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U.S. report offers bleak picture of Iraq
Iraq is a mess contrary to what Bush and Cheney are preaching.
-Am
By Eric Schmitt and Edward Wong The New York Times
SUNDAY, APRIL 9, 2006
WASHINGTON An internal staff report by the United States Embassy and the military command in Baghdad provides a sobering province-by-province snapshot of Iraq's political, economic and security situation, rating the overall stability of 6 of the 18 provinces "serious" and one "critical." The report is a counterpoint to some recent upbeat public statements by top American politicians and military officials.
The report, 10 pages of briefing points titled "Provincial Stability Assessment," underscores the shift in the nature of the Iraq war three years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Warnings of sectarian and ethnic frictions are raised in many regions, even in those provinces generally described as nonviolent by American officials.
There are alerts about the growing power of Iranian-backed religious Shiite parties, several of which the United States helped put into power, and rival militias in the south. The authors also point to the Arab-Kurdish fault line in the north as a major concern, with the two ethnicities vying for power in Mosul, where violence is rampant, and Kirkuk, whose oil fields are critical for jump-starting economic growth in Iraq.
The patterns of discord mapped by the report confirm that ethnic and religious schisms have become entrenched across much of the country, even as monthly American fatalities have fallen. Those indications, taken with recent reports of mass migrations from mixed Sunni-Shiite areas, show that Iraq is undergoing a de facto partitioning along ethnic and sectarian lines, with clashes - sometimes political, sometimes violent - taking place in those mixed areas where different groups meet.
The report, the first of its kind, was written over a six-week period by a joint civilian and military group in Baghdad that wanted to provide a baseline assessment for conditions that new reconstruction teams would face as they were deployed to the provinces, said Daniel Speckhard, an American ambassador in Baghdad who oversees reconstruction efforts.
The writers included officials from the American Embassy's political branch, reconstruction agencies and the American military command in Baghdad, Speckhard said. The authors also received information from State Department officers in the provinces, he said.
The report was part of a periodic briefing on Iraq that the State Department provides to Congress, and has been shown to officials on Capitol Hill, including those involved in budgeting for the reconstruction tea It is not clear how many top American officials have seen it; the report has not circulated widely at the Defense Department or the National Security Council, spokesmen there said.
A copy of the report, which is not classified, was provided to The New York Times by a government official in Washington who opposes the way the war is being conducted and said the confidential assessment provided a more realistic gauge of stability in Iraq than the recent portrayals by senior military officers. It is dated Jan. 31, 2006, three weeks before the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, which set off reprisals that killed hundreds of Iraqis. Recent updates to the report are minor and leave its conclusions virtually unchanged, Speckhard said.
The general tenor of the Bush administration's comments on Iraq has been optimistic. On Thursday, President Bush argued in a speech that his strategy was working despite rising violence in Iraq.
Vice President Dick Cheney, on the CBS News program "Face the Nation," suggested last month that the administration's positive views were a better reflection of the conditions in Iraq than news media reports.
"I think it has less to do with the statements we've made, which I think were basically accurate and reflect reality," Cheney said, "than it does with the fact that there's a constant sort of perception, if you will, that's created because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad."
In their public comments, the White House and the Pentagon have used daily attack statistics as a measure of stability in the provinces. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a senior military spokesman in Baghdad, told reporters recently that 12 of 18 provinces experienced "less than two attacks a day."
Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" on March 5 that the war in Iraq was "going very, very well," although a few days later, he acknowledged serious difficulties.
In recent interviews and speeches, some administration officials have begun to lay out the deep-rooted problems plaguing the American enterprise here. At the forefront has been Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, who has said the invasion opened a "Pandora's box" and, on Friday, warned that a civil war here could engulf the entire Middle East.
On Saturday, Khalilzad and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior military commander in Iraq, issued a statement praising some of the political and security goals achieved in the last three years, but also cautioning that "despite much progress, much work remains."
Speckhard, the ambassador overseeing reconstruction, said the report was not as dire as its assessments might suggest. "Really, this shows there's one province that continues to be a major challenge," he said. "There are a number of others that have significant work to do in them. And there are other parts of the country that are doing much better."
But the report's capsule summaries of each province offer some surprisingly gloomy news. The report's formula for rating stability takes into account governing, security and economic issues. The oil-rich Basra Province, where British troops have patrolled in relative calm for most of the last three years, is now rated as "serious."
The report defines "serious" as having "a government that is not fully formed or cannot serve the needs of its residents; economic development that is stagnant with high unemployment, and a security situation marked by routine violence, assassinations and extremism."
British fatalities have been on the rise in Basra in recent months, with attacks attributed to Shiite insurgents. There is a "high level of militia activity including infiltration of local security forces," the report says. "Smuggling and criminal activity continues unabated. Intimidation attacks and assassination are common."
The report states that economic development in the region, long one of the poorest in Iraq, is "hindered by weak government."
The city of Basra has widely been reported as devolving into a mini-theocracy, with government and security officials beholden to Shiite religious leaders, enforcing bans on alcohol and mandating head scarves for women. Police cars and checkpoints are often decorated with posters or stickers of Moktada al-Sadr, the rebellious cleric, or Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, a cleric whose party is very close to Iran. Both men have formidable militias.
Hakim's party controls the provincial councils of eight of the nine southern provinces, as well as the council in Baghdad.
In a color-coded map included in the report, the province of Anbar, the wide swath of western desert that is the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency, is depicted in red, for "critical." The six provinces categorized as "serious" - Basra, Baghdad, Diyala and three others to the north - are orange. Eight provinces deemed "moderate" are in yellow, and the three Kurdish provinces are depicted in green, for "stable."
The "critical" security designation, the report says, means a province has "a government that is not functioning" or that is only "represented by a single strong leader"; "an economy that does have the infrastructure or government leadership to develop and is a significant contributor to instability"; and "a security situation marked by high levels of AIF [anti-Iraq forces] activity, assassinations and extremism."
The most surprising assessments are perhaps those of the nine southern provinces, none of which are rated "stable." The Bush administration often highlights the relative lack of violence in those regions.
For example, the report rates as "moderate" the two provinces at the heart of Shiite religious power, Najaf and Karbala, and points to the growing Iranian political presence there. In Najaf, "Iranian influence on provincial government of concern," the report says. Both the governor and former governor of Najaf are officials in Hakim's religious party, founded in Iran in the early 1980's. The report also notes that "there is growing tension between Mahdi Militia and Badr Corps that could escalate" - referring to the private armies of Sadr and Hakim, which have clashed before.
The report does highlight two bright spots for Najaf. The provincial government is able to maintain stability for the province and provide for the people's needs, it says, and religious tourism offers potential for economic growth.
But insurgents still manage to occasionally penetrate the tight ring of security. A car bomb exploded Thursday near the golden-domed Imam Ali Shrine, killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens.
Immediately to the north, Babil Province, an important strategic area abutting Baghdad, also has "strong Iranian influence apparent within council," the report says. There is "ethnic conflict in north Babil," and "crime is a major factor within the province." In addition, "unemployment remains high."
Throughout the war, American commanders have repeatedly tried to pacify northern Babil, a farming area with a virulent Sunni Arab insurgency, but they have had little success. In southern Babil, the new threat is Shiite militiamen who are pushing up from Shiite strongholds like Najaf and Karbala and beginning to develop rivalries among themselves.
Gen. Qais Hamza al-Maamony, the commander of Babil's 8,000-member police force, said his officers were not ready yet to intervene between warring militias, should it come to that, as many fear. "They would be too frightened to get into the middle," he said in an interview.
If the American troops left Babil, he said, "the next day would be civil war."
Eric Schmitt reported from Washington for this article, and Edward Wong from Baghdad. Jeffrey Gettleman contributed reporting from Hilla, Iraq, and Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi from Baghdad.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/09/africa/web.0409rebuild.php
Who's The Terrorist Now?
Dominicans said mulling relationship with China
Chavez, thorn in Bush’s side and economic lifeline for Cuba another thorn in Bush’ side, is also gaining vast influence in the Caribbean along with that major thorn in Bush’s side, China.
The Caribbean- Chávez was in Jamaica Tuesday to finalize details on the PetroCaribe agreement signed in June. The deal, which is meant to help small Caribbean economies cope with high fuel prices, offers generous financing for oil sales and favorable rates in exchange for goods, services, or credit. Thirteen of the 15 members of the Caribbean Community group, or Caricom, have already signed on.
#msg-7487003
China is waging an aggressive campaign of seduction in the Caribbean, wooing countries away from relationships with rival Taiwan, opening markets for its expanding economy, promising to send tourists, and shipping police to Haiti in the first communist deployment in the Western Hemisphere.
#msg-5859727
-Am
Dominicans said mulling relationship with China
2006-04-08 / Taiwan News, Staff Reporter and AGENCIES / By Evelyn Chiang
Taiwan was left facing the prospect of losing another ally yesterday after the Dominican Republic's foreign minister reportedly said it would consider diplomatic relations with China - another sign of the PRC's growing influence in the Caribbean.
According to Dominican Foreign Minister Carlos Morales Troncoso, Dominican President Leonel Fernandez is to visit Taiwan in June.
"We are going to look at Taiwan's offers and we will see if Taiwan or China is better for the Dominican Republic," the Associated Press quoted Troncoso as saying on a Dominican television program called "One Plus One."
Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Michel Lu (呂慶龍) said the remarks would need to be verified before he could comment as the two countries have been maintaining cordial and friendly ties.
Lu said the Caribbean nation had continuously demonstrated its support of Taiwan's efforts to participate in international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization. Lu noted that President Fernandez had addressed a gathering of the country's 40 ambassadors on January 13, during which he stressed that the Dominican Republic would continue to maintain its friendly diplomatic ties with the Republic of China while developing economic and trade relations with China at the same time.
Taiwan has invited Fernandez to visit Taiwan this year and has been discussing related details, Lu said.
He observed that visits between leaders from the two countries are normal diplomatic activities aimed at promoting cooperation and friendship and should not be considered in terms of "interest" or "gain."
"I believe the Dominican Republic's government will follow this diplomatic principle when planning President Fernandez's visit to Taiwan," Lu noted.
Meanwhile, during a telephone with the Taiwan News, Taiwan's ambassador to the Dominican Republic Feng Chi-tai said diplomatic ties with the Caribbean ally are still rock-solid.
Feng dismissed the comments attributed to Troncoso as inaccurate, saying: "Troncoso told me he said during the TV interview that President Fernandez has vowed to maintain the country's diplomatic relations with Taiwan during his presidential tenure and the bilateral ties have been close since President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) visit last September."
Last year, President Chen Shui-bian toured the Caribbean and Central America to muster support among the shrinking list of countries with which Taiwan has formal ties. Fernandez and Chen signed a pact pledging to keep relations intact and discuss a potential free trade pact.
Officials at the Dominican Embassy in Taipei could not be reached yesterday for comment.
http://www.etaiwannews.com/showPage.php?setupFile=showcontent.xml&menu_item_id=MI-1123666634&....
Navy of the Americas
Nicolás Maduro, the speaker of the Venezuelan legislature, maintained that Kemp’s statements were aimed at "preparing the psychological and political conditions in Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire" to justify the installation of U.S. military bases on the islands.
#msg-10586704
All eyes in Venezuela watching Navy of the Americas project in Caribbean
Garrido
Friday, April 07, 2006
Bylined to: Patrick J. O'Donoghue
VHeadline.com News Editor Patrick J. O'Donoghue writes: Venezuelan political analyst, Alberto Garrido has been delving into US Southern Command plans for the Caribbean basin.
Garrido points out that the start of joint naval exercises in April and May, codenamed "Operation Society of the Americas" is part of a Pentagon and Southern Command plan to ensure a partnership link with friendly Navies in the region.
Southern Command chief, General Bantz Craddock has told the Senate that although Latin America is one of the lesser armed regions, it cannot be considered benign.
Since the threats to the USA and its associates are mostly non-conventional, Craddock maintains, the response and solutions must follow that reasoning.
6,500 marines will be taking part in the exercise, undoubtedly raising invasion fears in Venezuela.
Venezuela is not taking part in the exercises.
The US had attempted in the 90s to create an Army of the Americas, which never came to fruition and Garrido claims that the Pentagon hopes to succeed with the Navy of the Americas, brainchild of former SouthCom chief, James Hill.
"Operation Society of the Americas" aims to synchronize maritime activities in the Caribbean, block access to terrorists, protect legal trade and suppress illegal traffic.
The traditional Unitas, Panamax and Tradewinds joint exercises have been harnessed to serve the new Lasting Friendship framework as part of other structures with exotic names, such as the Third Border Initiative.
The United Kingdom will tow the line falling in with the US blueprint for the region. It will join the USA and friendly Navies in a joint exercise preparing for the World Cricket Cup 2007 in Jamaica.
Other analysts have placed the current Dutch Foreign Minister's remarks about President Chavez Frias' unhealthy interest in Curacao and Aruba within the above framework.
VHeadline.com first published the story several week ago when Venezuela's Notitarde tabloid broke news of Henk Kamp's remarks. President Chavez Frias' comments last Sunday made the incident national headlines this week.
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=53144
Report: Israel pressuring U.S. over Iran attack
Israel is considering the possibility of bombs carried on the backs of dogs. Other groups are also guilty of the same. Leave innocent animals out of our greedy insanity or tie a bomb on the back of unsuspecting humans because right now animals are exhibiting the higher morality. A suicide bomber at least makes a choice, the animals cannot.
This is something Bush who was into blowing up live frogs might like.
#msg-10470105
-Am
The Washington Post reports that despite fact U.S. intelligence sources believe that Iran needs another 10 years before having nuclear weapons, Israel believes critical breakthrough will happen within months, and is therefore pressuring the Americans
Yitzhak Benhorin
WASHINGTON - The U.S. government is continuing to aspire for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear problem, but doubts for chances of success are growing, a Washington Post article published on Sunday said.
U.S. Plans
Bush 'planning nuclear Iran strike' / Ynet
Article in New Yorker says that U.S. government is preparing a massive campaign to neutralize Iranian nuclear sites. Iranian President Ahmadinejad is compared in the White House to Hitler
Full Story
According to the paper, Israeli officials who visited Washington recently gave the Americans an urgent message regarding Iran: The Islamic Republic was closer to developing a nuclear bomb than Washington realizes, and the moment of decision is approaching quickly.
On Saturday, a New Yorker article said that the U.S. government is planning to massively bomb Iran, and even use nuclear bunker-busting bombs in order to destroy Iranian facilities and development sites containing nuclear weapons.
The Washington Post wrote that despite estimations by American officials that Iran would need another decade before having the bomb, Israel believes that the critical breakthrough could take place within a number of months. Israeli representatives told the Americans that Iran has begun the most advanced centrifugal experiments in a speedier manner than experts predicted in the past.
'Israel preparing its own attack'
The newspaper said that Israel recently leaked its own attack plans, if the United States does not act. The Israeli plan includes aerial attacks, commando raids, a possibility of a missile attack, and even bombs carried on the backs of dogs. The newspaper quotes Israeli newspapers which said that Israel constructed an exact replica of the Natanz nuclear development facility, but the United States does not believe that the operation can succeed without using nuclear weapons.
The newspaper said that the Bush administration is studying the options for a military attack in Iran, and is planning for this possibility in order to pressure Iran by letting it know that such an option is getting closer. Despite that, it does not appear that such an attack would take place in the short term future, and many experts within the administration and outside of it are highly doubtful of the effectiveness of a military operation.
The Post claims that the Pentagon and the CIA are examining the possible targets for the operation, such as the facility at Natanz and the facility for enriching uranium at Isfahan, although a ground operation is not being considered
(04.09.06, 11:02)
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3237839,00.html
Immigration system places enemy agents in US
This lends even more credence to what I have been posting. We have already been invaded. If we attack Iran they will hit us from within the US among other places.
Iran would mount attacks against U.S. targets inside Iraq, where Iranian intelligence agents are already plentiful, predicted these experts. There is also a growing consensus that Iran's agents would target civilians in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, they said.
#msg-10478578
What is being said is that Iranian intelligence agents are plentiful in Iraq thus it would be a simple matter to mount an attack against U.S. targets in Iraq. If there is also a growing consensus that Iran's agents would target civilians in the United States then it follows that Iranian intelligence agents are plentiful inside the United States or they have already invaded the U.S.
#Msg-10485303
-Am
Iraq spy suspect handled U.S. asylums
By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Published April 6, 2006
WASHINGTON -- An Iraqi-born U.S. citizen suspected of being a foreign intelligence agent was employed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to rule on asylum applications, including those from unfriendly Middle Eastern nations, according to documents obtained from Congress by The Washington Times.
Michael J. Maxwell, the former head of the Office of Security and Investigations at USCIS, is expected to testify about the Iraqi case and other breakdowns at the agency to a House subcommittee today.
Mr. Maxwell will tell legislators that the immigration system is being used by enemy governments to place agents in the United States.
The suspected agent, whose name has not been released, judged 180 asylum applications while at USCIS, the agency that also rules on green cards, citizenship and employment authorization.
A database check during Mr. Maxwell's investigation turned up national-security questions about nearly two dozen of those cases.
Mr. Maxwell will also tell the panel about criminal accusations pending against USCIS workers and that top USCIS officials have deceived Congress and obstructed the duties of his office, the agency's internal affairs division.
"The immigration system as a whole is so broken that our adversaries can game it," Mr. Maxwell told The Times when asked about the documents this week. "I can assure you they're using it against us; they can with impunity."
His testimony comes as the Senate debates whether to enact a guest-worker program that would allow current illegal aliens and future foreign workers a new path to citizenship.
An opponent of a guest-worker program, Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House International Relations subcommittee on terrorism and nonproliferation, which is holding the hearing, said USCIS is "deeply flawed" and focuses too much on processing applications and not enough on security, according to his prepared statement.
The House immigration-enforcement bill passed in December included an amendment by Mr. Royce, California Republican, that puts law enforcement at the top of USCIS' priorities.
Emilio Gonzalez, the agency's new director, told reporters last month that he has made national security the top priority.
"The minute I walked through these doors here, I let it be known -- under my watch, it's all about security," he said.
Mr. Gonzalez said the lack of access to databases for some adjudicators -- another subject Mr. Maxwell is expected to testify about -- hasn't hurt the agency because other agencies can do those checks and share information.
USCIS officials said they will wait to see Mr. Maxwell's testimony to respond specifically, but Angelica Alfonso-Royals, a USCIS spokeswoman, said, "We take any allegations of potential misconduct seriously and are investigating them fully."
Mr. Maxwell now works as an independent consultant on security matters, and a client is Numbers USA, which lobbies for stricter immigration controls and against a guest-worker program. He said this week that the Iraq case was not an isolated case.
"We know the asylum process is in shambles. We know fraud is rampant," he said, adding that documents show top officials know this and refuse to do anything about it.
In the case of the suspected agent, whose name was blacked out in the documents The Times obtained, Mr. Maxwell said there were many red flags.
"There are indicators throughout this entire case that I saw, professionals within the FBI and the intelligence community saw, that all pointed one way -- we were dealing with an individual who was a member of a foreign intelligence agency that had been working within CIS," Mr. Maxwell said.
"The danger was that he was granting asylum to anybody that he wanted to, with impunity, at a time of his choosing. Who was he letting into this country?"
The man was in demand at USCIS because of his language skills. He was able to do interviews without the need for a translator. At the time, that seemed to be a big benefit to the speed of the process, but in retrospect, Mr. Maxwell said, it posed a security risk.
Mr. Maxwell said they first became suspicious of the man when, while on a yearlong assignment to the Defense Department in Iraq, he walked outside the Green Zone in Baghdad and disappeared. According to documents, authorities first thought he had been taken hostage but concluded he had left of his own accord.
Mr. Maxwell began an investigation that found that the man had been hired by USCIS even though negative "national security information" in his background check caused other federal agencies to pass on him.
A national security polygraph showed repeated deception on his part, and in interviews with Mr. Maxwell, he denied having traveled to Iran, Syria and Jordan while he worked for USCIS, even though electronic databases showed he had made the trips.
The man also made "persistent requests" that Mr. Maxwell help him achieve secret or top-secret clearance so he could go back to work for the Defense Department. Mr. Maxwell said that request was weird because Defense would have had to do its own background check anyway.
The man has since left USCIS and the United States so Mr. Maxwell closed his investigation. But Mr. Maxwell said that despite his findings, USCIS doesn't even have the ability to go back and see whether any of the 180 cases the former employee approved should be revoked.
"With no internal audit function at CIS, we don't know who he let into this country," Mr. Maxwell said.
http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20060406-094833-4428r
Iran will exhibit most modern weapons in near future: defense minister
Okay, maybe it is one of these even more advanced weapons which Iran will exhibit in the near future that will make the nation proud.
-Am
Iran will exhibit most modern weapons in near future: defense minister
TEHRAN, Apr. 7 (MNA) -- After the successful “Great Prophet” (S) military maneuvers in the Persian Gulf, Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said Thursday that Iran possesses even more advanced weapons which it will exhibit in the near future.
“The modern (military) equipment used in the war games was (only) a small part of the Iranian Armed Forces’ capabilities,” he said of the war games which began March 31 and ended April 6 in the Strait of Hormuz.
The Islamic Republic satisfies its defensive needs using the creativity of its own experts, he replied when asked about rumors that the equipment tested in the war games was not domestically manufactured.
He also said that the imposition of sanctions on Iran would not have any influence on Iran’s defense capabilities.
Meanwhile, the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Brigadier General Yahya Rahim Safavi, said that the maneuvers demonstrated that Iran is ready to defend its independence, national interests, and the achievements of the Islamic Revolution.
He told reporters on Thursday that in the last phase of the maneuver staged on Thursday morning, some 1250 naval vessels, including submarines, as well as various types of military planes and helicopters were used.
Safavi stated that training exercises of the Iranian Armed Forces pose no threat to neighboring countries, adding that Iran regards none of its neighbors as a threat to its territorial integrity.
He went on to say that foreign forces’ vessels and their intelligence networks in the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea closely monitored the military capabilities of the Iranian forces, and he expressed hope that they had grasped the situation.
He also said that the security of the Persian Gulf and the Islamic Republic of Iran are intertwined, adding that the foreign forces in the region will not be able to keep themselves out of harm’s way in any possible state of insecurity in Iran.
Safavi expressed hope that security would be restored to the Persian Gulf through a complete withdrawal of foreign forces from the region, saying that the Persian Gulf should be a region of lasting peace and security since that would benefit all countries because their life and industry is dependent on the energy resources of the region.
Meanwhile, the commander of the IRGC Navy, Rear Admiral Morteza Saffari, said on Thursday that the recent maneuver was a symbol of Iran’s sovereignty and defensive preparedness.
SA/RS/HL/HG
End
MNA
http://www.mehrnews.ir/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=308773
Ecuador's 'Divided State' is Pulled Toward the Left
07 April 2006
Plagued for six years by a cycle of political instability, Ecuador plunged into social conflict on March 13 when the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie) mounted a campaign of direct action aimed at blocking Quito's negotiations on a free trade agreement (F.T.A.) with Washington.
The roots of Ecuador's instability, which is symptomized by the failure of its last three elected presidents to complete their terms in office, lie in the country's condition of being what its current president Alfredo Palacio calls a "divided state." The rifts within Ecuador's political structure are based on localism overlaid by a split between rich and poor that has resulted in weak presidents who are constrained to mediate between populist indigenous and mestizo movements, and the traditional creole political class that controls the legislature and judiciary. Executive authority is continually vulnerable to direct action from popular forces and institutional coups from the political class, depending upon which of the adversaries has not had its interests satisfied.
The pattern of Ecuador's politics was set early in the twentieth century and has been sustained by the country's economy, which has been dependent on exports of primary products that are subject to economic cycles. Populist pressures have gained strength when markets have collapsed and when they have risen, starting early in the twentieth century with the cocoa boom and bust, and continuing with the vicissitudes of the banana market and most recently the petroleum market. Declining fortunes lead to demands for economic security and advancing prosperity triggers calls to share the wealth. All the while, the wealthy use their institutional control to preserve their advantages.
The interplay between populism and oligarchy has led to chronic deadlock, reflecting a balance of power in which neither of the opposing forces is able to gain dominance permanently, neither is willing to compromise with the other to forge a social contract, and both seek to gain maximum benefits from the central government through intimidation. It is not surprising that efforts to appease both sides have resulted in over-indebtedness that has generated recurrent fiscal crises that have been followed by periods of austerity, which, in turn, have re-stimulated populist pressures.
The current cycle of instability began in 2000 when President Jamil Mahuad responded to a fiscal crisis involving a default on Ecuador's debt by adopting the U.S. dollar as the country's currency. The collapse had been caused by a ballooning fiscal deficit and an expansionary monetary policy that had left the country with a 52.2 percent rate of inflation, a 7.3 percent decline in G.D.P., a currency devalued by 65 percent, and a poverty rate of 70 percent (double what it had been through the 1990s).
Mahuad's drastic measure to curb inflation amounted to an austerity program that penalized the broad sectors of the population that did not have access to dollars, sparking a populist reaction that led to his ouster. Instrumental in the opposition movement was Conaie, the first self-organized indigenous movement in Ecuador's history.
Conaie was a new wrinkle in Ecuador's divided state. Previous populist movements had been led by opportunistic members of the political class or the military, and had not appealed directly to indigenous interests. With the emergence of Conaie, the indigenous peoples, who number one-third of Ecuador's population of 13 million, had mobilized around their own distinct interests and had become players in the political system, adding to it a complicating element that would tend to make the expedient and transitory compromises among the political class and its local power bases more difficult to achieve.
Conaie showed its strength in 2002 when its backing pushed Lucio Gutierrez, who ran on a platform of rolling back neo-liberal reforms, over the top in that year's presidential election. Gutierrez, however, quickly reversed course, maintaining the International Monetary Fund's program of structural adjustment and the dollar as Ecuador's currency. Gutierrez's reversal damaged Conaie's credibility and led to divisions in the movement, but not to its demise.
As rising oil prices eased Ecuador's financial situation, indigenous protests began to target oil facilities, demanding a share of revenues for local interests and environmental protection. Meanwhile, Gutierrez fell into a conflict with the traditional political class and was ousted by Ecuador's Congress in April 2005 after he had replaced the Supreme Court, which he had accused of being biased against him.
Gutierrez was succeeded by Alfredo Palacio, his vice president, who had broken with Gutierrez over economic policy. A cardiologist and non-partisan moderate, Palacio had no political base of his own and attempted to placate populist sentiment by increasing social spending through diverting funds meant for structural adjustment to health and education programs. His efforts were not sufficient to prevent further direct action against oil facilities that came to a head in August 2005 when indigenous protests pressured oil companies to promise to undertake public works and pay local taxes. The protests were estimated to have caused a US$500 million loss of export earnings.
From then on, local actions occurred throughout the country and Conaie's leadership became more sure of its footing and more confident of Palacio's weakness. Only a day before the current wave of direct action began on March 13, Palacio had appeased striking oil contract workers and two weeks earlier he had ended a demonstration targeting oil facilities in Napo province by promising to increase spending on social programs, roads and a regional airport.
