Replies to post #6715 on Foreign Correspondence

[otraque]

<Why Iran wants a bomb> Same reason as with all, as long as others are loaded with the Nuke they MUST have athe bomb as a deterent against being annihilated.
As long as any country is armed with Nukes all others have a right to JOIN IN THE INSANITY
Every single country that has the nuclear bomb is as dangerous as ANY other nation, to proceed and use it( i think Bush the most likely person[along with the NK bossman] to use the bomb in the world today--don't believe he will, that is so, but he is paranoid and has his finger on the nuclear trigger--that is not good)
The relentless campaign to make Iran into the Ultra-Looneys that are planning use it is PROPAGANDA.

Why is it so VITAL now, that Iran be made to not have the bomb.
Point blank---that should be obvious.
Iran dares to speak nastily regards Israel and America, therefore they are deranged vermin to be broken.

We have here, not sanity, in any form, at bottom this is a highly charged irrational war of cultures and odds favor it ends in massive great tragedy for the entire world.

[otraque]

Operation Swarmer goes "fizzle"( this was the grand opening of newest Rummyhead strategies to win in Iraq)

<<Iraq Eyewitness: It will take more than media-friendly air assaults to save the country from civil war, writes Nick Meo in Baghdad

http://www.sundayherald.com/54734

FOR a couple of days last week, the political complexities and sectarian murders in Iraq were finally off the TV screens. Instead, the networks showed spectacular pictures - provided by the Pentagon - of square-jawed soldiers jumping out of helicopters with their Iraqi buddies and going into action against al-Qaeda fighters in what was billed as the biggest air assault since the invasion in 2003.
The pictures from Operation Swarmer sent out a powerful message that America is still in this war.

After weeks of demoralising talk of drawing down troop numbers, handing over security to Iraqis, and standing aside if civil war breaks out, a show of force was required from the US military. The day Iraq's so-far ineffective new parliament first met was the ideal time to launch an exciting new operation - it might also have diverted public attention from George Bush's waning popularity and growing doubts over a war which no longer looks winnable to large numbers of Americans.

Operation Swarmer was aimed at around 200 supposedly al-Qaeda-linked insurgents in the heart of the Sunni Triangle. They are men who wanted to set up a new base of terrorist operations near the city of Samarra, about 100 miles north of Baghdad. One Iraqi official even compared this new terrorist nest to Fallujah, a city taken over by insurgents until the US military launched one of the biggest and most controversial battles of the war.

As Operation Swarmer fizzled to a close yesterday, it became clear that the biggest air assault since 2003 wasn't really such a knock-out blow against terrorism after all. 50 helicopters and 1500 troops managed to find just one insurgent( initial news awas they had trapped a bunch of insurgents including the planner of the attack on the GoldenDome-max) and a few weapons caches, according to an Iraqi official. Nearly 50 people were detained, but many were quickly released. Sunni politicians complained that the operation showed a reliance on military solutions when what was needed was political answers.

The US military still insisted Swarmer had been a success and stressed that it showed the effectiveness of the new Iraqi security forces which America and Britain have been training for years .

But given the fast-changing and dangerous political situation on the ground, Swarmer looked like a throwback to the past. Many analysts believe the insurgency is waning and that the danger to Iraq is now civil war and political collapse, problems which have no military solution.

Back in 2003, military action against the bad guys seemed to many Americans to be the answer in Iraq . But three years after US and British tanks first rolled across its borders in the most controversial war of modern times, the prospects for a happy ending to the Iraq adventure look dimmer than ever.

Security is perhaps the biggest problem. In the ongoing chaos, it is almost impossible to build a political solution or an economy. When the parliament met on Thursday, it was behind blast barriers in the Green Zone. Outside in the Red Zone - which is all of Iraq except for a few protected acres along the Tigris - anarchy reigns.

Criminal gangs and personal power struggles have been as big a problem as jihadi fighters for some time, and now sectarian murder gangs and death squads are slaughtering hundreds. Iraq witnesses on average five to seven car bombs a day, sometimes far more. The US military patrols the streets less than it used to - commanders are anxious to keep politically costly casualty figures down - so Iraqi forces now drive the streets, their faces hidden by balaclavas to stop jihadis identifying them. They drive pick-up trucks with heavy machine-guns mounted on the back, swivelling them at any pedestrians in the general area. When a car bomb goes off they are infamous for shooting up anything that moves.

