Obama’s “speech to the Muslim world” in Cairo might have included some balanced thoughts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the possibility of improving relations with Iran. The US president also had a keen sense of his audience; no less than three times did he touch upon sensitivities about women being properly clothed.

Yet far more intriguing than policy details or conciliatory gestures were passages that revealed Obama’s worldview and sense of mission as the Apostle of Progress. It’s also important to note that this general mindset and goals are shared by Western elites as a whole. Implicit in the speech was the enduring desire for radical transformation of the world. Obama hopes to secure the triumph of modernity in the Middle East by a gradualism that condemns the excesses of the last administration.

The juxtaposition of contradictory notions in the speech was particularly jarring, but it nonetheless had a purpose. Obama occasionally used traditional-sounding language referring to “our communities, our families, our traditions, and our faith”, but ultimately asserted that “human progress cannot be denied”. Judging from the prominence of the concept of progress in the president’s speech, it is not difficult to ascertain what is central to the gospel he preaches. Even the laudable appeal to cease oppression of Copt and Maronite Christians was based on the liberal principle of diversity.

The US is now attempting to transform the Islamic world by smoothing the rough edges of intervention and democracy promotion, if only rhetorically. In its effort to change Muslim societies, Washington now gives pride of place to material advancement and science.

“On science and technology, we will launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries, and to help transfer ideas to the marketplace so they can create more jobs.  We’ll open centers of scientific excellence in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and appoint new science envoys to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water, grow new crops.”

Besides the fact that “science envoy” sounds like a term coined by Aldous Huxley, Obama’s grand vision merely marks a tactical shift in the US approach toward the Islamic world. It is presumed that Muslims will embrace egalitarianism, manufactured diversity and the various other ailments of the modern West not by Bush’s bombs, but by Obama’s initiatives for eco-friendly job creation (with some counterinsurgency thrown in on the side). US foreign policy remains a social engineering project writ large.

In return for continued US involvement in Muslim societies, Obama will be their advocate this side of Suez. He offers Muslims a secure position and growing influence in the West. To the applause of the crowd, he made clear that the US government would punish institutions that ban Islamic dress. Obama also promised greater cultural exchange, which in practice will amount to more mass immigration. In the West, the multiculturalist program to erase traditional Christianity and dissolve the cultural and ethnic composition of our lands proceeds apace. This disorder, based on the negation of the spirit, can only be defeated through spiritual renewal.

It is helpful to close with the words of the French scholar and metaphysician René Guénon. Guénon, a Sufi Muslim who died in Cairo 58 years ago, was ever the defender of tradition, both in the East and the West. He spoke incisively about the materialists who would co-opt traditional language and symbols to serve their own ends, in this case “Progress”. Obama’s speech corresponds to his analysis quite well:

“Most of our contemporaries have reached such a state of mental confusion that associations of the most contradictory words bring about no reaction on their part and do not even provide them with food for thought”.

I have the good fortune to discuss US-Russia relations, KGB officers converting to Orthodox Christianity, America’s postmodern empire, and the possibility of a new Cold War on the Chuck Wilder radio show today at 4:05 PM EST, 1:05 PM PST. Feel free to tune in.

Poland’s deputy defense minister announced that a US Patriot missile battery will deploy to the country by the end of 2009. This means about 100 US troops will be on Polish soil, bordering Belarus and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. The Poles are eager to get a commitment to “boots on the ground” from Washington, since they are looking for added deterrent value against Russia. Moscow has responded by unsubtly reminding the West that it can bring forward short-range Iskander ballistic missiles to counter the US presence.

Official explanation provides that the Patriot battery will secure the deployment of any future missile defense system against Iran. This all looks rather flimsy for good reasons. First of all, the Iranian Air Force hasn’t been spotted flying missions in Eastern Europe for quite some time. Warsaw’s deputy defense minister stated that the missiles will be on rotation whether or not the Obama administration decides to go forward with the missile shield. It’s also rather obvious that a powerful US radar in the Czech Republic and anti-missile complexes in Poland wouldn’t be primarily designed for defense against Iran, which is still years away from an adequate delivery vehicle for a nuclear warhead. As a joint group of US and Russian technical specialists recently concluded, such a system wouldn’t even be able to perform its stated task of countering a hypothetical threat from Teheran.

