours, we are still playing a high-stakes game of geopolitical whack-a-mole. A tanker in Geelong or a promise from Kuala Lumpur does not insulate us from the next Hormuz crisis. It merely buys us time until the next rerouted shipment.

  This brings me to Vani Catanasiga’s recent warning: our vulnerability to global fuel shocks is not merely an economic headache—it is a social justice emergency. Every lag day at the pump hits the families in our villages and settlements hardest. When the Minister asks the public to be “understanding,” I empathise with his diplomatic burden. But empathy does not cool a fridge or fill a bus tank.

  That is why, two weeks ago, my wife and I made our start at home. Panels on the roof. Batteries on the wall. A meter that now spins backward. The upfront cost was not lite, but we saw it as an investment in sovereignty. Because the sun has no lag time. It does not require a flight to Singapore for assurances. It does not fluctuate with West Asian ceasefires, and it never gets pushed to the back of a queue.

  Minister Ditoka’s shuttle diplomacy is admirable, and those $30 million in Australian funds are welcome. But imagine if even a fraction of that regional maneuvering—the flights, the memoranda, the storage talks—were redirected into subsidising rooftop solar for every vulnerable household. Imagine if our “strategic reserve” were not barrels in Geelong, but batteries distributed across our islands.

  Our ancestors crossed these vast oceans by reading stars and currents. They understood self-reliance intrinsically. Today, our version of that is far simpler: sunlight falls on our shores every single day, free of geopolitics. The Government will continue its necessary, but ultimately reactive, work to secure the tankers. That is their job.

  But for us—the families, the retirees, the households who feel every lag day at the pump—the only lasting security is the one we generate ourselves. The war will end. The strait will reopen. The price will drop to $80, then climb again. The tankers will come, or they will not.

  The sun, however, never cancels its cargo. For us in the Pasifika, sovereignty is not found in a diplomatic note from Singapore or a reserve in Geelong. It is harvested from the sky above—one panel, one home, one island at a time.

  2026.06.18

• The Silly Season Has Arrived Early

  Fiji is scheduled to hold its next election latest by February 2027. That is, if it happens at all. This is not idle speculation. Events entirely outside government control may well alter that timeline entirely.

  Consider the perfect storm forming on the horizon: an ongoing Gulf war causing global energy disruptions and shortages; a Tier 1 Super El Niño predicted for 2026 with potentially devastating weather impacts; a converging crisis of drugs, HIV, and non-communicable diseases; an economic meltdown that could deliver a COVID-like shock; and the very real prospect of a State of Emergency declaration. Any one of these could destabilise electoral preparations. All of them together? That is not merely a doomsday scenario—it is a trajectory any close observer of Fiji’s political, economic, environmental and social condition, would recognise.

  Yet the deeper problem is not the external shocks. It is our collective refusal to imagine something better.

  The Western liberal democratic model grafted onto Fiji has, in my view, never been a comfortable fit. But rather than build a truly Pasifika democratic framework—one that thinks outside the imported box and looks toward a visionary future—our leaders cling to what they know. Perhaps that is unsurprising when so many of them rose to prominence in the last century. But where are our new political leaders? The 2013 Constitution does not encourage independent thinking or cultivate new talent. It is a strongman’s document, built for an autocrat at the expense of potential. To call for fresh leadership while that constitution remains immovable, is to display a certain national naivety.

  The Bose Levu Vakaturaga understands this perfectly. That is why it insists on working within the existing system to secure its autonomy. Many Fijians dismiss the Great Council of Chiefs as an outdated governance model, but they are wrong. The iTaukei remain a largely traditional population, with all the nuances of belonging that non-iTaukei either fail to grasp or are conveniently blind to. The Fiji First party tried systematically to downgrade—if not eradicate—the chiefly system and iTaukei traditions. It did not succeed. But that does not mean later iterations of that same impulse, or individuals carrying that torch, have given up. Sadly, too many urban iTaukei—whether educated or simply misguided—have bought into this notion entirely.

  And so we enter the silly season, even before the writs are issued.