The Divided State is Pulled from the Left
Conaie, which had regrouped and announced its solidarity with South America's populist bloc led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and recently joined by Bolivian President Evo Morales, backed its direct-action campaign of road blocks and marches with a broad program of social and political change based on regional autonomy, economic nationalism and indigenous rights. Timed to head off Quito's negotiations with Washington on the F.T.A. -- set to begin on March 23 -- Conaie's action, which quickly gained momentum and coordination, included demands that the government suspend the talks and submit the F.T.A. to a referendum after public consultation, nationalize the hydrocarbons industry and expel U.S. oil company Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) from the country, convene a constituent assembly that would rewrite Ecuador's constitution to expand indigenous rights, and decline to renew an agreement granting the United States the use of the Manta Air Force Base for its Plan Colombia anti-drug campaign.
As has been the case throughout Latin America, and for conflicts over trade agreements in general, the F.T.A. split Ecuador into two camps, with groups that would benefit financially from the deal supporting it and sectors that would lose out opposing it. Public opinion polls showed 50 percent of Ecuador's citizens against the F.T.A. and 35 percent in favor of it, with support for the pact concentrated in the urban areas and the business sector, and 81 percent of the public saying that Ecuador was not ready to enter the agreement.
Taking advantage of the strong sentiment against the F.T.A., Conaie argued that the pact would devastate agricultural sectors directed to the domestic market, in particular, rice, maize, beef and poultry. It also defended the interests of domestic pharmaceutical manufacturers who would be hurt by agreements protecting the rights of U.S. producers.
On the opposing side, led by the National Council of Chambers of Commerce, were the export interests, including the textile sector, the cut-flower industry and banana growers. The pro-F.T.A. forces argued that the deal had to be closed quickly because Peru and Colombia had already each finalized an F.T.A. with the U.S., carrying the danger that Ecuador would be left behind. In addition, Washington refused to promise that it would continue negotiations past April 15, and current trade preferences granted by the U.S. were due to expire at the end of 2006.
As Conaie organized road blocks throughout the highlands and protests spread to the oil-producing Amazon basin, Palacio refused to back away from the negotiations, but promised that Ecuador's team would bargain hard to protect domestic "food security," "public health" and "biodiversity." Foreign Trade Minister Jorge Illingworth argued that the F.T.A. would boost exports, lower taxes, benefit 120 businesses and keep in place financial aid from the U.S.
The negotiations began on March 23 and were expected to end with an agreement by March 31, but by April 4 they were still going on. Conaie held firm to its position, threatening to mount a broad "uprising" in conjunction with other labor and peasant groups if the government did not hold public consultations on the pact followed by a referendum. Palacio countered that the agreement would be completed and sent to Congress, after which a referendum could be discussed if there was popular sentiment for one.
At present, it is unclear whether Quito and Washington will finalize an F.T.A. even if the current negotiations are successful. The pact would require ratification by the legislatures in both capitals, which is by no means certain -- the U.S. Senate would balk if Palacio delivers on his promise to protect Ecuador's agricultural and pharmaceutical sectors, and organized popular sentiment against the agreement in Ecuador makes ratification uncertain whatever shape the document takes.
As the conflict over the F.T.A. was playing out, pressures mounted on foreign oil companies to share the revenues generated by high oil prices with the central government and localities. On this issue, the populists and the government were on the same side, although the latter stopped short of moving toward nationalization.
Petroleum is Ecuador's current cash cow, accounting for 15 percent of G.D.P., 40 percent of export earnings and one-third of tax revenues. Output was up six percent in 2005 to 563,000 barrels per day (bpd), with the state company Petroecuador pumping 196,000 and foreign companies 367,000 of the total. The $5.4 billion in oil revenues were instrumental in moving G.D.P. up 2.5 percent in 2005, providing the funds that have made it possible for Ecuador to begin to pay off its debt and for Palacio to buy off protestors at a cost estimated by analysts at $1 billion since he assumed office.
Greater national control of petroleum reserves and revenues is widely popular in Ecuador and has placed foreign oil producers on the defensive. In particular, Oxy has been plagued by grassroots protests and a government suit claiming that it illegally sold out part of its concession to the Canadian producer EnCana. A major foreign player in Ecuador's oil patch, Oxy pumps 115,000 bpd and is estimated to have gained $600 million in extra revenues from the recent oil price spike.
In order to ward off the threat of expulsion from Ecuador, which could become a reality if the government won its case, and to appease the grassroots movements, Oxy proposed on March 17 a plan in which it would share its revenues if it was granted an extension of its contract through 2019. The multi-faceted plan, which would cost the company approximately $300 million, would allocate $100 million to a nonprofit foundation that would fund social development projects, $110 million to joint projects with Petroecuador, $50 million as a bonus for contract extension and $13 million to aid in the modernization of Ecuador's tax system. At the same time, Oxy made it clear that it would regard termination of its contract as unlawful expropriation.
Oxy's proposal did nothing to alter Conaie's demand that the company be expelled from Ecuador. The government did not immediately accept the offer, taking the position that the legal case against Oxy should go through the court system and that the state would move to renegotiate contracts with foreign producers and share a larger portion of their profits.
As Oxy's fate remained uncertain, Palacio's promise came to fruition when, on April 3, Ecuador's Congress passed a bill giving 60 percent of the profits of foreign oil companies to the state when the price of oil exceeds the pegged price of $15 per barrel in existing contracts. Palacio had proposed a fifty-fifty split and the higher figure in the legislation reflects Conaie's successful mobilization of public sentiment. The oil companies responded through their interest group -- the Association of Ecuadorean Hydrocarbon Industries -- that the tax hike was illegal. Local analysts speculated that the legislation might derail the F.T.A. talks. The convergence of popular economic nationalism and the fiscal interests of the state make it likely that Palacio will sign the bill, regardless of the consequences.
Conaie's demand for a constituent assembly to rewrite Ecuador's constitution also found the movement on the same side as Palacio, who had made it a centerpiece of his policies. Here again there was a convergence of interests with Conaie bidding for greater indigenous rights and Palacio for the possibility of a stronger presidency to remove one of the sources of the country's chronic political instability. Palacio, who had been frustrated by Conaie's campaign, claiming that he was already serving the movement's interests -- even in the F.T.A. negotiations -- pleaded that he had presented a proposal for a constituent assembly to Congress, which had rejected it in a move to defend its institutional power and the interests of the traditional parties and their local bases. The direct-action campaign failed to break the deadlock.
The last of Conaie's demands -- that Ecuador exit Plan Colombia -- was met by the government with tentative acquiescence. In conjunction with the F.T.A. negotiations, Ecuador's foreign minister Francisco Carrion met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. At a press conference, Carrion made it clear that the talks did not include any discussion of renewing U.S. access to Manta and offered that he was not in favor of renewal.
When Conaie's demands and the government's responses to them are viewed as a whole, it seems evident that the direct-action campaign provided an impetus, in conjunction with convergent interests of the government, to pull Ecuador's fractured politics leftward toward the populist pattern of Venezuela and Bolivia, and away from Washington's sphere of influence. With presidential elections in Ecuador scheduled for October 2006, expect all of the political forces to move to appease populist sentiment, confirming the leftward shift.
The Conflict on the Ground
Apart from the issues, Conaie's direct-action campaign was an attempt by the movement to enhance its political power at the expense of institutionalized forces. The campaign is best understood not as an attempt to make a revolution or even to oust Palacio -- although Conaie would not have been averse to either of those results -- but as a test of strength and an opportunity to mobilize a broader base of support around popular issues. Conaie's leadership was aware that it would meet determined resistance to its maximum demands, but calculated -- as proved to be the case -- that a wave of direct action would reveal vulnerabilities in its adversaries.
As road blocks spread to 11 of Ecuador's 22 provinces, disrupting economic activity and cutting food supplies to cities, Conaie won a victory on March 15 when Interior Minister Alfred Castillo resigned -- the third occupant of that office to do so in the past 11 months. As quoted in Latinnews Daily, Castillo attacked Ecuador's political class, asserting that "the Ecuadorean government is being run crazily by speculative financiers who control things by indebting the country and controlling the country's oil."
Castillo's resignation and the mounting protests drove Palacio to seek support from the legislature and judiciary, and the traditional political parties, which gave him only qualified backing with some urging that he engage in "dialogue" with Conaie and others complaining that Conaie was using its campaign to enhance support for its candidates in the October elections.
Lacking a solid phalanx of support, Palacio resorted to his familiar tactic of promising more social spending, which worked to dampen the actions temporarily. Conaie quickly regrouped and announced that it would organize a mass march on Quito to "take over" the capital, convincing Palacio to heed hard-line Defense Minister Oswaldo Jarrin who had moved to fill the power vacuum left by Castillo's exit. On March 22, the government declared a state of emergency in four provinces and blocked the entry of indigenous protestors into Quito.
With its failure to take over the capital and the relative success of security forces in ending its blockades, Conaie declared a "strategic retreat" on March 24, promising to regroup at a leadership conference on March 31 where it would plan new actions. At the end of the conference, which was attended by 1,000 representatives from all of Ecuador's provinces, Conaie leader Humberto Cholango announced that the movement was preparing a "national uprising" and would seek for the first time alliances with student, peasant, community and labor movements opposed to the F.T.A. in order to create a broad front. Conaie's new strategy bore fruit quickly in an alliance with the Ecuadorean National Confederation of Peasant, Indian and Black Organizations (Fenocin), which is currently mounting protests against the F.T.A.
Although it is still too early to determine whether the government's hard-line measures have taken the steam out of Conaie or are only a temporary setback, it is clear that the movement has not been tamed. The success of its new strategy, including appeals to the Catholic Church, which has called for dialogue, to play a mediating role, will depend on whether the populist sentiments that have been released will be sustained or whether the entropic tendency toward localism and acquiescence in government handouts asserts itself.
Conclusion
As a test of strength, Conaie's direct-action campaign had mixed results. The movement did not have sufficient momentum to paralyze the institutional power centers, but it intimidated them enough to move them in the direction of its program. Lacking a single charismatic figure like Venezuela's Chavez and Bolivia's Morales, Conaie is dependent on the solidarity of its local units. It also faces possible dilution of its influence and loss of focus if it succeeds in organizing a broad opposition front. Yet a broad front could also function as a springboard to a populist takeover, as was the case for Morales' Movement to Socialism.
Ecuador is not yet on the verge of joining Venezuela and Bolivia in the populist camp, but some of the conditions for its entry are more firmly in place than they were before Conaie's campaign. In any case, Ecuador is likely to continue to distance itself from Washington's sphere of influence, whether by small steps or a leap.
Report Drafted By:
Dr. Michael A. Weinstein
The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an independent organization that utilizes open source intelligence to provide conflict analysis services in the context of international relations. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. This report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written permission of inquiries@pinr.com. All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com.
SEYMOUR HERSH: THE IRAN PLANS
Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2006-04-17
Posted 2006-04-10
The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.
American and European intelligence agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.), agree that Iran is intent on developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons. But there are widely differing estimates of how long that will take, and whether diplomacy, sanctions, or military action is the best way to prevent it. Iran insists that its research is for peaceful use only, in keeping with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that it will not be delayed or deterred.
There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ ”
A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”
One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”
The rationale for regime change was articulated in early March by Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert who is the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and who has been a supporter of President Bush. “So long as Iran has an Islamic republic, it will have a nuclear-weapons program, at least clandestinely,” Clawson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 2nd. “The key issue, therefore, is: How long will the present Iranian regime last?”
When I spoke to Clawson, he emphasized that “this Administration is putting a lot of effort into diplomacy.” However, he added, Iran had no choice other than to accede to America’s demands or face a military attack. Clawson said that he fears that Ahmadinejad “sees the West as wimps and thinks we will eventually cave in. We have to be ready to deal with Iran if the crisis escalates.” Clawson said that he would prefer to rely on sabotage and other clandestine activities, such as “industrial accidents.” But, he said, it would be prudent to prepare for a wider war, “given the way the Iranians are acting. This is not like planning to invade Quebec.”
One military planner told me that White House criticisms of Iran and the high tempo of planning and clandestine activities amount to a campaign of “coercion” aimed at Iran. “You have to be ready to go, and we’ll see how they respond,” the officer said. “You have to really show a threat in order to get Ahmadinejad to back down.” He added, “People think Bush has been focussed on Saddam Hussein since 9/11,” but, “in my view, if you had to name one nation that was his focus all the way along, it was Iran.” (In response to detailed requests for comment, the White House said that it would not comment on military planning but added, “As the President has indicated, we are pursuing a diplomatic solution”; the Defense Department also said that Iran was being dealt with through “diplomatic channels” but wouldn’t elaborate on that; the C.I.A. said that there were “inaccuracies” in this account but would not specify them.)
“This is much more than a nuclear issue,” one high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna. “That’s just a rallying point, and there is still time to fix it. But the Administration believes it cannot be fixed unless they control the hearts and minds of Iran. The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next ten years.”
A senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror expressed a similar view. “This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war,” he said. The danger, he said, was that “it also reinforces the belief inside Iran that the only way to defend the country is to have a nuclear capability.” A military conflict that destabilized the region could also increase the risk of terror: “Hezbollah comes into play,” the adviser said, referring to the terror group that is considered one of the world’s most successful, and which is now a Lebanese political party with strong ties to Iran. “And here comes Al Qaeda.”
In recent weeks, the President has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of Congress, including at least one Democrat. A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, who did not take part in the meetings but has discussed their content with his colleagues, told me that there had been “no formal briefings,” because “they’re reluctant to brief the minority. They’re doing the Senate, somewhat selectively.”
The House member said that no one in the meetings “is really objecting” to the talk of war. “The people they’re briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?” (Iran is building facilities underground.) “There’s no pressure from Congress” not to take military action, the House member added. “The only political pressure is from the guys who want to do it.” Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, “The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.”
Some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are already under way. American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as “over the shoulder” bombing—since last summer, the former official said, within range of Iranian coastal radars.
Last month, in a paper given at a conference on Middle East security in Berlin, Colonel Sam Gardiner, a military analyst who taught at the National War College before retiring from the Air Force, in 1987, provided an estimate of what would be needed to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. Working from satellite photographs of the known facilities, Gardiner estimated that at least four hundred targets would have to be hit. He added:
I don’t think a U.S. military planner would want to stop there. Iran probably has two chemical-production plants. We would hit those. We would want to hit the medium-range ballistic missiles that have just recently been moved closer to Iraq. There are fourteen airfields with sheltered aircraft. . . . We’d want to get rid of that threat. We would want to hit the assets that could be used to threaten Gulf shipping. That means targeting the cruise-missile sites and the Iranian diesel submarines. . . . Some of the facilities may be too difficult to target even with penetrating weapons. The U.S. will have to use Special Operations units.
One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. Natanz, which is no longer under I.A.E.A. safeguards, reportedly has underground floor space to hold fifty thousand centrifuges, and laboratories and workspaces buried approximately seventy-five feet beneath the surface. That number of centrifuges could provide enough enriched uranium for about twenty nuclear warheads a year. (Iran has acknowledged that it initially kept the existence of its enrichment program hidden from I.A.E.A. inspectors, but claims that none of its current activity is barred by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.) The elimination of Natanz would be a major setback for Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but the conventional weapons in the American arsenal could not insure the destruction of facilities under seventy-five feet of earth and rock, especially if they are reinforced with concrete.
There is a Cold War precedent for targeting deep underground bunkers with nuclear weapons. In the early nineteen-eighties, the American intelligence community watched as the Soviet government began digging a huge underground complex outside Moscow. Analysts concluded that the underground facility was designed for “continuity of government”—for the political and military leadership to survive a nuclear war. (There are similar facilities, in Virginia and Pennsylvania, for the American leadership.) The Soviet facility still exists, and much of what the U.S. knows about it remains classified. “The ‘tell’ ”—the giveaway—“was the ventilator shafts, some of which were disguised,” the former senior intelligence official told me. At the time, he said, it was determined that “only nukes” could destroy the bunker. He added that some American intelligence analysts believe that the Russians helped the Iranians design their underground facility. “We see a similarity of design,” specifically in the ventilator shafts, he said.
A former high-level Defense Department official told me that, in his view, even limited bombing would allow the U.S. to “go in there and do enough damage to slow down the nuclear infrastructure—it’s feasible.” The former defense official said, “The Iranians don’t have friends, and we can tell them that, if necessary, we’ll keep knocking back their infrastructure. The United States should act like we’re ready to go.” He added, “We don’t have to knock down all of their air defenses. Our stealth bombers and standoff missiles really work, and we can blow fixed things up. We can do things on the ground, too, but it’s difficult and very dangerous—put bad stuff in ventilator shafts and put them to sleep.”
But those who are familiar with the Soviet bunker, according to the former senior intelligence official, “say ‘No way.’ You’ve got to know what’s underneath—to know which ventilator feeds people, or diesel generators, or which are false. And there’s a lot that we don’t know.” The lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of totally destroying the sites, little choice but to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. “Every other option, in the view of the nuclear weaponeers, would leave a gap,” the former senior intelligence official said. “ ‘Decisive’ is the key word of the Air Force’s planning. It’s a tough decision. But we made it in Japan.”
He went on, “Nuclear planners go through extensive training and learn the technical details of damage and fallout—we’re talking about mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years. This is not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a little bit. These politicians don’t have a clue, and whenever anybody tries to get it out”—remove the nuclear option—“they’re shouted down.”
The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’ ”
The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped.” He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.” The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. “The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.”
The adviser added, however, that the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in such situations has gained support from the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel whose members are selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “They’re telling the Pentagon that we can build the B61 with more blast and less radiation,” he said.
The chairman of the Defense Science Board is William Schneider, Jr., an Under-Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration. In January, 2001, as President Bush prepared to take office, Schneider served on an ad-hoc panel on nuclear forces sponsored by the National Institute for Public Policy, a conservative think tank. The panel’s report recommended treating tactical nuclear weapons as an essential part of the U.S. arsenal and noted their suitability “for those occasions when the certain and prompt destruction of high priority targets is essential and beyond the promise of conventional weapons.” Several signers of the report are now prominent members of the Bush Administration, including Stephen Hadley, the national-security adviser; Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; and Robert Joseph, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.
The Pentagon adviser questioned the value of air strikes. “The Iranians have distributed their nuclear activity very well, and we have no clue where some of the key stuff is. It could even be out of the country,” he said. He warned, as did many others, that bombing Iran could provoke “a chain reaction” of attacks on American facilities and citizens throughout the world: “What will 1.2 billion Muslims think the day we attack Iran?”
With or without the nuclear option, the list of targets may inevitably expand. One recently retired high-level Bush Administration official, who is also an expert on war planning, told me that he would have vigorously argued against an air attack on Iran, because “Iran is a much tougher target” than Iraq. But, he added, “If you’re going to do any bombing to stop the nukes, you might as well improve your lie across the board. Maybe hit some training camps, and clear up a lot of other problems.”
The Pentagon adviser said that, in the event of an attack, the Air Force intended to strike many hundreds of targets in Iran but that “ninety-nine per cent of them have nothing to do with proliferation. There are people who believe it’s the way to operate”—that the Administration can achieve its policy goals in Iran with a bombing campaign, an idea that has been supported by neoconservatives.
If the order were to be given for an attack, the American combat troops now operating in Iran would be in position to mark the critical targets with laser beams, to insure bombing accuracy and to minimize civilian casualties. As of early winter, I was told by the government consultant with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon, the units were also working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the Baluchis, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast. The troops “are studying the terrain, and giving away walking-around money to ethnic tribes, and recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds,” the consultant said. One goal is to get “eyes on the ground”—quoting a line from “Othello,” he said, “Give me the ocular proof.” The broader aim, the consultant said, is to “encourage ethnic tensions” and undermine the regime.
The new mission for the combat troops is a product of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s long-standing interest in expanding the role of the military in covert operations, which was made official policy in the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review, published in February. Such activities, if conducted by C.I.A. operatives, would need a Presidential Finding and would have to be reported to key members of Congress.
“ ‘Force protection’ is the new buzzword,” the former senior intelligence official told me. He was referring to the Pentagon’s position that clandestine activities that can be broadly classified as preparing the battlefield or protecting troops are military, not intelligence, operations, and are therefore not subject to congressional oversight. “The guys in the Joint Chiefs of Staff say there are a lot of uncertainties in Iran,” he said. “We need to have more than what we had in Iraq. Now we have the green light to do everything we want.”
The President’s deep distrust of Ahmadinejad has strengthened his determination to confront Iran. This view has been reinforced by allegations that Ahmadinejad, who joined a special-forces brigade of the Revolutionary Guards in 1986, may have been involved in terrorist activities in the late eighties. (There are gaps in Ahmadinejad’s official biography in this period.) Ahmadinejad has reportedly been connected to Imad Mughniyeh, a terrorist who has been implicated in the deadly bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, in 1983. Mughniyeh was then the security chief of Hezbollah; he remains on the F.B.I.’s list of most-wanted terrorists.
Robert Baer, who was a C.I.A. officer in the Middle East and elsewhere for two decades, told me that Ahmadinejad and his Revolutionary Guard colleagues in the Iranian government “are capable of making a bomb, hiding it, and launching it at Israel. They’re apocalyptic Shiites. If you’re sitting in Tel Aviv and you believe they’ve got nukes and missiles—you’ve got to take them out. These guys are nuts, and there’s no reason to back off.”
Under Ahmadinejad, the Revolutionary Guards have expanded their power base throughout the Iranian bureaucracy; by the end of January, they had replaced thousands of civil servants with their own members. One former senior United Nations official, who has extensive experience with Iran, depicted the turnover as “a white coup,” with ominous implications for the West. “Professionals in the Foreign Ministry are out; others are waiting to be kicked out,” he said. “We may be too late. These guys now believe that they are stronger than ever since the revolution.” He said that, particularly in consideration of China’s emergence as a superpower, Iran’s attitude was “To hell with the West. You can do as much as you like.”
Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, is considered by many experts to be in a stronger position than Ahmadinejad. “Ahmadinejad is not in control,” one European diplomat told me. “Power is diffuse in Iran. The Revolutionary Guards are among the key backers of the nuclear program, but, ultimately, I don’t think they are in charge of it. The Supreme Leader has the casting vote on the nuclear program, and the Guards will not take action without his approval.”
The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror said that “allowing Iran to have the bomb is not on the table. We cannot have nukes being sent downstream to a terror network. It’s just too dangerous.” He added, “The whole internal debate is on which way to go”—in terms of stopping the Iranian program. It is possible, the adviser said, that Iran will unilaterally renounce its nuclear plans—and forestall the American action. “God may smile on us, but I don’t think so. The bottom line is that Iran cannot become a nuclear-weapons state. The problem is that the Iranians realize that only by becoming a nuclear state can they defend themselves against the U.S. Something bad is going to happen.”
While almost no one disputes Iran’s nuclear ambitions, there is intense debate over how soon it could get the bomb, and what to do about that. Robert Gallucci, a former government expert on nonproliferation who is now the dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, told me, “Based on what I know, Iran could be eight to ten years away” from developing a deliverable nuclear weapon. Gallucci added, “If they had a covert nuclear program and we could prove it, and we could not stop it by negotiation, diplomacy, or the threat of sanctions, I’d be in favor of taking it out. But if you do it”—bomb Iran—“without being able to show there’s a secret program, you’re in trouble.”
Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, told the Knesset last December that “Iran is one to two years away, at the latest, from having enriched uranium. From that point, the completion of their nuclear weapon is simply a technical matter.” In a conversation with me, a senior Israeli intelligence official talked about what he said was Iran’s duplicity: “There are two parallel nuclear programs” inside Iran—the program declared to the I.A.E.A. and a separate operation, run by the military and the Revolutionary Guards. Israeli officials have repeatedly made this argument, but Israel has not produced public evidence to support it. Richard Armitage, the Deputy Secretary of State in Bush’s first term, told me, “I think Iran has a secret nuclear-weapons program—I believe it, but I don’t know it.”
In recent months, the Pakistani government has given the U.S. new access to A. Q. Khan, the so-called father of the Pakistani atomic bomb. Khan, who is now living under house arrest in Islamabad, is accused of setting up a black market in nuclear materials; he made at least one clandestine visit to Tehran in the late nineteen-eighties. In the most recent interrogations, Khan has provided information on Iran’s weapons design and its time line for building a bomb. “The picture is of ‘unquestionable danger,’ ” the former senior intelligence official said. (The Pentagon adviser also confirmed that Khan has been “singing like a canary.”) The concern, the former senior official said, is that “Khan has credibility problems. He is suggestible, and he’s telling the neoconservatives what they want to hear”—or what might be useful to Pakistan’s President, Pervez Musharraf, who is under pressure to assist Washington in the war on terror.
“I think Khan’s leading us on,” the former intelligence official said. “I don’t know anybody who says, ‘Here’s the smoking gun.’ But lights are beginning to blink. He’s feeding us information on the time line, and targeting information is coming in from our own sources— sensors and the covert teams. The C.I.A., which was so burned by Iraqi W.M.D., is going to the Pentagon and the Vice-President’s office saying, ‘It’s all new stuff.’ People in the Administration are saying, ‘We’ve got enough.’ ”
The Administration’s case against Iran is compromised by its history of promoting false intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. In a recent essay on the Foreign Policy Web site, entitled “Fool Me Twice,” Joseph Cirincione, the director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote, “The unfolding administration strategy appears to be an effort to repeat its successful campaign for the Iraq war.” He noted several parallels:
The vice president of the United States gives a major speech focused on the threat from an oil-rich nation in the Middle East. The U.S. Secretary of State tells Congress that the same nation is our most serious global challenge. The Secretary of Defense calls that nation the leading supporter of global terrorism.
Cirincione called some of the Administration’s claims about Iran “questionable” or lacking in evidence. When I spoke to him, he asked, “What do we know? What is the threat? The question is: How urgent is all this?” The answer, he said, “is in the intelligence community and the I.A.E.A.” (In August, the Washington Post reported that the most recent comprehensive National Intelligence Estimate predicted that Iran was a decade away from being a nuclear power.)
Last year, the Bush Administration briefed I.A.E.A. officials on what it said was new and alarming information about Iran’s weapons program which had been retrieved from an Iranian’s laptop. The new data included more than a thousand pages of technical drawings of weapons systems. The Washington Post reported that there were also designs for a small facility that could be used in the uranium-enrichment process. Leaks about the laptop became the focal point of stories in the Times and elsewhere. The stories were generally careful to note that the materials could have been fabricated, but also quoted senior American officials as saying that they appeared to be legitimate. The headline in the Times’ account read, “RELYING ON COMPUTER, U.S. SEEKS TO PROVE IRAN’S NUCLEAR AIMS.”
I was told in interviews with American and European intelligence officials, however, that the laptop was more suspect and less revelatory than it had been depicted. The Iranian who owned the laptop had initially been recruited by German and American intelligence operatives, working together. The Americans eventually lost interest in him. The Germans kept on, but the Iranian was seized by the Iranian counter-intelligence force. It is not known where he is today. Some family members managed to leave Iran with his laptop and handed it over at a U.S. embassy, apparently in Europe. It was a classic “walk-in.”
A European intelligence official said, “There was some hesitation on our side” about what the materials really proved, “and we are still not convinced.” The drawings were not meticulous, as newspaper accounts suggested, “but had the character of sketches,” the European official said. “It was not a slam-dunk smoking gun.”
The threat of American military action has created dismay at the headquarters of the I.A.E.A., in Vienna. The agency’s officials believe that Iran wants to be able to make a nuclear weapon, but “nobody has presented an inch of evidence of a parallel nuclear-weapons program in Iran,” the high-ranking diplomat told me. The I.A.E.A.’s best estimate is that the Iranians are five years away from building a nuclear bomb. “But, if the United States does anything militarily, they will make the development of a bomb a matter of Iranian national pride,” the diplomat said. “The whole issue is America’s risk assessment of Iran’s future intentions, and they don’t trust the regime. Iran is a menace to American policy.”