News of US deployments to Poland comes at the time of US-Russian nuclear arms negotiations and before Obama’s upcoming visit to Moscow in July. If it was coordinated with Washington, the Polish official’s statement would be a “signal” that the US intends for a military presence in Eastern Europe, bringing it ever closer to Russia’s borders. The success of current bilateral efforts to reduce arsenals will mean little if US policymakers continue to pursue a general line of geopolitical confrontation. Why would Russia have any incentive to cooperate with the US on issues like Iranian nonproliferation when Washington hopes to push NATO to less than a few hundred miles from the suburbs of Moscow?

America’s efforts to deny Moscow any legitimate sphere of interests in the former Soviet space and gain control of Central Asia’s energy corridors will only widen the scope of conflict.  Instead of compliance with US wishes, expect an accelerated Russian pushback. If a US presence for Poland is confirmed, watch for the Kremlin to make countermoves in Ukraine.

Poland is a great and noble nation whose tragedy lies in its geography. This is not the first time Warsaw has eschewed compromise and counted on the unwise security guarantees of far-off allies, and we all know how well that worked out.

Both consumption and US Empire stem from the same source- unrestrained desire. Modern man, feeling himself liberated from nature, tradition, and any higher law, seeks to create the world in his own image. There is no theoretical limit to his passions, and the passion to dominate will necessarily become universal whenever the means present themselves. The Pax Americana is only the latest and most comprehensive variant of the Enlightenment notion asserting Liberté, Égalité, and Fraternité, which translate to the absolute sovereignty of the will of man.

The liberation of desire reveals itself in all spheres of life; the US imperial project and the assumption of unending economic expansion and the accumulation of material goods are only two examples. The sovereign will is manifested in every realm, from the family to art to sex, so that humans are left with their constructed rights to define themselves in a vacuum. Should it surprise us that the outcome is disorder and spiritual death? Consumption through the further manipulation of desire, as seen in mass anti-culture, along with the presentation of manufactured “diversity” and “choice” are the ways in which our managerial elites govern the resulting anarchy.

The US imperial project is profoundly radical, as its promoters hope to transform the world according to this model. Religion, ethnicity, and particularity of place are consigned to irrelevance since men are reduced to mere units in the market. Like the historical expressions of other modern ideologies, American Empire is metaphysically impoverished. In creating a counterfeit order, it attempts to form a closed system. However, reaction follows revolution, the unjust application of power will be balanced, and debt cannot be massed into perpetuity. Such prideful violation of natural law incurs a heavy punishment.

The struggle between the broad-based Georgian opposition and President Mikheil Saakashvili was ratcheted up a notch today after he declared he foiled a coup plot at an army base. Saakashvili rather predictably named Moscow as the source of these machinations. The Russians may be working to encourage the Georgian opposition, but Georgian analysts say it’s unlikely the mutiny was done with external support. This was more likely an attempt by the Georgian president to distract from continuing protests and calls for his ouster. There is also the possibility that Saakashvili is planning to implement a state of emergency to better deal with opposition forces, who are planning to block roadways into the capital.

With political instability and armed rebellion in Tbilisi, what better time than now for NATO to hold “Partnership for Peace” exercises in Georgia? Apparently no one in Washington or Brussels has had second thoughts on the war games, which are slated to kick off tomorrow. Russia has expressed its official displeasure by cancelling the NATO-Russia foreign ministers’ meeting. Moscow has also convinced the Serbs, Kazakhs, Moldovans and Armenians to refrain from taking part in the exercises. When the Armenians announced their cancellation today, SVR (Russian foreign intelligence) Director Mikhail Fradkov just happened to be in Yerevan at the same time to meet with President Serzh Sargsyan. Latvia and Estonia, two Baltic states and both NATO members, have also decided to sit out.

