Entrenched, Embedded, and Here to Stay: The Pentagon's Expansion Will Be Bush's Lasting Legacy

From Tom Dispatch:

Entrenched, Embedded, and Here to Stay
The Pentagon's Expansion Will Be Bush's Lasting Legacy
By Frida Berrigan

A full-fledged cottage industry is already focused on those who eagerly await the end of the Bush administration, offering calendars, magnets, and t-shirts for sale as well as counters and graphics to download onto blogs and websites. But when the countdown ends and George W. Bush vacates the Oval Office, he will leave a legacy to contend with. Certainly, he wills to his successor a world marred by war and battered by deprivation, but perhaps his most enduring legacy is now deeply embedded in Washington-area politics -- a Pentagon metastasized almost beyond recognition.

The Pentagon's massive bulk-up these last seven years will not be easily unbuilt, no matter who dons the presidential mantle on January 19, 2009. "The Pentagon" is now so much more than a five-sided building across the Potomac from Washington or even the seat of the Department of Defense. In many ways, it defies description or labeling.

Who, today, even remembers the debate at the end of the Cold War about what role U.S. military power should play in a "unipolar" world? Was U.S. supremacy so well established, pundits were then asking, that Washington could rely on softer economic and cultural power, with military power no more than a backup (and a domestic "peace dividend" thrown into the bargain)? Or was the U.S. to strap on the six-guns of a global sheriff and police the world as the fountainhead of "humanitarian interventions"? Or was it the moment to boldly declare ourselves the world's sole superpower and wield a high-tech military comparable to none, actively discouraging any other power or power bloc from even considering future rivalry?

The attacks of September 11, 2001 decisively ended that debate. The Bush administration promptly declared total war on every front -- against peoples, ideologies, and, above all, "terrorism" (a tactic of the weak). That very September, administration officials proudly leaked the information that they were ready to "target" up to 60 other nations and the terrorist movements within them.

The Pentagon's "footprint" was to be firmly planted, military base by military base, across the planet, with a special emphasis on its energy heartlands. Top administration officials began preparing the Pentagon to go anywhere and do anything, while rewriting, shredding, or ignoring whatever laws, national or international, stood in the way. In 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld officially articulated a new U.S. military posture that, in conception, was little short of revolutionary. It was called -- in classic Pentagon shorthand -- the 1-4-2-1 Defense Strategy (replacing the Clinton administration's already none-too-modest plan to be prepared to fight two major wars -- in the Middle East and Northeast Asia -- simultaneously).

Theoretically, this strategy meant that the Pentagon was to prepare to defend the United States, while building forces capable of deterring aggression and coercion in four "critical regions" (Europe, Northeast Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East). It would be able to defeat aggression in two of these regions simultaneously and "win decisively" in one of those conflicts "at a time and place of our choosing." Hence 1-4-2-1.

And that was just going to be the beginning. We had, by then, already entered the new age of the Mega-Pentagon. Almost six years later, the scale of that institution's expansion has yet to be fully grasped, so let's look at just seven of the major ways in which the Pentagon has experienced mission creep -- and leap -- dwarfing other institutions of government in the process.

1. The Budget-busting Pentagon: The Pentagon's core budget -- already a staggering $300 billion when George W. Bush took the presidency -- has almost doubled while he's been parked behind the big desk in the Oval Office. For fiscal year 2009, the regular Pentagon budget will total roughly $541 billion (including work on nuclear warheads and naval reactors at the Department of Energy).

The Bush administration has presided over one of the largest military buildups in the history of the United States. And that's before we even count "war spending." If the direct costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the Global War on Terror, are factored in, "defense" spending has essentially tripled.

As of February 2008, according to the Congressional Budget Office, lawmakers have appropriated $752 billion for the Iraq war and occupation, ongoing military operations in Afghanistan, and other activities associated with the Global War on Terror. The Pentagon estimates that it will need another $170 billion for fiscal 2009, which means, at $922 billion, that direct war spending since 2001 would be at the edge of the trillion-dollar mark.

As New York Times columnist Bob Herbert has pointed out, if a stack of bills roughly six inches high is worth $1 million, then a $1 billion stack would be as tall as the Washington Monument, and a $1 trillion stack would be 95 miles high. And note that none of these war-fighting funds are even counted as part of the annual military budget, but are raised from Congress in the form of "emergency supplementals" a few times a year.

With the war added to the Pentagon's core budget, the United States now spends nearly as much on military matters as the rest of the world combined. Military spending also throws all other parts of the federal budget into shadow, representing 58 cents of every dollar spent by the federal government on "discretionary programs" (those that Congress gets to vote up or down on an annual basis).

The total Pentagon budget represents more than our combined spending on education, environmental protection, justice administration, veteran's benefits, housing assistance, transportation, job training, agriculture, energy, and economic development. No wonder, then, that, as it collects ever more money, the Pentagon is taking on (or taking over) ever more functions and roles.

2. The Pentagon as Diplomat: The Bush administration has repeatedly exhibited its disdain for discussion and compromise, treaties and agreements, and an equally deep admiration for what can be won by threat and force. No surprise, then, that the White House's foreign policy agenda has increasingly been directed through the military. With a military budget more than 30 times that of all State Department operations and non-military foreign aid put together, the Pentagon has marched into State's two traditional strongholds -- diplomacy and development -- duplicating or replacing much of its work, often by refocusing Washington's diplomacy around military-to-military, rather than diplomat-to-diplomat, relations.

Since the late eighteenth century, the U.S. ambassador in any country has been considered the president's personal representative, responsible for ensuring that foreign policy goals are met. As one ambassador explained; "The rule is: if you're in country, you work for the ambassador. If you don't work for the ambassador, you don't get country clearance."

In the Bush era, the Pentagon has overturned this model. According to a 2006 Congressional report by Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), Embassies as Command Posts in the Anti-Terror Campaign, civilian personnel in many embassies now feel occupied by, outnumbered by, and subordinated to military personnel. They see themselves as the second team when it comes to decision-making. Even Defense Secretary Robert Gates is aware of the problem, noting as he did last November that there are "only about 6,600 professional Foreign Service officers -- less than the manning for one aircraft carrier strike group." But, typically, he added that, while the State Department might need more resources, "Don't get me wrong, I'll be asking for yet more money for Defense next year." Another ambassador lamented that his foreign counterparts are "following the money" and developing relationships with U.S. military personnel rather than cultivating contacts with their State Department counterparts.

The Pentagon invariably couches its bureaucratic imperialism in terms of "interagency cooperation." For example, last year U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) released Command Strategy 2016, a document which identified poverty, crime, and corruption as key "security" problems in Latin America. It suggested that Southcom, a security command, should, in fact, be the "central actor in addressing… regional problems" previously the concern of civilian agencies. It then touted itself as the future focus of a "joint interagency security command... in support of security, stability and prosperity in the region."

As Southcom head Admiral James Stavridis vividly put the matter, the command now likes to see itself as "a big Velcro cube that these other agencies can hook to so we can collectively do what needs to be done in this region."

The Pentagon has generally followed this pattern globally since 2001. But what does "cooperation" mean when one entity dwarfs all others in personnel, resources, and access to decision-makers, while increasingly controlling the very definition of the "threats" to be dealt with.

3. The Pentagon as Arms Dealer: In the Bush years, the Pentagon has aggressively increased its role as the planet's foremost arms dealer, pumping up its weapons sales everywhere it can -- and so seeding the future with war and conflict.

By 2006 (the last year for which full data is available), the United States alone accounted for more than half the world's trade in arms with $14 billion in sales. Noteworthy were a $5 billion deal for F-16s to Pakistan and a $5.8 billion agreement to completely reequip Saudi Arabia's internal security force. U.S. arms sales for 2006 came in at roughly twice the level of any previous year of the Bush administration.

Number two arms dealer Russia registered a comparatively paltry $5.8 billion in deliveries, just over a third of the U.S. arms totals. Ally Great Britain was third at $3.3 billion -- and those three countries account for a whopping 85% of the weaponry sold that year, more than 70% of which went to the developing world.

Great at selling weapons, the Pentagon is slow to report its sales. Arms sales notifications issued by the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) do, however, offer one crude way to the take the Department of Defense's pulse; and, while not all reported deals are finalized, that pulse is clearly racing. Through May of 2008, DSCA had already issued more than $9.1 billion in arms sales notifications including smart bomb kits for Saudi Arabia, TOW missiles for Kuwait, F-16 combat aircraft for Romania, and Chinook helicopters for Canada.

To maintain market advantage, the Pentagon never stops its high-pressure campaigns to peddle weapons abroad. That's why, despite a broken shoulder, Secretary of Defense Gates took to the skies in February, to push weapons systems on countries like India and Indonesia, key growing markets for Pentagon arms dealers.

4. The Pentagon as Intelligence Analyst and Spy: In the area of "intelligence," the Pentagon's expansion -- the commandeering of information and analysis roles -- has been swift, clumsy, and catastrophic.

Tracing the Pentagon's take-over of intelligence is no easy task. For one thing, there are dozens of Pentagon agencies and offices that now collect and analyze information using everything from "humint" (human intelligence) to wiretaps and satellites. The task is only made tougher by the secrecy that surrounds U.S. intelligence operations and the "black budgets" into which so much intelligence money disappears.

But the end results are clear enough. The Pentagon's takeover of intelligence has meant fewer intelligence analysts who speak Arabic, Farsi, or Pashto and more dog-and-pony shows like those four-star generals and three-stripe admirals mouthing administration-approved talking points on cable news and the Sunday morning talk shows.

Intelligence budgets are secret, so what we know about them is not comprehensive -- but the glimpses analysts have gotten suggest that total intelligence spending was about $26 billion a decade ago. After 9/11, Congress pumped a lot of new money into intelligence so that by 2003, the total intelligence budget had already climbed to more than $40 billion.