  This week’s Dialogue Fiji State of the Economy debate, gave political rivals the chance to critique the government’s projections and lay out their own economic policies. But we have such short memories. The previous regime made us live in fear of speaking, of criticising, even of sneezing. Dialogue Fiji itself felt that wrath. When that regime was defeated in December 2022, the nation was euphoric. We celebrated their demise with glee. We allowed the opposition that defeated them to form a bloated coalition—but that was beside the point. The Fiji First regime was gone. We voted for change. And we got it.

  Then we were let down. The visionary, mature, experienced, caring leadership we expected never materialised. The coalition’s selfish decision to grant themselves a massive pay raise, undressed whatever political virtues they claimed. Even their truest supporters felt the disappointment.

  Since then, they have shot themselves in the foot repeatedly: the lack of experienced political advisors; the Commission of Inquiry blunder and its ongoing fallout; the cynical embrace of figures from the previous regime’s innermost circle; the absence of a functioning National Security Council or a National Security Adviser; the palpable disrespect toward the Bose Levu Vakaturaga and iTaukei aspirations. The list goes on. Yes, they have done genuine good as well. But their worst instincts have consistently outweighed their best efforts, making their achievements look lethargic and their concern feel like an afterthought. They have seemed distant, living inside their own tinted Prado bubble.

  So here we are at the beginning of the silly season: the good, the bad and the ugly.

  If we learn one thing, let it be this: we must choose our politicians wisely. Not the loudest. Not those with the flashiest social media presence or the smoothest delivery. We must choose those who actually believe in and deliver what they promise. And if they do not, we must vote for those who convince us they will.

  There are far too many wannabe politicians without the experience or professional attributes to back up their ambitions. Too many carrying baggage from previous lives that should give us all pause. That someone has a social media following does not make them a leader. We must stop being a gullible electorate and start thinking critically—about vision for our children and grandchildren, about the future of the iTaukei, our aspirations and about the future of Fiji as a nation.

  Let me return to this week’s State of the Economy dialogue. It brought together political rivals, state officials and economists to debate our economic health ahead of the national budget. They spoke about economic factors in isolation—without any discussion of the looming energy crisis, the projected Tier 1 El Niño weather pattern, the drugs and HIV and NCD crises robbing us of our next generation, or the ‘people drain’ of the PALM and NEC schemes emptying Fiji of its young population. They talked about the ‘now’. Not a single intergenerational vision for the nation was offered. All short-term thinking. No vision.

  If these are Fiji’s next political leaders, the nation is truly doomed. So I will leave you with the only question that now matters, the one that hangs over every crisis, every empty promise, every short-term calculation: Where are our next generation’s political leaders?

  2026.06.11

• Baghdad, 2003 – Tehran, 2026: The 30‑Year Dream That Became a Quagmire

  Sitting and reflecting in my Canal Hotel office in Baghdad in early 2003, I knew the war was inevitable. Over 150,000 troops massed on Iraq’s borders. Saddam stalled with weapons inspectors, but it didn’t matter. The war came.

  A colleague shared an Algerian newspaper’s opinion piece, translated by our UN linguist. Its thesis: Why War is Inevitable. The author toured the Middle East, dismissing each nation—Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the Gulf, Saudi Arabia—with the same phrase: “nothing to write home about.” Then came Iraq. Oil, an educated workforce, two great rivers, a formidable army. The only country that could unite the Arab world against the West. Therefore, the West could not allow it to stand. The question posed: What would a post‑war Iraq look like?

  We learned in blood. Hundreds of thousands dead, trillions spent, ISIS born from the ashes.

  Now, June 2026. That same sinking feeling has curdled into bitter confirmation.

  For Benjamin Netanyahu, war with Iran was a 30‑year dream realised. On February 28, with the US alongside, he unleashed a full‑scale attack on the Islamic republic. He persuaded President Trump that regime change was achievable. At last, the existential threat would end.

  It has gone badly wrong.

  The Iranian regime is still firmly in place, still firing missiles. The Hormuz Strait is effectively closed. Iran has hit US bases and Gulf infrastructure—and survived retaliation. Hizbollah shells northern Israel, battles Israeli troops in Lebanon, and has forced over a million Lebanese from their homes. Israel is now bogged down in a Lebanese quagmire, on top of nearly three years of war since October 7, 2023.

  Trump now calls the shots—publicly saying, “I call all the shots. He doesn’t.” He has instructed Netanyahu, in abusive terms, to curtail the Lebanon campaign. The US president is working on a peace deal that would likely leave Iran financially stronger, with residual nuclear capability.