Western policymakers just can’t seem to help themselves in the former Soviet space. It has been less than a year since the August Russo-Georgian war, yet NATO is affecting the pretense that nothing has changed. Our foreign policy elite might be ignorant of history, but it cannot be oblivious to the fact that US-Georgian military exercises were held mere weeks before Georgia’s offensive into South Ossetia. If any lesson could be learned from last year, it would be that Saakashvili is emboldened by US support, not somehow calmed by it, and it is only a matter of time before his erratic tendencies lead to further conflict.

Washington should have seen the writing on the wall last August, yet it persists in attempting to expand NATO into Russia’s sphere of influence. Contrary to the denials of public relations officials, this May’s exercises give the US another chance to “send a signal” of support for Saakashvili. Such gestures would be meaningless if they were not dangerous. Mindlessly provoke Russia with war games in Georgia? Yes we can!

I’d have to dust off my Halford Mackinder, but I’ll give my two cents. Robert Kaplan is offering “realism” and geopolitical theory as a way of disciplining and directing liberal internationalism. He simply advocates prudence and the appreciation of strategic geography to ensure the eventual triumph of global democracy.

While Kaplan makes for an interesting read, his new article seems like a journalist’s reflection of the core tenets of Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Grand Chessboard, which so blatantly articulated the broad objectives of US foreign policy. Namely, the United States must dominate Eurasia, illiberal Russia must be suborned, and interventions along the “arc of instability” should bring modernity to the Balkans, the Northwest Frontier Province, and everywhere in between. Unchallenged US hegemony is seen as the guarantor of borderless markets and the human rights regime, which will eventually provide the foundations for global governance.

It’s also curious that Kaplan refers to Iran as a “postmodern empire”, when the term is clearly better applied to Washington’s system of hegemony. Teheran can sponsor terror networks in the Levant, but it’s nothing quite like presiding over a web of international institutions with the power to loan vast sums of money, manage global trade, sponsor liberal revolutions, or mount military interventions to enforce democratic “norms”.

By exhorting the United States to imitate the Victorians, it’s my sense that Kaplan is appealing to the pragmatism of a Lord Palmerston or Disraeli. These statesmen might have been realists in their time and place, but the Victorians were simply an earlier generation of children of the Enlightenment. They shared many of our contemporaries’ faith in progress (and empire as an agent of that progress), a vague humanist sentimentalism, and a belief in science as a means of mastery over nature. Kaplan is ultimately outlining the geopolitical landscape not to show the intractable particulars of place, but to better inform the liberal project in overcoming those particulars.

Kaplan also neglects to mention that the Victorians were twice entangled in failed imperial adventures in Afghanistan. Perhaps it’s time to stop emulating them.

Mr. Roberts’ thoughts on the traditional and modern ideas of the nation lead us to their corollary in notions of the state. The traditional view holds that the state is an organic entity occupying a specific place in the metaphysical hierarchy. It is entrusted with the security and common good of the nation, while its higher mission is to allow the flowering of culture (in the sacred, rather than everyday sense).

Nikolai Berdyaev in his work The Philosophy of Inequality remarked that the state possesses an irreducible core that cannot be rationalized or quantified. Like everything in the Cosmos, it has its nature, obligations, and limits.

The modern abstract state, brought to us by the philosophes of the Enlightenment, is seen as a mere theoretical construct, a means of rational administration to competing societal interests and desires. Though this idea came into its own in the French Revolution, the ground had been laid for these developments long before 1789.

The centralizing tendencies of the French monarchy and its usurpation of local, feudal and Church power set the precedent for today’s intrusive abstract state and its reign over a barely-contained social anarchy. Philip the Fair, Cardinal Richelieu and the Sun King elevated the state to a position beyond its natural role, while the Jacobins and Napoleon simply extended this transgression with ever greater ideological virulence.