In 2004, the 9/11 Commission highlighted the intelligence failures of the Central Intelligence Agency and others in the alphabet soup of the U.S. Intelligence Community charged with collecting and analyzing information on threats to the country. Congress then passed an intelligence "reform" bill, establishing the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, designed to manage intelligence operations. Thanks to stiff resistance from pro-military lawmakers, the National Intelligence Directorate never assumed that role, however, and the Pentagon kept control of three key collection agencies -- the National Security Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Agency.

As a result, according to Tim Shorrock, investigative journalist and author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, the Pentagon now controls more than 80% of U.S. intelligence spending, which he estimated at about $60 billion in 2007. As Mel Goodman, former CIA official and now an analyst at the Center for International Policy, observed, "The Pentagon has been the big bureaucratic winner in all of this."

It is such a big winner that CIA Director Michael Hayden now controls only the budget for the CIA itself -- about $4 or 5 billion a year and no longer even gives the President his daily helping of intelligence.

The Pentagon's intelligence shadow looms large well beyond the corridors of Washington's bureaucracies. It stretches across the mountains of Afghanistan as well. After the U.S. invaded that country in 2001, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld recognized that, unless the Pentagon controlled information-gathering and took the lead in carrying out covert operations, it would remain dependent on -- and therefore subordinate to -- the Central Intelligence Agency with its grasp of "on-the-ground" intelligence.

In one of his now infamous memos, labeled "snowflakes" by a staff that watched them regularly flutter down from on high, he asserted that, if the War on Terror was going to stretch far into the future, he did not want to continue the Pentagon's "near total dependence on the CIA." And so Rumsfeld set up a new, directly competitive organization, the Pentagon's Strategic Support Branch, which put the intelligence gathering components of the U.S. Special Forces under one roof reporting directly to him. (Many in the intelligence community saw the office as illegitimate, but Rumsfeld was riding high and they were helpless to do anything.)

As Seymour Hersh, who repeatedly broke stories in the New Yorker on the Pentagon's misdeeds in the Global War on Terror, wrote in January 2005, the Bush administration had already "consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities' strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War II national-security state."

In the rush to invade Iraq, the civilians running the Pentagon also fused the administration's propaganda machine with military intelligence. In 2002, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith established the Office of Special Plans (OSP) in the Pentagon to provide "actionable information" to White House policymakers. Using existing intelligence reports "scrubbed" of qualifiers like "probably" or "may," or sometimes simply fabricated ones, the office was able to turn worst-case scenarios about Saddam Hussein's supposed programs to develop weapons of mass destruction into fact, and then, through leaks, use the news media to validate them.

Former CIA Director Robert Gates, who took over the Pentagon when Donald Rumsfeld resigned in November 2006, has been critical of the Pentagon's "dominance" in intelligence and "the decline in the CIA's central role." He has also signaled his intention to rollback the Pentagon's long intelligence shadow; but, even if he is serious, he will have his work cut out for him. In the meantime, the Pentagon continues to churn out "intelligence" which is, politely put, suspect -- from torture-induced confessions of terrorism suspects to exposés of the Iranian origins of sophisticated explosive devices found in Iraq.

5. The Pentagon as Domestic Disaster Manager: When the deciders in Washington start seeing the Pentagon as the world's problem solver, strange things happen. In fact, in the Bush years, the Pentagon has become the official first responder of last resort in case of just about any disaster -- from tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods to civil unrest, potential outbreaks of disease, or possible biological or chemical attacks. In 2002, in a telltale sign of Pentagon mission creep, President Bush established the first domestic military command since the civil war, the U.S. Northern Command (Northcom). Its mission: the "preparation for, prevention of, deterrence of, preemption of, defense against, and response to threats and aggression directed towards U.S. territory, sovereignty, domestic population, and infrastructure; as well as crisis management, consequence management, and other domestic civil support."

If it sounds like a tall order, it is.

In the last six years, Northcom has been remarkably unsuccessful at anything but expanding its theoretical reach. The command was initially assigned 1,300 Defense Department personnel, but has since grown into a force of more than 15,000. Even criticism only seems to strengthen its domestic role. For example, an April 2008 Government Accountability Office report found that Northcom had failed to communicate effectively with state and local leaders or National Guard units about its newly developed disaster and terror response plans. The result? Northcom says it will have its first brigade-sized unit of military personnel trained to help local authorities respond to chemical, biological, or nuclear incidents by this fall. Mark your calendars.

More than anything else, Northcom has provided the Pentagon with the opening it needed to move forcefully into domestic disaster areas previously handled by national, state and local civilian authorities.

For example, Northcom's deputy director, Brigadier General Robert Felderman, boasts that the command is now the United States's "global synchronizer -- the global coordinator -- for pandemic influenza across the combatant commands." Similarly, Northcom is now hosting annual hurricane preparation conferences and assuring anyone who will listen that it is "prepared to fully engage" in future Katrina-like situations "in order to save lives, reduce suffering and protect infrastructure."

Of course, at present, the Pentagon is the part of the government gobbling up the funds that might otherwise be spent shoring up America's Depression-era public works, ensuring that the Pentagon will have failure aplenty to respond to in the future.

The American Society for Civil Engineers, for example, estimates that $1.6 trillion is badly needed to bring the nation's infrastructure up to protectable snuff, or $320 billion a year for the next five years. Assessing present water systems, roads, bridges, and dams nationwide, the engineers gave the infrastructure a series of C and D grades.

In the meantime, the military is marching in. Katrina, for instance, made landfall on August 29, 2005. President Bush ordered troops deployed to New Orleans on September 2nd to coordinate the delivery of food and water and to serve as a deterrent against looting and violence. Less than a month later, President Bush asked Congress to shift responsibility for major future disasters from state governments and the Department of Homeland Security to the Pentagon.

The next month, President Bush again offered the military as his solution -- this time to global fears about outbreaks of the avian flu virus. He suggested that, to enforce a quarantine, "One option is the use of the military that's able to plan and move."

Already sinking under the weight of its expansion and two draining wars, many in the military have been cool to such suggestions, as has a Congress concerned about maintaining states' rights and civilian control. Offering the military as the solution to domestic natural disasters and flu outbreaks means giving other first responders the budgetary short shrift. It is unlikely, however, that Northcom, now riding the money train, will go quietly into oblivion in the years to come.

6. The Pentagon as Humanitarian Caregiver Abroad: The U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department have traditionally been tasked with responding to disaster abroad; but, from Indonesia's tsunami-ravaged shores to Myanmar after the recent cyclone, natural catastrophe has become another presidential opportunity to "send in the Marines" (so to speak). The Pentagon has increasingly taken up humanitarian planning, gaining an ever larger share of U.S. humanitarian missions abroad.

From Kenya to Afghanistan, from the Philippines to Peru, the U.S. military is also now regularly the one building schools and dental clinics, repairing roads and shoring up bridges, tending to sick children and doling out much needed cash and food stuffs, all civilian responsibilities once upon a time.

The Center for Global Development finds that the Pentagon's share of "official development assistance" -- think "winning hearts and minds" or "nation-building" – has increased from 6% to 22% between 2002 and 2005. The Pentagon is fast taking over development from both the NGO-community and civilian agencies, slapping a smiley face on military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond.

Despite the obvious limitations of turning a force trained to kill and destroy into a cadre of caregivers, the Pentagon's mili-humanitarian project got a big boost from the cash that was seized from Saddam Hussein's secret coffers. Some of it was doled out to local American commanders to be used to deal with immediate Iraqi needs and seal deals in the months after Baghdad fell in April 2003. What was initially an ad hoc program now has an official name -- the Commander Emergency Response Program (CERP) -- and a line in the Pentagon budget.

Before the House Budget Committee last summer, Gordon England, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, told members of Congress that the CERP was a "particularly effective initiative," explaining that the program provided "limited but immediately available funds" to military commanders which they could spend "to make a concrete difference in people's daily lives." This, he claimed, was now a "key part of the broader counter insurgency approach." He added that it served the purpose of "complementing security initiatives" and that it was so successful many commanders consider it "the most powerful weapon in their arsenal."

In fact, the Pentagon doesn't do humanitarian work very well. In Afghanistan, for instance, food packets dropped by U.S. planes were the same color as the cluster munitions also dropped by U.S. planes, while schools and clinics built by U.S. forces often became targets before they could even be put into use. In Iraq, money doled out to the Pentagon'ssectarian-group-of-the-week for wells and generators turned out to be just as easily spent on explosives and AK-47s.

7. The Pentagon as Global Viceroy and Ruler of the Heavens: In the Bush years, the Pentagon finished dividing the globe into military "commands," which are functionally viceroyalties. True, even before 9/11, it was hard to imagine a place on the globe where the United States military was not, but until recently, the continent of Africa largely qualified.

Along with the creation of Northcom, however, the establishment of the U.S. Africa Command (Africom) in 2008 officially filled in the last Pentagon empty spot on the map. A key military document, the 2006 National Security Strategy for the United States, signaled the move, asserting that "Africa holds growing geo-strategic importance and is a high-priority of this administration." (Think: oil and other key raw materials.)

In the meantime, funding for Africa under the largest U.S. military aid program, Foreign Military Financing, doubled from $10 to $20 million between 2000 and 2006, and the number of recipient nations grew from two to 14. Military training funding increased by 35% in that same period (rising from $8.1 million to $11 million). Now, the militaries of 47 African nations receive U.S. training.

In Pentagon planning terms, Africom has unified the continent for the first time. (Only Egypt remains under the aegis of the U.S. Central Command.) According to President Bush, this should "enhance our efforts to bring peace and security to the people of Africa and promote our common goals of development, health, education, democracy, and economic growth in Africa."

Theresa Whelan, assistant secretary of defense for African affairs, continues to insist that Africom has been formed neither to facilitate the fighting of wars ("engaging kinetically in Africa"), nor to divvy up the continent's raw materials in the style of nineteenth century colonialism. "This is not," she says, "about a scramble for the continent." But about one thing there can be no question: It is about increasing the global reach of the Pentagon.

