Superpower Gives Birth

Long War: In Africa two new democracies are (hopefully) being formed: South Sudan and Tunisia. When and if they fully emerge, America will have two new allies in the heart of the beast. It won't be a smoooth path forward for Tunisia or north Africa in general. AQIM is sharpening its sword and taking advantage of the chaos in Tunisia, likely breaking bad guys out of prison and growing its networks through new recruiting. If a unity government isn't formed soon and elections scheduled, the bad guys might even take over, which would rock the whole region. But Al Qaeda didn't overthrow the old regime in Tunisia, democratic forces did. So far Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution is running along the same path as a Velvet Revolution in central Europe. As we've already observed, shock waves from the Sudanese election are rolling through bad guy country.

The New York Times has 100% unravelled the CIA's Stuxnet anti-Iranian nuclear weapon program virus operation. The whole affair was huge involving Israeli intelligence, CIA, NSA, British intelligence, and German industrial company Siemens (ticker symbol: SI). About a quarter of Iran's centrifuges have been blown up and all its top nuclear scientists are now under lock and key, huddling fearfully not working on weapons. Iran's current nuclear weapon program is utterly destroyed. This is a terrific victory in the Long War, worthy of an extra beer at dinner.
The word to takeaway from all this is alliance. Four intelligence agencies and one of the world's biggest industrial conglomerates acting like an intelligence agency makes a formidable alliance. Assembling and running that alliance displayed CIA colors that haven't existed since the 1950s. Its name is Central Intelligence Agency for a reason, it is supposed to run other clandestine services other than itself; the fact that it is functioning along its original mandate is good news.
A geopolitical environment analogous to the late 40s and early 50s has emerged with the Long War and Cold War II just starting. Obama is like Eisenhower and Bush like Harry Truman. The plot to derail Iran's nuclear program was hatched during the Bush years but Obama is now getting credit. This is how it worked with Truman and Eisenhower in the Cold War. Obviously we only care about this topic because it may create a stock market environment like the 1950s.