These are the men who will soon have full responsibility for security. Nobody thinks the Americans and British will still be here in a year or so, despite the politicians repeating the mantra: "As long as it takes."

Attempts to build up Iraqi security forces are becoming frenzied as it becomes clearer that the coalition of the willing is eyeing the exits, despite not having a clear exit strategy. ( they will still be there next year, or moved on into Iran,imo, as Operation Save The World By Mindless Imperialist Leaders moves on, like a plague of locusts --otraque




Defence minister John Reid arrived in Basra yesterday, after lambasting the British press in Baghdad for seeing only despair in Iraq. It wasn't clear whether he had met any ordinary people to listen to their despairing views. Reid praised the success of British servicemen in training up Iraqi forces, although these still have little responsibility and some Iraqi security forces have been linked to Shia death squads.

"Terrorists love a vacuum," Reid told reporters before holding a series of talks with Iraq's political leaders. He said that moving too quickly could backfire in Iraq, a country where every political move risks fuelling sectarian tensions .

"It is no good rushing and getting the wrong type of government," Reid insisted. " We have found from all other areas in the world, including in our own case in Northern Ireland, that a political vacuum allows people of malevolent intent, and people who would use violence and terrorism, opportunities to step into that vacuum."

Ordinary Iraqis, meanwhile, who hate US troops as occupiers, wonder what will happen when they pull out. The growing fear is of a sectarian civil war. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, are being ethnically cleansed from their homes in mixed areas of Baghdad, and dozens of tortured bodies turn up daily.

The political process seems as paralysed as ever. Last week the new parliament couldn't even agree on a speaker, and the Shia bloc is at loggerheads with the Sunni and Kurdish MPs over a choice of prime minister. The deadlock drags on as the country totters on the brink of civil war and nobody seems to have a solution or a sense of urgency. Amazingly, the US embassy has even started talking about meeting officials from their arch-enemy Iran for discussions in Baghdad.

Iran is now a powerful player in Iraq. Many of the Shia politicians who make up the dominant bloc in parliament took shelter from Saddam with their co-religionists , and some think Iran pulls the strings across its border. This raises the extraordinary prospect of America having to do some kind of deal with an Iran it now regards as a major backer of terrorism and a potential nuclear danger.(edit: i see no deal, as Bush is still the CIC, and he is recalcitrant--he will wish talks be arrogant and pushy--this is the nature of this deluded out of contact with reality leader that unbelievabbly still has 36% of country's support--which means in the more than light red states he remains The Boss---this is called a geographically severely polarized nation. I still don't people realize how polarized this country is--otraque)

Three years on, it's a very different world to the square-jawed simplicities of Operation Iraqi Freedom's battles to build democracy and defeat Saddam . And the biggest air assault since 2003 won't change any of that.

19 March 2006

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[Amaunet]

TURKMEN PRESIDENT TO VISIT CHINA IN EARLY APRIL

Little is known about Turkmenistan, a reclusive Central Asian state of just 5.5 million. Since gaining independence in 1991, the former Soviet republic has remained largely isolated, despite its vast energy reserves, estimated to be amongst the largest in the world.
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:8q0aqSMVIU4J:turkmenistan.usembassy.gov/IRIN_interview.html+turk...

Much of Turkmenistan’s importance is due to the fact that it borders the Caspian Sea.

On April 11, John J Fialka of the Wall Street Journal revealed that the US Department of Defense will spend $100 million over the next few years to establish the "Caspian Guard", a network of police forces and special operations units "that can respond to various emergencies, including attacks on oil facilities". Russia is also expanding its Caspian Fleet, as it too presses its claims to offshore fields in the region. Under such circumstances, it is all too easy to imagine how a minor confrontation could erupt into something much more serious, involving the US, Russia, Iran, and other countries.
#msg-6368606

Turkmenistan is also targeted for 'democracy' which has very little to do with democracy and more to do with oil, gas and politics.

-Am



TURKMEN PRESIDENT TO VISIT CHINA IN EARLY APRIL

March 19, 2006]

(Interfax News Agency Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)ASHGABAT. March 17 (Interfax) - Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov will be on a state visit to China on April 2-7.

Addressing a Cabinet session on Thursday, Niyazov said that his visit was aimed at bolstering cooperation with China - "a partner with which Turkmenistan shares a century-long history of relations and good traditions."