Meanwhile, should the Earth not be enough, there are always the heavens to control. In August 2006, building on earlier documents like the 1998 U.S. Space Command's Vision for 2020 (which called for a policy of "full spectrum dominance"), the Bush administration unveiled its "national space policy." It advocated establishing, defending, and enlarging U.S. control over space resources and argued for "unhindered" rights in space -- unhindered, that is, by international agreements preventing the weaponization of space. The document also asserted that "freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power."

As the document put it, "In the new century, those who effectively utilize space will enjoy added prosperity and security and will hold a substantial advantage over those who do not." (The leaders of China, Russia, and other major states undoubtedly heard the loud slap of a gauntlet being thrown down.) At the moment, the Bush administration's rhetoric and plans outstrip the resources being devoted to space weapons technology, but in the recently announced budget, the President allocated nearly a billion dollars to space-based weapons programs.

Of all the frontiers of expansion, perhaps none is more striking than the Pentagon's sorties into the future. Does the Department of Transportation offer a Vision for 2030? Does the Environmental Protection Agency develop plans for the next fifty years? Does the Department of Health and Human Services have a team of power-point professionals working up dynamic graphics for what services for the elderly will look like in 2050?

These agencies project budgets just around the corner of the next decade. Only the Pentagon projects power and possibility decades into the future, colonizing the imagination with scads of different scenarios under which, each year, it will continue to control hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.

Complex 2030, Vision 2020, UAV Roadmap 2030, the Army's Future Combat Systems – the names, which seem unending, tell the tale.

As the clock ticks down to November 4, 2008, a lot of people are investing hope (as well as money and time) in the possibility of change at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But when it comes to the Pentagon, don't count too heavily on change, no matter who the new president may be. After all, seven years, four months, and a scattering of days into the Bush presidency, the Pentagon is deeply entrenched in Washington and still aggressively expanding. It has developed a taste for unrivaled power and unequaled access to the treasure of this country. It is an institution that has escaped the checks and balances of the nation.

Frida Berrigan is a Senior Program Associate at the New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative. She is a columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus and a contributing editor at In These Times magazine. She is the author of reports on the arms trade and human rights, U.S. nuclear weapons policy, and the domestic politics of U.S. missile defense and space weapons policies. She can be reached at berrigan@newamerica.net.

Copyright 2008 Frida Berrigan

Scandal and Stupidity, Home and Abroad by William Pfaff

Scandal and Stupidity, Home and Abroad

William Pfaff

Paris, May 29, 2008 – The U.S. Defense Department's auditors last week told the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that virtually none of the $8.2 billion disbursed by the U.S. Army to contractors in Iraq was spent according to established federal rules, and little of it now can be accounted for.

Among their examples: a cash payment of $320.8 million made on the basis of an invoice saying "Iraqi salary payment" bearing one signature; $11.1 million paid to an American contractor identified as "IAP" in exchange for a voucher with no indication of what the money was for.

Nearly two billion dollars in frozen Iraqi assets were paid out on pallets of packaged Iraqi currency for no identified reason. An earlier report by the independent federal Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction had already reported that $8.8 billion in Iraq oil money and seized assets could not be accounted for.

All this money was either seized public funds of the Iraqi state and state corporations or American public funds. The Defense Department also made payments overseas of $68.2 million to the United Kingdom, $45.3 million to Poland and $21.3 million to South Korea. The auditors cannot find out what these payments were for.

Please note that we are not talking about the first days after the invasion of Iraq, when money lying about might be expected to disappear in the fog of battle, as they say, or "be liberated." The auditors' work covered the entire period from April 2001 to June 2006.

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington offers as explanation that the Pentagon had allowed itself "to become more and more dependent on contractors in peacetime. We were unprepared to use contractors in wartime, and all of this had an immense impact."

But surely peacetime contractors were expected to identify what the money was for before they were paid? And the payment was not handed over as pallets loaded with bundles of currency taken from another government's vaults, or shrink-wrapped bundles of hundred-dollar bills.


Among the formal payments in Iraq were a U.S. Treasury check in the amount of $5,674,075, written to the Al Kasid Specialized Vehicles Trading Company in Baghdad, for items not described; and $6,268,320.07 went to the contractor Combat Support Associates with no explanation at all.

Let us suppose that all of this money was paid by upright American military officers and civilian officials for real supplies and services honestly furnished, but no one had the time to keep track of where the money was going, or why. And after all, the disappeared $8.2 billion amounts to petty cash in the total expenditure of the war, which now runs into the trillions. What does total irresponsibility and incompetence matter in carrying out a great national undertaking?

"When I was in this man's army," the old veteran complains, "you couldn't get the supply sergeant to issue you a broom without signing a chit in triplicate." On payday the company executive officer who handed out the dollars demanded signatures, and had a cocked .45 pistol on the desk in front of him to deter the larcenous.

In explaining what has happened, I would be inclined to extrapolate from the implication of Cordesman's comment, who follows military matters closely: that privatizing the military services and the wars they fight has not been a good idea. Let us say that it has not produced the predicted efficiencies.

Rather, I would surmise that in addition to benefiting the stockholders of America's great corporations, whose executives play golf with Dick Cheney, it has opened the floodgates of grand and petty chiseling all the way up, and all the way down.

I would go with that explanation were it not for another recent item in the news. It concerned the powerful and ever-alert Homeland Security Department of the U.S. government, created by the Bush administration with great fanfare after 9/11, to amalgamate a dozen or more seemingly functional and reasonably efficient existing federal agencies like the Coast Guard and the FBI into a monstrous and dysfunctional security apparatus.

Its management was confided to Republican political cronies, and it has focused on making mothers traveling with small children and elderly invalids disrobe, throw away their water bottles, shaving tools, nail scissors, reading matter and Milky Ways before boarding airplanes, in order to thwart global terrorism.

The item I saw said that Homeland Security currently refuses to disburse to its state counterparts the full amount of federal money due them until they present plans to protect their states from IEDs.

Yes, IEDs – improvised explosive devices, as in war in Iraq. Rhode Island, Idaho, and Iowa can't have their federal money until they show they are prepared to protect vacation motorists from attack by bands of bearded al Qaeda, planting IEDs along the highways of America.

Aside from the lunatic irrelevance of this demand is the consideration that nobody in Iraq, or in the military-industrial complex, has found a way to reliably identify and disable IEDs. Maybe America's hometown tinkerers and backyard inventors can do it.

However from considering these two reports together, one asks oneself if America in this misbegotten war suffers more from swindlers, large or small, than from bunglers and incompetence. The stupidity at the top that would conceive and launch such a war by now has leaked down, contaminating every aspect of the affair.

© Copyright 2008 by Tribune Media Services International. All Rights Reserved.

Enabling Nuke Proliferation

Enabling Nuke Proliferation
http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=12922

by Gordon Prather Surely you already knew – without reading Scott McClellan's mea culpa – that the Cheney Cabal came to power in January, 2001, determined to firmly establish by any means an American Hegemony, removing or destroying any opposition regimes.

But, how to rationalize to you the absolute necessity for "removing" those pesky regimes? And how to justify to you the use of nukes – if "necessary" – to effect those removals?

Well, within days of the spectacularly successful second attack by al-Qaeda on the World Trade Center Towers, the Cheney Cabal had formulated their game plan.

And in his first State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush, already the self-anointed Commander-in-Chief of the War on Terror, outlined it.

After singling out the pesky regimes then in place in North Korea, Iran and Iraq, Bush declared that –

"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States.

"In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."

For reasons perhaps known only to Bush, himself, within hours of the Twin Towers coming down, he had directed that plans be drawn up to invade and occupy Iraq.

In August 2003, Walter Pincus and Barton Gellman at the Washington Post revealed to you that the White House Iraq Group had been established by President Bush's chief of staff in August 2002, to essentially "market" to you gullible consumers what was – as we now know, thanks to the Downing Street Memos – Bush's impending war of aggression against Iraq.

WHIG – which met weekly in the White House Situation Room – included the president's political adviser Karl Rove, National Security Adviser Condi Rice, her deputy Stephen Hadley, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby, and various congressional-relations and media-relations flacks.

The rationale for the upcoming invasion and occupation of Iraq was to be the (known to be non-existent) threat to you and yours of "mushroom clouds."

Known to be non-existent?

You better believe.

Way back in 1998 the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency had reported to the UN Security Council that

"The verification activities have revealed no indications that Iraq had achieved its programme objective of producing nuclear weapons or that Iraq had produced more than a few grams of weapon-usable nuclear material or had clandestinely acquired such material.

"Furthermore, there are no indications that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production of weapon-usable nuclear material of any practical significance. In February 1994, IAEA completed the removal from Iraq of all weapon-usable nuclear material – essentially research reactor fuel – under IAEA safeguards."

Furthermore, IAEA inspectors continued to visit Iraq at least once each year, including 2002, to verify that nothing had changed; that Iraq was still in compliance with its Safeguards Agreement.

Worse still, every other state the Cheney Cabal had targeted for regime change (because they were allegedly seeking nuclear weapons) were subject to IAEA Safeguards agreements – as required by the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons – and were, at least annually, verified by IAEA inspectors to be in "compliance."

Well, obviously, the entire NPT-based nuke proliferation-prevention regime had to be totally discredited, and Bonkers Bolton – then UnderSecretary of State for Non-Proliferation and later Acting Ambassador to the United Nations – was the Cheney Cabal designated "point man."

The NPT-based regime had three major components.

First, there was the Treaty itself, which required all signatories not already having nukes to negotiate a Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA "for the exclusive purpose" of ensuring that no weapons-grade plutonium or uranium ever got diverted to a military purpose.

The NPT, itself, has no enforcement mechanism.

Second, there was the IAEA, established within the United Nations, with a primary mission of facilitating "the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world."

But the IAEA was also charged with ensuring "so far as it is able" that no materials or activities subject to IAEA Safeguards agreements were ever used to "further a military purpose."