In Vienna, I was told of an exceedingly testy meeting earlier this year between Mohamed ElBaradei, the I.A.E.A.’s director-general, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, and Robert Joseph, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control. Joseph’s message was blunt, one diplomat recalled: “We cannot have a single centrifuge spinning in Iran. Iran is a direct threat to the national security of the United States and our allies, and we will not tolerate it. We want you to give us an understanding that you will not say anything publicly that will undermine us. ”
Joseph’s heavy-handedness was unnecessary, the diplomat said, since the I.A.E.A. already had been inclined to take a hard stand against Iran. “All of the inspectors are angry at being misled by the Iranians, and some think the Iranian leadership are nutcases—one hundred per cent totally certified nuts,” the diplomat said. He added that ElBaradei’s overriding concern is that the Iranian leaders “want confrontation, just like the neocons on the other side”—in Washington. “At the end of the day, it will work only if the United States agrees to talk to the Iranians.”
The central question—whether Iran will be able to proceed with its plans to enrich uranium—is now before the United Nations, with the Russians and the Chinese reluctant to impose sanctions on Tehran. A discouraged former I.A.E.A. official told me in late March that, at this point, “there’s nothing the Iranians could do that would result in a positive outcome. American diplomacy does not allow for it. Even if they announce a stoppage of enrichment, nobody will believe them. It’s a dead end.”
Another diplomat in Vienna asked me, “Why would the West take the risk of going to war against that kind of target without giving it to the I.A.E.A. to verify? We’re low-cost, and we can create a program that will force Iran to put its cards on the table.” A Western Ambassador in Vienna expressed similar distress at the White House’s dismissal of the I.A.E.A. He said, “If you don’t believe that the I.A.E.A. can establish an inspection system—if you don’t trust them—you can only bomb.”
There is little sympathy for the I.A.E.A. in the Bush Administration or among its European allies. “We’re quite frustrated with the director-general,” the European diplomat told me. “His basic approach has been to describe this as a dispute between two sides with equal weight. It’s not. We’re the good guys! ElBaradei has been pushing the idea of letting Iran have a small nuclear-enrichment program, which is ludicrous. It’s not his job to push ideas that pose a serious proliferation risk.”
The Europeans are rattled, however, by their growing perception that President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney believe a bombing campaign will be needed, and that their real goal is regime change. “Everyone is on the same page about the Iranian bomb, but the United States wants regime change,” a European diplomatic adviser told me. He added, “The Europeans have a role to play as long as they don’t have to choose between going along with the Russians and the Chinese or going along with Washington on something they don’t want. Their policy is to keep the Americans engaged in something the Europeans can live with. It may be untenable.”
“The Brits think this is a very bad idea,” Flynt Leverett, a former National Security Council staff member who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center, told me, “but they’re really worried we’re going to do it.” The European diplomatic adviser acknowledged that the British Foreign Office was aware of war planning in Washington but that, “short of a smoking gun, it’s going to be very difficult to line up the Europeans on Iran.” He said that the British “are jumpy about the Americans going full bore on the Iranians, with no compromise.”
The European diplomat said that he was skeptical that Iran, given its record, had admitted to everything it was doing, but “to the best of our knowledge the Iranian capability is not at the point where they could successfully run centrifuges” to enrich uranium in quantity. One reason for pursuing diplomacy was, he said, Iran’s essential pragmatism. “The regime acts in its best interests,” he said. Iran’s leaders “take a hard-line approach on the nuclear issue and they want to call the American bluff,” believing that “the tougher they are the more likely the West will fold.” But, he said, “From what we’ve seen with Iran, they will appear superconfident until the moment they back off.”
The diplomat went on, “You never reward bad behavior, and this is not the time to offer concessions. We need to find ways to impose sufficient costs to bring the regime to its senses. It’s going to be a close call, but I think if there is unity in opposition and the price imposed”—in sanctions—“is sufficient, they may back down. It’s too early to give up on the U.N. route.” He added, “If the diplomatic process doesn’t work, there is no military ‘solution.’ There may be a military option, but the impact could be catastrophic.”
Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, was George Bush’s most dependable ally in the year leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But he and his party have been racked by a series of financial scandals, and his popularity is at a low point. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said last year that military action against Iran was “inconceivable.” Blair has been more circumspect, saying publicly that one should never take options off the table.
Other European officials expressed similar skepticism about the value of an American bombing campaign. “The Iranian economy is in bad shape, and Ahmadinejad is in bad shape politically,” the European intelligence official told me. “He will benefit politically from American bombing. You can do it, but the results will be worse.” An American attack, he said, would alienate ordinary Iranians, including those who might be sympathetic to the U.S. “Iran is no longer living in the Stone Age, and the young people there have access to U.S. movies and books, and they love it,” he said. “If there was a charm offensive with Iran, the mullahs would be in trouble in the long run.”
Another European official told me that he was aware that many in Washington wanted action. “It’s always the same guys,” he said, with a resigned shrug. “There is a belief that diplomacy is doomed to fail. The timetable is short.”
A key ally with an important voice in the debate is Israel, whose leadership has warned for years that it viewed any attempt by Iran to begin enriching uranium as a point of no return. I was told by several officials that the White House’s interest in preventing an Israeli attack on a Muslim country, which would provoke a backlash across the region, was a factor in its decision to begin the current operational planning. In a speech in Cleveland on March 20th, President Bush depicted Ahmadinejad’s hostility toward Israel as a “serious threat. It’s a threat to world peace.” He added, “I made it clear, I’ll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel.”
Any American bombing attack, Richard Armitage told me, would have to consider the following questions: “What will happen in the other Islamic countries? What ability does Iran have to reach us and touch us globally—that is, terrorism? Will Syria and Lebanon up the pressure on Israel? What does the attack do to our already diminished international standing? And what does this mean for Russia, China, and the U.N. Security Council?”
Iran, which now produces nearly four million barrels of oil a day, would not have to cut off production to disrupt the world’s oil markets. It could blockade or mine the Strait of Hormuz, the thirty-four-mile-wide passage through which Middle Eastern oil reaches the Indian Ocean. Nonetheless, the recently retired defense official dismissed the strategic consequences of such actions. He told me that the U.S. Navy could keep shipping open by conducting salvage missions and putting mine- sweepers to work. “It’s impossible to block passage,” he said. The government consultant with ties to the Pentagon also said he believed that the oil problem could be managed, pointing out that the U.S. has enough in its strategic reserves to keep America running for sixty days. However, those in the oil business I spoke to were less optimistic; one industry expert estimated that the price per barrel would immediately spike, to anywhere from ninety to a hundred dollars per barrel, and could go higher, depending on the duration and scope of the conflict.
Michel Samaha, a veteran Lebanese Christian politician and former cabinet minister in Beirut, told me that the Iranian retaliation might be focussed on exposed oil and gas fields in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. “They would be at risk,” he said, “and this could begin the real jihad of Iran versus the West. You will have a messy world.”
Iran could also initiate a wave of terror attacks in Iraq and elsewhere, with the help of Hezbollah. On April 2nd, the Washington Post reported that the planning to counter such attacks “is consuming a lot of time” at U.S. intelligence agencies. “The best terror network in the world has remained neutral in the terror war for the past several years,” the Pentagon adviser on the war on terror said of Hezbollah. “This will mobilize them and put us up against the group that drove Israel out of southern Lebanon. If we move against Iran, Hezbollah will not sit on the sidelines. Unless the Israelis take them out, they will mobilize against us.” (When I asked the government consultant about that possibility, he said that, if Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, “Israel and the new Lebanese government will finish them off.”)
The adviser went on, “If we go, the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle.” The American, British, and other coalition forces in Iraq would be at greater risk of attack from Iranian troops or from Shiite militias operating on instructions from Iran. (Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, has close ties to the leading Shiite parties in Iraq.) A retired four-star general told me that, despite the eight thousand British troops in the region, “the Iranians could take Basra with ten mullahs and one sound truck.”
“If you attack,” the high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna, “Ahmadinejad will be the new Saddam Hussein of the Arab world, but with more credibility and more power. You must bite the bullet and sit down with the Iranians.”
The diplomat went on, “There are people in Washington who would be unhappy if we found a solution. They are still banking on isolation and regime change. This is wishful thinking.” He added, “The window of opportunity is now.”
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact
World Social Forum includes plan for the Americas
This looks to be the movement behind many of the demonstrations we are seeing throughout the world.
After decades of harsh neoliberal economic policy, the tide finally seems to be turning and the activists, advocacy groups and academics who descended on Caracas in January expected to be a part of the vibrant debates and discussions that are animating these turns in the Americas.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=41&ItemID=10047
Pls see:
Connection between demonstrations in France and US
#msg-10515954
Connection between Chavez and US immigration protests
#msg-10433548
-Am
World Social Forum concludes in southern Pakistan
(DPA)
29 March 2006
KARACHI - The World Social Forum (WSF) concluded in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi Wednesday, after six days of debate on issues such as the adverse effects of globalization on the developing world.
“The WSF has been a big success, bigger than what we had all expected,” Geoff Brown, a British Socialist Workers’ Party leader told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, as delegates listened to music of Palestine and watched Pakistani folk dances that marked the end of the forum.
Brown said the forum debated issues of social justice, solidarity with resistance movements all over the world including the Jammu and Kashmir in South Asia, the struggle against illiteracy, and ways to defeat dictatorship and promote democracy in the developing world.
Over 20,000 delegates from some 58 countries from south and South-East Asia, China, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas attended the six-day forum, which had begun last Friday with a call to “rethink and recreate” globalization for benefit of people in developing world, particularly those in South Asia.
The forum was founded in 2001 by community organizers, trade unionists, youth groups and academics as an alternative to the establishment World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
This year, for the first time, three World Social Forums were held. Caracas, Venezuela and Bamako, Mali hosted two of them in January, and Karachi followed this month after the deadly October earthquake in Pakistan caused a postponement.
Brown noted the presence of delegates from Palestine and the disputed Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir, and expressed hope that the forum would boost to resistance movements all over the world.
Another human-rights activist from Nepal, Raj Kumar Trikhatri ,said the Karachi forum enabled delegates from across the world to debate a comprehensive strategy on countering globalization and increasing poverty, absence of education and health-care facilities in developing world.
“We are going back to our country fully satisfied and with a confidence that the WSF will continuing mounting pressure on the imperialistic approach and policies of the developed world, which is patronizing an inequitable process of globalization,” Trikhatri said.
Nirmala Despande, seasoned politician and member of India’s Rajya Sabha, or Senate, said the WSF slogan “another world is possible” brings hopes for a “bright future” of a “vibrant” developing world.
“Now we should think of raising another slogan: victory to whole world for peace and justice,” Deshpande said.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2006/March/subcontinent_March....
US military bases on Venezuela’s doorstep
Dutch Islands Caught Up in US-Venezuela Friction
Background:
We are extremely worried about getting to Cuba first when Castro dies. Moreover the Chinese have a listening post on Cuba I imagine we would like to get rid of as soon as possible.
He did not mince his words, arguing that the United States must be prepared to intervene within hours of Castro's death to prevent his compinches — his accomplices — from cementing their hold on power.
#msg-2991903
Chavez, thorn in Bush’s side and economic lifeline for Cuba another thorn in Bush’ side, is also gaining vast influence in the Caribbean along with that major thorn in Bush’s side, China.
The Caribbean- Chávez was in Jamaica Tuesday to finalize details on the PetroCaribe agreement signed in June. The deal, which is meant to help small Caribbean economies cope with high fuel prices, offers generous financing for oil sales and favorable rates in exchange for goods, services, or credit. Thirteen of the 15 members of the Caribbean Community group, or Caricom, have already signed on.
#msg-7487003
China is waging an aggressive campaign of seduction in the Caribbean, wooing countries away from relationships with rival Taiwan, opening markets for its expanding economy, promising to send tourists, and shipping police to Haiti in the first communist deployment in the Western Hemisphere.
#msg-5859727
Nicolás Maduro, the speaker of the Venezuelan legislature, maintained that Kemp’s statements were aimed at "preparing the psychological and political conditions in Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire" to justify the installation of U.S. military bases on the islands.
-Am
Dutch Islands Caught Up in US-Venezuela Friction (Antiwar.com)
April 6, 2006
by Humberto Márquez
CARACAS - Several Dutch islands in the Caribbean, off the coast of Venezuela, have been caught in the middle of the war of words between the Venezuelan and U.S. governments, while the United States is getting ready to carry out naval exercises in the area.
Dutch Defense Minister Henk Kamp recently remarked that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is a "fanatic populist who has his sights set on Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao" - Dutch islands located off the Venezuelan coast.
Chávez responded by calling Kamp "ridiculous" and describing him as a "pawn" of Washington, which he has repeatedly accused of carrying out an international smear campaign against the Venezuelan government.
In the latest edition of his Sunday radio and television program, Chávez argued that there is a "natural relationship, perhaps more direct than with the kingdom [of the Netherlands] itself," between Venezuela, Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles, which are made up of Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, St. Eustatius, and St. Maarten.
Leftist independence movements arose on the islands in the 1970s. But they declined in the 1980s as European integration advanced and when Aruba left the Netherlands Antilles.
In response to opposition members of the Dutch parliament, who were demanding that the government design plans to defend the islands, Kamp added fuel to the fire by stating that the Venezuelan Navy "only has a few secondhand vessels" that could never pose a threat to the Dutch Navy.
But on a trip to Curaçao a week ago, the minister said his only aim was to strengthen military and coast guard cooperation with Caracas. He clarified that there was no immediate threat to the islands, and that the Netherlands was interested in good relations with Venezuela.
Venezuelan Navy officials, led by Rear Admiral Luis Chirinos, also visited Curaçao to meet Frank Sijtsma, commander of the Dutch Coast Guard in the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba.
Venezuelan Rear Admiral Adalberto García said his country has no territorial designs on the Netherlands Antilles and "no intention of attacking" the islands.
"We guarantee the independence of every nation, and we want to attack drug trafficking in the area, and combat illiteracy, but without imposing our own methods on anyone. Neighbors and friends must mutually support each other," he added.
Political analyst Alberto Garrido, a professor at Venezuela’s University of the Andes, told IPS that "the underlying question is that Chávez and his ally [Cuban President] Fidel Castro are working to bring cooperation programs to the entire region, while mobilizing forces to make the 21st century the last century of the U.S. empire."
Washington, for its part, has started up health care programs in the Dominican Republic that are highly similar to the programs carried out by Venezuela with Cuban support. Meanwhile, in nearby Jamaica, U.S., Dutch, and British military personnel are training alongside some 2,000 police officers from throughout the English-speaking Caribbean as part of "Operation Tradewinds."
The official purpose of these exercises is to "prepare regional security forces" for the 2007 World Cricket Cup in Jamaica.
But the largest military exercise in the Caribbean, taking place throughout April and May, is "Operation Partnership of the Americas," for which the George Washington aircraft carrier strike group - which includes roughly 6,500 sailors, a 60-plane air wing, and three smaller warships - has been deployed to the region.
Ports of call will include the Dutch islands 50 km off the coast of Venezuela. The operation is organized by the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military activities in Latin America, and its objective, according to U.S. Navy officials, is "to support maritime security in the area."
Some observers, however, believe that the operation has been launched as "a warning to Cuba and Venezuela."
Nicolás Maduro, the speaker of the Venezuelan legislature, maintained that Kemp’s statements were aimed at "preparing the psychological and political conditions in Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire" to justify the installation of U.S. military bases on the islands.
The international airports in Aruba and Curaçao are already used as forward operating locations (FOL) by dozens of U.S. and allied aircraft involved in anti-drug trafficking operations. The United States and the Netherlands are both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance.
Maduro announced that a Venezuelan congressional commission will travel to the Dutch Caribbean islands to meet with local political parties and authorities and explain Venezuela’s point of view.
In Garrido’s view, the U.S. military maneuvers in the region "portray Venezuela as a national security concern for Washington, as various documents have already done." At the same time, "they are a counteroffensive to what the Southern Command calls radical populism and considers an emerging threat."
The exercises, he stressed, are taking place at a time when left-leaning governments are gaining ground in the Andean region, with "the administrations of Chávez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia. In addition, indigenous people in Ecuador are demanding the resignation of their president, Alfredo Palacio, for negotiating a free trade agreement with the United States, while [anti-establishment presidential candidate] Ollanta Humala in Peru is gaining in the polls."
(Inter Press Service)
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=11359
France's Political Crisis Grows as 3 Million Take to Streets
"There is new blood in this movement," the CGT union chief, Bernard Thibault, said yesterday. "I hope these rallies will help us deal the fatal blow."
By new blood Bernard might be referring to the World Social Forum.
French trade unions are behind the enormous demonstrations in France. Certainly at the very least some of the trade unions behind the demonstrations in France were represented at the World Social Forum.
Many trade unionists took part in the second World Social Forum held in Porto Alegre, Brazil in January-February 2002 as an alternative to the World Economic Forum. French trade unions were widely represented and we review their involvement in this initiative.
There is also a connection between the World Social Forum and the demonstrations seen in California.
#msg-10433548
If these associations are accurate and they seem to be, we will begin to witness the most massive demonstrations ever seen on the face of the earth.
-Am
uploaded 06 Apr 2006
by Angelique Chrisafis
Police fought running battles with rioters in central Paris last night as youths attacked officers with bangers, bottles and concrete at the end of a mass demonstration against a youth employment law that has caused a political crisis for Jacques Chirac's ruling party.
Trade unionists and student leaders said up to three million people took to the streets across France yesterday - the second time in eight days that the country has seen its biggest street demonstrations in almost 40 years. The protests, including one by hundreds of thousands of students and scholars who marched through central Paris, were mainly peaceful.
They were marked by a carnival atmosphere somewhere between a victory parade for the demonstrators and a funeral march for the "first employment law" as the ruling party prepared to begin negotiating its way out of the crisis.
Police fired teargas in Paris's Place d'Italie last night after groups of students and youths, some from the suburbs, attacked police lines. At Saint-Lazare station, riot police pulled over people disembarking from the suburbs, searching bags and checking identities. At the universities, students vowed to maintain the barricades over the Easter holidays, which begin this weekend.
Demonstrators marched in around 280 French towns and cities. In Rennes, where one university faculty has been blockaded for two months, students blocked railway tracks closing the station for almost an hour and police clashed with demonstrators who had gathered outside the ruling UMP party offices. About 60 students lobbed eggs and other objects at police in the northern city of Lille.
The "easy hire-easy fire" measure at the heart of the protests was pushed through parliament last month, in an attempt by the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, to address France's crippling youth unemployment of 23%. Paradoxically, the law made it easier for businesses to sack workers aged under 26 after two years without explanation. The government believed employers would be quicker to take young workers on if they were spared rigid employment rules that make it difficult to get rid of staff.
After two months of protests in which hundreds of schools and universities have been blockaded, closed or occupied and workers joined in a national strike, Mr Chirac signed the law on Sunday but asked for changes: the probation period for workers would be only one year and employers must give a reason for dismissal. He also ordered talks with unions.
Because the amended law will not come into operation until May, this allows a window in which trade unionists insist the law must be shelved and rewritten.
The measure has become a political battlefield for the potential candidates in next year's presidential election. Mr De Villepin, Mr Chirac's favoured successor, told the national assembly yesterday that he would not "throw in the towel". But a poll to be published in L'Express news weekly tomorrow shows his approval rating has slumped to 28%, one of the steepest monthly falls on record according to the polling company BVA. His approval rating was 48% in January
His rival, the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, has emerged as a possible broker to end the conflict, charged with bringing unions to the negotiating table. His allies have briefed the press this week that the law is dead and buried, or at least suspended, damaging Mr De Villepin.
France's main unions agreed to talks last night but insisted that they wanted the law withdrawn.
"There is new blood in this movement," the CGT union chief, Bernard Thibault, said yesterday. "I hope these rallies will help us deal the fatal blow."
Source: Guardian Unlimited
http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=13151&TagID=2
Hezbollah and the Mehdi Army: primary targets in any attack on Iran
In its April 7 edition, Al Seyassah, an independent daily reported that: “A British diplomat revealed yesterday that the ongoing negotiations between American and British military officials since mid last week at a British air base south of the country, regarding plans to attack Iran in case ‘its positions regarding the nuclear issue reach the level of international desperation’, have resulted in the conclusion that ‘the Lebanese Hezbollah party and the Iraqi Mehdi Army lead by Moqtada Al Sadr, will be considered as an inherent part of the Iranian military institution. They are positioned on the Iranian frontline and any international war against Iran will include these two militias in Lebanon and Iraq’.
“The diplomat revealed that a prominent member of the British Defense and Intelligence Committee...stated that: ‘American and British high military officials, have seriously looked into the Israeli offer to partake… in any western military operations against Iran to annihilate its nuclear, missile and chemical arsenal. The Israelis insist on playing an efficient role in these operations because they fear that if the western attacks are not decisive, Iran will retaliate by using its chemical and biological weapons against it…’
“The diplomat then told Al Seyassah that the American and British military negotiators ‘have agreed that they will not go to war with Iran without the Israelis who have the most sophisticated air force after the US, and whose piloting experience exceeds that of American and British pilots, not to mention [that they are] the most knowledgeable intelligence bodies within the Middle East, namely in Iran, Syria and Iraq…’ He assured that according to his information regarding the outcome of the American-British military negotiations, south of London, ‘the mission to annihilate the missiles' arsenal of the Lebanese Hezbollah will be handled by Israel, the minute that the attack on Iran begins, and that the American and British armies in Iraq, will take out the Mehdi Army in the south and center of Iraq in parallel to that.” - Al Seyassah, Kuwait
http://www.mideastwire.com/topstory.php?id=7078
This is an extremely important quote.
CFRer Brzezinski, the architect of our foreign policy, has stated that a democratic United States is not conducive to his game plan.
“It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America's power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." (p.35)
http://www.wanttoknow.info/brzezinskigrandchessboard
A conspiracy can be a plan but a plan can’t be a conspiracy. The word conspiracy has been misused too much lately. Our species does plan.
One clue is that Clinton and Bush both follow CFR’s Zbigniew Brzezinski's Grand Chessboard. We know this from the list of countries they have attempted to or actually taken over. We also find Hillary, Condi, McCain making statements signifying they will keep on with Brzezinski's game. In other words they will be CFR candidates and thus have a chance of winning the prize. The CFR is not going to let the presidency go to someone who will wreck years of planning and their ‘hard earned’ money thus we see the candidates from both parties regarding foreign policy sounding pretty much alike. As such this is a one party country.
Mosque Explosion Kills 46 in Iraq
Note: We are sponsoring the SSP a group that has targeted killings of prominent Shi'a figures and indiscriminate attacks on crowded mosques in Pakistan and are also believed by many to be behind the mosque attacks in Iraq or at least a significant number of them.
#msg-10568925
-Am
Updated 12:16 PM ET April 7, 2006
Two suicide attackers wearing women's cloaks blew themselves up Friday in a Shiite mosque in northern Baghdad, killing at least 46 people and wounding scores, police said. It was the second major attack against Shiite targets in as many days.
Elsewhere in the capital, a U.S. service member died Friday of wounds suffered while on patrol in western Baghdad, the military said.
The violence came as U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad warned that Iraq faces the possibility of sectarian civil war if efforts to build a national unity government do not succeed, and that such a conflict could affect the entire Middle East.
Police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said the blasts occurred at the Buratha mosque, which is affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the main Shiite party.
First reports said the explosions were caused by mortar fire, but al-Mohammedawi said police had confirmed they were suicide attacks.
The attack occurred as worshippers were leaving after Friday prayers, the main weekly religious service. Earlier Friday, the Interior Ministry cautioned people in Baghdad to avoid crowds near mosques and markets due to a car bomb threat.
A prominent Shiite politician, Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer, was among the worshippers but police said he was unhurt.
Rescuers carried the bodies from the mosque compound on makeshift wooden wheelbarrows and loaded them on the backs of pickup trucks. The Baghdad city council urged Iraqis to donate blood for those wounded.
On Thursday, a car bomb exploded about 300 yards from the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, the most sacred shrine in Iraq for Shiite Muslims. Ten people were killed, police said.
The attack Friday was likely to increase tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, already at a high level following the Feb. 22 blast at a Shiite shrine in Samarra and reprisal killings. That bombing triggered a war of reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques and clerics.
"This explosion is trying to provoke Iraqis to sectarian sedition through bombing the mosques," said Salah Abdul-Razzaq, a Baghdad city council member.
The Interior Ministry, which oversees police, said it had received intelligence that insurgents were preparing to set off seven car bombs in Baghdad. Al-Mohammedawi said the alert would remain until the bombs were discovered and deactivated.
Security forces were searching the city, with orders to protect holy sites and be on the lookout for suspicious cars, the statement said, urging citizens to "be cautious, and to avoid gatherings or crowds while leaving markets, mosques and churches."
The statement also warned that legal measures would be taken against "any security official who fails to take the necessary procedures to foil any terrorist attack in his area." The Shiite-dominated ministry faces accusations of militia infiltration in its ranks.
Other car bombs were possibly heading to some southern Iraqi provinces as well, the statement said, putting security forces in the south on high alert.
The death of the U.S. service member raised to at least 2,347 the number of American forces who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The U.S. military said the victim's patrol had come under small arms fire but provided no further details.
Khalilzad, meanwhile, told the British Broadcasting Corp. that political contacts among Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders were improving, but that within the general population, "polarization along sectarian lines" was intensifying in part due to the role of armed militias.
He warned that "a sectarian war in Iraq" could draw in neighboring countries, "affecting the entire region."
"That's a possibility if we don't do everything we can to make this country work," Khalilzad said. "What's happening here has huge implications for the region and the world."
He said the best way to prevent such a conflict was to form a government including representatives of all groups. That effort has stalled over Sunni and Kurdish opposition to the Shiite candidate to lead the government, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
Khalilzad avoided any criticism of al-Jaafari. He said many competent Iraqis were capable of leading the government and the current prime minister "certainly is one of them."
Khalilzad said the international community must do everything possible "to make this country work" because failure "would have the most serious consequences for the Iraqis, for sure, but also for the region and for the world."
Rising sectarian tensions worsened by armed, religiously based militias and death squads have emerged as a significant threat to U.S. efforts to form a stable society in Iraq.
Last month, Khalilzad said that "more Iraqis are dying today from the militia violence than from the terrorists," meaning Sunni-dominated insurgents.
In the BBC interview, Khalilzad cited the role of armed militias in sharpening sectarian tensions, including armed groups associated with Shiite political parties and Sunni insurgents.
"What I was saying to the Iraqis is that for the success of Iraq, this problem of unauthorized military formations have to be dealt with," he said, adding U.S. officials were working with the Iraqis to develop a plan for curbing militias and would insist that it be implemented.
Khalilzad also confirmed the Americans had been meeting with groups linked to the Sunni-dominated insurgency. He would not specify the groups nor say when and where the meetings were held.
But he said they did not include Saddam Hussein loyalists or "terrorists," presumably extremists of al-Qaida in Iraq or the Ansar al-Sunnah Army.
"We are talking to people who are willing to accept this new Iraq, to lay down their arms, to cooperate in the fight against terrorists," he said.
Khalilzad said he believed those contacts were responsible for a decline in the number of attacks against U.S. and coalition forces. Last month, they suffered their lowest monthly death toll in Iraq since February 2005, although the casualty rate has increased somewhat in the first week of April.