  Netanyahu faces an impossible choice: defy Trump and lose American weaponry and air defenses, or back down and look weak at home, in an election year.

  He has pursued a purely military solution—ignoring political and diplomatic dimensions. Assassinated leaders are replaced. Bombed populations fight harder. You cannot kill your way to security.

  The exiled crown prince, reconstruction pledges, calls for the Iranian people to rise… I have seen this script before. It was called Iraq, 2003. It ended in chaos.

  Now Israel is militarily overstretched, internationally isolated (the International Court of Justice is considering genocide accusations), and locked in a war that has achieved none of its goals. Netanyahu will likely face elections with Iran’s regime still standing, Hizbollah still fighting, and American support falling sharply.

  What strikes me most is the arrogance of repetition. In 2003, the West convinced themselves that Saddam’s removal would unleash democracy across the Middle East. Instead, they unleashed sectarian slaughter, Iranian influence, and a power vacuum that took years to partially fill. Now, the same delusion is being peddled for Iran—only this time, the United States is unwilling to pay the butcher’s bill. Trump wants victory without occupation, regime change without troops, and a peace deal that rewards the very regime he helped attack. That is not strategy. That is magical thinking.

  And what of the Israeli public? After three years of continuous war—Gaza, Lebanon, now Iran—exhaustion is setting in. The northern evacuation zones remain empty. Reservists are burning out. The economy is strained. Yet Netanyahu continues to speak of “total victory” as if it were one more airstrike away. He has silenced debate at home, branded any critic a traitor, and convinced himself that military force alone can solve political problems. It cannot. It never could.

  History did not repeat. It rhymed. And the rhyme is a dirge.

  The author of that Algerian piece asked what a post‑war Iraq would look like. We should now ask: what will a post‑war Israel look like after this 30‑year dream? I fear the answer will be just as grim.

  2026.06.08

• Borrowed Time – Tough Choices Fiji Can’t Keep Putting Off

  While President Trump insists “talks with Iran are going well,” the US attacked a fuel tanker near Kharg Island. Iran retaliated against targets in Bahrain and Kuwait. The Strait of Hormuz remains shut. And here in Fiji, we are beginning to feel the painful threshold of the coming fossil fuel crisis.

  Trump lives in a Washington bubble where words still matter. But Hormuz doesn’t negotiate. Oil tankers burn or sit idle. The only thing that will reopen that strait is an Iranian decision—not a White House press release. And certainly not an Israeli foreign minister’s spin about a war that Israel nudged the US into, selling it as a quickie. But quickies never provide any satisfaction.

  For Fiji and the Pasifika, this is no longer a foreign war. It is a domestic energy emergency.

  Our Pasifika neighbours face the same vulnerability. No regional fuel reserves, no strategic buffer. If shipping lanes are disrupted further, the entire Blue Pasifika feels the pain together. But Fiji, as the regional hub, must lead. Not with speeches, but with action.

  A major newspaper warned last month that the world is on “borrowed time” because of the growing energy crisis. Seventy-six countries have already taken emergency action. Fiji isn’t on that list—yet. But if we wait until we are, only damage control will be left.

  Global oil demand is far outpacing supply. Stockpiles are draining fast. Fiji has no real fuel reserves. Our economy is fragile. Our power grid already struggles at peak times. Already, families are paying double for bus fares. Market vendors are raising prices because transport costs have exploded. Small businesses are one blackout away from closing for good.

  Government must get off its high horse. The National Security Council (NSC) should now be meeting weekly, track global oil markets, and issue binding orders. Silence right now is negligence.

  Here is what the government must consider seriously—before the crisis forces its hand:

  1. Mandatory work from home – All non‑essential public workers should work from home at least three days a week. Private sector should follow. Every car kept off the road saves fuel immediately.

  2. Cut traffic aggressively – Alternate day driving based on odd/even licence plates; bus lanes on the Suva‑Nausori corridor with cheaper fares; restrict fuel sales for non‑essential trips if shortages hit; vehicle pool mandates for government fleets, including ministers.