Now, the IAEA Statute does provide an enforcement mechanism. The IAEA is to report to the UN Security Council any such "diversions."

Third, there was the Security Council, which under Article 39 of the UN Charter is empowered to "determine" whether there exists "any threat to the peace." Having made such a determination in accord with Article 40, the Council is then to decide what measures "shall" be taken in accordance with either Article 41 – which cannot involve the use of force – or Article 42, which can.

Bonkers Bolton's legacy is that he has thoroughly undermined the NPT and the UN Charter, by strong-arming and corrupting both the IAEA Board of Governors and the Security Council itself.

In the case of Iran, Director-General ElBaradei has consistently reported to the IAEA Board that he can find "no indication" that any NPT-proscribed materials have ever been "diverted" to any purpose, military or otherwise.

Therefore, the IAEA Board is acting corruptly, contrary to its own Statute, when it repeatedly requires Iran to essentially "prove" to ElBaradei that it does not have a nuclear weapons program, never had a nuclear weapons program, and does not intend to ever have a nuclear weapons program.

Similarly, the Security Council is acting corruptly, contrary to the UN Charter, when it imposes Article 41 sanctions on Iran without ever making a determination under Article 39 that Iran's IAEA Safeguarded uranium-enrichment program constitutes a "threat to the peace"!

Such sanctions to remain in force until Iran satisfies ElBaradei that it does not have, never had, and never intends to have a nuclear weapons program. Talk about Mission Impossible.

Nevertheless, contrary to what you may have seen "reported" in the so-called Mainstream Media, ElBaradei's report of 26 May to the IAEA Board and the Security Council begins by noting that

"The Agency has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran. Iran has provided the Agency with access to declared nuclear material and has provided the required nuclear material accountancy reports in connection with declared nuclear material and activities."

Were there any surprises in ElBaradei's still "confidential" report?

Yes, there was this; you remember that 15-page document the IAEA found while searching through Iran's files, which, among other things, sketched a process for casting uranium-metal into "hemispheres"? The Iranians claimed that document must have been included amongst many other documents supplied them, gratis, in association with their purchase of drawings of Pakistan's second generation gas-centrifuges.

Well, guess what. In response to a formal request by ElBaradei, Pakistan has confirmed "that an identical document exists in Pakistan."

Mr. Kinzer Goes to Washington, Seeking Real Diplomacy with Iran

It's not about who will meet with whom. It's about whether, and under
what circumstances, the United States will countenance the enrichment
of uranium on Iranian soil; and whether and when the United States
will accept that Iran is a regional power that the U.S. can't simply
push around.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/mr-kinzer-goes-to-washing_b_104392.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/30/171613/737

Mr Market combats the Taliban

CHAN AKYA
Mr Market combats the Taliban
Reduced opium production in Afghanistan as a result of soaring wheat prices points the way both for the conduct of war in poor countries, and perhaps more importantly, handling emerging environmental issues. Change that is led by the markets will prove more sustainable than any that's thrust by war. (May 30, '08)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JE31Df02.html

US terror drive stalled in political quagmire

US terror drive stalled in political quagmire
With rumors swirling in Pakistan that President Pervez Musharraf is about to step down, and the two leading parties in the ruling coalition at odds, the country's efforts in the United States-led "war on terror" have all but ceased. Across the border in Afghanistan, Taliban-related developments have also taken a turn away from US designs. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (May 30, '08)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JE31Df01.html

How the Pentagon shapes the world

DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
How the Pentagon shapes the world

This may be the most important American story of the new century: the Pentagon's massive expansion on just about every front during US President George W Bush's two terms in office. On seven major fronts, the Pentagon has expanded its power and its powers, nationally and globally. These include the Pentagon as budget buster, diplomat, arms dealer, intelligence analyst and spy, domestic disaster manager, humanitarian caregiver, and global viceroy as well as ruler of the heavens. And it is still aggressively expanding. - Frida Berrigan (May 30, '08)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JE31Df04.html

In the Driver's Seat: Condoleezza Rice and the jettisoning of the Bush Doctrine by Stephen Hayes, The Weekly Standard

In which our president is accused of attempting reality-based diplomacy....

The Weekly Standard



In the Driver's Seat
Condoleezza Rice and the jettisoning of the Bush Doctrine.
by Stephen F. Hayes
06/02/2008, Volume 013, Issue 36


Shortly before 10 A.M. on October 9, 2006, George W. Bush read a statement from the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House. He fixed his face to look resolute. The previous day, in spite of its many promises over many years to discontinue its nuclear program, North Korea had tested a nuclear weapon.

"The United States condemns this provocative act," Bush declared. "Once again North Korea has defied the will of the international community, and the international community will respond."

The American response came three weeks later, on October 31, when Christopher Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and the government's chief negotiator on North Korea's nuclear program, met privately in Beijing with Kim Gye Gwan, North Korea's deputy foreign minister. The meeting itself was a major concession. Although Hill's boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, had given him wide latitude for his negotiations she had not authorized a one-on-one meeting. The North Koreans had been pushing for bilateral negotiations with the United States since the beginning of the Bush administration. The president had repeatedly and categorically rejected any direct talks with the North Koreans.

In fact, he had reiterated this position at a press conference on October 11:

And my point to you is, in order to solve this diplomatically, the United States and our partners must have a strong diplomatic hand, and you have a better diplomatic hand with others sending the message than you do when you're alone. And so, obviously, I made the decision that the bilateral negotiations wouldn't work, and the reason I made that decision is because they didn't.

In order to facilitate discussions with the North Koreans Bush had agreed in 2003 to participate in multilateral negotiations, the so-called "six-party talks." Administration officials say the president was as clear in private White House conversations as he had been at his press conference: The United States would deal with this problem multilaterally. There would be no bilateral talks with North Korea.

Christopher Hill didn't care. He had been authorized to meet with the North Koreans on the condition that the Chinese representative was also present. But when the Chinese diplomat conveniently left for an extended period of time, Hill continued the talks. The North Koreans wanted the United States to ease the financial pressures resulting from year-old sanctions on a bank in Macau involved in shady North Korean transactions. Hill gave them his word.

"The [North Koreans were] especially concerned that we address the situation of the financial measures that has, in their view, held up the talks for about a year now," Hill said following his meetings. "We agreed that we could--that we will find a mechanism within the six-party process to address these financial measures, that we would--it would probably be some kind of a working group to deal with this, and that we would try to address it that way."

Hill did not receive--indeed, did not ask for--any assurances that North Korea would refrain from conducting further tests. He did, however, get the North Koreans to return to the six-party talks. Hill characterized the meetings as "positive" and "very constructive." He seemed to be particularly encouraged that the North Koreans had reaffirmed their commitment "to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." But in a passing acknowledgment that the nuclear test three weeks earlier might have undermined the claim, Hill conceded that he was not yet ready to celebrate. "I have not broken out the cigars and champagne quite yet, believe me."

While the North Koreans did return to the six-party talks in December, they were not willing to cut any deals. From the outset they made clear that they were interested only in talking about easing the financial pressure that Hill had promised to address.

In January, Hill quietly set up another informal bilateral meeting with the North Koreans, this time with the blessing of his boss. Planning for the meeting, and for other aspects of North Korea policymaking, was limited to a small number of officials sympathetic to the softer line favored by Hill and Rice. Vice President Dick Cheney opposed the bilateral talks. He was joined by several key staffers on the National Security Council, at the Pentagon, and at the State Department. But "the North Korea process has been run outside the normal interagency," says a senior Bush administration official involved in the issue. Compared to other national security issues, this official says, the North Korea "policy does not get subjected to the same level of questioning in front of the president."

In a May 9, 2008, interview, Rice denied to me that she deliberately closed the circle of presidential advisers on North Korea. "I don't cut out people of my team," she said. "Anything that I've done with the president, I've done with [national security adviser] Steve Hadley, the vice president, and now, Bob Gates. So this has been very much an administration effort."

But confirmation of this gambit came from a reliable--if unexpected--source: Chris Hill. The busy diplomat made time to talk to Mike Chinoy, a former CNN reporter, forMeltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis, a book to be published in August. Chinoy had access to many of the key characters in the drama that has unfolded over more than a decade. Despite his consistent condemnations of the U.S. government for its failure to be more conciliatory and his attempts to rationalize North Korean irrationality, Chinoy's book is very well sourced and impeccably reported. And though Hill is portrayed sympathetically, the narrative is unintentionally damning.

"To Hill, the Bush administration was still full of people who were opposed to negotiations, and who felt the mere act of speaking with foreigners displayed weakness," writes Chinoy. "So the leading hardliners--Vice President Cheney's office, the office of the secretary of defense, Robert Joseph, the outgoing undersecretary for arms control--were kept in the dark." According to Hill, documentation of the policy deliberations was discouraged, and in some cases the demands for secrecy originated with Rice. "Some of the minimal paperwork business is coming directly from the secretary," Hill told Chinoy. "She said, 'Bring it only to me.' "

But Rice did more than just approve Hill's proposal for another bilateral meeting with his North Korean counterparts. She took it directly to George W. Bush and sought to persuade him to reverse his unequivocal and very public rejection of such direct talks just three months earlier.

It worked. The president changed his mind. So three months after Bush threatened serious consequences for North Korea's continued intransigence, Hill and his team feted their North Korean counterparts with "friendly toasts" at a dinner in a private room at the Hilton Hotel in Berlin. "We pulled out all of the stops," a member of Hill's team told Chinoy, "because we wanted to demonstrate we were serious and sincere."

In many ways, George W. Bush's reluctant acceptance of bilateral talks with the North Koreans is the story of the latter half of his presidency.

Bush began his second term with the kind of bold, uncompromising vision that had characterized his first four years in office. The ultimate goal of U.S. policy, he proclaimed in his second inaugural address, is "ending tyranny in our world." Bush said: "My most solemn duty is to protect this nation and its people against further attacks and emerging threats. Some have unwisely chosen to test America's resolve, and have found it firm."