But the ambassador also acknowledged that U.S. and Iraqi officials were "a long way" from an agreement with Sunni-led insurgents that might bring an end to the war.
U.S. officials have in the past confirmed contacts with people who claimed to have links with the insurgents. It was unclear whether these contacts included insurgent commanders or simply intermediaries who support the war against coalition forces.
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pri&dt=060407&cat=frontpage&st=frontpageap200604....
This is a repost.
What is interesting is the CFR is composed of neocons. It would seem they wish to keep the 'dream' alive but not quite in the manner in which Bush is pursuing it. The following membership list is partial. At any rate I think there is enough clout in this organization to easily manipulate the public. It would be difficult to get rid of any president without there backing, too much money and power here. IMO
-Am
Bush, Kerry, and the CFR, It's All In The Family
By Laurence H. Shoup
Oct 2, 2004, 17:43
George Walker Bush and John Forbes Kerry are wealthy members of the upper class. They are both multimillionaires born into privilege, educated in the finest New England private schools, and holding memberships in the most exclusive private clubs.
The wealth of the Bush-Walker family comes from oil, banking, sports teams, and the military-industrial complex. Historically, they have been economically connected to the Rockefeller and Harriman families. Exact figures are hard to come by, but the current president’s personal wealth has been estimated at $10 to $26 million. Bush family wealth would, of course, be much greater.
Kerry is part of the Boston Brahmin Forbes family, historically intermarried with prominent New England families like the Winthrops, Lowells, Cabots, and Emersons. The Kerry-Forbes family wealth comes from land ownership and John Kerry’s marriage to Teresa Heinz, who controls the Heinz foods fortune. Largely as a result of this marriage, Kerry’s personal wealth is estimated to range from $165 to $839 million.
As his father did, George W. Bush graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, an exclusive preparatory school. As a youth, John F. Kerry went to a Swiss boarding school and to the prestigious St. Paul’s preparatory school in Concord, New Hampshire. Both Bush and Kerry went on to Yale University and both were members of Skull and Bones, an elite secret society and the most exclusive social club at Yale. Bush vacations at Camp David, at the family retreat at Kennebunkport, Maine, or at his Texas “ranch,” a site purchased and built specifically for political purposes. Kerry flies around the country in his $35 million Gulfstream V private jet, cruises on his $800,000, 42-foot speedboat, or vacations in one of the five multimillion dollar houses he and Teresa Heinz-Kerry own. (These five houses are collectively worth $29.5 million according to the May 3, 2004 issue of Newsweek.)
The running mates of these two candidates are also very wealthy: Vice President Richard Cheney’s fortune is estimated at about $50 million and vice presidential candidate John Edwards’s at $12 to $60 million. Forbes magazine remarked that this year’s presidential election has “probably the richest set of candidates in U.S. history…maybe the first time in history when all four major-party candidates could afford to work for free.”
The CFR & the Ruling Class
One of the prime characteristics of the U.S. upper class is its high level of organization. One of the central organizations, accurately called “the citadel of America’s establishment,” is the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Founded in 1921, the CFR is the most influential of all private policy planning groups. Its great strength is mainly exercised behind the scenes and stems from its unique position among policy groups: it is simultaneously both a think tank for foreign and economic policy and also has a large membership comprising some of the most important individuals in U.S. economic, intellectual, and political life. The Council has a yearly budget of about $30 million and a staff of over 200.
The CFR’s think tank consists of three overlapping activities. One is convening an “influential forum,” mainly held in New York and Washington, DC, where senior government and corporate leaders, prominent intellectuals, and foreign dignitaries meet with Council members to discuss and debate the U.S. role in the world and the strategy and tactics required to accomplish U.S. goals. Another think tank function is organizing and implementing a wide-ranging studies program where CFR fellows draw on members and others to collectively study a foreign policy issue. The result of this work is then reported and often presented to government officials as policy recommendations. Council employees and members are often tapped to serve in the federal government in appointed positions, although a number also serve as elected officials, especially at the higher levels. Finally, the CFR publishes Foreign Affairs magazine, which often prints study group recommendations written by a prominent CFR fellow or member and in this way shapes policy debates as they emerge.
The Council’s second key source of power, its membership function, is more informal, involving a network of almost 4,200 members from many backgrounds and professions. Membership in the Council is by invitation only: a potential member must be a U.S. citizen who has been nominated and seconded by other CFR members and elected by the Board of Directors. Two-thirds live in the New York and Washington, DC areas. Fully 31 percent (1,299 individuals) are from the corporate (“business”) sector, with another 25 percent (1,071 individuals) coming from varied academic settings (professors, university administrators, researchers, fellows). Nonprofits contribute 15 percent (640), government 13 percent (541), law 8 percent (319), the media 6 percent (248), and “other” 2 percent (74). Members pay a yearly fee on a sliding scale, depending on age, occupation, and residence.
There is also a special category of corporate membership: executives from 200 “leading international companies representing a range of sectors” participate in special CFR programs. Corporations representing capital in its most abstract forms—the financial sector, the largest commercial and investment banks, insurance companies, and strategic planning corporations—are most heavily represented in the Council. Petroleum, military, and media companies also have fairly close connections. A review of director lists of major corporations found that the following corporations have at least three of their directors who are also CFR members:
American Insurance Group and Citigroup: Eight directors
J.P. Morgan Chase, Boeing: Six directors
The Blackstone Group, Conoco, Disney/ABC: Five directors
Kissinger-McLarty Associates, IBM, Exxon Mobil, Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, Viacom/CBS, Time Warner: Four directors
The Carlyle Group, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse First Boston. Washington Post/Newsweek, Chevron Texaco, Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Alliance Capital: Three directors
The Council’s membership network consists of people one would expect to be CFR members—David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Peter G. Peterson, George Soros, Maurice Greenberg, Robert Rubin, George P. Shultz, Alan Greenspan, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard B. Cheney, and George Tenet—as well as individuals whose membership is more unexpected, such as John Sweeney, Jessie Jackson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Richard J. Barnet, and Daniel Schorr.
Bush, Kerry, and the CFR
Both Bush and Kerry are close to the CFR, draw most of their top foreign and economic policy advisers from this elite organization, and receive significant political funding from a number of Council-related individuals. While Bush is not personally a member of the CFR, his father was a member and a director of the Council in the 1970s and a large number of key members of his Administration are members. These include the so-called “neo-conservatives” who first became prominent in the CFR in the 1980s, when Reagan was president, and who have continued to play an important role since then. One of the key neo-con groups, Project for the New American Century, established in 1997 and identified by many as being the central organization behind the Bush administration, is heavily connected to the CFR. Fully 17 of the 25 founders of the Project for the New American Century are Council members.
CFR members who support Bush include key advisers or government officials in his Administration and also some key fundraisers who have helped make the Bush campaign fund by far the largest in the history of U.S. politics (see Table I). In John Kerry’s case, he is not only a long-time member (over 10 years) of the CFR, Teresa Heinz-Kerry is also a member. He has an even longer list of prominent Council supporters than Bush. Many of these supporters are economic and foreign policy advisers likely to play key roles in any Kerry presidency. Five current CFR directors and one current employee are openly supporting Kerry, most of them in advisory roles (see Table II).
Keeping Iraq out of the U.S. Elections
At the end of March 2004, two corporate leaders—former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director James R. Schlesinger and former State Department official and Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering—published an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times entitled “Keep Iraq Above Politics.” In this article, Schlesinger (now the chair of Mitre Corporation) and Pickering (senior vice president of Boeing Corporation) argued that the current presidential candidates must “rise above partisanship,” and “reaffirm their willingness to sustain our financial and military commitment” to Iraq in the “months and years ahead.” They suggested that the fundamentals of the U.S. government’s Iraq policy should not be subject to open democratic discussion and debate in this year’s presidential election. They put forth this argument because of weak public support at a time when “the United States has no alternative to remaining deeply engaged in Iraq. Failure to do so...could lead to long-term instability in the production and supply of oil” and “would also represent a monumental policy failure for the United States, with an attendant loss of U.S. credibility, power and influence in the region and the world.”
This summary of the real reasons for going to war is not just Schlesinger’s and Pickering’s personal views. A closer look reveals that these two men were co-chairs of an “Independent Task Force on Post-Conflict Iraq,” sponsored by the CFR. Both Schlesinger and Pickering are prominent members of the Council; Pickering is also a CFR director. Twenty other individuals, almost all of them Council members, studied and discussed this topic for more than three months prior to issuing their report, which was completed just prior to the publication of the Schlesinger-Pickering Los Angeles Times article. The task force members included leaders of corporations, academic institutions, think tanks, law firms, elite policy planning groups, non-governmental organizations, as well as former top government officials and military officers.
The Council report, entitled “Iraq: One Year After,” not only contained the above quote found in the Los Angeles Times article, it also stressed “the geopolitical stakes” involved in Iraq, but did not spell out what it meant by this term. It is likely that the CFR report did not elaborate because its readers in ruling class circles already know the meaning of “geopolitical stakes” and agree on their importance. In addition, the Council is undoubtedly extremely sensitive about being charged with advocating war and colonial occupation in order to seize the world’s main oil supplies. Geopolitics has to do with the ongoing worldwide struggle among nation-states and other actors for economic, political, and military power. Since Iraq does not have significant industry, a large population, a powerful military, or strategic position along sea or air routes, the reference to “geopolitical stakes” can only mean Iraqi and Middle Eastern oil wealth and the significance of this “prize” for corporate profits, political power, and global strategic advantage. The CFR’s website (www.cfr.org) also had this statement in April 2004: “The United States is the world’s largest consumer of oil.... Much of the world’s oil lies beneath Iraq and its Gulf neighbors...experts say oil played a significant role in the decision to confront Iraq. The United States has a long-standing interest in the free flow of oil from the Persian Gulf….”
The Iraq war, however, has had multiple goals. In addition to seeking control of oil for general strategic and specific economic value, including increasing the profits of some corporations, the United States is also trying to use the control of oil to favorably reshape political and military relations with Europe and Asia. Important nations—like France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and China—also depend on Middle Eastern oil for their energy requirements and economic survival. The U.S. is especially trying to prevent China from becoming the center of a cohesive regional political economy, while trying to transform it into a U.S. dependency. U.S. control over oil supplies that China needs would give it a potentially decisive form of power over China.
Emerging Tactics in U.S. Policy
Since the years immediately following World War II, there has been a general CFR-promoted unity regarding the goals of foreign policy and domestic economic policy within the United States ruling class. Abroad, the U.S. has worked to create and preserve a system of worldwide economic, political, and military dependencies/protectorates. This system initially was used to “contain” the Eurasian and Latin American left, but has evolved into a welfare system for United States-based multinational corporations. Under this system, the U.S. corporate state has been given effective control over many of the internal and external policies of its dependent client states, laying down the pro-corporate economic and political rules that they must follow. These rules on open markets and open investments—including dollar dominance, IMF/World Bank policies, huge capital flows into the United States, and the correct pricing of oil—have greatly benefited corporations controlled by the U.S. ruling class, helping make them the world’s most powerful economic actors. Domestic policy at home has focused on creating a massive welfare state for corporations even as the minimal welfare state benefiting the majority of the people was dismantled.
While the goals of this Pax Americana have been bi-partisan, there have often been disagreements over tactics. Some of these disputes have revolved around advantage for one or another party in the political arena. The Bush administration’s preemptive war on Iraq is one such case. The failures of preemption in Iraq have created an opening for the Democrats to gain political advantage by criticizing Bush’s tactics in much the same way that Eisenhower took advantage of Truman and Stevenson on Korea and Nixon benefited from the unpopularity of the Kennedy/Johnson war on Vietnam. Since most Democrats supported the Iraq war, and both Kerry and Edwards voted for it and support the occupation, they clearly do not disagree with the attempt to take over Iraq and its oil resources, only the failure to succeed.
The failure of the Bush administration’s reactionary policies of preemptive war abroad and tax cuts for the rich and general repression at home have helped create the beginnings of an oppositional force within the U.S. This force is mainly rank and file and has mass potential, but is still unorganized. Abroad, in the poverty-stricken ghettos of the world, anti-Americanism is rapidly growing. The more moderate and liberal forces within the U.S. ruling class, including an important sector of the Council on Foreign Relations, want a tactical policy that focuses more on legitimating the system and less on direct accumulation for corporations and the already wealthy. They hope that such a focus and related concessions to those rebelling, or beginning to rebel, at home and abroad will contain the opposition and channel it in benign directions. Kerry is their candidate and their tactics for the future can be seen in his policy statements, those of his advisers, and those in the CFR and related organizations who have openly opposed Bush admin- istration policies.
Kerry’s statements on Iraq, foreign policy, and economic policy are illuminating. They illustrate that tactical differences are all that separate him from George W. Bush on the key questions of the occupation of Iraq and domestic economic policy. Prior to the war on Iraq, John Kerry made statements showing that he had the same policy goals as Bush and the Republicans: “The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real…without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein…. He presents a particularly grievous threat…” Just after the war started, Kerry stated that U.S. armed forces will conquer Saddam “and I support their doing so.” Kerry has stated that Bush’s utopian goal of attempting to forcibly remake Iraq and the Middle East in “America’s” image is his own. He has said, “We must help bring modernity to the greater Middle East,” adding that the countries of the region “suffer from too little globalization, not too much.” As the latest colonial occupation of Iraq developed into a quagmire, Kerry stated, “The stakes in Iraq couldn’t be higher,” “failure is not an option,” and that we must “finish the mission in Iraq.” He says, “If our commanders believe they need more American troops…they should get them.” Kerry also adds in his speeches that a “peacekeeping force will be needed in Iraq for a long time to come.” On domestic economic policy, Kerry wants tax cuts for corporations as a way to stimulate economic growth and the creation of jobs. He says he will reduce the taxes of 99 percent of U.S. corporations. While Bush offers tax cuts directly to the rich, Kerry would offer tax cuts to the same people, but indirectly through corporate tax cuts.
On foreign policy generally, Kerry, like Bush, believes in militarism and war as a main way to solve the world’s problems. In May 2004, Kerry said, “America must always be the world’s paramount military power…. As president, I will never hesitate to use American power to defend our interests anywhere in the world. I will make America’s armed forces even stronger by adding troops…. I will modernize our military to match its new missions.” Finally, Kerry would partner with NATO and the United Nations and use more diplomacy and offer greater concessions to European and other nations to convince them to share the burden of successfully conquering Iraq. The Bush administration has, of course, already attempted to go substantially in this direction (“alliance building”) due to its problems in overcoming Iraqi resistance to colonial occupation.
The most comprehensive statement of the projected alternative foreign policy strategy of Kerry and the Democrats was produced by Kerry adviser and Council member Sandy Berger and published in the May-June 2004 issue of Foreign Affairs. Berger, Clinton’s National Security Adviser, begins by praising Bush’s stated goals in the Middle East, adding, “The foreign policy debate in this year’s presidential election is as much about means as it is about ends.” Berger says that Democrats agree with Bush that for “the foreseeable future, the United States and its allies must be prepared to employ raw military and economic power to check the ambitions of those who threaten our interests. A posture of strength and resolve…are clearly the right approach for dealing with our adversaries…” But Berger critiques the “with us or against us” mentality guiding the way that Bush has tried to force other nations to join the U.S. effort. This tactical approach, along with Bush’s dismissal of the need for the legitimacy that UN authorization and involvement would have bestowed, is what Berger views as threatening the success of U.S. foreign policy in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Berger argues that the Bush approach has isolated the U.S., alienated it from natural allies, and made its actions appear illegitimate to much of the world. Cooperation and a “strategic bargain” with these natural allies are, to Berger, the key to the legitimacy needed for future success.
Restoring the U.S. “global moral and political authority,” Berger says, involves “persuasion, not power.” Berger sums up his article by stating, “…having the right aims is not enough. The United States needs leaders who ensure that our means do not undermine our ends…. We need, in short, to reunite our power with moral authority. Only that combination will weaken our enemies and inspire our friends.” Berger is referring, without openly stating the obvious, to the fact that perhaps Bush’s most serious mistake was his refusal to share the potentially vast oil-related spoils (“geopolitical stakes”) with allies like France and Germany. These countries already had oil exploration and development deals with Saddam Hussein, agreements that were cancelled by the U.S. invasion. Behind this refusal is something that Berger politely declines to talk about—the drive for world domination through control of oil. At least partly, this is because Berger believes that “regardless of whether the war was justified, everyone now has a profound stake in Iraq’s success,” requiring “continuous involvement in Iraq’s reconstruction and political development.” Berger favors a “generational commitment” to Iraq, something that he thinks can only be achieved with and not against Europe. In sum, Berger’s article helps make clear that the Bushites favor unilateral world domination by the U.S., whereas the Kerry camp is satisfied with multilateral world domination in cooperation with Europe.
Many other CFR members besides Berger have critiqued the Bush administration’s tactical approach to foreign policy. The 27 signatories of the statement of Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, which assails the Bush administration for its “disastrous” policies, include 21 current CFR members (almost 80 percent of the total). This group of retired U.S. diplomats and top military officers are angry because the “structure of respect and influence for the United States” that they helped build over many decades is crumbling due to Bush’s failed policies, which amount to a “moral and political disaster.” Included in this disaster is the undermining of the U.S. military by the “morally corrosive” environment into which it was thrust in Iraq. They call for Bush’s defeat in November and “regime change” in Washington, DC.
Another example of a similar CFR-connected critique of Bush is the recent book, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy by Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsey. Daalder is a CFR member and a Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the CFR connected Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Lindsey is a CFR member and also a vice president of the Council and its director of studies. These two prominent foreign policy intellectuals, both of whom served in the Clinton administration, argue that Bush created a unilateralist revolution in foreign policy, redefining how the U.S. engages the world by shredding the constraints that allies and international institutions have imposed on its freedom of action. Raw power—domination—has been used to attempt to run the world. Daalder and Lindsey say that Bush’s policy has created great resentment abroad and could eventually leave the U.S. alone in the world, with most countries “against us” instead of “with us.” They also conclude that Bush’s policy of preemptive war in Iraq has been shown a complete failure.
The calculus of preemption now looks much less attractive to U.S. leaders, including military leaders. Iran and North Korea, two other nations that Bush has prominently targeted for attack, both present far more daunting military and political challenges than Iraq and so are unlikely to ever be attacked. Although Bush will not publicly bury his preemption doctrine, all such policies must be measured against experience, so Daalder and Lindsey conclude that preemption is essentially dead.
Senator and CFR member Chuck Hagel wrote the Republicans’ answer to Berger’s articles, which was printed in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs. Surprisingly, although it is billed as “A Republican Foreign Policy,” it is not a defense of the Bush administration’s foreign policies. In fact, the main foreign policy contours of Bush’s three and a half years in office are either not discussed (Iraq and preemptive war) or are explicitly repudiated (Bush’s appeals to God and his dismissal of alliances, international institutions, the UN, and “old Europe”). Hagel writes, “The UN is more relevant today than it has ever been” and “U.S. interests are not mutually exclusive from the interests of its friends and allies.” He further states that the “success of our policies will depend not only on the extent of our power, but also on an appreciation of its limits. History has taught us that foreign policy must not succumb to the distraction of divine mission.” In addition, “the United States and the European Union can benefit by teaming up to address the global issues of the coming era” and the “United States can continue to set an example, not arrogantly, but cooperatively, through strong leadership and partnership.” To be sure, the Republican approach, according to Chuck Hagel, still stresses the need to “assure stable and secure supplies of oil and natural gas” by the “judicious” use of military force, in turn requiring a “strong national defense,” and very high levels of military spending—just like the Democrats.
Democracy, Peace, and Justice
We do not have a real democracy in our country. In the current system, elections and political power are for sale to those who have the money and media access to purchase and advertise the candidates they want to see in power. The occasional weak efforts to control money in politics have clearly failed and the media has become even more concentrated and influential. The poster child illustrating this power is “establishment outsider” Howard Dean, the once popular Democratic presidential candidate who was crushed by adverse media coverage, especially by CFR-connected media corporations. Furthermore, the winner-take-all election system without runoffs means that “spoiling” and “lesser evil” voting are built into the structure of the system.
The winner-take-all election system disenfranchises large sections of the electorate, when, for example, a party, group, or person supported by 49 percent of the voters in a district gets zero representation. The Bush administration’s preemptive war doctrine, its disdain for allies, treaties, and international organizations, its refusal to consider or respect the interests of others, its attempts to shred constitutional rights and to justify torture and other illegal and immoral activity all occurred with considerable help from the Democratic Party. These policies have increased anti-Americanism in the Middle East and worldwide. This will translate into significant support for terrorism against the U.S. and its interests even if Kerry is elected and his Administration applies a different set of tactics.
The ongoing question facing the vast majority of people in the United States is how to build a social movement that can effectively put democracy and a peaceful foreign policy on the national agenda. Only then can some of our other key needs be addressed. Something more basic than a mere switch in the means of empire is needed at this juncture in human history, something more fundamental than an imperial agenda dressed in the classic Democratic Party garb of multilateralism, something better than merely fastening a progressive tail to Kerry’s Democratic kite.
What is needed is a mass social movement acting directly and independently in its own name. Only when it is independent can a social movement undertake the kind of bold and uncompromising militancy required to put key issues on the agenda and to effect a fundamental reconstruction of society. People want health care for all, full employment at a living wage, excellent public education, good retirement benefits, the right of workers to freely organize unions, affordable decent housing, ecological sanity, economic democracy, civil liberties, an end to all racism, sexism, and discrimination, fundamental electoral reform, and the democratization of the media. A unified social movement to demand a working people’s agenda needs to be born.
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Laurence H. Shoup has taught U.S. history at a number of universities and written three books, including: Imperial Brain Trust: the Council on Foreign Relations and U.S. Foreign Policy (with William Minter), first published by Monthly Review Press in 1977, reprinted by iUniverse in 2004.
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Oct2004/shoup1004.html
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_12292.shtml
South Koreans find the good life in China
Note: South Korea’s move toward China comes at a time when with floods of cash and a new policy of patience and friendly support, China has quietly penetrated the thick wall surrounding North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's regime - gaining significant leverage for the first time in one of the world's most closed societies. Chinese leaders have gained Mr. Kim's ear, sources say, with a message that the North can revitalize its economy while still holding tight political control.
#msg-9932251
-Am
By Hyejin Kim
Apr 8, 2006
For decades, South Korea's out-migration rate has been among the highest in the world. In the 1960s, Koreans left their impoverished homeland for wealthy countries, especially the United States and Germany. Korean migrants dreamed they could get rich in those societies, or at least they could give their children a better future. Many gave up positions of high social status in South Korea, as lawyers or professors, to enter US factories and laundromats.
Over the past 10 years, however, the stream of Korean emigration has been diverted from Western countries to China, now the hottest destination for Koreans moving abroad. South Korea's rise to OECD status (the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development includes 30 industrialized nations that share a commitment to democratic government and market economy) has caused out-migration to turn from developed societies to developing ones.
South Korea and China normalized diplomatic relations in 1992. Since then, Koreans have flocked to China. By the year 2000, China was the top destination for trips out of the country. In 2005, South Koreans made twice as many visits to China as to any other country.
The maturing of the South Korean economy, together with China's ongoing industrialization, has spurred Korean business to look to China for manpower. According to a study by the Boston Group of consultants, wages of Chinese manufacturing laborers in 2003 were one-tenth those of South Koreans. That research predicts that at least in the near future Chinese labor costs will remain much lower that South Korean labor costs.
China has become a major engine behind South Korea's economic growth. Last year China surpassed the US to become South Korea's No 1 trading partner. Not all Korean firms in China are there for manufacturing. Samsung, for example, employs 50,000 Chinese workers in 29 factories. The firm is increasingly concentrating on research and development work in China and hiring local people for top management.
South Korea's largest companies send residential representatives to China for two to five years. Their employers provide them with new apartments and tuition for their children to enter elite schools. Representatives get used to their luxurious lives in China and once their tenure is up, they prefer to stay and open their own firms or consulting services.
The promise of China's cheap labor pool attracts another group from South Korea, small-time entrepreneurs. Some had operated factories in Korea, and then transferred to China. Others dash off to China with a small amount of capital hoping to establish their own firms. The financial crisis in 1997 pushed a wave of laid-off Koreans to China in search of business. Some take their retirement funds to open a shop or restaurant in China. More than half of the investment abroad by South Korean small and medium enterprises in 2004 went to China.
The other major motivation for South Koreans to move to China is schooling. Previously, Korean parents sent their children to school in the United States or Canada, so they could learn English and return to high-paying jobs. Now parents have another option for sending their children to study abroad. Chinese schools are far cheaper than those in Western countries and China is much closer. Furthermore, China offers relatively inexpensive international schools where students learn both Chinese and English. Koreans make up more than half of foreign students in China.
A visible sign of the rise of South Korean migration to China is the emergence of "Korea towns" in Chinese cities. South Korean businessmen, students and their families form communities in major cities, such as Beijing, Qingdao and Shanghai, as well as in some small cities. In addition, all these Korean communities are tightly connected across cities. Based in the main office of the Beijing-Korean Association, 31 local Korean associations join South Koreans across the country through regular meetings and special events. These communities are all linked by the Internet, and when one association holds an annual sports competition, for example, other associations send their teams or financial aid.
Korean restaurants, karaoke bars and grocery stores in Korea towns offer goods and services at prices far below those in South Korea. South Koreans live packed together in these towns. From their neighbors and from community leaflets, they can get information in Korean and can avoid the language barrier.
While South Korean migrants tended to stay in China on a short-term basis in the 1990s, now they prefer to stay more permanently. Rather than going back to South Korea after finishing school, young people become interested in working or starting their own businesses in China. Whereas married businessmen previously went alone back and forth to China, now they have a tendency to take their families with them. In Korea towns, these families can be satisfied with their relatively luxurious lives and with schooling opportunities for their children. The increase in long-term settlers has led to the expansion of Korea towns.
The rapid rise of South Koreans in China reveals a new concept of international migration among South Koreans. In the past, international migration was a way of seeking a better life in a wealthier country. That meant saying farewell to the homeland, possibly forever. In the earlier form of migration they worked hard as members of a minority group that sometimes faced discrimination.
Now that their country has industrialized, South Korean emigrants are no longer fleeing poverty for chances in richer countries, but using the wealth they have generated over the last decades to invest in their rising neighbor. In China, South Koreans have stayed in close contact with the home country and built up "Korean villages".
Hyejin Kim is a specialist in East Asian affairs. She is the author of two books and holds a doctorate in Global Affairs.
(Copyright 2006 Hyejin Kim.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HD08Dg01.html.
Searching for attackers lurking in the night
This is important: Germane to all this, Moscow perceives a likely replay of past Anglo-American attempts to pit the Muslim world against Russia. Given its history, geography and culture and the multinational and multi-faith character of its society, Russia has everything to lose in an "inter-civilizational" conflict.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently wrote:
Russia will not let anybody set it at loggerheads with the Islamic world ...
What this probably means is that as Moscow prepares for the great war in Northern Caucasus the Us and Israel in their hypocritical rat like manner will be there to fan the flames of death and destruction in another attempt to break Russia apart.