If the state is divorced from its standing in the cosmic order, it follows that it can assume just about any role under a given ideology. It’s easy to look at twentieth-century totalitarianism for examples of this, but such regimes are only the offenders with the highest body count. The managerial technocracy of the present day also suffices as an illustration. From sex education to global democratic revolution, no task is too big or too small for the omnipresent abstract state.

The anti-government riots in Kishinev have quieted down, and the Moldovan government has detained several individuals it claims are connected with inspiring the opposition action. According to Moldova’s Communist president Vladimir Voronin, among those arrested are a Romanian journalist and nine Serbs.

The Serbs, if they have anything to do with the uprising, could be veterans of the US-supported organization Otpor, whose operatives were also spotted in Tbilisi in 2003 and Kiev in 2004. Meanwhile, the Moldova director of the American National Democratic Institute Alex Grigorjevs is being deported on suspicion of helping organize the protests.

Voronin’s government is the poster child for misrule, but there might be more taking place than simple local outrage at their corruption and incompetence. The webs of NGOs, student fronts and civic groups that spring up for color revolutions have the feel of old Comintern operations.

Let’s not forget, though, who created the Comintern and wrote the book on political fronts and the manipulation of “people power”. The Russian security services have likely been generous in lending assistance to the Moldovan government, which has loudly broadcast its fears of annexation by Romania.

Romanian president Traian Basescu is offering citizenship to ethnic Romanians in Moldova. Similar moves by Russia in the former Soviet periphery have been roundly condemned by Washington, but I haven’t seen any official US concern about Romania’s initiative. What started with the declaration of Kosovo independence has rippled into other corners of Europe, and the full consequences haven’t yet materialized.

Springtime is the season for political discord in some former Soviet republics. Violent protests have rocked Moldova’s corrupt Communist government, while in Georgia opposition forces are hoping to put 100,000 demonstrators on the streets of Tbilisi tomorrow and call for the ouster of president Mikheil Saakashvili.

The always-watchful Stratfor seems to be on top of the situation. The company’s analysts give some helpful guidance on color revolutions:

“Color revolution” describes the wave of regime changes in the post-Soviet world (from Serbia to Kyrgyzstan) that were not instigated by a coherent opposition movement, but rather flowed from seemingly spontaneous outpourings of social angst involving students and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The best-known of these were Georgia’s nonviolent “Rose Revolution” in 2003 and Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” in 2004.

However, the spontaneity of color revolutions frequently has been called into question. Western involvement — such as funding from Europe for rebelling student groups and NGOs or direct links to U.S. intelligence services — is often suspected, if not proved outright. In Russia (and most of the world, apart from the West), the Orange Revolution has been largely viewed as a Western-backed effort to subvert a key state on the Russian periphery — an event that in many ways has motivated the Kremlin’s recent moves to force Western powers out of Moscow’s traditional “sphere of influence.”

The demonstrations in Moldova haven’t as yet shown concrete evidence of foreign inspiration. Many protestors were seen waving Romanian and EU flags (a Russian news crew also saw a pirate flag). It is understandable that Romanian-speaking Moldovans would seek a closer political arrangement with Bucharest due to the rotten Communist government, so it remains to be seen whether various “Open Society”-type NGOs might have played a role in coordinating any action. If Western and Russian intelligence services haven’t already started trying to influence events in Kishinev, they probably are now.

Stratfor also reports that the Russian state may be funding various Georgian opposition parties for tomorrow’s protest action against that darling of the Open Society movement, Saakashvili. While Moscow has its reasons to want Saakashvili gone, Georgians have all the justifications they need for seeking his departure. The Georgian president last year recklessly led his country into war with Russia. He also seemed to think that Washington, with its foolish effort to extend NATO into the Caucasus, would actively reinforce his campaign against South Ossetia. The adventure resulted predictably in disaster, both for Saakashvili and the Georgian people.

In light of ongoing geopolitical duels and the effects of the financial crisis, it will probably be a dynamic summer across Europe.