But that speech is better understood in retrospect as a coda to his first term than a bridge to the current one. In the second term, those who have chosen to test America's resolve--the Iranians, the Syrians, the North Koreans--have often found it less than firm.

There are several reasons for this. Most obviously, the effects of the war in Iraq. At first, the ripple effects from that intervention seemed to have been what the Bush team predicted. Just as the fall of Baghdad after three weeks demonstrated the dominance of American military power, the decision to remove Saddam Hussein indicated the willingness of George W. Bush to make good on his threats. Syria's Bashar al-Assad, worried that he would be next, authorized his intelligence services to increase their assistance to the CIA. Libya's Muammar Qaddafi voluntarily gave up his own WMD programs, telling Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi that he did not want to be the next Saddam Hussein. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak hinted at more open elections, and there were municipal elections in Saudi Arabia. But the troubles in Iraq mounted--from the intelligence failures on weapons of mass destruction to the continued presence of more than 100,000 U.S. troops--and seemed to limit the Bush administration's options.

So Bush has lowered his expectations and, more than three years later, has mostly abandoned the tough-guy rhetoric that characterized his first term. No one has played a larger role in this shift than Condoleezza Rice, who has been the most influential member of Bush's foreign policy and national security team since her promotion to the post of chief diplomat. "Her influence on the president is total," says one senior Bush administration official.

In a Foreign Affairs article she authored back in 2000 as a representative of the Bush presidential campaign, Rice criticized the Clinton administration for a foreign policy so obsessed with diplomacy that it seemed to disregard U.S. national interests. "Multilateral agreements and institutions should not be ends in themselves," she warned. Today, her critics claim that Rice has lost sight of her own admonition. "We have gone from a policy of preemption to a policy of preemptive capitulation," says a disillusioned State Department official.

Rice began the first term at a disadvantage among the members of Bush's national security team. Cheney, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld each brought decades of foreign policy and national security experience at the highest levels of U.S. government. Rice, a Russia specialist, came to the administration from Stanford University, where she was provost. She was a distinguished academic, but her highest level of government service came when she served on the staff of the National Security Council under George H.W. Bush.

But September 11, 2001, blurred such distinctions. After the service at the National Cathedral on September 14, 2001, Rice flew by helicopter to Camp David with Rumsfeld to join Powell and Cheney. Bush had suggested that this group--Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Rice--spend the evening discussing the coming war and the challenges they would face together. They started over buffalo steak and continued for hours.

"We had dinner together, and there was a kind of, you know, it was a kind of sense that these were people who had been together before, you know, they'd seen a lot together before, but they hadn't seen this," Rice recalled to me in an interview in August 2006.

This was different, and it was palpable in the room, in the conversation. It wasn't so much anything was spoken, because it was sharing stories about the Gulf War, sharing stories--but you could just .  .  . I think I could sense there was .  .  . I'm trying to find the right word. Tension isn't the right word, but anxiety. Anxiety."

I asked about her place in the group, and whether she felt left out because Cheney, Powell, and Rumsfeld knew each other well. She cut me off before I could finish the question.

I'd been through the collapse of the Soviet Union. You know, that's not bad. No, in fact, remember that I had--he had--the vice president had been secretary of defense when I was a special assistant to Bush 41 and Colin Powell had been chairman. Don and I have known each other for years, going back to Republican politics in Chicago and some corporate work. So, no. Not at all. But I was--you know, I'm a generation younger and so I was sort of standing out--well, maybe not a full generation [she laughed and corrected herself], half a generation, half a generation. So yeah, I stood back a little bit from it to kind of observe it.

Rice was not a bystander in the administration deliberations in the weeks and months after 9/11, but she did little to shape the major decisions that came in response. She was, in effect, a referee mediating the now-legendary disputes that featured on one side Powell, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and the State bureaucracy, and, on the other, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and the Pentagon bureaucracy. (In reality, of course, the sides did not always line up quite as neatly as the early narrative histories would suggest. There were plenty of times when, say, Cheney and Rumsfeld disagreed, and many more when Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz found themselves on opposite sides of one strategic decision or another. Rice, though, was almost always the referee.)

Part of this was a function of her job; the national security adviser runs the process. But according to several officials who worked with her, Rice had a deep insecurity about her own views. Several current and former colleagues criticized her management, accusing her of trying to find agreement among senior officials where there was none. "One day there would be a fight about something and the next day she would say there was an 'emerging consensus.' But it was a false consensus. She tried to protect the president by keeping him from making hard decisions and overruling his advisers. That's what a president does."

Rice, though, grew increasingly close to Bush. Their professional relationship blossomed into a warm personal friendship. Unmarried and without close family, Rice often spends holidays and weekends with George and Laura Bush. No one in the Bush administration has socialized with the president as much as Rice. "She was at Camp David nearly every weekend they were there," says an administration official.

Bush is comfortable around Rice. He will raise his voice to her in a way that he would never consider with Robert Gates or Cheney. "It's almost like a platonic boyfriend-girlfriend relationship," says one close observer. "It's very emotional." Rice showed a knack for anticipating where Bush would end up on an issue and getting there first, in effect advising him to do what he was almost certain to do. "She was a mirror," says an official who worked closely with her.

On January 18, 2005, Rice sat calm and poised at a long table before more than a dozen U.S. senators arrayed in a semicircle in front of her. Two months earlier, the president had nominated her to be secretary of state. The crowd in the hearing room--216 of the Hart Senate office building--was standing room only. After a brief introduction from then-Senate Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Richard Lugar, a much longer series of extemporaneous remarks from Joseph Biden, and an effusive endorsement from Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein from California, it was finally Rice's turn to talk.

It was a difficult balance. She had to defend President Bush, and most especially his decision to remove Saddam Hussein--a decision that was increasingly unpopular. She needed to demonstrate an understanding that the war was not going well but, as a member of the national security team responsible, be careful about giving ammunition to critics of the president. She gave a masterful performance, displaying a strong grasp of the issues she was likely to face and offering a spirited defense of the Bush administration and her role in it.

"The time for diplomacy is now," she declared, articulating each word carefully for emphasis. (It was not the only time she would use the phrase.) It was a clever message, open to different interpretations. One thing, however, was not ambiguous: Rice intended to signal a new American attitude toward the world and coming changes in the way the Bush administration would conduct foreign policy. She had added the words to her opening statement herself, and it is clear that she meant them.

When asked about the accomplishments of her time as secretary, Rice demurs, saying it's too early for judgments. "I think we'll wait until we're done to see where we end up," she says.

Pressed for three areas of improvement, Rice begins with the big picture and moves to specifics. "I think we have changed dramatically both the alignment in the Middle East and the expectations of what the Middle East should be and will be," she says. "I would be the first to say that we won't be able to deliver the fully formed, different Middle East. But I think what's expected of it and where it's headed is fundamentally different than when we came. And it's been turbulent and it's been difficult. But when I hear people talking about the stable Middle East that we've disrupted, I have to ask them, 'What stability was that?' "

She goes on,

I think we have stronger relations with Japan, South Korea than we've ever had, and yet a working relationship with China despite differences, and through the six-party talks, a mechanism for cooperation on what could have been an area of conflict between the powers. I just think we're at a very strong position in Northeast Asia.

And finally, I think that the administration's work on--I'll give you two more--Africa. I think it's extraordinary, the transformation of the relationship there. And finally, NATO. I think this is just a different alliance. Our European--our relations with our European allies are--traditional allies, are very good. And I think they weren't in 2005. And--but as importantly, I think we've--through the continuous policy of enlargement of NATO, now 12 of the 26 NATO members are former captive nations, and it has fundamentally transformed the nature of the alliance.

Is the improvement in our relations with our European allies due to the fact that we have pursued more conciliatory--some might say, more European--diplomatic policies since the beginning of her tenure? Rice sees more continuity than change. "The first term set up what we've been able to do in the second term."

Among the first challenges for the new secretary of state and her new diplomacy in the second term was an old problem: Iraq. "I know people didn't like the fact that we liberated Iraq," she said to me in May. "It was the right thing to do. But in 2005, we weren't dealing with questions of whether we should have liberated Iraq; we were dealing with questions of how to help the political transition in Iraq and reintegrate Iraq into the international system."

Getting support from erstwhile U.S. allies on Iraq proved difficult. And although the Iraqis held three successful elections in 2005 and began to stumble their way towards democracy, the worsening security problems there meant that the State Department necessarily played a secondary role to the Pentagon. While State was in the process of establishing a huge presence in Baghdad, across Iraq the uniformed military were America's de facto diplomats.

In 2006, faced with mounting security problems and increasing ethnic violence among Iraqis, President Bush began to consider a wholesale change of strategy in Iraq. Proposals ranged from a reduction and redeployment of troops mostly outside of Iraq (not unlike the plan pushed by several Democrats) to a "surge" of troops to Iraq and significant changes in the mission. Cheney favored the surge; Rice did not.

Several current and former Bush administration officials say that Rice opposed the surge and favored a reduction in U.S. troops in Iraq. In interagency deliberations Rice frequently suggested the surge would do little more than antagonize Bush's allies--domestic and foreign--and result in higher casualties. Philip Zelikow, a top aide to Rice and former State Department counselor, circulated a strategy paper that proposed among other things reducing U.S. troop presence and pulling back from urban areas.

I recently asked Rice if she opposed the surge and advocated a pullback of American troops.

First of all--look, I have never been in favor of pulling back any--pulling ourselves back from Iraq. Look, I am fundamentally a believer in what we did in Iraq. I believe we did the right thing. I believe we have to win. I believe we are winning. The question that I've had--that I had at the time when we were looking at different options, because what we were doing in Iraq was not working, was if we were going to have more forces, what were they going to do?

If there was going to be a surge, what were they going to do? And, could we define our national interest clearly enough that we knew that additional American forces would be successful? Because I did believe that if we surged forces and it didn't make an effect--didn't have an effect, that that was a very, very bad thing.