Pls see:
Moscow is getting ready for the great war in Northern Caucasus #msg-10554411
-Am
By M K Bhadrakumar
Apr 8, 2006
There is enormous political symbolism in the circuitous route that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took for visiting Baghdad on Monday. She headed first to the quiet British town of Blackburn for a weekend's bonding with her British allies, and then proceeded to Iraq, accompanied by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
Any limited perspective on the Rice-Straw mission in terms of cajoling Ibrahim al-Jaafari to give up his prime ministership in Baghdad overlooks that Iraq is the cornerstone of the United States' imperial venture in remaking the Middle East, with the objective of controlling the region - its flows of oil, weapons and money.
Two major powers traditionally active in the region are responding to the Anglo-American drive for a New Middle East - Russia and Turkey.
The Russian moves are impressive - strengthening ties with Saudi Arabia, gaining observer status in the Organization of Islamic Conferences (OIC), revival of ties with Syria and Egypt, contact with Hamas, networking with Iraqi Sunni tribal leaderships, institutional ties with the Arab League, and, arguably, the heavily nuanced line on Iran.
Germane to all this, Moscow perceives a likely replay of past Anglo-American attempts to pit the Muslim world against Russia. Given its history, geography and culture and the multinational and multi-faith character of its society, Russia has everything to lose in an "inter-civilizational" conflict.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently wrote:
Russia will not let anybody set it at loggerheads with the Islamic world ... The increased significance of the energy factor in global politics is on the mind of many. Even those who have got used to thinking in terms of geopolitics appreciate that the equation formula of strategic stability has changed and the specific weight of nuclear deterrence itself has diminished ... At the same time, it is obvious that any sustained development of Russia's energy sector rules out for the foreseeable future any disregard of the Near and Middle East resources in a global energy balance.
In a lengthy message addressed to the Arab League summit meeting at Khartoum on March 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin said:
I am well aware that the heads of state and peoples of the Arab world, and in other Muslim states, share Russia's growing concern about the danger arising out of new divisions in the international community. It is our deep conviction that the time has come to act, and to act together, under the auspices of the United Nations as a key player.
As the events of the last few years in the Middle East have shown, unilateral actions do not resolve problems and they even aggravate them. Russia, a multi-confessional country with observer status within the Organization of Islamic Conference, has firm intentions to make a significant contribution to this teamwork.
Putin called for "consensual approaches" to the issues of social, economic and political transformation in the Arab world: "Events should not be rushed in an artificial way, nor should outside pressure be applied." Stressing that resolving the Palestinian problem within the framework of UN Resolutions 242, 338, 1397 and 1515 should be the priority, Putin described Russia's "dialogue" with Hamas as an "approach to new realities in a constructive and pragmatic way".
Putin said Iraq's unity and territorial integrity could only be achieved through a national dialogue and by "ending the foreign military presence". He called for a lowering of "tensions around Lebanon and Syria" and opposed "any third-party" role.
It comes as no surprise that the countries of the Arab Middle East have warmed to the Russian overtures.
Moscow hosted on March 27-28 the first session of the so-called Russia-Islamic World Strategic Vision Group comprising Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt, etc. Putin greeted the foreign delegates attending the conference. Significantly, Yevgeni Primakov, former prime minister and renowned orientalist who played a key role in crafting the Soviet Union's ties with the Arab world through the Cold War years, chaired the Moscow meet.
Again, the head of the Saudi National Security Council, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, paid a "working visit" to Moscow on Tuesday. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the hugely influential Saudi prince's agenda included the Palestine issue, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and "conditions in Iraq", apart from "building up and deepening" Russia-Saudi relations.
Turkey, too, is seeking to revive its ties in the Middle East - a region that it turned its back on in 1923. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's presence at the Arab League summit in Khartoum as a "permanent guest" meshes with a series of Turkish moves in the past three years.
Turkey claims it is trying to act as a "bridge" between the Middle East region and the Western world. (Curiously, Russia also is staking claims for a similar role as a "civilizational bridge" between the Muslim world and the West.)
But the US may not accede to such a profound role for Turkey or Russia - and Ankara and Moscow cannot be unaware of that. The US simply ignored similar Turkish (and Russian) claims in the 1990s to act as a "bridge" in the Balkans during the crises in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.
Turkish-US relations (like Russian-US relations) have been increasingly bumpy. Yet Turkey couldn't sit on the fence. It has vital interests to safeguard - least of all in its eastern provinces.
Turkey also has a government with a ruling party of pronounced religious orientation, which is approaching an election and would have to grapple with a resurgence of nationalism that has overtones of political Islam, and is heavily laden with "anti-Americanism". And this at a juncture when the so-called Kemalist secular camp has atrophied (or fragmented) almost to the point of irrelevance in the country's party politics, and a drift in Turkey's search for European Union membership is visible.
More important, as in Moscow, few in Ankara are convinced that Washington is anywhere near being transparent in its Iraq policies. Both Russia and Turkey would suspect that Washington did not have an "exit strategy" in Iraq because no exit was (or is) intended. They fear that if push comes to shove, the US will not hesitate to turn Iraq, in fragments, into a de facto colony.
Few in Ankara today, therefore, share Washington's hostility toward Syria and Iran. Ankara, like Moscow, favors engagement of Syria and Iran and opposes the use of force or "regime changes" in these neighboring countries.
Equally so, Turkey is deeply skeptical (like Russia) about the United States' "transformational diplomacy" in the Middle East. "Democratization is a process, and it should be expected to proceed at a different pace in different countries," Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in a written statement last month.
Ankara also hosted Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. A Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said, "At this stage, the international community should adopt a prejudice-free attitude and give the new Palestinian government the opportunity to fulfill its obligations."
Israel and the pro-Israeli lobby in the US went ballistic over the Hamas chief's visit to Turkey. But the Turkish leadership (like the Kremlin) held firm. Erdogan insisted Turkey was doing the "right thing at the right time".
Again, Jaafari visited Ankara when the US was working hard to get him to quit office. (Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said the visit took place without his knowledge, and he wouldn't "recognize" any agreements that the Iraqi prime minister entered into with the Turkish government.)
A visit by influential Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to Turkey is now talked about. Turkey is reaching out to different Iraqi constituencies - just in case.
Turkey's Sabah newspaper recently quoted a "high-level" US official voicing fears in Washington about "Turkey's metamorphosis into a new Malaysia". Indeed, Turkey sought and obtained the post of secretary general of the OIC. (Turkey was supportive of Russia's observer status in the body.)
Erdogan's presence at the Arab League summit in Khartoum last week signified the culmination of an initiative made during his visit to Cairo in January 2003. The Arab League initially had reservations on account of Turkey's close ties with Israel, but circumstances have changed dramatically since the Iraq war began. (Interestingly, on his return journey to Ankara from Khartoum, Erdogan made a detour to visit the OIC headquarters in Jeddah.)
Looking after interests
But Turkey does not cross swords with the US or Britain in the Middle East. Like Russia, Turkey is primarily taking precautions that at the very least a New Middle East, if one indeed shapes up under Anglo-American supervision, would not be pitted against Turkey's core interests. In uncertain times, it becomes prudent to hedge one's bets.
Having said that, both Moscow and Ankara will focus on Iraq in immediate terms. This course is Iraq's security. Moscow and Ankara would be justified to ask: "What was it that Straw could offer Rice?"
The answer lies in one of the most influential and enduring British strategic theories attributed to T E Lawrence. This strategy was distilled by Lawrence in the deserts of Arabia in the second decade of the 20th century (and to which Britain remained largely faithful even in Northern Ireland). In terms of this, Straw would tell Rice that in Iraq, to begin with, instead of being bogged down in a senseless trench war where armed clashes were turning into mass butchery, Washington should focus on a strategy of warfare that dispensed with battles.
Conceivably, Straw would counsel Rice that instead of attacking the Iraqi enemies, she should go around them, as Lawrence would have done, "immobilizing and isolating them, wearing them down as their sentries peer into the darkness searching for attackers who might or might not be lurking in the night" - to use the inimitable words of David Fromkin, author of the classic study on 1922 Middle East settlement, A Peace to End All Peace.
A problem remains, however. As Fromkin would point out, Lawrence's strategy has its limitations. It has no use for a country fighting for survival; a country that obstinately refuses to surrender and may need to be crushed by force; and an enemy that will not surrender even if tired, but chooses to fight to hold on to something it can't afford to give up.
Thus a paradox so typical of our times arises: the strategy attributed to Lawrence, the hero of British imperialism, is most effective against a great power that favors pitched, face-to face battles.
But Straw could as well have told that to Rice while strolling in the town center in Blackburn. A symbolic visit to Baghdad should not have been necessary.
M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years, with postings including ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-98) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HD08Ak03.html
Very interesting! Sipah-e-Sahaba: Fomenting Sectarian Violence in Pakistan
Another intriguing aspect of the SSP rally.
Sunni Pakistan has already said they would stand by Shiite neighbor Iran, the SSP could change that if they gain power, something the United States would love.
Pls see:
Pakistan will not leave Iran alone in any eventuality
#msg-10207661
And here we are:
The report also claimed that the United States and some other western countries supported the SSP to counter the growing Shi'a and Iranian influence in the region. [9]
Devious, and we are once again in bed with terrorists.
We are sponsoring a group that has targeted killings of prominent Shi'a figures and indiscriminate attacks on crowded mosques.
Wow, sort of like we are doing in Iraq. These poor people have not got a chance at peace.
-Am
By Animesh Roul
Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (Corp of the Prophet's Companions), a militant Islamist organization and the largest sectarian outfit in the country, was outlawed by President Pervez Musharraf on January 12, 2002 for its alleged involvement in terrorist related activities. More than 1,500 of its members were arrested at that time. Immediately after the ban, then-chief Maulana Azam Tariq renamed the organization Milat-e-Islamia Pakistan (MIP), the group's third incarnation. Previously known as Anjuman Sipah-e-Sahaba, the (Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan) SSP belongs to the Deobandi School of thought and its prime targets are the Shi'a community and Iranian interests in Pakistan.
The gruesome killings of 40 people in twin bomb blasts in Multan on October 7, 2004, highlight the depth of the sectarian conflict that plagues Pakistan. The incident occurred when hundreds of people had gathered to mark the first anniversary of the killing of Sipah-e-Sahaba chief Maulana Azam Tariq outside Islamabad. The attack came almost a week after a lethal suicide attack inside a crowded Shi'a mosque in the city of Sialkot that killed at least 30 people with as many injured. While the SSP chief Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhiyanvi, speaking to the media at Nishtar Hospital in Multan, blamed Shi'a radicals for the blast, police sources specifically pointed towards the militant Shi'a organization Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan (SMP) as the prime suspect. [1] SMP is an off-shoot of Tehrik-Nifaz-e-Fiqh-e-Jafaria (TNFJ – Movement for the Implementation of Jafaria Religious Law), the main Shi'a politico-religious party. Even as security forces claimed to have arrested one suspected mastermind of the blast, Amjad Shah of SMP in Toba Tek Singh, another source claimed that a different Shia outfit, Pasban-i-Islam (also affiliated to the TNFJ) was responsible for the Multan bomb blast. [2]
SSP was formed on September 6, 1985 in the Punjabi city of Jhang with the core mission of targeting Shi'as, whom the group believes are non-Muslims. Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, Maulana Ziaur Rahman Farooqi, Maulana Eesar-ul-Haq Qasmi and Maulana Azam Tariq were the original founders of the SSP. The outfit had also operated as a political party, regularly contesting elections in the Punjab province. Its slain chief, Azam Tariq, was elected to parliament on no less than four occasions.
A decade after its inception, the SSP had become one of the largest religious parties in Pakistan. Although many analysts contend that the SSP emerged as a reaction to the Iranian revolution and increasing Shi'a influence in Pakistan, there are other schools of thought, according to whom the SSP phenomenon emerged in Jhang as a reaction to the socio-economic repression of the Sunni populace by Shi'a feudal lords. Clearly the impact of the Iranian revolution on Pakistan's social fabric has been considerable, not least because of Iran's drive to establish regional hegemony and growing Sunni Islamist resistance to it. In Pakistan, Iranian sponsorship of Shi'a organizations was principally countered by Saudi Arabia, which is believed to have consistently bankrolled the SSP. Nonetheless it would be reductive to attribute the emergence of the SSP and its brand of extreme Sunni supremacy to the Iranian revolution alone.
Since its inception the SSP has relied on a core constituency of Sunni peasantry who felt exploited by Shi'a landlords and aristocrats, often with large land and property holdings. The SSP is also a byproduct of the Zia ul-Haq regime, which tried to create an Islamist counter to pro-democracy forces in the country. [3] While advocating a Sunni state in which all other sects would be declared non-Muslim minorities, the SSP has been singularly focused on an extreme anti-Shi'a campaign; for instance lobbying to have the Shi'as declared non-Muslims and calling for a ban on "Muharram" (commemorative mourning ceremony for Shi'as) processions.
Although the Shi'a and Sunni conflict in Pakistan predates the emergence of SSP, there has been a major escalation in sectarian violence since the anti-Shi'a riots in Lahore of 1986. At least two subsequent events changed the dynamics of sectarian violence: the murder of TNFJ leader Arif Hussain in 1988 and the February 1990 assassination of Maulana Haq Nawaj Jangvi, the most influential founder of SSP. Sectarian violence reached its peak in 1997; out of 195 killed in that year, 118 were Shi'a and 77 Sunni. The SSP along with several other Sunni and Shi'a organizations were suspected of being at the forefront of this violence. According to some sources, the first incident of sectarian violence took place on March 23, 1987 when Ahl-e-Hadith leaders Allama Ehsan Elahi Zaheer and Maulana Habib-ur-Rehman Yazdani were killed with six others at a meeting near the Minar-i-Pakistan. [4] The SSP's terrorist campaign has two main features: targeted killings of prominent Shi'a figures and indiscriminate attacks on crowded mosques. Some of the major cases of sectarian violence spearheaded by the SSP in 2004 are worth documentation:
October 7: At least 38 people were killed and more than 100 injured in bomb blasts in Multan.
September 21: Suspected SSP members gunned down at least three members of a Shi'a family in a sectarian attack in Dera Ismail Khan.
March 2: More than 45 people killed and over 100 wounded in an attack on Shi'a Muslims in Quetta.
SSP has also inflicted serious violence on Iranian interests in Pakistan. In December 1990, it assassinated Sadegh Ganji, a well-known Iranian diplomat and head of Iran's cultural center in Lahore. The killing of Ganji was apparently in retaliation for the assassination of Maulana Jhangvi in February 1990, likely carried out by Iranian intelligence. In January 1997 the SSP armed wing burnt down Iran's cultural center in Lahore and in the same month assassinated Mohammad Ali Rahimi, Iran's cultural attaché in Multan. In September 1997, SSP operatives shot dead five Iranian air force cadets in Rwalpindi. [5]
According to reliable sources, SSP maintains both its headquarters in the two largest Deobandi Madrasas of Punjab – Jamiat-ul-Uloom Eidgah in Bahawalnagar city, and Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband Faqirwali in the Fort Abbas subdivision. However, some sources have claimed that all organizational controls are exercised from regional headquarters located in Jamia Faruqiya, Jia Moosa, Shadara and Lahore and the international units are controlled by Madrasa Mahmoodiya in Jhang. [6]
The tentacles of the organization are widespread, as SSP has paid considerable attention to district level units. According to one estimate, the organization boasted 74 district-level and 225 tehsil (micro-level unit of administration) units before the 2002 proscription. [7] Although rooted in the countryside the SSP relies on urban Sunni businessmen for funding. Moreover the organization has tried to reach a more sophisticated audience through its official monthly organ, Khilifat-i-Rashida (The Rightly Guided Caliphate), published in Faisalabad.
It is widely believed that the SSP has received considerable financial and logistical assistance from Saudi intelligence. The Pakistani authorities are well aware of these connections but turn a blind eye to them, not least because the Pakistani state maintains historical ties with the House of Saud. [8] A report in the mid 1990's disclosed that the Saudi government had consistently backed the Deobandi school of thought in Pakistan (which has many similarities to the Wahhabi version of Islam), especially after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. The report also claimed that the United States and some other western countries supported the SSP to counter the growing Shi'a and Iranian influence in the region. [9]
The SSP exercises considerable influence on various political parties, in particular the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and the Jamaat-Ulema-e-Islam (JuI), which tried to negotiate Osama bin Laden's extradition to Pakistan to stand trial for the 9/11 attacks. Moreover the SSP is believed to have strong operational ties with other Deobandi/Wahhabi organizations in Pakistan and also with some international outfits.
In 1996 there was an apparent split in the ranks of the SSP, leading to the emergence of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ – "Jhangvi's Army"). [10] The LeJ is led by Riaz Basra (former senior cadre of the SSP), and is widely believed to be the armed wing of the SSP. The LeJ was also outlawed by President Musharraf on August 14, 2001. Despite the manufactured split, the SSP retained its half-disguised moderate political profile and denied engaging in terrorist activities.
Besides the LeJ, the SSP has forged other manufactured – or at least controlled – splinter groups. After Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi's assassination, at least five splinter groups (excluding the LeJ) emerged from the ranks of the SSP. They were Jhangvi Tigers, Al Haq Tigers, Tanzeem ul-Haq, Al Farooq and Al Badr Foundation. Currently the SSP has 31 vital operational networks spread across Pakistan. After the proscription, it has shifted its offices to mosques and madrasas in different cities. The networks in Multan, Jhang, Quetta, Hyderabad and Peshawar have been under Mualana Abdul Ghafoor, Rana Ayub, Hafiz Qasim Siddique, Maulana Farooq Azad and Maulana Darwesh respectively. Although rooted in the Punjab, the SSP is now a truly national and increasingly international phenomenon. The organization has tens of thousands of active supporters and according to reliable sources boasts up to 6,000 trained and professional cadres; many of whom are actively involved in sectarian violence. With some 17 branches in foreign countries including Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Canada and the United Kingdom, the SSP is the largest and most pervasive Sunni supremacist organization in the world.
Apart from its armed wing, the SSP has strong connections with the Kashmir-focused Jihadi outfit, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) led by Maulana Masood Azhar. In October 2000, the JeM chief reportedly said "now we go hand-in-hand, and Sipah-e-Sahaba stands shoulder to shoulder with Jaish-e-Muhammad in Jihad." Despite these alliances the SSP does not play a significant role in the Kashmiri insurgency.
However, SSP militants were known to have undergone military training in Afghanistan while fighting alongside the Taliban. Most recently on December 20, 2004 Lahore Police arrested suspected SSP cadre Malik Tahseen (alias Abdul Jabbar Alvi) for his involvement in securing Afghan bases and connections for the organization. Tahseen was detained alongside five associates of Libyan al-Qaeda operative Abu Al-Faraj, wanted for masterminding two assassination attempts on President Musharraf. However, there does not seem to be any serious connections between the SSP and al-Qaeda, despite allegations that both the SSP and the LeJ lent moral support to Osama Bin Laden's International Islamic Front. While al-Qaeda has been successful at co-opting other Pakistani sectarian outfits, it has had less luck with the SSP, which has consistently identified Shi'as and Iran as its primary – and seemingly exclusive – enemies.
Despite its ban, the SSP carries on as normal and – for the foreseeable future at least – is likely to grow in influence and prestige. A primary and obvious difficulty is that proscribed groups such as SSP and JeM can circumvent the proscription by changing their names and operating through manufactured splinter groups. Addressing the serious challenges posed by the SSP is a Herculean task, not least because sectarian divisions are very strong in Pakistan. It is doubtful whether Musharraf's administration has either the will or the capability to take on this powerful organization and its vocal and influential domestic and international audience.
Animesh Roul is a Research Coordinator at the "Society for the Study of Peace and Conflict" (SSPC) in New Delhi, where he specializes in terrorism and security issues. He is also a correspondent for ISN.
Notes:
1. Sipah Muhammad Pakistan was formed in 1993 on the basis of instructions issued by TNFJ President Ghulam Reza Naqvi. It was banned on August 14, 2001 along with the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).
2. "Pasban-i-Islam behind Multan blast", The News, October 22, 2004.
3. After assuming power, Zia ul-Haq encouraged the formation of the Mohajir Quami Movement (MQM) in Karachi and Hyderabad and Anjuman Sipah Sahabah in Punjab in order to scuttle the influence of the People's Party and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was a Shi'a.
4. Dawn, September 11, 1997.
5. For more information on these killings, refer to Hassan Abbas, Pakistan's Drift Into Extremism: Allah, The Army, And America's War On Terror, M.E. Sharpe, 2004.
6. Mohammad Amir Rana, Gateway to Terrorism, New Millennium Publication,
London, 2003, p.182.
7. Ibid.
8. The ideological and financial links between the two has been noted in various sources. See, for example, Fayaz Ahmad, "Sipah e Sahaba or Sipah e Yazeed?", Shia News, 21 October 2003. Also see, the URL: http://www.hazara.net/taliban/protectors/protectors.html
9. The information was published in the daily Nation, 20 January 1995 quoting a confidential report of the Home Department of Punjab. Rehman Faiz quoted in Qalandar: Islam and Interfaith Relations in South Asia, April 2004. www.islaminterfaith.org
10. LeJ is named after the SSP leader Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi who was allegedly assassinated by the Iranian intelligence service in February 1990. After the assassination some members allegedly deserted the SSP, accusing it of deviating from the ideals of Jhangvi. But the split was not serious and the LeJ merely constitutes the armed wing of the SSP. The SSP and LeJ have allegedly received financial and other assistance from the intelligence agencies of Saudi Arabia and the former Iraqi regime as reward for targeting Iranian officials and interests. Conversely the SMP was bankrolled by Iranian intelligence for countering the LeJ.
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:H4OwJPUK7FcJ:www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php%3Farti....
Borderlands and Immigrants
April 04, 2006 17 57 GMT
By George Friedman
The United States has returned to its recurring debate over immigration. This edition of the debate, focused intensely on the question of illegal immigration from Mexico, is phrased in a very traditional way. One side argues that illegal migration from Mexico threatens both American economic interests and security. The other side argues that the United States historically has thrived on immigration, and that this wave of migration is no different.
As is frequently the case, the policy debate fails to take fundamental geopolitical realities into account.
To begin with, it is absolutely true that the United States has always been an immigrant society. Even the first settlers in the United States -- the American Indian tribes -- were migrants. Certainly, since the first settlements were established, successive waves of immigration have both driven the American economy and terrified those who were already living in the country. When the Scots-Irish began arriving in the late 1700s, the English settlers of all social classes thought that their arrival would place enormous pressure on existing economic processes, as well as bring crime and immorality to the United States.
The Scots-Irish were dramatically different culturally, and their arrival certainly generated stress. However, they proved crucial for populating the continent west of the Alleghenies. The Scots-Irish solved a demographic problem that was at the core of the United States: Given its population at that time, there simply were not enough Americans to expand settlements west of the mountains -- and this posed a security threat. If the U.S. population remained clustered in a long, thin line along the Atlantic sea board, with poor lines of communication running north-south, the country would be vulnerable to European, and especially British, attack. The United States had to expand westward, and it lacked the population to do so. The Americans needed the Scots-Irish.
Successive waves of immigrants came to the United States over the next 200 years. In each case, they came looking for economic opportunity. In each case, there was massive anxiety that the arrival of these migrants would crowd the job market, driving down wages, and that the heterogeneous cultures would create massive social stress. The Irish immigration of the 1840s, the migrations from Eastern and Southern Europe in the 1880s -- all triggered the same concerns. Nevertheless, without those waves of immigration, the United States would not have been able to populate the continent, to industrialize or to field the mass armies of the 20th century that established the nation as a global power.
Population Density and Economic Returns
Logic would have it that immigration should undermine the economic well-being of those who already live in the United States. But this logic assumes that there is a zero-sum game. That may be true in Europe or Asia. It has not been true in the United States. The key is population density: The density of the United States, excluding Alaska, is 34 people per square kilometer. By comparison, the population density in the United Kingdom is 247 per square kilometer, 231 in Germany and 337 in Japan. The European Union, taken as a whole, has a population density of 115. If the United States were to equal the United Kingdom in terms of density, it would have a population of about 2 billion people.
Even accepting the premise that some parts of the United States are uninhabitable and that the United Kingdom is over-inhabited, the point is that the United States' population is still small relative to available land. That means that it has not come even close to diminishing economic returns. To the extent to which the population-to-land ratio determines productivity -- and this, in our view, is the critical variable -- the United States still can utilize population increases. At a time when population growth from native births is quite low, this means that the United States still can metabolize immigrants. It is, therefore, no accident that over the past 40 years, the United States has absorbed a massive influx of Asian immigrants who have been net producers over time. It's a big country, and much of it is barely inhabited.
On this level, the immigration issue poses no significant questions. It is a replay of a debate that has been ongoing since the founding of the country. Those who have predicted social and economic disaster as a result of immigration have been consistently wrong. Those who have predicted growing prosperity have been right. Those who have said that the national character of the United States would change dramatically have been somewhat right; core values have remained in place, but the Anglo-Protestant ethnicity represented at the founding has certainly been transformed. How one feels about this transformation depends on ideology and taste. But the simple fact is this: The United States not only would not have become a transcontinental power without immigration; it would not have industrialized. Masses of immigrants formed the armies of workers that drove industrialism and made the United States into a significant world power. No immigration, no United States.
Geography: The Difference With Mexico
Now, it would seem at first glance that the current surge of Mexican migration should be understood in this context and, as such, simply welcomed. If immigration is good, then why wouldn't immigration from Mexico be good? Certainly, there is no cultural argument against it; if the United States could assimilate Ukrainian Jews, Sicilians and Pakistanis, there is no self-evident reason why it could not absorb Mexicans. The argument against the Mexican migration would seem on its face to be simply a repeat of old, failed arguments against past migrations.
But Mexican migration should not be viewed in the same way as other migrations. When a Ukrainian Jew or a Sicilian or an Indian came to the United States, their arrival represented a sharp geographical event; whatever memories they might have of their birthplace, whatever cultural values they might bring with them, the geographical milieu was being abandoned. And with that, so were the geopolitical consequences of their migration. Sicilians might remember Sicily, they might harbor a cultural commitment to its values and they might even have a sense of residual loyalty to Sicily or to Italy -- but Italy was thousands of miles away. The Italian government could neither control nor exploit the migrant's presence in the United States. Simply put, these immigrants did not represent a geopolitical threat; even if they did not assimilate to American culture -- remaining huddled together in their "little Italys" -- they did not threaten the United States in any way. Their strength was in the country they had left, and that country was far away. That is why, in the end, these immigrants assimilated, or their children did. Without assimilation, they were adrift.
The Mexican situation is different. When a Mexican comes to the United States, there is frequently no geographical split. There is geographical continuity. His roots are just across the land border. Therefore, the entire immigration dynamic shifts. An Italian, a Jew, an Indian can return to his home country, but only with great effort and disruption. A Mexican can and does return with considerable ease. He can, if he chooses, live his life in a perpetual ambiguity.
The Borderland Battleground
This has nothing to do with Mexicans as a people, but rather with a geographical concept called "borderlands." Traveling through Europe, one will find many borderlands. Alsace-Lorraine is a borderland between Germany and France; the inhabitants are both French and German, and in some ways neither. It also is possible to find Hungarians -- living Hungarian lives -- deep inside Slovakia and Romania.
Borderlands can be found throughout the world. They are the places where the borders have shifted, leaving members of one nation stranded on the other side of the frontier. In many cases, these people now hold the citizenship of the countries in which they reside (according to recognized borders), but they think and speak in the language on the other side of the border. The border moved, but their homes didn't. There has been no decisive geographical event; they have not left their homeland. Only the legal abstraction of a border, and the non-abstract presence of a conquering army, has changed their reality.