  3. Planned power cuts, not random chaos – EFL must prepare load shedding now. Publish a clear rotating schedule in newspapers, on social media, by SMS. Example: “Your area loses power 8am–6pm Tuesday and Thursday.” Hard, but predictable. Hospitals, water pumps, and the airport must be exempted. Predictability saves lives and food.

  4. Government must lead by example – Every ministry: AC at 24°C minimum, lights and equipment off after hours, shift work to daylight hours. You can’t ask families to sacrifice while government lights burn all night.

  5. Four‑day work week for non‑essential sectors – Work four longer days, shut down completely on the fifth. No commuting, no lights, no AC.

  Outer islands and rural areas – Fuel shipments to Vanua Levu, Taveuni, Lomaiviti, Lau, Kadavu, Yasawa, and Rotuma could become irregular. Pre‑position fuel and essentials now. Every district needs a local emergency plan, not waiting for Suva.

  Tourism – Hotels must publish backup plans. Tourists will cancel if they hear of chaos. Acting now protects jobs and foreign income.

  State of Emergency – The mix of energy, drugs, HIV, and NCD crises now calls for a State of Emergency. Not military rule, but legal power to act fast: work‑from‑home mandates, driving limits, load shedding schedules, conservation orders—without parliamentary delays. We did it for COVID. This is just as urgent.

  What ordinary Fijians can do now – Start vehicle pooling. Turn off appliances at the wall. Freeze water bottles—if power goes, they keep your fridge cold for hours. Talk to your neighbours. Community preparedness is our secret weapon.

  Beyond individual action, consider the economic ripple: every week of delayed action pushes more families into poverty. The cost of diesel for fishing boats has already doubled in some areas. If we wait for a full-blown shortage, the price of fish, root crops, and imported rice will spiral beyond reach for thousands of Fijian households. Acting now is not just about lights—it is about food security.

  The war is at a stalemate. The ceasefire shows no sign of moving to the next stage. Negotiations are checkmated. Tit‑for‑tat attacks illustrate the chaos that will return without serious goodwill on both sides. Iran has geography and time. The US has the watch and its midterm elections.

  Fiji must act like it. We are living on borrowed time. The only question is: will our government make these hard decisions before the lights are flickering and the pumps are dry?

  Act now. Because borrowed time runs out faster than anyone expects.

  2026.06.08

• The Quiet Coup of the Middle Powers

  For three decades after the Cold War, the world grew accustomed to a simple hierarchy: the United States at the apex, a handful of great powers just below, and everyone else jostling for relevance. That era is ending—not with a summit declaration or a treaty, but with a thousand small recognitions, from Beirut to Brasília, that power is no longer what it used to be. The new geopolitics is being written not by superpowers, but by middle powers with no real power at all. And the West, along with Japan, South Korea, and India, has yet to notice.

  West Asia’s new center holds

  Consider Lebanon. Hezbollah, far from being dismantled by Israeli strikes, will emerge stronger. The militia-turned-political-force has replenished its ranks and proven it can absorb punishment while remaining a veto player in Lebanese politics. What Western analysts once dismissed as a mere proxy is now a permanent feature of the Levant’s power landscape. The Gulf monarchies, for their part, have learned a painful lesson: geography has reasserted itself, and it favors those who stay.

  Europe’s belated awakening

  Across Western Europe, a belated recognition is setting in—what Ukraine already understood two years ago. Geopolitics is no longer a game of great powers alone. Ukraine has fought a superpower to a stalemate not because it is strong, but because it understood that middle powers, armed with resilience, information warfare, and asymmetric alliances, can rewrite the rules. European leaders now speak of “strategic autonomy” and “wartime footing,” but their actions lag. They still await Washington’s permission, still assume the old transatlantic bargain holds. Ukraine knows better: middle powers must forge their own fate.

  The Global South sees clearly

  Outside the Euro-Atlantic bubble, the recognition is already complete. China understands that the unipolar moment is over—not because Beijing says so, but because it has spent a decade building parallel institutions and supply chains that bypass Western-led orders. Brazil has positioned itself as a mediator between North and South, neither accepting Western lectures nor aligning with any bloc. South Africa, through its BRICS chairmanship, has shown that a middle power can set agendas—on climate, debt, and UN reform—that great powers ignore at their peril.