Pressed on whether it was inaccurate to say that she was opposed to the surge, she responded:

I had a lot of questions about the surge. I was initially skeptical as to whether or not we could surge American forces and what would it mean to deliver population security. I'll have to say that when .  .  . when, you know, Ray Odierno, who I knew well--he had worked with me--and Dave Petraeus were .  .  . believed that we could do it that was very affirming to me. And I then spent most of my time trying to figure out how we could surge civilians and turn this building around to actually support on the civilian side. But yeah, I had a lot of questions about whether we should surge forces. A lot.

On January 10, 2007, in a national address from the White House library, Bush announced the surge. The failure to secure Baghdad, he said, came because there were not enough U.S. troops and too many restrictions on the ones there. Bush told the nation that he would be sending 20,000 additional troops--five brigades--to Iraq. It is one of the few major policy battles Rice has lost during the second term. But by then Rice had other equally pressing priorities: resolving the nuclear standoffs with North Korea and Iran and pushing forward on the creation of a Palestinian state.

Trying to broker Middle East peace is of course something that secretaries of state do almost as a matter of course as their time in office comes to an end. But by taking on the diplomatic challenges presented by North Korea and Iran, Rice was revisiting issues that had generated some of George W. Bush's most uncompromising positions of the first term, expressed in some of his most aggressive rhetoric. It took a war to eliminate the threat presented by the first member of the "axis of evil," and five years later American troops are still fighting to allow Iraqis to consolidate that victory. Rice's ambitious objective was to handle the remaining two-thirds of that ignominious group with words.

Bush had accompanied his warning about the "axis of evil" with a solemn pledge. "The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons," he vowed. "Time is not on our side," he cautioned.

In the race to prevent Iran and North Korea from going nuclear, nothing is more important than time. And six years is a lot of time. In the period since Bush made those comments there has been a seemingly endless series of multilateral negotiations aimed at retarding these programs or ending them altogether. There has been the EU-3, the P-5+1, the six-party talks, and numerous other ad hoc negotiating partnerships. And while these have undeniably made efforts more difficult for both rogue states, the fact is that six years after Bush's speech, North Korea is a nuclear power and Iran is either on the brink, if you believe the Israelis and the French, or making substantial progress, if you believe the CIA.

In both cases, despite our increasingly desperate attempts to convince them to take these negotiations seriously, their behavior became more provocative. And in each case, the State Department has gone out of its way to avoid dealing with these provocations lest they jeopardize our diplomacy.

Iran has been arming, equipping, and training insurgents in Iraq. Their support for anti-coalition forces began before the war, when they allowed foreign fighters to transit freely between Iran and northern Iraq. For the last two years, the U.S. military has been laying out evidence of Iranian terrorist activity in Iraq. The State Department, too, has accused Iran of supporting terrorism that is killing American soldiers. "The Iranians are supplying very sophisticated IED technology to Shia insurgent and Shia terrorist groups that has, in turn, been used against American and British soldiers, and has led to the death of some of our soldiers over the last six to eight months," said Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, the department's third-ranking official, back in October 2006.

These are, of course, acts of war. But, while State Department officials have joined the rest of the Bush administration in publicizing the Iranian activity, there have been few signs that the Iranians are paying a price for killing our soldiers. For the most part, the Bush administration has been content to decouple Iran's support for terror--in Iraq and more broadly--from its pursuit of nuclear weapons, to make a "distinction between terrorists and those who knowingly harbor or provide aid to them" that the president said in 2002 we would never make.

At a speech in Davos in January 2008, Rice made sharp distinctions.

We have no conflict with Iran's people, but we have real differences with Iran's government--from its support for terrorism, to its destabilizing policies in Iraq, to its pursuit of technologies that could lead to a nuclear weapon.

Although she listed three "real differences" with the Iranian regime, she suggested such differences might be manageable and offered the prospect of a "new, more normal relationship" if Iran would address just one of them.

Should Iran suspend its uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities--which is an international demand, not just an American one--we could begin negotiations, and we could work over time to build a new, more normal relationship--one defined not by fear and mistrust, but growing cooperation, expanding trade and exchange, and the peaceful management of our differences.

In our recent interview, I asked her directly if we would negotiate with Iran even while they are killing American soldiers in Iraq.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD: President Bush said in September of 2001, we will not negotiate with terrorists, you're either with us or against us. And we are now negotiating with the state that you called the central banker of terror?

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, and they are. And the good thing is we're doing something about it. Because by designating Bank Sepah and Bank Melli and the Quds Force and the IRGC and looking at what their central bank is doing, not only did we declare them the central bank for terrorism, we're treating them like it. And we have been really tough on designating their banks and it's causing them enormous problems in the international financial system.

So one of the lead elements of our policy that Treasury and State worked out together is that they will not use the international financial system for ill-gotten gains of terrorism. We're not actually negotiating with them. You know, we have a minimal contact between Ryan Crocker and his counterpart in Iraq, where we let them know exactly what we think about what they're doing and where we've delivered the message on a number of occasions that their people will not be safe in Iraq if they're trying to kill our soldiers. And we've acted on it, which is why the Quds Force commander, for instance, who was picked up in Irbil, is a real victory for that policy. And . . .

TWS: What other ways have we acted on that, would you say?

RICE: Well, those are two very major ways. But we have gotten three Security Council resolutions against them, which doesn't permit the Iranian--you know, part of this is that you don't want the Iranian people to feel like this is aimed at them. And so the fact that there are three Security Council resolutions, deprives the Iranian government, the Iranian regime, of the argument that this is just the United States hostile toward Iran and its great culture. And we say, no, this is the world, not against Iran and the Iranian people, but against that horrible regime that's oppressing its own people. And so we're not negotiating with them. We're acting. We will negotiate with them if they suspend their enrichment and reprocessing activities and start down a different road. But--

TWS: That's irrespective of whether they're continuing to support insurgents in Iraq?

RICE: Well, we've said we would talk about everything, all right. But talking about--

TWS: But if they're killing--sorry to interrupt.

RICE: Yes.

TWS: If they're killing our soldiers? I mean, you know, when I was listening to the president in September of 2001, the last thing I thought--not to minimize the importance of what we're doing financially--huge--but the last thing I thought was that we'd be sitting across the table from them saying, "Please don't kill our soldiers."

RICE: We're not saying, "Please don't kill our soldiers." We're saying, "Don't kill our soldiers or your people won't be safe in Iraq." That's a slightly different message. And not only are we saying that, we're doing it.

TWS: Are there other examples besides the capture in Irbil where we are saying to Iran not only don't do this, but, "Here are the consequences. Look, you can see the consequences"?

RICE: Well, there are lots of consequences, I mean, many of which, of course, happen in military operations that I'm not going to talk about. But we're on the hunt for them all the time.

Iran was not the only rogue state eager to test the Bush administration. For more than a decade, North Korea has been developing nuclear weapons and lying to the world about it. Each new supposed "deal" with the North Koreans results in real concessions from the West--fuel oil, food aid, and the like--and phony concessions from the regime of Kim Jong Il. The Clinton administration worked under "The Agreed Framework," a deal that delivered generous assistance in exchange for North Korea shutting down its plutonium efforts at a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and submitting to monitoring and verification from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Agreed Framework fell apart in 2002 when the U.S. confronted North Korea about the fact that it had launched a clandestine effort to enrich uranium, a program that had existed for years without detection. It was not North Korea's only clandestine operation.

In April 2007, the director of national intelligence called the ranking members of congressional intelligence and foreign affairs committees in for a meeting. They were not told what was on the agenda--a fact that suggested it was serious. It was.

Despite strong warnings from the United States in the past, the North Koreans had provided assistance to Syria in its efforts to build a nuclear reactor. Information was sketchy, but the facility looked to be modeled after the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon and construction appeared to be in advanced stages. There was no question that the North Koreans were at least sharing nuclear technology with the Syrians. The congressional leaders were told to keep the information "close hold" and forbidden from sharing it with their colleagues on the intelligence and foreign affairs committees. They agreed, and over the course of the summer attended additional briefings.

Bush administration officials were divided about what, if anything, to do in response. The Israelis communicated a strong inclination to take out the Syrian facility that heightened the disagreements on Bush's national security team. Rice was concerned about the diplomatic consequences of approving a preemptive strike. Cheney, who once signed a photograph to Israeli general David Ivri thanking him for taking out Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, favored it.

On September 6, 2007, Israeli jets bombed the Syrian facility. The initial news reports were maddeningly vague and very few people understood what had happened and why. Inside the U.S. government, the debate intensified. The congressional leaders who had been briefed on the program wanted to learn more about the strikes and wanted to be able to share what they knew with their colleagues. Bush administration officials, however, continued to insist that the information be restricted to the small group that had been previously briefed.

In internal deliberations, Hill and Rice, concerned that public disclosure of North Korea's involvement could derail the six-party talks, argued for keeping the information secret. Stephen Hadley, Rice's former deputy and current national security adviser, broke the news to the lawmakers.

Two of the Republicans who had been briefed, Representatives Peter Hoekstra and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, took the unprecedented step of venting their frustrations in the pages of theWall Street Journal. They opened the article by noting that the State Department had been publicly touting its diplomatic progress with North Korea. Then they wrote:

Early last month, Israel conducted an airstrike against a facility in northern Syria that press reports have linked to nuclear programs by North Korea, Iran or other rogue states. If this event proves that Syria acquired nuclear expertise or material from North Korea, Iran or other rogue states, it would constitute a grave threat to international security for which Syria and any other involved parties must be held accountable.

Their language tracked closely with the warning Bush had given the North Koreans immediately after their nuclear test in 2006. "The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or nonstate entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States," Bush had said, "and we would hold North Korea fully accountable." When I asked Rice about this on May 9, I started by making the simple observation that we're in the middle of some pretty intense times with North Korea. The previous day, the Wall Street Journal editorial page had criticized Rice on North Korea. She jumped in before I could ask a question.