Borderlands sometimes are political flashpoints, when the relative power of the two countries is shifting and one is reclaiming its old territory, as Germany did in 1940, or France in 1918. Sometimes the regions are quiet; the borders that have been imposed remain inviolable, due to the continued power of the conqueror. Sometimes, populations move back and forth in the borderland, as politics and economics shift. Borderlands are everywhere. They are the archaeological remains of history, except that these remains have a tendency to come back to life.
The U.S.-Mexican frontier is a borderland. The United States, to all intents and purposes, conquered the region in the period between the Texan Revolution (1835-36) and the Mexican-American War (1846-48). As a result of the war, the border moved and areas that had been Mexican territory became part of the United States. There was little ethnic cleansing. American citizens settled into the territory in increasing numbers over time, but the extant Mexican culture remained in place. The border was a political dividing line but was never a physical division; the area north of the border retained a certain Mexican presence, while the area south of the border became heavily influenced by American culture. The economic patterns that tied the area north of the Rio Grande to the area south of it did not disappear. At times they atrophied; at times they intensified; but the links were always there, and neither Washington nor Mexico City objected. It was the natural characteristic of the borderland.
It was not inevitable that the borderland would be held by the United States. Anyone looking at North America in 1800 might have bet that Mexico, not the United States, would be the dominant power of the continent. Why that didn't turn out to be the case is a long story, but by 1846, the Mexicans had lost direct control of the borderland. They have not regained it since. But that does not mean that the borderland is unambiguously American -- and it does not mean that, over the next couple of hundred years, should Washington's power weaken and Mexico City's increase, the borders might not shift once again. How many times, after all, have the Franco-German borders shifted? For the moment, however, Washington is enormously more powerful than Mexico City, so the borders will stay where they are.
The Heart of the Matter
We are in a period, as happens with borderlands, when major population shifts are under way. This should not be understood as immigration. Or more precisely, these shifts should not be understood as immigration in the same sense that we talk about immigration from, say, Brazil, where the geographical relationship between migrant and home country is ruptured. The immigration from Mexico to the United States is a regional migration within a borderland between two powers -- powers that have drawn a border based on military and political history, and in which two very different populations intermingle. Right now, the United States is economically dynamic relative to Mexico. Therefore, Mexicans tend to migrate northward, across the political border, within the geographical definition of the borderland. The map declares a border. Culture and history, however, take a different view.
The immigration debate in the U.S. Congress, which conflates Asian immigrations with Mexican immigrations, is mixing apples and oranges. Chinese immigration is part of the process of populating the United States -- a process that has been occurring since the founding of the Republic. Mexican immigration is, to borrow a term from physics, the Brownian motion of the borderland. This process is nearly as old as the Republic, but there is a crucial difference: It is not about populating the continent nearly as much as it is about the dynamics of the borderland.
One way to lose control of a borderland is by losing control of its population. In general, most Mexicans cross the border for strictly economic reasons. Some wish to settle in the United States, some wish to assimilate. Others intend to be here temporarily. Some intend to cross the border for economic reasons -- to work -- and remain Mexicans in the full sense of the word. Now, so long as this migration remains economic and cultural, there is little concern for the United States. But when this last class of migrants crosses the border with political aspirations, such as the recovery of lost Mexican territories from the United States, that is the danger point.
Americans went to Texas in the 1820s. They entered the borderland. They then decided to make a political claim against Mexico, demanding a redefinition of the formal borders between Mexico and the United States. In other words, they came to make money and stayed to make a revolution. There is little evidence -- flag-waving notwithstanding -- that there is any practical move afoot now to reverse the American conquest of Mexican territories. Nevertheless, that is the danger with all borderlands: that those on the "wrong" side of the border will take action to move the border back.
For the United States, this makes the question of Mexican immigration within the borderland different from that of Mexican immigration to places well removed from it. In fact, it makes the issue of Mexican migration different from all other immigrations to the United States. The current congressional debate is about "immigration" as a whole, but that makes little sense. It needs to be about three different questions:
1. Immigration from other parts of the world to the United States
2. Immigration from Mexico to areas well removed from the southern border region
3. Immigration from Mexico to areas within the borderlands that were created by the U.S. conquests
Treating these three issues as if they were the same thing confuses matters. The issue is not immigration in general, nor even Mexican immigration. It is about the borderland and its future. The question of legal and illegal immigration and various solutions to the problems must be addressed in this context.
http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=264358
Venezuela, Iran Vs. U.S.
He also believes in the possible existence of the Israeli report.
I would be very careful if an Israeli report is involved by
Israel’s own admission they delivered an erroneous assessment of pre-war Iraq’s weapons.
Parliamentary investigators have determined that Israel's intelligence services delivered an erroneous assessment of pre-war Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, an Israeli newspaper reported Thursday.
The Haaretz daily said the 80-page report had criticized all Israeli intelligence branches for providing erroneous assessments of Iraq's non-conventional weapons.
Last December, a former Israeli intelligence officer charged that Israel produced a flawed picture of Iraqi weapons capabilities and substantially contributed to mistakes made in U.S. and British prewar assessments on Iraq.
#msg-2682946
If this is true Tehran must feel that sneaking in uranium is safer than mining their own?
-Am
Venezuela, Iran Vs. U.S.
Thu, 04 6 2006, 19:53 Djokhar Time
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is known for his anti-Americanism and public support for regimes that oppose the United States. But there is growing concern that Chavez’s government may have taken serious steps to go beyond mere rhetorical support with a deal that some experts say could allow Iran access to uranium deposits in Venezuela.
Public details of the Venezuelan-Iranian uranium deal are not clear, but an article on The Washington Post speculates that the agreement could involve the production and transfer of Venezuelan uranium to Iran. Media reports also talked of an alleged Israeli intelligence report that gave an account of the exact locations of uranium deposits in Venezuela and spoke of “extraction” already taking place in the State of Bolivar.
In addition to the Israeli report, Josй V. Mйndez, a Venezuelan expert in nuclear matters talked of the establishment of a “subcommittee of the U.S. Senate“ to probe the alleged Iranian-Venezuelan deal. “If the matter of the subcommittee is true, I must say that that is precisely like what happened before the Iraq invasion,” he said.
A U.S. State Department official said: "We are aware of reports of possible Iranian exploitation of Venezuelan uranium, but we see no commercial uranium activities in Venezuela."
But a Venezuelan diplomat, Julio Cйsar Pineda, said that uranium reserves in Venezuela “were estimated to be approximately 50,000 tons.” He also believes in the possible existence of the Israeli report. “Israel is on the alert as to what is happening because there is that Iranian threat of wiping it off the map. Europe is also on the alert and even the Arabic world…”
The speculations come at a critical time between Iran and the West, after the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a non-binding statement giving Iran 30 days to halt uranium enrichment activities.
In January, members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted for sending Iran’s nuclear case to the UN Security Council. Only Venezuela, Cuba and Syria voted against it.
“The nuclear matter is very sensitive and the world powers are very perceptive of that. It is significant that China, who receives 15% of its oil from Iran, and Russia, who provided it with nuclear technology, have not voted in favor of Iran at the UN. And yet Venezuela did. They have already entered us in the game of nuclear chess,“ said Cйsar Pineda.
Last month, Chavez said that "it's absolutely false that the Iranian government is developing an atomic bomb." He also criticized the U.S. for being hypocritical for maintaining its nuclear weapons and those of friendly countries while demanding that others "paralyze their programs for peaceful uses of nuclear energy."
Venezuela insists, like Iran, that it seeks atomic technology strictly for civilian purposes. Chavez recently attempted to purchase his own nuclear technology from Argentina. But Argentina marked its distance from the idea of its wealthy neighbor. Iran, on the other hand, hinted that it will help Venezuela in developing nuclear energy for peaceful uses and always within the norms of the IAEA.
In February, Caracas and Tehran announced that they reached several agreements during a visit to Venezuela by the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel. One of those deals, perhaps the most important, could lead to the mining of Venezuelan uranium for Iranian use, prompting U.S. opposition figures to warn that Chavez’s government could be planning to provide Tehran with uranium for its nuclear program, according to The Washington Times.
Tehran and Caracas also agreed to set up a joint U.S. 0 million development fund aimed at promoting bilateral trade and consolidate a relation in which there already existed an old accord meant to oppose Washington’s imperialism. Both countries also signed bilateral agreements to build homes and factories in the South American country.
Allying himself with states that share his opposition to the U.S. is nothing new for the oil-rich Chavez, but any deal towards a joint nuclear effort with Iran is alarming for Washington.
The U.S. fears that Venezuela may be sharing uranium with Iran, and that Iran may be giving secret nuclear advice to Venezuela in order to avail itself of nuclear fuel. Both countries fear that the Bush administration may find an excuse for invading them.
According to Venezuela’s former Defense Minister Raul Salazar, Chavez’ support for Iran’s nuclear program was pushing relations with Washington past "the point of no return." Caracas’ support for Tehran has so far been purely political, he said, but "that is not to say [uranium transfers to Tehran] couldn't happen in the future."
But Chavez dismissed the reports of the Venezuelan-Iranian uranium deal as being part of an "imperialist plan" propagated by international news media. “Now they say I am sending uranium to make atomic bombs from here, from the Venezuelan Amazon to send directly to the Persian Gulf," he said last week. "This shows they have no limit in their capacity to invent lies."
Venezuelan Foreign Commerce and Integration Minister Gustavo Marquez also denied sending uranium shipments to the Middle East. "There is no sort of exploitation of that,” he said.
And Venezuela’s former representative to the IAEA, Leancy Clemente Lobo, said: “I do not believe that uranium is being taken out of Venezuela sent to Iran, because they have more of it there that we do here. Iran does not need Venezuela in the nuclear sector; quite to the contrary. But one must be careful to recognize and accept the rules of the game. There has always been this hullabaloo because it is a kind of neuralgia; it happened to Pakistan with respect to India, Korea lives it now, Brazil and Argentina expressed it in their time. And this is Venezuela’s moment.”
Sources: AlJazeera
2006-04-06 10:23:43
http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2006/04/06/4580.shtml
Iranian pact with Venezuela stokes fears of uranium sales
Mon. 13 Mar 2006
The Washington Times
By Kelly Hearn
BUENOS AIRES -- A recent deal between Iran and Venezuela provides for the exploitation of Venezuela's strategic minerals, prompting opposition figures to warn that President Hugo Chavez's government could be planning to provide Tehran with uranium for its nuclear program.
The deal was part of a package of agreements, most of which were announced during a visit last month to Caracas and Cuba by Iranian parliament Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel. The two countries also established a joint $200 million development fund and signed bilateral deals to build homes and factories, and exploit petroleum.
Public details are vague, but Venezuelan opposition figures and press reports have said the deal on minerals could involve the production and transfer to Iran have said the deal on minerals could involve the production and transfer to Iran of Venezuelan uranium taken from known deposits located in the dense jungle states of Amazonas and Bolivar.
Mr. Chavez last week ridiculed such speculation as being part of an "imperialist plan" propagated by international news media.
"Now they say I am sending uranium to make atomic bombs from here, from the Venezuelan Amazon to send directly to the Persian Gulf," Mr. Chavez said during a meeting at a military club on Tuesday. "This shows they have no limit in their capacity to invent lies."
The speculation comes at a time of rising tension between the world community and Iran, which yesterday declared it had ruled out a proposed compromise under which it would process uranium for a peaceful nuclear program in Russia.
The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- are to meet this week to discuss a draft statement aimed at increasing the pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear plans.
Retired Venezuelan Vice Adm. Jose Rafael Huizi-Clavier said the mining arrangements negotiated last month with Iran are broad and unspecific and could easily include uranium.
Other critics of Mr. Chavez point out that Venezuela recently voted against reporting Tehran to the U.N. Security Council for its uranium-enrichment program and that Mr. Chavez in recent months has attempted to purchase his own civilian-use nuclear technology from Argentina. Adm. Huizi-Clavier, who heads the Venezuela-based Institutional Military Front, a group of ex-military officials opposed to Mr. Chavez, said his group is "alarmed by a confluence of facts." He cited construction work at a small military base and the widening of a military airstrip near the Brazilian border, where uranium deposits are said to exist.
He also noted that Mr. Chavez expelled U.S. missionaries from areas known to have uranium in February. At the time, Mr. Chavez accused New Tribes Mission, a Florida-based group, of working for the CIA and foreign mining interests.
A Florida-based spokesman for the group said none of the missionaries knew anything about uranium-mining activities.
Venezuelan Minister of Science and Technology Yadira Cordova said on Thursday that the airfield belonged to the New Tribes Mission. She also denied uranium was being mined or processed in the area, saying such technologically demanding processes "would be detected easily."
In Washington, a State Department official said, "We are aware of reports of possible Iranian exploitation of Venezuelan uranium, but we see no commercial uranium activities in Venezuela."
Adm. Huizi-Clavier said Mr. Chavez was playing a "dangerous game" by backing Iran at the United Nations in defiance of overwhelming world opinion.
Former Venezuelan Defense Minister Raul Salazar said the country's support of Iran's nuclear program was pushing relations with Washington past "the point of no return."
Mr. Chavez's support for Iran's nuclear plan has thus far been purely political, he said, but "that is not to say [uranium transfers to Tehran] couldn't happen in the future."
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:0FCD5AnEzFQJ:www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php%3Fstoryi....
UN officials find evidence of secret uranium enrichment plant
By Con Coughlin
(Filed: 07/04/2006)
United Nations officials investigating Iran's nuclear programme say they have found convincing evidence that the Iranians are working on a secret uranium enrichment project that has not been officially declared.
Suspicions were raised after officials from the UN-sponsored International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) travelled to Pakistan at the end of last year to interview A Q Khan, the atomic scientist who masterminded the successful development of Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal.
Khan is known to have sold Teheran the technical expertise to develop an atomic bomb, together with key components, such as sophisticated equipment for enriching uranium. During the interview with IAEA inspectors, Khan is said to have provided a full disclosure of the nuclear dossier he gave the Iranians. The inspectors compared Khan's material against the documentation the Iranians have so far provided.
"There are a number of glaring inconsistencies between what the Iranians are telling us and the information the IAEA got from Khan," said a diplomat closely involved in the IAEA's negotiations with Teheran. "Consequently the IAEA inspectors are now convinced that the Iranians have another, small-scale uranium processing and enrichment project that is being kept secret from the outside world."
IAEA officials are trying to establish whether Iran has what they call "parallel" nuclear enrichment facilities, which they suspect are being developing at closed military bases around the country.
The current diplomatic crisis over Iran's uranium enrichment activity is centred on the uranium processing plant at Isfahan and the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. The existence of the latter facility, which will soon have the capacity to enrich uranium to weapons grade, was unknown until Iranian exiles disclosed its location in 2003.
Both these facilities, constructed to carry out industrial-scale nuclear enrichment, have been documented by IAEA inspectors, and would be easy targets for military action if the crisis between Teheran and the UN Security Council were to worsen.
UN officials believe that the Iranians have set up a parallel enrichment project that would enable them to continue with their uranium enrichment activity in the event of their other facilities being incapacitated by military action.
Suspicions have been raised by the discovery of a facility, at an unknown location, capable of producing "green salt". Iranian officials inadvertently submitted a document about its production in their declarations to IAEA inspectors on other aspects of their nuclear programme.
Green salt is similar to uranium that has been partially processed to weapons grade and no satisfactory explanation for its production has been given by Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation.
The other discovery that caused consternation for the IAEA was a set of drawings that show the Iranians are attempting to build what has been described as an enriched uranium hemisphere, a construction that is only used in the construction of atomic weapons. Iran refused to hand over the drawings.
"It all fits into a pattern of behaviour that suggests the Iranians have something to hide," said a senior diplomat attached to the IAEA headquarters in Vienna.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/07/wiran107.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/0...
©
What I was attempting to say is if Bush is ousted it will be because the CFR wants him out. Not only do they have the power to suffocate scandals, which they are not, they are also beginning to become more aggressive in their criticism of him. That is what I find interesting. What the people want doesn’t matter. The people cannot impeach the president because they didn’t elect him. Our ‘democracy’ being a staged production. The CFR would be your significant force, they pull the strings and elect the president. If they can put a man in office they can take him out. If they choose to rid us of this menace then they possibly might use the people as a tool.
I don’t know if they wish to, just yet. I would consider the CFR effective but not coherent.
I am not speaking of one scandal, but rather what looks to be perhaps a change of mindset for our kingmakers.
-Am
o,but isn't Bush going to be impeached because of Libby's testimony??/ O please, we are in america the land of Fox News./ But we have video tape showing him lying about leaking??/ Bush will say sorry, and the congress will say forgiven, in my view./
Unless the CFR is behind some of this. It seems to me with their power they could have blocked, deflected, bribed or buried much of the detrimental information we have seen surfacing against Bush and his cohorts.
Didn't some powerful CFRers from Bush SR's cabinet say to impeach Bush if he invades Iran? #msg-10215167
The CFR giveth and the CFR taketh away. It is not impossible that the CFR could have intervened, in some instances at an earlier stage, but at least stopped or heavily diluted the detrimental information we have been seeing lately against Bush. Damaging facts are getting through to the public that weigh heavily on Bush and his administration.
At the same time these damaging truths are coming to light the CFR has been criticizing their Nero, Bush.
Me speculating.
One example:
Excerpt from CFR article.
We got into this dilemma because we essentially don't have a strategy for dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue. By "we" I mean the United States and the Bush administration. The Bush administration has deliberately ruled out direct negotiations with Iran either over the nuclear issue or over the broad range of strategic issues that you would need to talk to Iran about if you were going to get a real diplomatic settlement on the nuclear issue.
#msg-10538672
Russia Watches US In Asia
Eventually, all these games in Central Asia could end badly. For all the talk about "a strategic partnership" and promises of lavish investment, the United States will never change its strategy of rotating elites in post-Soviet republics.
I would not be shocked if reclusive Turkmenistan joined the SCO after watching the US threaten their neighbor Iran.
Moreover China, with its insatiable demand for energy, can take as much natural gas as Turkmenistan can supply. Niyazov said recently he aimed to send China billions of cubic meters of gas per year.
#msg-10509883
Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan's ruling leader, was easily re-elected on Sunday for a third term as president after scooping 91% of the popular vote.
Nazarbayev's victory came as little surprise in Central Asia. Deploying a captive media and outflanking a weak opposition has been the 65-year old president's stock in trade for the past 16 years. The president's grip on power is such that any popular "color" revolution in Kazakhstan, as experienced by Ukraine a year ago, in Georgia in November 2003 and Kyrgyzstan in March.
Even though Kazakhstan is not a democracy in the true sense of the word there will be very little criticism from Washington as Bush vies for Kazakhstan's attractions.
2005, was always inconceivable.
International monitors, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will report election flaws, but otherwise outside censure has been muted as Kazakhstan holds many attractions, not least for the United States, Russia, China and the European Union, each with geostrategic interests in the region.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GL06Ag01.html
-Am
Russia Watches US In Asia
by Andrei Grozin
UPI Outside View Commentator
Moscow (UPI) Apr 06, 2006
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in Astana the other day that Kazakhstan should lead the effort to develop the energy sector infrastructure and set up additional transit routes for energy resources.
Although he talked exclusively about energy resources, it is worth noting statements by high-level U.S. officials, if only to find out whether the United States has embarked on a new policy in Central Asia.
At first, there was no new policy. Events in "the new Asia" were of interest exclusively to its neighbors. Moscow and Tehran took an active part in the settlement in Tajikistan and were successful. China not only reached an agreement with Kazakhstan on localizing separatist movements, which tried to set up strong points on Kazakh territory for action in Xinjiang in the first half of the 1990s, but also resolved bilateral territorial issues.
Kyrgyzstan also worked toward settling the border problem with China. Despite a host of subjective problems, Turkmenistan developed effective trade and economic relations with Russia and Iran. Moscow and Beijing facilitated the involvement of all postwar Asian republics, except Turkmenistan, into the Shanghai Five, or Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is seeking to implement a number of major transportation, economic and trade projects and promoting good neighborly relations within the SCO.
Until September 2001, the United States, and the West in general, paid little attention to the region. They merely mentioned its huge energy potential and were not too active in defending the few local dissidents. For a long time, the United States had a very cautious, if not hostile, approach to the newly independent Asian republics. The West was convinced that Muslim Central Asia was a convenient bridgehead for the dynamic growth of Islamic radicalism. But experience shows that post-Soviet Asia has proved capable of political and business cooperation with the world powers, while Islamic extremism has not yet become firmly established in the region. It has been engaged in a long struggle for this goal, but quite often without much success.
Until recently, Washington's economic and defense cooperation with these countries was based on unilateral advantage and minimal costs.
There are reasons to believe that Washington has drawn some conclusions from its Iranian experience of 1979, when the Islamic revolution destroyed in less than a month and a half the United States' 10-year-plus work with the Shah's regime. The latter looked fairly pro-Western, but was burdened with clan corruption and the poverty of more than 80 percent of its population. The situation in the post-Soviet Asian space is pretty much the same.
The United States is pursuing its strategy on several levels. It is flirting with the top echelons of local power, promising to help them solve their major domestic problems, and making some moves to the West-oriented local opposition, funding it through various non-governmental organizations as a potential "reserve." The United States is stepping up its economic influence in the region, relying on its new military bases.
At the same time, the U.S. effort to expand its military presence in the area has led to negative domestic processes in newly independent Asian countries.
The regime of Askar Akayev was toppled in Kyrgyzstan in March 2005 after a week of disorder and pogroms in its southern regions and the capital. Events of the last few months show that tensions in the republic have been escalating. In all probability, it is bound for long-time instability due to a violent change of power.
In the last three years, domestic protests have been growing in Uzbekistan and the government will unlikely be able to suppress them. Given the high birth rate, the skidding Uzbek economy cannot provide stable jobs and enough pay for the residents of agrarian regions.
The Uzbek authorities counted on economic and military-strategic partnerships with the United States as a hope of getting help in solving economic problems. But by late 2002, Tashkent became wary of excessive dependence on the United States in different spheres due to the appearance of American military bases on Uzbek territory.
After the suppression of riots in Andijan, Western government and human rights organizations launched a full-scale information war against Uzbekistan. Tashkent parried the appeals for stronger economic and political pressure on the regime with the withdrawal of the U.S. base from its territory, the full-scale re-orientation of its foreign policy in regards to Russia and China and entry into the Eurasian Economic Community.
Having lost its positions in Uzbekistan, the United States is rushing to build a new strategy in Central Asia.
Now the United States is trying hard to turn Kazakhstan into its "strategic regional partner." Washington has been very complimentary of Astana of late and is even actively lobbying the idea of the Kazakh leaders -- which appeared on the eve of the presidential elections in the republic in December 2005 -- about the republic's special mission as the regional leader in Central Asia and the Caspian area. That is the gist of statements that the U.S. energy sSecretary made in Astana. Mostly, he was talking about the U.S. desire to achieve early completion of the Kazakh-Azerbaijani talks on transporting Kazakh energy resources via the BTC pipeline.
It is easy to see why Washington is eager to see Kazakhstan in the role of the leader -- after a setback with Tashkent, it does not have other options since Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are the only post-Soviet Central Asian republics that can claim the role of regional leader. In addition, Astana's pragmatic Caspian policy allows American multinationals to freely invest in oil production and control a huge share of profits -- if oil business is based on physical control of oil reserves, the distribution of profits from oil sales is even more important.
At the same time, the signing of the intergovernmental agreement on Kazakhstan's joining the BTC pipeline has been suspended more than once and Washington is getting nervous. Speaking of Astana's potential domination of the region, the United States is striving for its own supremacy there. It presents its desire to "rule" in the Caspian area in a very attractive package -- a stable and predictable investment climate in Kazakhstan will not only attract more investment, but will also create more jobs, explained Bodman. In the next five years, the amount of investment in Kazakhstan could double, he said.
The Kazakh authorities keep talking about their country joining the ranks of the top 10 oil producers in the next 10 years. In light of this, it does not make sense for Astana to give up its maneuvering between the world centers of power, a policy which has brought it so many dividends.
But it should not forget that having launched several velvet-type revolutions in post-Soviet space, the West has radicalized the struggle for influence in the former Soviet republics since late 2003. They have exacerbated the struggle of the political elites there. Eventually, all these games in Central Asia could end badly. For all the talk about "a strategic partnership" and promises of lavish investment, the United States will never change its strategy of rotating elites in post-Soviet republics.
Andrei Grozin is the head of the department of Central Asia and Kazakhstan at the Institute of the CIS Countries in Moscow. United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.
Source: United Press International
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russia_Watches_US_In_Asia.html
Peru looks set to elect region's next populist
from the April 07, 2006 edition -
Peru looks set to elect region's next populist
Ollanta Humala leads the polls ahead of Sunday's vote. He reflects views of leaders in Venezuela and Bolivia.
By Danna Harman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
LIMA, PERU - Venezuelans have a president who supports peasant land grabs, gives Cuba free oil, and makes dirty jokes about the US secretary of State on national TV. Bolivia recently elected a former llama herder who wears a woolly sweater to formal diplomatic functions and is dedicated to stopping the US eradication of coca, the leaf from which cocaine is made.
But if Peru's presidential front-runner Ollanta Humala - a retired Army officer with no governing experience - emerges victorious after Sunday's vote, he soon may give Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Bolivia's Evo Morales a run for their money as the South American leader most worrying to Washington.
"He falls in the same league," says Dennis Jett, former US ambassador to Peru from 1996 to 1999. "He is just as wacky as Chávez and Morales, and perhaps more unpredictable, because, basically, his only experience is an an attempted coup d'état and as a [alleged] human rights abuser."
Until a few months ago, Humala was known mainly for having led a failed military uprising against former president Alberto Fujimori in 2000 - and for allegations that he ordered the torture and killing of suspected leftist guerrilla sympathizers when he commanded a jungle counterinsurgency base in 1992. Humala denies the charges, and an investigation is ongoing. But many once considered him too controversial to be elected.
Yet Humala's support has grown to 32 percent, according to a poll released Sunday by the independent polling firm Apoyo - putting him ahead of all 19 other contenders.
Humala is followed, with 26 percent of voters' support, by Lourdes Flores a conservative, pro-business former congresswoman. Alan Garcia, a former president whose 1985-90 administration left the country in shambles, trails Ms. Flores by three points. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, a run-off will take place next month.
A separate poll released Thursday by the independent CPI polling firm indicates that Flores has gained ground on Humala to statistically tie for the lead. But in another poll conducted this week (yet to be released), Apoyo says the results of the poll it released Sunday have not changed. Apoyo is considered the most reliable of Peru's pollsters.
"Humala looks more unstoppable by the minute, whether in the first or second round," says Alvaro Vargas Llosa, a Latin America expert and senior fellow at the Independent Institute, a public policy think tank based in Oakland, Calif. "In fact, the polls are probably underestimating his overall support because of the technical difficulties of measuring the rural vote."
At rallies, Humala likes to tell a joke about a candidate who promises impoverished voters he will build a school, a hospital, and a bridge if elected. When the candidate is told that no river runs through the region, he promises to build one of those, too. "I do not make empty promises," Humala is fond of saying. "But I have plans."
Many of those plans include renegotiating contracts and hiking taxes for foreign-owned oil and mining companies, just as Chávez and Morales are doing. Peru is the world's third largest copper producer and last year overtook Russia to become the fifth biggest gold miner.