"China today is a rapidly developing country. The pace of its economic growth is among the fastest in the world. The nation is also one of the world's leading developers of technology," he said.

"All this opens up broad prospects for our further effective bilateral partnership," the president said.

Long-term sales of Turkmen natural gas to China will also top the agenda of the meetings in China.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/03/19/1470521.htm

[Amaunet]

Why Iran oil cutoff could be suicidal
from the March 27, 2006 edition -


By David R. Francis
Iran's nuclear standoff with the United States, Europe, and other nations has led to considerable speculation of $100-per-barrel oil and $4-per-gallon gasoline in the US. Such high prices might kick off a worldwide energy crisis and recession.

The West already suspects that Iran's uranium enrichment program is a cover for bombmaking. To try to put a stop to it, the United Nations Security Council could impose sanctions, or even riskier, the US or Israel might attempt to knock out Iran's nuclear facilities with an air or missile strike.

In retaliation, Iran could act against its own best economic interests and slash oil exports. Last September, the head of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards warned that "any sanction against Iran" could push the price of oil to $100 a barrel.

"It would be easy to see oil trading at $100 a barrel," says Milton Ezrati, an economist with Lord Abbett, a mutual-fund company in Jersey City, N.J. But if oil traders view the action by Iran as merely a short-lived "diplomatic stunt," he says, oil would rapidly head back toward today's $62 a barrel price.

Mr. Ezrati warns that a long-term action would cause energy prices to soar. That would set back the incipient recoveries in Europe and Japan and seriously slow the US economy as well.

Many Iranians say they are being treated unfairly by the US and its allies, that they are subject to a double standard. This is reflected in the questions being asked widely by the media and in blogs throughout the Middle East, notes A.F. Alhajji, an economist at Ohio Northern University in Ada.

"Why is Israel allowed to have nuclear bombs while Iran is not allowed to have even as much as a research program that some experts believe might lead to building a nuclear bomb? Why are Israeli actions against the Palestinians and the Lebanese considered 'self defense,' while the actions of Palestinians and Lebanese are considered 'terrorist' acts? Why can Iran not intervene in Iraq when the US and its allies have already occupied the country? Why has Iran been deprived of its economic rights by [two-decades old] economic sanctions?"

The US and its allies may well have answers to such questions. But Professor Alhajji wonders if domestic political pressures in Iran resulting from inflamed nationalism might force the Iranian government to retaliate by cutting its oil exports. Alternatively, given the country's high dependence on oil revenues, Iran could instruct its operatives in Iraq to sabotage Iraqi oil exports from the port of Basra. Shiites are the dominant religious group in both Iran and southern Iraq. That would reduce world oil supplies by about 1.1 million barrels per day (b.p.d.), a drop of 1.3 percent.

A US or Israeli airstrike could lead to outright war - "all bets are off," notes Alhajji. Iran might also try to block oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, threatening the vital oil exports of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Gulf States.

The economic stakes are huge for everyone in this quarrel. Aware of this, adversaries are continuing to talk, reportedly including direct discussions between the US and Iran over Iraq.

For Iran, the use of its own oil as a bargaining chip has limited value. Iran gets 90 percent of its government revenues from oil. Its exports of about 2.5 million b.p.d. amount to 80 percent of its total exports. Oil provides some 40 percent of Iran's gross domestic product.

Yet Iran is the only major producer of oil to suffer from a budget deficit. The Iranian public, notes Alhajji, is heavily dependent on government subsidies for staple goods and fuels. From 1980 to 2005, Iran's population grew by 22.4 million and now stands at 68 million. Its daily oil output during that period rose by only 600,000 barrels.

So a cut in oil exports by Iran would be risky at home. "If they are willing to commit suicide, they could do it," says Alhajji.

The blow to the US would not be so severe. Hurricane Katrina shut off 1.5 million b.p.d. from the Gulf of Mexico, but oil prices rose only $10 a barrel. Any Iranian embargo could be countered by more exports from other OPEC nations and tapping the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Alhajji says an Iranian embargo might raise crude prices initially by $20 a barrel before they fell back toward $60.

The result would be an energy crisis in Iran, which depends substantially on imported gasoline from Europe, but not a worldwide threat, predicts Alhajji.

Last week the American Petroleum Institute said US commercial crude oil reserves in February were the highest since May 1999. That sounds reassuring. But Alhajji notes those record oil reserves would cover only three days of imports.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0327/p17s01-cogn.html