Europe accounts for nine tenths of
foreign direct investment in the region and four fifths of aid. For the
likes of the Czech Republic and Croatia to support the United states
against Germany is nothing short of economic suicide.
Moreover, the United States is a demanding master. It tends to
micromanage and meddle in everything, from election outcomes to
inter-ethnic relations. James Purdew, America's ambassador to Sofia and
a veteran Balkan power broker, spent the last few weeks exerting
pressure on the Bulgarian government, in tandem with the aforementioned
Bruce Jackson, to oust the country's Prosecutor General and reinstate
the (socialist) head of the National Investigation Services.
Bulgaria is already by far the most heavily enmeshed in US military
operations in Asia. It served as a launch pad for US planes during the
Afghanistan campaign in 2001-2. It stands to be affected directly by
the looming war.
Bulgaria is on the route of illicit immigration from Iraq, Palestine
and Iran, via Turkey, to Greece and therefrom to the EU. Last Friday
alone, it detained 43 Iraqi refugees caught cruising Sofia in two
Turkish trucks on the way to the Greek border.
The Ministry of Interior admitted that it expects a "massive flow of
(crossing) refugees" if an armed conflict were to erupt.
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