Humala also wants to make changes to the free trade agreement with the US that Peru signed in December, and plans to establish protections against cheap imports from China, which, he says, are wrecking industry here.
But his positions on trade are not all that worry his detractors. His vows to clamp down on crime and corruption play well, but his admiration for Gen. Juan Velasco, the left-wing military dictator who ruled Peru with a heavy hand from 1968 to 1975 gives some voters pause. And his promise to end US-sponsored coca- eradication programs, much as Morales has begun to do in Bolivia alarms Washington, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars combating narcotraffiking in Peru, the world's second-biggest coca-leaf provider.
Also, many voters here question various positions staked by family members who Humala has distanced himself from, but rarely denounced. Humala's father, Isaac, an ultranationalist who founded a movement based on the superiority of the Indian race over Spanish descendents, has called for the release of jailed leaders of Shining Path, the Maoist guerrilla group that terrorized Peru throughout the 1980s and '90s. His mother, Helena, has suggested that homosexuals be shot so "there is not so much immorality in the streets." Humala's younger brother Antauro is in jail for leading a failed military uprising against President Alejandro Toledo last year in which four policemen were killed.
So, what is the essence of Humala's appeal?He is, many will say simply, "one of us - an outsider." It's the ultimate compliment in a country where frustration with traditional politicians has made being an "insider" synonymous with elitism, antipathy, and even corruption.
Peru's most respected and well-known novelist Mario Vargas Llosa lost presidential elections in 1990 to Alberto Fujimori, a son of Japanese immigrants and a little-known dean of an agricultural university in Lima. In 1995, Fujimori beat UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar by managing to cast himself as an "outsider" again, even after five years in office. Then, in 2001, Toledo, a former shoeshine boy who became World Bank consultant, was elected to the top job with no governing experience.
Despite the fact that Humala spent his youth in a middle-class Lima suburb, he nonetheless successfully cultivated the "anti-system," stance and managed to paint his political inexperience as an asset.
Humala's friendship with Venezuelan President Chávez, who has publicly endorsed Humala's candidacy, also helps his image as an anti-establishment figure. Chávez has called Humala the "voice of Peru's downtrodden," and described Mrs. Flores as "the candidate of Peru's oligarchy."
At a rally Wednesday night in downtown Lima, photocopy shop worker Edgardo Oliveres, admits he is "not really sure about who Humala is, or what he will do." Nonetheless, Mr. Oliveres says he is sure Humala is the best option. "At least with Humala, as we don't know him, there is a chance he will surprise us."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0407/p01s01-woam.html
Many Gulf Arabs uneasy about Iran
By JIM KRANE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Thursday, April 6, 2006 · Last updated 10:52 a.m. PT
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- It's not often the United States, Israel and the Gulf Arab states worry about the same thing. But right now, they are all focused on Iran.
The country's spiraling militarism - trumpeted this week in missile tests and military maneuvers - plus its influence in Iraq and its controversial president, appear to be making some Arab states more nervous that there could be future menace in Tehran's ways.
Yet, many here have been reluctant to speak out because they feel stuck between favoring Iran or favoring its arch-enemy Israel, both states with which Arabs have fought bloody wars.
"There is the feeling that attacking Iran at the moment plays into the hands of Israel. Gulf countries don't want to play that game," said Dubai-based political analyst Abdul Khaleq Abdulla. "But Tehran deserves a lot of this. Unfortunately, it's going in a very worrying direction."
The Arab world has long had on-and-off tense relations with Persian Iran. Many Arab countries backed Saddam Hussein in Iraq's 1980s war against Iran. They also have worried for decades that Iran's Shiite-majority Islamic theocracy could spill over onto into their largely Sunni countries, all of which have Shiite minorities.
Relations have soured since the election last year of firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Since then, Abdulla said, Arab Gulf countries have offered quiet support for moves against Iran's nuclear program, which, despite Tehran's assurances to the contrary, many fear is aimed at creating weapons.
Gulf Arab countries also would be likely to back U.N. Security Council moves against Iran should Tehran refuse to halt uranium enrichment, said Mustafa Alani, a military analyst with Dubai-based Gulf Research Center.
"If the Security Council imposes restrictions on Iran, these countries will be happy to join those sanctions or boycott against Iran," he said.
Yet the worry over Iran does not mean Arab nations are totally supportive of the U.S. position toward Tehran. Indeed, many here say their greatest concern is that the United States might launch military action against Iran - a move they fear would destabilize the region and draw retaliation against Arab states.
Many Gulf Arabs say the United States empowered Iran by invading Iraq in 2003. The Iraq war destroyed an Arab military, led by Saddam, seen regionally as a bulwark against Iranian domination of the Persian Gulf, while leaving Baghdad open to Iranian political manipulation, Abdulla said.
Top intelligence officers from several Arab countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have been meeting in hopes of forging a coordinated effort to block Iran's interference in Iraq, several Arab diplomats told The Associated Press this week. The meetings came after several Arab leaders voiced concerns about possible Shiite domination of Iraq.
Since Iran began publicizing military maneuvers and tests of missiles and torpedoes this week, Arab pundits also have warned that Ahmadinejad appears to be exhibiting the type of defiance that has brought down other leaders.
Kuwait's daily newspaper Al-Siyassah said Wednesday that Iran's military swagger resembled that of Gamal Abdul-Nasser's Egypt and Saddam's Iraq just before they provoked punishing attacks by the West.
In Monday's London-based Asharq al-Awsat, Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, director of Al-Arabiya TV channel in Dubai, went further, saying Ahmadinejad's war games were giving America "an excuse to start a showdown."
"Iran is wasting money and inviting the hostility of the world, especially the world's big players," al-Rashed wrote. "A future war will destroy everything Iran has achieved in a matter of days, if not hours, as happened in the case of Saddam."
Not all Gulf Arab leaders agree, and Iran assured its neighbors that the maneuvers and missile tests aren't aimed at them. It made clear they were meant to impress the United States and Israel.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said Wednesday that the kingdom sees no threat in Iran's military maneuvers or its civilian nuclear power ambitions. Instead, Prince Saud, who said he would soon visit Tehran, said it was Israel's nuclear monopoly that posed the greatest threat to the region.
Despite the general nonchalance over Iran's military tests, there is unease over Tehran's intentions.
"No expert in the region takes this backward technology seriously," Alani said of Iran's missiles and torpedoes. "What is frightening is the message the new Iranian administration is conveying: They are ready for a challenge and they are willing to take that challenge as far as possible."
Contributing to this report were AP correspondents Nadia Abou El-Magd in Cairo, Egypt; Diana Elias in Kuwait City, Kuwait; Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran; Donna Abu Nasr in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and Sam F. Ghattas in Beirut, Lebanon.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Arabs_Worrying_about_Iran.html
US willing to act outside UNSC over Iran
[ Thursday, April 06, 2006 10:41:39 pmIANS ]
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WASHINGTON: The US is willing to act outside the UN Security Council if it fails to take adequate steps to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, John Bolton, American ambassador to the UN, said on Thursday.
"It would be simply prudent planning to be looking at other options," Bolton told reporters here.
He cited resistance from Russia and China at the Security Council as a reason to consider other possibilities for resolving the dispute over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons programme.
The Security Council last month issued an appeal to Iran to comply with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolutions that require Tehran to come clean on its nuclear activities, but only after three weeks of difficult negotiations.
Bolton said if Iran did not comply with the statement by the end of this month - the deadline set by the Security Council - Washington will seek a legally binding resolution requiring Tehran to comply.
If Iran does not meet that demand, then the US will pursue a second resolution imposing international sanctions "of some kind" against the Islamic republic, Bolton said.
But he said that if the Security Council was unwilling to confront Iran over the issue, the US could tighten its own set of economic sanctions, and other countries could move to financially isolate Tehran.
Britain, France and Germany, the most influential countries in the European Union, have generally supported the US effort to halt Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Iran says its nuclear activities are purely for producing energy, but the US believes the programme is being used to build a bomb.
US President George W. Bush has not ruled out the use of military force to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear arms, but pledged to resolve the dispute diplomatically.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1480680.cms.
Moscow is getting ready for the great war in Northern Caucasus
I don't think they are kidding. I am getting confirmation on this from different sources.
Note:
Chinese troops, in a joint exercise with Russia, will be in the Northern Caucasus.
The United States foresees the Northern Caucasus as a new theatre of operations. #msg-10248118
The United States in the past has instigated dissention in the North Caucasus through backing the Chechens. Could still be doing the same. #msg-4589620
The US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld recently announced America's future war plans after the Pentagon completed it's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), a four-yearly strategy review. Christened the 'Long War' and modelled after the 'Cold War', the plan marks an attempt to re-package and re-market the 'War on Terror' to an increasingly sceptical American public and beyond.
The report goes on to envisage Americas new theatre of operations as including the Horn of Africa, North Africa, central and south-east Asia the Northern Caucasus as well as the Middle East.
#msg-10356292
This text omits that the ‘long war’ has, in addition, the pentagon preparing for war with China. #msg-10051566
With Peace Mission 2005 behind them, Russia and China are planning for new military exercises, this time to take place in southern Russia. Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev stated on March 2 that Russia and China have "made plans to conduct exercises in spring 2007 in [Russia's] Southern Federal District". According to Nurgaliyev, the joint exercises will include special forces from China's Public Security Ministry, in addition to special forces and regular troops from Russia's Interior Ministry. The exercises, described by Nurgaliyev as large-scale, will "develop skills for cooperation in accomplishing objectives to counter the threat of terrorism". #msg-10248118
We are looking at the area between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, Russian Southern Federal District.
-Am
Moscow is getting ready for the great war in Northern Caucasus
The observers, special services and journalists all over Russia discuss an opportunity of great war throughout Northern Caucasus which some commentators have already baptized as "the second caucasian war. The serious signs of impendent war also specify various western analytical sources, in particular experts of Jamesstone university of USA .
The Kremlin is getting ready for it. By the beginning of 2005 Moscow has concentrated 300 000 soldiers in Caucasus . Part of them, more than 100 000 (according to some data up to 200 000), are directly in the Chechen Republic .
Up to now the Russian forces have been dispersed over significant territory, including Rostov area which is populated by Russians , the Krasnodar and Stavropol territories. Currently, Moscow concentrates them in the Caucasian republics.
Yet on the 13th May the head of armies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russian Federation Rogojkin declared, that additional units of his formations will be entered into Elista (Kalmikia), Cherkessk, Nalchik and Sochi. The militarization of all Northern Caucasus goes at full speed.
In the beginning of 2006 the brigades and battalions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Northern Caucasus will be replaced with regiments and divisions. Instead of battalions with 600 trunks there will be regiments with 2000. Besides in Dagestan and Karachaevo - Circassia will be based 2 additional mountain brigades. Officially they will serve supposedly " for the protection of borders ". But actually the task of the mountain brigade in Karachaevo - Circassia consists in protection of the Black sea coast against attacks of mojaheds, and the brigade in Dagestan will defend the coast of Caspian sea from attacks of mojaheds from the Chechen Republic .
At the same time Russian occupational garrisons will be reinforced in the Chechen Republic , Kabardino-Balkariyas, Ingushetia and Northern Ossetia .
This year Putin's regime has already began openly to prepare the citizens for general war in Caucasus . And this is after 6 years since he has publicly promised to people to finish with Chechen mojaheds within 2-3 months.
Prospects of total war openly are openly discussed even in army circles. Among the officers of an occupational grouping in the Chechen Republic this theme is one of main issue. Practically nobody doubts, that general destabilization and bloody fights are not far off.
The local puppet militia under the order of the Kremlin are trying to anticipate mojaheds and carry out so-called "stripping". Especially actively operate the puppet militiamen in Dagestan where their losses grow day by day due to impacts of Dagestan mojaheds.
In Ingushetia for prevention of possible scale operations from the mojaheds side, armies and local puppet militia establish new blocks and block roads between a mountain part of republic and plain. In Kabardino-Balkariya mombers of OMON regularly comb the area of Elbrus. Recently in suburb of Nalchik they have implemented searches in all houses after there were killed some militiamen.
Practically all observers and commentators specify that mojaheds have kept their promise, expanded a zone of guerrilla operation all over Northern Caucasus . Along with Dagestan, the attacks of mojaheds take place in Kabardino-Balkariya, Karachaevo - Circassia , Ingushetia.
According to last military sessions of mojaheds command under the supervision of the president Sheikh Abdul-Halim Sadulaev, significant activization of mojaheds in Northern Caucasus is expected. Thus commentators reckon that the establishments of the control from the mojaheds side in important territories is almost inevitable.
Musa Strone,
Kavkaz Center
2005-08-18 00:30:20
http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2005/08/18/4062.shtml
US and Israel warn of potential terrorist attack in Russia
05.04.2006
US Department of State
US State Department advised Americans to take precautions when traveling in Russia, saying a heightened potential for terrorist attack remains in the country. "Presently, there is no specific indication that American institutions or citizens are targets, but there is a general risk of American citizens being victims of indiscriminate terrorist attacks", the announcement said. The State Department said Americans should avoid areas where crowds are expected to gather, take commonsense precautions and register with the American Embassy or nearest consulate general. The department also reiterated a travel warning to Americans for the north Caucasus region. "Due to continued civil and political unrest throughout much of the Caucasus region, the Department of State already warns US citizens against travel to Chechnya and all areas that border it: North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Daghestan, Stavropol, Karachayevo-Cherkessiya and Kabardino-Balkaria", the announcement said.
According to our sources at the end of March the Israeli Counter Terrorism Staff (under the National Security Council) - LUTAR also issued a warning to the citizens traveling to Russia. Based on the intelligence data it especially warned of visiting the areas of Russia bordering Chechnya, in Chechnya and Chechen-Georgian border. There are special warnings that local terrorists groups may aspire to kidnap or harm Israelis.
As for the security feeling among the natives, adults in Russia are split over the possibility of a terrorist attack. According to a poll by the Public Opinion Foundation. 44 percent of respondents think an act of terrorism is likely to take place in their area, Angus Reid Global Scan reported. Last month, the National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NATC) held its first meeting in Moscow. NATC chairman and Federal Security Service director Nikolay Patrushev declared, "Our aim is to minimize the possibility of terrorist acts. The terrorist threat is real and serious". The NATC will be responsible for drafting a plan to improve counter-terrorism strategies in the North Caucasus.
Several terrorist incidents in Russia have been blamed on the Chechen separatists, including two airplane crashes, a suicide bombing in Moscow, the assassination of Chechnya’s president Akhmad Kadyrov in May 2004, and two high-profile incursions - one in October 2002 inside a Moscow theatre, and another in a Beslan middle school in September 2004. Last month, Russia’s new anti-terrorism bill was signed into law. The legislation was presented in December 2004 - just three months after the Beslan attack - but was stalled due to strong criticism about the possible violation of civil liberties. The polling data shows that despite the new bill and NATC creation 44 percent fear that the secret services are unable to prevent a terrorist act in their living area. 42 percent believe it will not take place and 14 left undecided. One of the most contentious provisions of the anti-terrorism bill allows the Russian military to shoot down hijacked passenger planes. Only 26 percent of respondents approve of this clause, while 46 – disapprove.
http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=777
Strait talk: Washington increasingly opts out
This article stresses the US is disengaging from the cross-strait imbroglio through no choice of its own. The US would not choose to disengage as this is against the ultimate goal of the US, to contain China.
Clearly, ending North Korea's nuclear crisis or even eliminating "evil" is not the ultimate goal of the US. What the US really wants, and is exploiting the North Korea "crisis" to achieve, is to deploy sufficient military forces and resources in the western Pacific (especially close to Taiwan) so as to encourage Taiwan independence, thereby checking China's growth as a power that might compete with the US. Not long ago, the US and Japan were talking about using Japan's Shimoji Island as a military base. Only about 200 miles from Taiwan, Shimoji has a "runway capable of safely handling a fully loaded F-15C fighter jet", observed James Brooke in the New York Times.
#msg-4722542
-Am
Strait talk: Washington increasingly opts out
By Craig Meer
Apr 7, 2006
TAIPEI - It has become an article of faith among observers of US foreign policy that US preoccupations in the Middle East and with the "war on terror" have diverted diplomatic and military activities away from Northeast Asia. Leon Sigal, a program director at the New York-based Social Science Research Council, has coined the term "hawk disengagement" to describe the Bush administration's approach to the region.
This is particularly evident in the matter of Taiwan-China relations. President George W Bush came into office as possibly the most pro-Taiwan president in years. Early in his administration, he authorized a huge weapons deal, then priced at US$18 billion, now pared down below $15 billion. Bush stated the US would do "whatever it takes" to defend Taiwan. But the tune coming out of Washington has changed in recent years.
Particularly over the past two years, there has been perceptively less willingness in Washington to engage with either Taiwan or mainland China over the details of their convoluted relationship. Since late 2003 and Bush's now-famous call for both sides to respect the status quo in cross-strait relations, US policy has been distinctly passive, if not actually hostile to Taiwan.
But this is not because Washington's attention is focused elsewhere. US disengagement is a function of changes in Taipei and Beijing that the United States is less and less able to influence. Rather than withdrawing from the Taiwan Strait, the US is being quietly ousted. The difference between a withdrawal and an ejection is not just semantic. The former implies far more energy in US policy than the latter and places responsibility for the current state of play in cross-strait relations where it should be: in Taipei and Beijing.
Taiwan's part in this drama is complex, as the island is strongly dependent on the US for its security, and the two sides have a history of close relations. Nonetheless, Taiwan's democratic evolution is actually undermining US support, despite the rhetoric emanating from Washington about promoting and defending democracy.
Some of this was probably to be expected. As the former head of the American Institute in Taiwan, Nat Bellocchi, has noted, the framework of US-Taiwan relations was imposed unilaterally by the United States during the island's authoritarian past, and it is increasingly difficult to keep a democratic Taiwan in this foreign-policy straitjacket.
But there are aspects to this "democratic rejection" of the US that are specific to contemporary Taiwanese politics. On the one hand, there is the ongoing delay in the purchase of defensive weaponry from the US. The current package, worth $15 billion and including Patriot missiles, submarines and surveillance aircraft, has been struck down in the island's legislature consistently for more than two years. Last Tuesday, the procurement budget was voted down for the 50th time.
In the bad old days of martial law, the chiefs of staff set the defense budget and a compliant legislature produced the necessary funds. Now Taiwan has a civilian defense minister, and the government must ask for, not demand, appropriations.
Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian hails from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), while the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and its coalition partner the People's First Party control the Legislative Yuan. The legislative "pan-blue" alliance is opposed to the arms package for a variety of reasons, but primary among these is a desire to undermine Chen's authority. Recent assurances by KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou during his recent Washington trip that his party would back a "reasonable arms budget" in the most recent legislative review apparently fell through.
On the other hand, Taipei itself is slowly choosing to opt out of the status quo in cross-strait relations - that is, the implicit agreement among Taipei, Beijing and Washington to leave Taiwan's political status undecided, which Bush has made a hallmark of his administration's China policy.
Chen's DPP was defeated in local elections last December, and he suffers from record low approval ratings of about 18%, according to an independent poll conducted by Shih Hsin University in Taipei at the end of last month. Perversely, this has made Chen even more determined to advance his party's pro-independence platform. It was behind his decision in February to scrap the island's National Unification Council, an institution most observers agree is an integral part of the status quo and which Chen originally promised to keep intact.
China's part to play in the ejection of the US is certainly less subtle than its island sibling, but no less definitive. Since the mid-1990s, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has spent considerable time and money turning the cross-strait impasse, which at the start of the Deng Xiaoping era was a diplomatic tussle, into a military matter. This commenced with missile tests off the coast of Taiwan in 1995-96, and includes the current deployment of somewhere between 700 and 800 short to medium-range missiles targeted at the island.
The PRC's defense budget has seen annual double-digit increases for the past decade, and this year's expenditure is expected to hit $35 billion, nearly 15% higher than in 2005. A report published by the Washington-based Rand Corporation last year, however, suggests that the official Chinese figures could understate actual military expenditures by as much as 70%. The US rightly believes that the target of the bulk of this outlay is Taiwan.
The PRC leadership is genuinely concerned about a determined push in Taiwan to turn de facto independence into de jure separation from China, even though only about 20% of the population favors it. Increasingly, it sees a military solution as the only way to prevent the push from succeeding. The Anti-Secession Law passed by the National People's Congress in March 2005 codified this concern, and marked the end of a brief period in which the PRC sought US diplomatic help to "contain" Taiwan's national aspirations.
The increasing insecurity of China's current leadership adds immediacy to this realist calculation. The current generation of communist leaders, including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, are technocrats engaged in a Herculean task of economic transformation - but devoid of any political reforms. Opposition is building: by the government's own admission, 87,000 incidents of "social unrest" were recorded in 2005, up 66% on the previous year.
The US is disengaging from the cross-strait imbroglio, but through no choice of its own. Only a serious change of heart in Taipei and Beijing will reverse the trend.
Craig Meer is a freelance journalist based in Taipei.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HD07Ad02.html
A new world with Chinese characteristics
By David Gosset
Apr 7, 2006
Not one single day goes by without news, debates and comments on China: business deals, trade negotiations, diplomatic summits, political events, state visits, financial ups and downs, societal trends ... the list goes on. Conferences, forums, seminars, provocative articles, new papers and the latest books keep China-watchers very busy; but confronting such a profusion, one risks taking short-term variations or insignificant fluctuations for long-term tendencies and losing any sense of pattern.
One question might help us to focus on what really matters: Are Westerners ready to adjust to the Chinese civilization's re-emergence as one of the main sources of global order? In other words, is the West prepared for a world with Chinese characteristics?
This question reflects on qualitative dimensions (values and identity) more than on quantitative parameters. If, in the 21st-century global village, Sinicization does not mechanically mean de-Westernization - because of their purely quantitative territorial element, various national liberations did engender decolonization - it certainly means that the world society will have Western and Chinese characteristics. Complex and mainly invisible, these dynamics provide a stimulating framework to make sense of China's opening-up and globalization.
No 'China fever', no 'China threat' but a 'China factor'
Fourteen years after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the writer Lu Xun was asking: "When are we going to stop bringing new bricks to the Great Wall?" (May 11, 1925, Essays). A defensive construction built and consolidated through the centuries to protect the empire from the invasions of the nomads, the Great Wall could also be seen as the symbol of an immured Chinese mind.
Prague's genius Franz Kafka, who did not know much about China but experienced the depth of humans' labyrinthic soul, captured this aspect in his The Great Wall of China. In 1949, China recovered its sovereignty; in 1978, Beijing adopted the opening-up policy - today, the Great Wall is a tourist attraction.
In a process of unprecedented magnitude, one-fifth of mankind, different from the mainstream (the West), is entering the world stage. Czarist Russia's emergence in the 18th-century European system and the respective rises of Germany and Japan at the end of the 19th century were comparatively of far less magnitude. While Western scientific and economic modernity will continue to have influence on China - Beijing's overall strategic goal is modernization - the Chinese world will have considerable quantitative and qualitative impact on the global village - in its civilizational expression carried by the Chinese people, China cannot be diluted in the globalization process.
Americanization was a distinctive feature of the 20th century; the 21st-century global citizen's identity will have Chinese characteristics. The West, on the rise since the 15th century and which, through its American version, still dominates world affairs, will have difficulty conceiving and accepting that it will not anymore unilaterally dictate the global agenda; that it will have to adjust.
Can we non-Chinese look at China without passion? The Marco Polo syndrome - "one feels like in paradise in Quinsai" (today's Hangzhou in the province of Zhejiang) as reported by the citizen of Venice in his Description of the World - an ancestor of the "China fever", or the "yellow peril" announcing current hysteria around the "China threat" theme, do not facilitate our relation with the Chinese world.
In "Does China matter?" Gerald Segal asserted that "at best, China is a second-rank middle power that has mastered the art of diplomatic theater" (Foreign Affairs, September-October 1999). At the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC, Pei Minxin saw China as being on a "Long March to nowhere", stagnating in a "trapped transition" (Financial Times, February 24). In Chinese universities or think-tanks, it is not rare to meet Chinese scholars who deride the "China fever" of some Western - business, diplomatic but also academic - circles.
True, the People's Republic of China is a developing country that is, as such, facing considerable challenges. China's population - more than 1.3 billion - is approximately the population of the European Union plus the entire African continent, or more than four times the US population. If one focuses exclusively on what has yet to be done to catch up with the developed world or on the various visible signs of Westernization within China, the idea of serious Chinese influence on the global village can appear illusory.
However, if one considers the scope of post-imperial China's metamorphosis (the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century was followed by at least 300 years of disorder in Western Europe) the speed of its transformation since 1978 - per capita income increased 10 times and foreign trade has boomed from US$20 billion to the current $1 trillion - while keeping in mind the Chinese empire's past cultural, economic and political centrality in Asia, the question of the Sinicization of the world makes sense. It is not feverish speculation or another version of 18th-century European "chinoiserie" - reconstruction of China disconnected from reality - but a phenomenon already at work in the global community.
The presupposition of the "China threat" leitmotif is precisely China's capacity to influence on a massive scale our world system, but it is also assuming that this impact will be negative. Between two extremes, "China fever" or "China threat", the analyst should stay rationally within the limits of what can be called the "China factor": China's opening-up means, to a certain extent, Sinicization of the world, a process that has to be integrated and explained and not adored or condemned a priori.
In any case, let us not take short-term variations (positive or negative) for long-term tendencies. China's foreseeable future will be made of successes, failures and crises, but the play's plots will take place on a stage whose backdrop is Chinese civilization's re-emergence.
When modernization does not mean cultural alienation
How could the global citizen be in any way Sinicized if tomorrow's China is radically Westernized?
Looking at the young people in Dalian, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen or Chongqing, it seems that Westernization is China's future. It gives Chinese students "face" to speak some English - more "face" if it is American English. On campus they practice sports popular in the West, and after graduation they would opt preferably for a career in a joint venture where the corporate culture is supposed to be Western - and the pay higher.
But it is necessary to put these trends into historical perspective. In China, where the present is to a certain extent history, snapshots can be misleading; discourses should integrate different "clocks" and be attentive, behind shorter developments or even ephemeral fashions, to very slow movements, what Fernand Braudel (1902-85) called the longue duree.
Past interactions between China and what was foreign to it show the unique resilience of Chinese civilization: it has the ability to change without losing itself; it could even be defined by this singular capacity of renewal. It is why China's unequaled civilizational duration stands as a challenge to Paul Valery's comment inspired by the European tragedy of World War I: "We civilizations now know that we are mortal."
The Yuan Dynasty (1277-1367) and the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) were established respectively by Mongols and Manchus (about 2 million Manchus took power over 120 million Han Chinese in the first half of the 17th century). However, the only way for the "barbarians" - non-Han - to rule the empire was to adopt largely elements of the Chinese tradition. Immutable China is a myth - the long history of China is a succession of clearly distinct periods - but absolute discontinuity from one time to another is also a narrative. Revolutionary discourse on a new regime for a new China was the most abstract intellectual construction; in fact, China's history is a continuity of relative discontinuities - it combines permanent (Chinese characters for example) and changing features.
Buddhism and Christianity have also been testing Chinese civilization's capacity to absorb exogenous elements. Entering under the Han Dynasty (Eastern Han, AD 25-220), Buddhism penetrated deeply into the Chinese world under the Tang Dynasty (618-907); but this penetration has seen the transformation of original Buddhism to fit Chinese philosophical and linguistic context.