Let me--let me just start by saying I have not lost my understanding of the North Korean regime. Okay? Nobody believes that this is a regime that you can believe. The question is: Is this a regime that, under the right set of incentives and disincentives, is prepared to make some fundamental choices about its nuclear program that would ultimately put the United States and the rest of the world in a safer position vis-à-vis the Korean Peninsula and, most importantly, vis-à-vis proliferation? That's the question.

The U.S. continues to ship massive amounts of fuel oil to North Korea, under the agreement that shut down the Yongbyon reactor, while the State Department attempts to coax further cooperation by raising the possibility that sanctions on North Korea imposed through the "Trading with the Enemy Act" might be lifted and that North Korea could be taken off the list of countries that sponsor terror, a move that would open the doors to billions in aid and loans with the potential to breathe life into the anemic North Korean economy.

We are sending other conciliatory messages, too. Earlier this year, the State Department helped make arrangements for the New York Philharmonic to perform in Pyongyang, an unprecedented bit of cultural diplomacy with Kim Jong Il's regime. And just last week, the United States announced 500 metric tons of food aid to North Korea.

But what about proliferation and the full accountability President Bush threatened after North Korea's nuclear test? Will they be punished? Rice says that while they've been worried for a long time about North Korea's nuclear proliferation, she is looking forward.

The issue there is what kind of mechanism are we going to use to prevent further circumstances like that or to learn whether there might be other circumstances like that. And, frankly, I would rather have the Chinese and the South Koreans in the room on a verification mechanism. And so my trip to Beijing, my last trip to Beijing, was actually to say to the Chinese we have a problem because the North Koreans have been doing something very bad; and if we're going to move forward in the six-party framework, you, China, are going to have to work with us on verification of proliferation activities, monitoring of verification--monitoring, and, presumably, acting if something is wrong. And that's why we're setting up a monitoring and verification working group for the six-party talks, in addition to the other things we've done like the PSI, Proliferation Security Initiatives.

While these issues are not insignificant, to many analysts they reflect the myopia of diplomats so eager for a deal that they are missing the big picture. "In the six-party talks we are ready to declare preemptive victory without any serious change in North Korea's direction, including on nuclear weapons and programs, proliferation, and human rights or wrongs," says David Asher, former coordinator of the State Department's North Korea Working Group. "A declaration that only tells us what we already know--perhaps because someone has coached them on what to say--is worthless, as is a deal that looks past the existential threats that matter most to our security--weapons, proliferation, and clandestine production."

And Pete Hoekstra, the vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, still has lots of questions. "If they're proliferating to Syria, who else? Where else could there be a North Korea-designed reactor that we don't know about? What else might North Korea be doing?"

A senior Republican in the House says the Bush administration is too focused on getting a deal and offers this blunt assessment: "We've been down this road before--Clinton did it, now Bush is doing it. It doesn't seem to matter for the State Department. These are legacy deals, and legacy deals are bad deals."

There are times that the president seems to understand this. One of those moments came back on October 11, 2006, at a press conference after the North Korean nuclear test. Bush was defending his commitment to diplomacy and spoke of the need to work with allies. When "dangerous regimes" fail to honor their prior commitments or serially reject generous offers to strike new ones, he said, "It ought to say to all the world that we're dealing with people that maybe don't want peace."

Rice believes we are now in the early stages of a new, important historical moment, not unlike the one that came with the end of the Cold War. "I was lucky enough the last time around to be here at the end of a big, historical transformation," she says. "And of course, it's very heartening, and heady even, to complete the liberation of Eastern Europe or complete the unification of Germany or, ultimately, complete the collapse of the Soviet Union. But you recognize the foundation for that was laid in the 1940s."

The Bush administration is pursuing policies now, she says, that will lay the groundwork for big things to come. "I tend to think of foreign policy, particularly when you're at the beginning of a big, historical transformation, as being something" where you try to lay "a foundation rather than trying to complete." The question remains, with Iran's nuclear ambitions unchecked, with North Korea a successful nuclear blackmailer, with Hezbollah's success in Lebanon and Hamas's in Gaza, with authoritarians like Chávez and Putin and Hu Jintao flourishing, with mass murder unchecked in Sudan and democracy thwarted in Zimbabwe: a foundation for what?

Stephen F. Hayes, a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD, is the author ofCheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President(HarperCollins).
© Copyright 2008, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

The Case for Nukes

The Case for Nukes

A solution to the energy crisis has been under our nose for decades.
By Elizabeth Spiers, contributor

nukes.03.jpg
Interactive map:
Power Trip

See the stops along the author's route, as he toured America's nuclear plants.
Go to map
NRG: Nuclear is the way to govideo
NRG: Nuclear is the way to go

(Fortune Magazine) -- When Goldman Sachs analysts suggested last week that oil could hit $200 a barrel, I expected someone somewhere to express horror at the possibility. But the reaction was a tiny, resignation-filled sigh. Relentless fuel-price increases have so exhausted consumers that we don't have the energy to be outraged anymore. So we feel helpless as we watch oil sprint past the $130 mark on its way to price-prohibitive territory and wonder whether it's too late to bring back the horse and buggy. Our sense of helplessness is an illusion: There are things we can do. We got ourselves into this mess, mostly through multiple administrations of politically comfortable but shortsighted decision-making. And inasmuch as we're willing to stand a little political discomfort, we can get ourselves out.

One uncomfortable way to mitigate the energy crisis has been under our nose since the 1950s: nuclear energy. It's one of the cleanest and most efficient alternatives to coal- and natural-gas-based electricity production, and it's responsible for less than 20% of domestic electricity production. The most recent numbers (2006) indicate that coal-based production was the largest contributor, at 48%. Increasingly expensive petroleum and natural gas account for 22%. All three are replaceable.

It may not be fashionable to suggest that the French know what they're doing with regard to anything but wine and cheese, but spend some time in Provence and note the remarkably clean air and cheap electricity, 75% of which is produced by nuclear power plants. Most of the plants were built after the 1970s oil shocks that sent France's economy into a tailspin because it was almost completely dependent on foreign oil, as we are now. Nuclear energy doesn't produce the air pollution that burning coal does, and even waste products are recyclable, though it hasn't been done thanks to an also potentially shortsighted Carter-era decision to ban it over fears of nuclear terrorism.

Although the ban has been reversed, the fears still linger. But irrational fear of improbable safety breaches is responsible for most opposition to nuclear power in this country. The unlikely culprit? Pop culture. We've seen "The China Syndrome," and we worry that nuclear-reactor employees may be bumbling Homer Simpsons, capable of accidentally pushing the red button. Chernobyl and Three Mile Island - the former of which killed 36 people and the latter of which killed none - have become so outsized in the American imagination that our perception of actual risk has been completely distorted. We're willing to tolerate the health risks and environmental repercussions of other fuels to avoid the infinitesimally small and comically improbable possibility of a catastrophic accident that resembles something out of a 1979 Jane Fonda movie, the likes of which have never happened in the history of nuclear power.

We also cognitively associate nuclear power with bombmaking and having seen what atomic radiation can do to people; we think of it as being exponentially worse than exposure to fire, poisonous gases, and pollution - the likely repercussions of large-scale accidents at conventional power plants. As with anything that's exotic, potentially dangerous, and little understood, it becomes more frightening in mythology. Silhouettes of cooling towers on the horizon seem sinister because we've seen the imagery from Chernobyl - an accident that was exacerbated because it was left burning for five days, which would never happen now.

Are there downsides? Yes. Nuclear waste has to be stored somewhere, and consistent with human behavior since the beginning of time, no one wants it in his own backyard. But at some point we have to weigh the necessity of energy independence against the cost of uncomfortable fixes like nuclear energy. As oil climbs to the point where no one can afford it and we're forced to stop buying it- what Goldman analysts euphemistically call "demand destruction," as if it were intentional- we may find that we have no choice. We can't afford to be afraid anymore.

More coverage on the nuclear industry.
Go to link
http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/28/technology/Case_for_nukes_Spiers.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008052913

Bill Clinton and the Rich Women by Jeffrey St. Clair

Jeffrey St. Clair
Bill Clinton and the Rich Women

http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair05292008.html

The Most Lucrative Incentive for Nuclear Power in the History of the United States

Karl Grossman
The Most Lucrative Incentive for Nuclear Power in the History of the United States

http://www.counterpunch.org/grossman05292008.html

China's New Formula by Peter Marsh

China's new formula

By Peter Marsh

Published: May 29 2008

The Financial Times

At a sprawling plant in Nanjing, engineers working for BASF are finalising ambitious plans. The site - a joint venture between the German chemicals manufacturer and Sinopec, the Chinese energy group - is set to receive $900m (€571m, £455m) in investment, a scheme intended to boost output by 25 per cent over the next three years. BASF hopes it will soon rival the huge production complex in Ludwigshafen as the focal point for its global operations.

But more than this, says Martin Brudermüller, head of BASF's Asia activities, the Nanjing operation will aim to gain expertise in combining China's famed low costs with the development of new design and production skills. If all goes to plan, this will involve importing ideas from BASF's operations around the world and linking these with concepts developed by BASF's 6,000-strong staff in China, including a team of 100 research and development engineers.

Such an approach, says Mr Brudermüller, is required as China's economy starts to mature. "A lot of our customers [in China] are switching from a copycat philosophy to [one that emphasises] more innovative product areas. This puts pressure on us to devise more advanced materials to meet their requirements."

BASF's strategy in Nanjing is part of a wider phenomenon. Known for its rapid progress to become the world's joint-second most productive manufacturing nation, China is now going through a more subtle phase. It is becoming a giant test bed for manufacturing ideas, building on its existing strengths in low-cost production by using the efforts of engineers and developers not just in China but from around the world.

Jimmy Hexter, a director at the Beijing office of the McKinsey strategy company, says the companies that work out how to do this most effectively - through "networking" approaches that link different groups in different countries efficiently - will be poised to gain substantial commercial rewards. They will, he says, find they are in a good position to push ahead competitively not just in China but in other parts of the world where marrying a decent level of technical sophistication with low costs is important - which means just about everywhere. "Companies will find they need to win in China - or risk losing globally," says Mr Hexter.