  These three nations do not pretend to rival the United States or China in military or economic weight. What they possess is different: the ability to convene, to block, and to shape debate. In a fractured world, that is power enough.

  Canada’s lonely warning

  At the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, Canada’s prime minister delivered a speech that went largely unnoticed in Washington and Tokyo. Ottawa warned that the postwar liberal order was disintegrating, that middle powers needed new coalitions, and that the old distinction between “great” and “small” had lost meaning. Canada was speaking about itself. But the audience that needed to hear it—the West’s established powers and Asia’s advanced economies—was not listening.

  Japan and South Korea remain locked in a Cold War mindset, viewing security through the lens of the US alliance and treating China as the sole strategic variable. They have not grasped that the real story is not US-China rivalry but the proliferation of autonomous actors who refuse to take sides. India, for all its talk of Vishwaguru, still acts like a rising great power, not a convener of the non-aligned. It has not yet recognized that the future belongs not to the tallest, but to the most agile.

  The transition in real time

  What does this new geopolitics look like? It looks like Iran and Türkiye shaping West Asia while Washington struggles to articulate an exit. It looks like Hezbollah surviving as a state within a state. It looks like Ukraine fighting on without NATO membership. It looks like Brazil, South Africa, and China building parallel trade systems. It looks like Canada warning of a storm no one else sees.

  The mistake of Western, Japanese, South Korean, and Indian strategists is to assume that power still resides where it always has: in arsenals, GDP figures, and treaty obligations. But the middle powers of 2026 know something their predecessors did not. In a world of interconnected crises—climate, debt, migration, pandemics—the ability to block, delay, and refuse is often more decisive than the ability to impose. The United States can still launch a war, but it cannot end one. China can still build infrastructure, but it cannot force compliance. The age of command is over. The age of veto has begun.

  No one is coming to save us

  The quiet coup of the middle powers is not an ideology or a conspiracy. It is simply the arithmetic of a multipolar world. When no single power can dominate, everyone becomes a middle power. The question is not whether this transition is happening—it is already visible from Beirut to Brasília. The question is whether the established powers will realize it before they are rendered irrelevant.

  Canada has realized it. Ukraine lives it. China, Brazil, and South Africa have built strategies around it. But Washington, Tokyo, Seoul, New Delhi, and the capitals of Western Europe still behave as if the old rules apply. They do not. The new geopolitics is being written in real time—not by superpowers, but by those who learned long ago that waiting for permission is a luxury no middle power can afford.

  2026.05.30

• The Fall of the Old Guard and the Emergence of a New West Asian Order

  The post–World War II order is dead. What rises in its place will be shaped by conflicts still raging, diplomatic gambits still unfolding, and economic policies still being written. Nowhere is that truth more stark than in West Asia, where the Iranian regime—by sheer geographic presence and the endurance of a disciplined civilization—has survived the US-Israeli war and retains control over the Hormuz Strait.

  Less than a decade ago, Western strategists could sketch West Asia’s power map with reasonable confidence. Egypt commanded the Arab world’s political weight. Saudi Arabia and the UAE anchored the Gulf’s economic might under an American security umbrella. Iraq and Syria were containment zones for Iranian influence. Today, that map has been tossed aside. The region’s center of gravity is no longer in the Arab heartland. It sits in Ankara and Tehran. The Gulf monarchies that Washington counted on as pillars of a “rules-based” order, have been exposed as brittle dependents—caught in a conflict they did not choose and could not control.

  The war that backfired

  The US-Israeli war against Iran, supported tacitly by the GCC, was supposed to cripple Tehran’s power. Instead, it has hastened a slow-motion transition that strategists had been tracking for years: the emergence of Iran and Turkey as West Asia’s indispensable powers. Worse, the same miscalculation has diminished the Quad as a meaningful counterweight to China and accelerated Beijing’s rise as Asia’s pre‑eminent power. A war intended to restore American deterrence has done precisely the opposite.

  Let’s be clear about what was already happening before February 2026. The regional redistribution of power was visible. The Gulf states—Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE—had leveraged their hydrocarbon wealth into a model of economic integration: advanced technology, logistics, tourism, finance. That “Gulf model” offered a post‑oil future while keeping Washington invested in their security. But it rested on a fragile assumption: that American protection would remain reliable and that the Gulf could insulate itself from geopolitical storms. The war shattered both assumptions.