Moreover, Song Dynasty neo-Confucianism represented by Zhu Xi (1130-1200) was a magisterial reinterpretation of the Chinese classics in reaction against a Buddhist vision of the world. Zhu Xi's scholasticism has been the core of imperial state orthodoxy until the end of the examination system in 1905.
In the age of European expansion, Christian missionaries spared no effort to convert Chinese people. The Jesuits' approach initiated by Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) was to engage as much as possible with China's elites; no one has ever understood the Chinese world better than the sinologists of the Company of Jesus, but genuine European intellectual excellence failed to change radically the Chinese mind. How can one seriously believe that current superficial material Westernization in China - related with food or clothes, the introduction of managerial skills, the instrumental use of English, etc - is going to affect essentially Chinese culture?
China's technical and economic modernization does not mean cultural alienation. China is once again translating into its own context foreign practices and theories. Democratization might be unavoidable for the Chinese world - in fact, the process has already begun - but it will be a democratization with high Chinese characteristics.
Some external forms of the translation process can be a surprising accumulation of heterogeneous pieces. Look at a Sichuan-cuisine restaurant with Rococo furniture or at a Shanghai middle-class home where reproductions of European impressionists co-exist on the same wall with Chinese calligraphy. The sociologist observing China's megasociety can interpret these unusual combinations as parts of a gigantic assimilation. One can also enjoy completed translations where the "original" fits perfectly in the evolving Chinese context; it is often the case in architecture, in urbanism or in design.
The resilience of Chinese culture cannot be separated from China's demographic vitality; they reinforce each other in what constitutes a virtuous circle. The very fact that China is the most populous country in the world is highly significant. China's population has always represented a quarter to a fifth of the global population.
This constant feature of the Chinese world is linked with invisible and almost immemorial principles. The great and unorthodox Dutch sinologist Robert H Van Gulik (1910-67) concluded his work Sexual Life in Ancient China (1961) by remarks on Chinese vitality: "It was primarily the careful balancing of the male and female elements that caused the permanence of Chinese race and culture. It was this balance that engendered the intense vital power that from remote antiquity to the very present has ever sustained and renewed the Chinese race."
In the global community, fundamentally optimistic and life-oriented China will interact with various Western forms of nihilism; life will quietly prevail.
China and globalization
China absorbs, translates and regenerates itself vigorously. Last year, from Beijing to Singapore, Chinese people celebrated the 600th anniversary of the navigator Zheng He's (1371-1433) first travel. These celebrations of the Ming Dynasty explorer, Asia's Christopher Columbus, were also indicative of China's current mindset: Chinese people can also be extrovert and do not intend to witness passively, beyond the Great Wall, the reconfiguration of the world.
Forty years after the beginning of the Cultural Revolution nightmare, 28 years after Deng Xiaoping's decision to reform and to open the People's Republic of China (gaige kaifang), Chinese people are embarking on their "Age of Discovery" - which might well announce, as it did for 14th-century Europe, a time of Renaissance.
In January 2004, Parisians looked at a red Eiffel Tower in honor of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit, which coincided with the "Year of China in France". The event "China in London 2006" is the largest celebration of Chinese culture ever seen in the British capital. In 2007, Russia will hold its "Year of China". It seems that the world is preparing for a Chinese century. French journalist Erik Izraelewicz can write a book titled When China Changes the World (Quand la Chine change le monde, 2005). China is succeeding in having non-Chinese framing the debate in a way that is advantageous to it.
Already 30 million non-Chinese are learning Mandarin. Beijing has opened Confucius Institutes (following the example of the Alliance Francaise, Goethe Institutes or British Councils) both to teach Chinese and to explain Chinese culture throughout the world. Chinese is already the second language on the Internet, with more than 100 million Chinese netizens.
A global audience greets Chinese artists. Movie director Zhang Yimou, composer Tan Dun and cellist Ma Yoyo (born in Paris and educated in the US) are internationally acclaimed for their talent and creativity. Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi and Maggie Cheung have penetrated European or American imagination. Chinese design is enriching fashion. The idea behind Shanghai Tang founded by Hong Kong businessman David Tang Wing-Cheung is to "create the first global Chinese lifestyle brand by revitalizing Chinese designs".
Chinese brands such as Lenovo, Haier and Huawei are largely recognized worldwide. In the 2004-05 academic year, China sent more than 115,000 students abroad (62,000 in the United States). The World Tourism Organization predicts that by 2020, 100 million Chinese tourists will travel the world: the global tourism industry will have to adapt to Chinese characteristics.
China's direct investment overseas is rising rapidly. Up to the end of 2004, China made $45 billion direct investment in more than 160 countries; in 2004 alone, China's direct investment overseas reached $5.5 billion, surging 93% over 2003. The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai World Expo will reinforce this momentum. Almost exactly 100 years after of the end of the Qing Dynasty (1911), China will be once again at the center of Asia, and in a position to challenge US unilateral domination over a world system in search of equilibrium.
The Chinese world is not only made of the 22 provinces - nine of them more populous than France, with obviously many subcultures - five autonomous regions, four municipalities, two special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau) of the People's Republic of China, Taiwan and the highly Sinicized Singapore - the city-state can certainly be considered a part of Greater China - but it also includes in its largest extension a Chinese diaspora active worldwide.
The "Sons of the Yellow Emperor" - in reference to Lynn Pan's History of the Chinese Diaspora (1990) - estimated at 40 million people, are not just about Chinese restaurants (although food and cooking are key elements of culture) or Chinatowns (perfect examples of Chinese culture resilience far away from the Yellow River or the Yangzi); the notion of Chinese diaspora indicates that China is not only a political entity related to a territory but, above all, a cultural expression already having global reach.
Co-architect of the 21st-century new world order?
For the West, necessary adjustment to the re-emergence of the Chinese civilization requires modesty and intellectual curiosity. Are we Westerners ready to learn from Chinese civilization as Chinese people are ready to learn from the West? This is the precondition of a genuinely cooperative relationship.
Seriously engaging China is to accept the very possibility of Sinicization. The West, in a position of scientific and economic superiority since the Industrial Revolution, is used to treating China as a product of orientalism. For the majority of Westerners, China is either a museum - hence the surprise of many foreigners in China: "I was expecting something else!" - or a classroom: one has to lecture Chinese people on more advanced standards. The West has to reflect on these prejudices and to look at China as a living matrix of a civilization that is already shaping our time.
If China proves to be an integrator factor in a world plagued by morally unacceptable exclusive globalization, if China proves to be a laboratory where cultures can cross-fertilize in a world threatened by hatred between civilizations, one should rejoice to find a co-architect of the 21st-century new world order.
David Gosset is director of the Academia Sinica Europaea, China Europe International Business School, Shanghai.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HD07Ad01.html
THE BASIJ AS BUFFER
In an apparent effort to forestall ethnic unrest, Iran has deployed detachments of its Basij domestic militia on the Islamic Republic's border with Iraqi Kurdistan. "Iran is forming special forces, mainly of the Basij, on its borders with the Kurdistan Region." a source has told one Iraqi weekly. "There were about 500 applicants in Sardasht area in the last month. The applicants who had conducted their military service will receive one month training in Tehran; otherwise, they will receive six months training."
Tehran, however, also appears to have more long-term plans in mind. "After the training [Iran] will open centres for these Basijis in Alutan, Qasmarash and Kili," the source has disclosed. "The Basij's main responsibility is to block the infiltration of opposition groups into the country." (Sulaymaniyah Chawder, March 27, 2006)
http://www.afpc.org/idm/idm6.shtml
WHO'S SPYING ON AHMADINEJAD?
The palace intrigue surrounding Iran's radical new president has just gotten a bit deeper. Listening devices have reportedly been found in a number of key regional and federal offices that have close contact with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his cabinet. The Ministries of Interior, Foreign Affairs, Commerce and Culture and Islamic Guidance are said to be among those bugged. The discovery of some of the listening devices has launched a frantic search for other possible eavesdropping equipment, and for the potential perpetrators. Regime officials reportedly believe the headquarters of the surveillance operations to be located on Somayyeh Street in Tehran - a thoroughfare that houses Mohammad Reza Khatami's Mosharekat Front, the Beheshti judicial complex, a secret prison belonging to the Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS), and the famous Marmar hotel, where regime officials frequently meet with informants and political collaborators. (Tehran Ya Lesarat ol-Hoseyn, March 22, 2006)
http://www.afpc.org/idm/idm6.shtml
if i had a major time acreage i would put tiny litte signs that you would have to stoop to read within the property, and they would say "welcome"
If I had major time acreage I would dig tunnel entrances all over, not tunnels, just entrances. It drives the government crazy when they show up in satellite photos.
My car is in the shop, I have a little too much time.
-Am
I go along with that but this is also a game of balance and Put requires the US in order to offset China. Russia in my opinion will be the hardest country to call when the bombs start flying. We will not know until the very last second whose side Russia will take. This being extremely pertinent because whomever Russia aligns with has the best chance of winning. All depending on what Put can get out of it for Russia. IMO
I found the following, was again looking for something else.
Also immediately before the war, the FBI searched for several thousand illegal Iraqi immigrants who had disappeared while visiting the United States, officials said. Although most Iraqi immigrants were viewed as being sympathetic to the United States, authorities feared some could have been Iraqi agents or allies of terrorist groups.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53096-2004Jun18.html
The same thing is happening now and they even want to put the military on our borders once again.
Pomona College professor Miguel Tinker Salas said two Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives working for a federal task force interviewed him at his office Tuesday and asked whether he had contact with Venezuelan Embassy officials or immigrants in the United States.
Tinker Salas said the detectives' line of questioning focused on publicly available information such as where he went to school and whether there was a Venezuelan consulate in Los Angeles. He also was asked whether the U.S. government should have concerns about Venezuelan immigrants and whether they might act upon declarations or pronouncements from that country's embassy or consulate.
#msg-10448619
The House has passed a bill that would shore up border security by putting the military on the border, requiring employer to verify they've hired legal workers and making being in the country illegally a felony.
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pub&dt=060405&cat=news&st=newsd8gpsit00&src=....
Israel, Turkey suspend landmark water agreement
Front page / World
04/05/2006 14:49 Source:
Israel and Turkey have suspended what was meant to be a breakthrough deal: shipping water in huge tankers from Turkey to the parched Holy Land . Both governments have concluded the deal is not feasible, but hope to revive it in the future.
Under the 20-year agreement, signed two years ago, Turkey was to ship 50 million cubic meters (1.75 billion cubic feet) of water annually from its Manavgat River . The deal was to alleviate Israel 's chronic water shortage and cement its relations with an important Muslim ally. Turkey was to boost its position as a regional power.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said recently that the agreement was put on hold because high oil prices had made it impractical to ship the water in large tankers. Privatization of Turkey 's Manavgat water-treatment facility also contributed to the higher costs, he said. Regev said the two countries would continue looking at other options, including building a water pipeline.
The decision to suspend the project was not connected to the recent visit of Hamas leaders to Turkey , he added. "The political relationship with Turkey is good," he said. In Ankara , officials at the Turkish Foreign Ministry confirmed the project is now on hold and that the idea of a pipeline would be explored.
But experts say it could be years for a pipeline to materialize. In addition to cost considerations, such a project would possibly require involvement of Lebanon or Syria , Arab countries that are hostile to Israel . Water experts said the deal would have provided only a small percentage of Israel 's water needs. Critics have said the plan, going back more than five years, was motivated more by politics than economics.
"From the time of the first bids, it was clear you could not bring water of drinking quality from Turkey at an affordable price," said Shaul Arlosoroff, a water expert and member of the board of Mekorot , Israel 's national water carrier. "There were other reasons for Israel to maintain connections and dialogue with Turkey . The issue of economics was not the decisive issue," he said.
Arlosoroff said the chances of building a pipeline deal are very low, especially now that Israel has opened a new desalination plant in the port city of Ashkelon with a second plant in the works. Israel also has reduced its water needs through expertise in drip irrigation and recycling waste water for agricultural use. "I wouldn't buy stock in the company that has to bring water from Turkey to Israel ," he said, reports the AP.
N.U.
http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/05-04-2006/78370-landmark%20water%20agreement-0
Q&A: IRAN: Bush Administration 'Not Serious' About Dealing With Iran
We got into this dilemma because we essentially don't have a strategy for dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue. By "we" I mean the United States and the Bush administration. The Bush administration has deliberately ruled out direct negotiations with Iran either over the nuclear issue or over the broad range of strategic issues that you would need to talk to Iran about if you were going to get a real diplomatic settlement on the nuclear issue.
While this text mentions two options, I would point to a third option of regime change but here the administration has blundered once again by announcing their intentions giving the Iranians a chance to circle their wagons.
Significantly, the new US budget calls for additional funds to special operations and psy-ops (psychological operations) in Iran, in addition to the US$75 million the administration of President George W Bush wants to spend to advance "regime change". For their part, the US marines have commissioned Hicks and Associates, a subsidiary of Science Applications International Corp, one of the biggest US defense contractors and heavily involved in the Iraq invasion, to carry out in-depth research into Iranian ethnic groups.
#msg-10530092
-Am
April 4, 2006
By BERNARD GWERTZMAN
From the Council on Foreign Relations, April 4, 2006
Bernard Gwertzman is consulting editor for the Council on Foreign Relations website, cfr.org.
Flynt L. Leverett, who served in senior posts at the National Security Agency, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency, says that the United States has gotten itself into a diplomatic dilemma with Iran "because we essentially don't have a strategy" for dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue. Asserting that the Bush administration rejected an invitation made by Iran in 2003 to open a strategic dialogue, Leverett says that Bush "is, on this issue, very, very resistant to the idea of doing a deal, even a deal that would solve the nuclear problem."
Leverett, a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, at the Brookings Institution, says President Bush considers the Iranian regime "fundamentally illegitimate." As a result, he says, the administration is stuck with two choices--dealing within the UN Security Council, where Russia and China are effectively blocking serious punitive measures, and unilateral military action, which Washington is not in a position to undertake.
The Security Council has issued a document, criticizing Iran's nuclear program, but there's no teeth behind it and both Russia and China have indicated they're opposed to any sanctions. So at the end of a month, when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is supposed to report back to the Council, it does not look as if there is going to be any real incentive for Iran to comply. How did we get into this dilemma?
We got into this dilemma because we essentially don't have a strategy for dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue. By "we" I mean the United States and the Bush administration. The Bush administration has deliberately ruled out direct negotiations with Iran either over the nuclear issue or over the broad range of strategic issues that you would need to talk to Iran about if you were going to get a real diplomatic settlement on the nuclear issue.
The administration has, literally for years, ruled out that kind of strategic dialogue withIran. In the absence of that sort of approach, that sort of channel, the administration is left with two options, one of which is to try and get something done in the Security Council. It has been foreseeable literally for months, if not for longer, that Russia and China at a minimum were not going to be prepared to support serious multilateral sanctions or other serious multilateral punitive measures on Iran. This is not a surprise. As I said, it's been foreseeable literally for months, but the administration, without a strategy, is going down this feckless road anyway.
The other option that the administration would have is unilateral military action. Right now the administration is not in a position to undertake that. The international outcry would, I think, be enormous. We would literally have no one on our side at this point supporting that kind of action. The administration certainly has many other challenges on its plate that it's having to cope with right now. And frankly I don't think a unilateral military strike would solve the problem any more than trying to deal with it through the Security Council. Because of the administration's deliberate decision to rule out serious strategically grounded diplomacy with Iran on this issue, these are the only two options they've got, and neither is going to work.
Let's go back a little bit in history. In an op-ed piece you wrote for the New York Times in January you referred to an offer made by the Iranian government--of course then headed by the reformist President Mohammed Khatami--to begin a sweeping diplomatic dialogue. Could you talk about that?
This was shortly before I left government, in the spring of 2003. The Swiss are our so-called "protecting power" in Iran; we, of course, have no diplomatic presence there. And the Swiss, in their role as our protecting power, also provided a channel through which theUnited StatesandIrancould communicate with one another. If the Iranians wanted to use this channel, they'd give a message or a document or some communication to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran. He would pass that through his foreign ministry, it would come to the Swiss embassy here inWashington, and then the Swiss embassy would send it to the State Department. We could, at least in theory, use that channel going the other direction. In the spring of 2003 we received through this Swiss channel a one-page document, which basically laid out an agenda for a diplomatic process that was intended to resolve on a comprehensive basis all of the bilateral differences between the United States and Iran.
What prompted that statement?
Well, that's a very good question. What prompted it on the Iranian side?
This was right after the Iraq invasion, right? This is the same time period?
Yes, it was. It was of course relatively early after the U.S. military operation in Iraq . It was really later in the summer that it became clear that the insurgency and post-conflict challenges were going to be a real problem for us, and I think at that point we were looking relatively strong in Iraq and the Iranians in particular were interested in--for both tactical and strategic reasons--trying to strike some sort of deal with us. The Iranians wanted us to turn over the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) cadres that were in Iraq . The MEK, of course, is still listed by us as a foreign terrorist organization and we'd been pressing the Iranians over the presence of some al-Qaeda operatives in Iranian territory. And I think at the tactical level, the Iranians wanted to try and make a deal on the MEK for al-Qaeda. At a more strategic level, I think the Iranians were genuinely interested in trying to reach some sort of strategic understanding with the United States , particularly at a point when the U.S. strategic position in the region was looking relatively strong.
This wasn't a new interest on the part of the Iranians; there was the whole experience after 9/11 of Iranian cooperation with us over Afghanistan, which I think at least some Iranian officials were hoping could get leveraged into a broader strategic dialogue, but that channel was effectively foreclosed when President Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address labeled Iran as part of the "axis of evil." But in a sense I think the Iranians were trying again to see if there was some possibility for a broader strategic conversation with us and here they were actually in a way putting their cards on the table: "this is what we want, we want a broad strategic conversation with you."
At that time you were working in the National Security Council?
I had just left the National Security Council but I was still in government, getting ready to leave.
I see. So this document pops up on Secretary of State Colin Powell's desk. It was a very top-secret document, I suppose.
It wasn't a classified document. What's so remarkable about it, it was sent over by the Swiss embassy as an unclassified fax.
I see. That's why you can talk about it so easily.
Yes, the document was never classified.
So theUnited Stateshad to make a decision on what it wanted to do. Was there a big debate about this?
By this point I am out of government and I don't really know how this played out within the bowels of the administration. What I do know happened is that the formal response of the administration to this was to complain to the Swiss foreign ministry that the Swiss ambassador in Tehran was exceeding his brief by talking with Iranians about a paper like this and passing it on.
Let's then go to the essence. Is this one of these clichés that the neo-cons in the Bush administration wanted regime change and nothing else and didn't want to talk to the Iranians?
I think you're right. That's the basic motivation, that you had a bunch of neo-cons, and even the president himself [against dialogue], it's not just the neo-cons who wanted regime change and nothing else. Ultimately the president is, on this issue, very, very resistant to the idea of doing a deal, even a deal that would solve the nuclear problem. You don't do a deal that would effectively legitimate this regime that he considers fundamentally illegitimate. I think that's the real issue.
And he considers it illegitimate because of what? Because it overthrew the Shah in 1979?
No, in the president's view you have this unelected set of clerical authorities, epitomized by the supreme leader, who are thwarting the clearly expressed will of the Iranian people for a more open, participatory political system, for more political, social, intellectual, and cultural freedom--all this kind of thing. And so it's a system that in Bush's mind is fundamentally illegitimate. It's a system that needs to change, and he is not going to do a deal that lets this regime off the hook, even if that deal would solve our problem with them over the nuclear issue.
Now we have agreed to talk--I don't know if the talks have taken place yet--on Iraq with the Iranians.
Yes. I think this is going to be probably an even less productive replay of the tactical dialogue we had with Iran over Afghanistan. I think Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad's talking points are probably not going to go beyond [telling the Iranians] "you need to stop supporting and maintaining ties to proxies in the Shiite community, like the Badr brigade and various other political actors. You need to stop trying to protect your own interests in Iraq."
I don't think it's going to get very far because we don't really have anything to put on the table to make it interesting for Iran. I am very, very doubtful that, to the extent we do have a conversation with them about Iraq, that it's going to allow us to broaden the conversation into the nuclear issue and these more strategic problems. I think if nothing else you're going to have the wrong people in the room to do that. And beyond that, I think you still run up against the structural problem in the administration, that the president and other very powerful actors in this administration simply don't want to do a deal [with] the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In your op-ed piece you seized on a proposal made by the Saudis? It would have a Gulf Security Council dealing with this. I haven't heard anything more about that. Is that sort of dead in the water?
Yes. I thought it was a very, very interesting departure from the traditional Saudi formulation on a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East. And I thought it was worth highlighting, but the administration didn't pick up on it and as far as I can tell there's nothing being done to pursue the possibility of a nuclear weapons free zone in the Gulf.
Most of the press that you read from Iransays that the Iranian public is pretty strongly behind their nuclear program, and that any interference from the outside amounts to gross interference by foreign powers. On the other hand, I've interviewed other observers who say, no, most Iranians really are very uncomfortable with this whole nuclear program. Do you have any sense of it?
I think my own assessment is closer to the first position you laid out than to the second. My sense is that there is a very broad consensus inIransupporting full development of Iran's civil nuclear capabilities, including the full range of nuclear fuel cycle capabilities. I mean that's the way this issue is being presented to the Iranian public. It's not really being presented as "should Iran have nuclear weapons or not?" On that issue I think you would get a pretty wide range of opinion among Iranian elites and maybe even in the population as a whole. But it's being presented as "should Iran be able to exercise its rights under international treaties, like the NPT [non-proliferation treaty], to develop the full range of civilian nuclear technology that all kinds of other countries have, including countries that don't have nuclear weapons?" And if it's presented to Iranians like that, I'd say there's almost a consensus across the Iranian political spectrum, in support of that.
Even Bush has said on some occasions that he has no problem withIranhaving a peaceful nuclear program.
Yes, and I think the administration tried earlier basically to redefine the non-proliferation treaty on this issue and say that somehow Iran no longer had a right to develop fuel cycle technologies. This was a kind of interesting legal argument which I don't think got very far. I noticed in November of last year, when the president was in Moscow, Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, expressed the administration's public support for the Russian compromise initiative for getting Iran to process uranium in Russia instead of in Iran. He actually said that Iran did have the right to develop enrichment capabilities, but in the interest of international security, stability, and so forth, we would ask the Iranians to agree not to exercise that right. So I think even the administration is acknowledging now that there isn't a purely legal basis on which to say Iran can't have enrichment capabilities.
http://www.nytimes.com/cfr/world/slot1_040406.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Iran Nuclear Sanctions Would Affect Markets
Oxford Analytica 04.05.06, 6:00 AM ET
The United Nations Security Council called on Iran last week to suspend its uranium enrichment program within 30 days. The United States and the European Union, as the next step in their diplomatic offensive against Iran's nuclear program, are seeking to introduce a binding resolution under Chapter VII of the U.N. charter, paving the way for some sort of sanctions.
While Russian and Chinese objections will render progress extremely slow, any measures that do emerge are likely to have a significant effect on oil markets:
Gasoline imports. One form of sanctions being touted is a ban on Iranian gasoline imports. Iran is dependent upon such imports for 40% of domestic consumption. However, the government is desperately seeking to reduce gasoline consumption.
In the short term, there would be economic pain. However, Tehran could significantly increase gasoline prices and curb consumption. Furthermore, Iran's porous borders would ensure that a ban on gasoline imports would be of limited effectiveness.
Oil services. Limitations on Iranian access to oil-services companies and technology might eventually produce results. However, the United States owns most of the companies and technology, so such sanctions have already been in place for a long time thanks to the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. If the Europeans were to support a ban, this could cause problems, because it is largely through this route that Iran has gained access to such technology. However, such services and technology are increasingly available from China, India and other countries that might pay less heed to sanctions.
Foreign Direct Investment. Sanctions could also inhibit foreign direct investment into the Iranian upstream. Sanctions or U.S. efforts to impose ILSA more forcefully could again be undermined by the fact that much of the new investment is likely to come from Asian oil importers.
Asia is hungry for oil, and Iran is ideally located to supply it. In the last few months, Tehran has very actively wooed Asian oil importers with promises of favorable deals and access to both oil and gas. The eventual effectiveness of any sort of sanctions regime will depend on whether Asian countries rate their trade relations with Iran above concerns about a nuclear Iran and their desire for good U.S. relations.
Tehran has several options if it decides to respond:
Oil pricing. It could switch oil pricing from dollars to euros. The rationale is that, if oil were not priced in dollars, this would weaken the dollar and reduce the inflow of funds to cover the U.S. twin deficits. However, such a move would only have an effect if a lot more oil than the volume of Iranian exports were involved.
Oil exports cut. Tehran could make some sort of reduction in exports, whether overtly or citing "technical problems." Nonetheless, a small reduction in exports would not result in a physical shortage. The precise effect on prices would depend upon the reaction of the paper markets, but they would certainly rise.
Exports ban. The most extreme exports cut would be a complete cessation of crude oil exports. The International Energy Agency has indicated that existing stocks could replace Iranian exports for 18 months, but such claims are quite misleading. Therefore, the resulting physical shortage would push oil prices higher. In any case, regardless of the actual number of wet barrels, the paper markets would instantly raise prices.
Blockade. Iran could retaliate or reinforce its own embargo by closing the Straits of Hormuz, through which a quarter of global oil exports flow. However, such an act would certainly result in military action. A far more serious and realistic threat would be to stop all oil exports from southern Iraq.
The effects on both sides of an oil embargo would be very damaging. However, for Iran, there are mitigating factors. Iran could survive with zero oil exports for far longer than the industrialized oil consumers, particularly those in Asia, could survive without Iranian imports.
An escalation of the crisis to a complete loss of Iranian oil exports is highly unlikely. Less dramatic, but more plausible, are sanctions and responses to them, which are unlikely to have much of an effect on physical supply in the oil market. However, they would probably push prices higher, depending upon the paper markets' reactions. These measures would have less of an effect on the Iranian economy than on oil consumers, leaving the balance of harm in Tehran's favor.
To read an extended version of this article, log on to Oxford Analytica's Web site.
Oxford Analytica is an independent strategic-consulting firm drawing on a network of more than 1,000 scholar experts at Oxford and other leading universities and research institutions around the world. For more information, please visit www.oxan.com. To find out how to subscribe to the firm's Daily Brief Service, click here.
http://www.forbes.com/home/2006/04/04/iran-nuclear-oil-cx_0405oxford.html
IRAN DEPLOYS MISSILES ALONG COASTLINE
Iran says it has positioned surface-to-sea missiles and smart missile systems along its coastline. The news comes after Tehran reported earlier this week on the successful trials of its Misaq and Qowsar missiles.
"The missile unit of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps navy force has deployed different kinds of surface-to-sea missiles and smart missile systems across 2,000 kilometers of the Persian Gulf coasts to defend the coastlines and islands against any foreign invasions," said IRGC Commander-in-Chief Maj.-Gen.Yahya Rahim Safavi, according to the official Iranian news agency IRNA. Peace will only fully return to the region when foreign forces pull out of Iraq, Safavi added.
Iran says the missile tests included the successful downing of a drone and a surface-to-sea trial, with the target being struck deep in the Gulf of Oman.
The latest additions to Iran's arsenal follow successful trials of its intercontinental Shihab missiles, which bring much of Western Europe into range. Tehran is stressing its weaponry is purely for defensive purposes saying it will not be the initiator of any military action.
By The Media Line Staff on Wednesday, April 05, 2006
http://themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=13293