  As Tehran retaliated against American bases across the Gulf, the very facilities designed to shield the GCC became magnets for attack. Gulf states found themselves in a security trap—unable to join the war offensively for fear of escalation, yet unable to prevent their territory from becoming a battlefield. Their strategic restraint, born of necessity, signaled to every regional actor, that the American security guarantee is conditional at best.

  Western commentators warned that if the Iranian regime survives and retains even limited control over the Hormuz Strait, it would amount to a strategic defeat for the US, Israel, and the Gulf states. After months of war, the regime has not fallen. Tehran has demonstrated it can punish Gulf economies at will—targeting energy facilities, disrupting the Strait, launching sustained drone and missile campaigns—while Washington struggles to articulate a political endgame.

  The unintended rise

  The war’s most consequential effect has been to accelerate the ascent of Iran and Turkey as the region’s indispensable powers. For Iran, survival is victory. Despite relentless airstrikes, the regime has retained control over the Strait, through which a fifth of global oil passes. More importantly, Tehran has shown it can impose costs on the Gulf directly, forcing a reconsideration of alignment with Washington. The GCC, through their restraint, have signaled that they now view Tehran not as a regime to be eliminated but as an unavoidable permanent stakeholder in any future regional order. That is a profound shift: the Arab Gulf’s long‑term calculation now includes Iran at the table, not just as an adversary to be contained.

  Turkey’s rise has been quieter but equally significant. Ankara welcomed the ceasefire and warned against steps that would destabilize Iran, recognizing that instability in Iran would immediately sharpen Turkish anxieties about Kurdish militancy, refugee flows, and border security. By positioning itself as a stabilizing power and a diplomatic interlocutor, Turkey has enhanced its regional standing while avoiding the costs of direct involvement. In a multipolar West Asia, Ankara’s strategic autonomy—its ability to move between NATO, Russia, and regional actors—has become a valuable asset.

  The Quad’s quiet fade

  These shifts have not occurred in isolation. The same American resources consumed by the Iranian war have been drawn from the Indo‑Pasifika, with direct consequences for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. Since his return to the White House in 2025, President Trump has refused to participate, leaving the Quad leaderless and degrading its geostrategic value. The downgrade from a leaders’ summit to a foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi this week, was a stark indicator of waning US political commitment.

  The Quad is now diminished politically and strategically. Its erosion is not accidental; it reflects a deeper logic. China’s strategy of “managed equilibrium” seeks not to dismantle the Quad by force but to weaken its cohesion, lower its political profile, and encourage accommodation in Washington. As the US becomes preoccupied with West Asia and its European allies face their own pressures, Beijing’s diplomatic space expands. US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth’s speech at the Shangri‑La Dialogue this week—calling for “partners, not protectorates” and warning that “the era of the United States subsidising the defense of wealthy nations is over”—sounded less like a reassurance to allies than a notice of retrenchment.

  China has been quick to exploit the opening. Where the Quad has stalled, Beijing has advanced bilateral arrangements—with Indonesia, with the Gulf states, across Central Asia—that quietly extend its influence without the confrontational rhetoric of a formal alliance. The war on Iran, as Chinese state media has noted, is undermining supply‑chain resilience across the Asia‑Pasifika and exposing the contradictions in Washington’s simultaneous pursuit of two distant theaters.

  No plan, no order

  The post–World War II order has come to an end. The war in West Asia has not merely confirmed that verdict; it has written the first chapter of whatever comes next. By launching an ill‑defined campaign against Iran without a credible political endgame, Washington has accelerated the very realignments it feared: the rise of Iran and Turkey as the region’s gravitational centers; the exposure of the Gulf states’ dependence on an increasingly unreliable protector; and the quiet fading of the Quad as Asia’s preferred counterweight to China.

  The new global architecture will not be designed in Washington, Riyadh, or Jerusalem. It will be contested in the Hormuz Strait, on the Turkish‑Iranian frontier, and in the boardrooms where Gulf investors decide whether to bet on the dollar or the renminbi. Geography has reasserted itself, and the lack of strategic thinking in Western interventions has merely hastened its return. The question now is not whether the old order is gone. It is whether anyone has a plan for what replaces it.

  2026.05.30