China has become a more stable environment for manufacturers over the past four years, according to David Chang, president of China at Philips, the Dutch electronics group. Mr Chang is referring to what he sees as a greater respect for intellectual property - which means western companies have to spend less time worrying about Chinese rivals copying their ideas - and tougher and more rigidly enforced government regulations in such areas as environmental protection and the hiring and firing of workers. "As a place for manufacturing, China has become more mature, more transparent and easier to predict," says Mr Chang.

Added to this is the growing expectation that for the remainder of this decade, China could be one of the few bright spots in the world economy, with gross domestic product continuing to expand at a healthy rate even as western economies deteriorate.

China has emerged as a manufacturing superpower only very recently. According to Global Insight, a US economic consultancy, it accounted for 5 per cent of global manufacturing value-added output in 1995; by last year, this share had risen to 14 per cent, putting the country in joint-second place - with Japan - in the world league table of manufacturers ranked by production. Both countries are well behind the US, which in 2007 accounted for a quarter of global manufacturing output, but a long way ahead of Germany and Britain, whose shares have dwindled to 7 per cent and 3 per cent respectively.

Much of China's manufacturing expansion has been built on low costs. Even after a period of strong wage growth, labour costs in the country remain up to 95 per cent lower than in high-wage nations such as Germany and the US. Many kinds of manufactured goods can be made 10-30 per cent more cheaply in China than in high-wage nations, giving China-based manufacturers a big competitive advantage.

Even so, company officials in China worry that a strategy based around low costs is becoming less tenable. Minoru Yokota, director of a plant in Wuxi near Shanghai run by Nichicon, a Japanese maker of specialist capacitors for electronics, says: "In 2004, the differential [in wages] between our Chinese and Japanese plants was 1:10. Now it is 1:7."

Rising costs are one reason why manufacturers in China - both domestic companies and inward investors - have beenputting a new accent on technology and design. These efforts have been largely successful, says Steve Bertamini, who has just stepped down from running the China operations of General Electric, the US industrial group, to become head of consumer products for Standard Chartered, the UK bank which does much of its business in Asia. "In the past four years, the technical competence of the Chinese manufacturing base - as manifested by the component suppliers that we deal with - has improved considerably," Mr Bertamini says.

The greater sophistication of GE's Chinese suppliers is one reason why it hopes that within five years, China-based manufacturers will be capable of supplying about 16 per cent of the company's worldwide requirement for manufactured parts, up from half this figure now. GE will gain the most use from these low-cost components, says Mr Bertamini, if the company can make the best connections between the suppliers of the parts and its product development staff in China and elsewhere. Then, he says, GE's competitiveness in a number of the products that it makes and sells around the world - from switchgear to hospital scanners - is likely to be considerably enhanced.

"Everyone thinks that low-cost products, which are perhaps less technically sophisticated than the top-of-the-range products made in the US or western Europe, are primarily of interest to consumers and industrial users in emerging economies," says Mr Bertamini. "But in reality there are a lot of potential customers for products made in this way in high-cost countries too."

Another company trying to yoke together product development and low-cost manufacturing at a number of centres around the world is Lenovo, the Chinese computer maker. While its manufacturing is predominantly in low-cost countries - it has five plants in China, two in India and one each in Poland and the US - the company employs 2,000 staff in design and development in three widely spread centres, in Beijing, Tokyo and Raleigh, North Carolina. Its effort in this field was helped by the company's acquisition four years ago of the personal computer division of IBM, the US technology company, which brought with it a cadre of mainly US-based development engineers.

Angela Qiu, the head of a 90-strong group employed by Lenovo in Beijing to inquire into long-term trends in fields such as new materials and software that could make computers easier to use and more versatile, says: "If Lenovo is to move ahead as a company, it's vital for the company to make decisive advances in design and innovation."

Fountain Set Holdings, a Hong Kong textile maker which runs four plants in China, now employs 100 people in design and development, compared with none a decade ago. The team - based in two Chinese factories and a plant in Sri Lanka - works in areas such as new knitting, printing and dyeing techniques, as well as the development of novel fabric that absorbs odours for use in clothing in hot climates. Gordon Wen, director of Fountain Set, says: "In the past, customers [in the clothing industry] would come to China with a specification of what they wanted to be made. Now they are coming and asking: 'What have you got for us [in design and development]?' They are interested in buying the products that we've made using our own design resources."

Mindray, a maker of medical equipment, is another Chinese company to have moved in this direction. The company has 1,000 development engineers, many of them involved with "cost-down" projects, in which they study, for example, patient monitoring systems sold in western countries for about $6,000 and work out how to make the equivalent product in China for as little as $1,000.

"We look at what parts we can standardise, where we can reduce the level of technical sophistication without comprising quality, and in what instances we can substitute software for electronic components," says Joyce Hsu, Mindray's chief financial officer. The result, she says, is often a low-cost product that may not have so many features as an equivalent piece of equipment made in western Europe or the US but which satisfies requirements in hospitals - in China and elsewhere - that are trying to cut back on costs.

Following a similar line is Candy, an Italian company that is one of Europe's biggest makers of domestic appliances. Two years ago it set up its first factory in China, through purchasing a plant in the southern port city of Jiangmen. Aldo Fumagalli, Candy's president, admits the company has found adapting to China more difficult than he imagined. "It's all so different; we've found we can apply [to Candy's China operations] very little of what we already knew from [our experiences in] Europe." But, he says, the eventual pay-offs promise to be large. He reckons the plant will give Candy a base for designing and selling low-cost washing machines and other products that will prove valuable not just in China but in other parts of the world where the market for these products seems set to grow, for example South America.

Luxembourg-based Element Six, the world's biggest maker of artificial diamonds used in industry, which is part owned by De Beers, the South African diamond miner, is another company trying to learn from China's experiences in low-cost production. In 2006 it set up a plant in Suzhou, near Shanghai, expressly to copy the techniques of Chinese rivals in making artificial diamond, produced through compressing graphite under high pressures. Christian Hultner, Element Six's chief executive, says: "Most manufacturers are concerned about the Chinese taking their ideas; we decided to do things the other way round. [In the Suzhou plant] we used Chinese management, Chinese workers and Chinese machines. We put into this plant not an iota of technology [from outside China]. But we succeeded in finding out a lot about the Chinese way of organising manufacturing in this field, which has been highly useful in the rest of our worldwide production operations."

By deliberately not putting its best global technology into its China plant, Element Six has avoided the risk of its best secrets leaking out (see below). Mr Hultner says the company takes a far from sanguine view on this. He admits that he would never sanction the shift to China of Element Six's most technically advanced production processes for artificial diamond - which are located in a small production facility in the Isle of Man, off the coast of northern England. "I feel that on this island the technology is fairly safe," he says.

For all such concerns, it seems the approach for most global manufacturers will be to push on with marrying their own design concepts with ideas developed inside the country. It will probably become all the more vital to tap into the engineering potential of China as the country's economic development widens and deepens, particularly as infrastructure investments in its less developed western regions bear fruit. In this environment, the companies that do most to make a success of the manufacturing test bed that China is turning into may indeed find they have produced an advantage when it comes to competing globally.

Innovators avoid the copyright risk

A big worry for many western and Japanese manufacturers in China is that their technical secrets developed in other parts of the world might be copied by China-based rivals. That prompts companies to hold back from making their most advanced products in China or putting a big engineering development effort into the country. The inhibitions linger on in spite of reforms over the level of intellectual property protection in China, many of them linked to the country's 2001 accession to the World Trade Organisation.

Nichicon, a Japan-based maker of electronic capacitors, is one. It refuses to site in China a top-secret production process for refining the aluminium foil used in these devices - even though by having its Chinese plants import the foil from Japan, where the process features in several of the company's home-based plants, costs of its Chinese production are significantly increased. "This technology is important to us," says Kazuo Nakamura, deputy director at Nichicon's plant in Wuxi, near Nanjing. "By keeping the process in Japan we feel we can protect it better."

Some multinationals are, however, finding different and creative ways to get around the problem. Trumpf of Germany, one of the world's two biggest makers of machine tools, is for instance setting up in China not one but three plants to make some of its top-of-the-range laser-cutting equipment. "We feel that if we split up our parts production and manufacturing processes in three centres around China rather than put them all in one place, it will be harder for competitors to find out about them and replicate our technical concepts," says Nicola Kammüller-Leibinger, Trumpf's president.

According to Charles Ingram, managing director of the Chinese operations of JCB, the UK construction equipment maker, many Chinese companies are "desperate" to increase the technical sophistication of their products. But the way most of them go about this, he adds, is not by stealing other companies' designs but through alliances with those western businesses commonly regarded as leaders in technology and design. Partnerships of this kind feature in many areas of Chinese manufacturing, including in construction machines.

David Michael, head of the China practice at Boston Consulting Group, says that although the fear of copying is a legitimate concern for many companies, often the best way to confront this is to "participate fully" in developing products in China, coupled with a policy of robustly defending legal rights over intellectual property when it appears copying has taken place.

Failing to engage in product and process development in China because of the worry about violations of intellectual property is not the way to proceed, says Mr Michael. "For many companies it is vital to be present in China, not just in sales but in engineering development. If they do not do this, they will find their global competitiveness is affected."

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor

How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor

C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501faessay86305/c-ford-runge-benjamin-senauer/how-biofuels-could-starve-the-poor.html

Summary: Thanks to high oil prices and hefty subsidies, corn-based ethanol is now all the rage in the United States. But it takes so much supply to keep ethanol production going that the price of corn -- and those of other food staples -- is shooting up around the world. To stop this trend, and prevent even more people from going hungry, Washington must conserve more and diversify ethanol's production inputs.

C. Ford Runge is Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Applied Economics and Law and Director of the Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy at the University of Minnesota. Benjamin Senauer is Professor of Applied Economics and Co-director of the Food Industry Center at the University of Minnesota.

Oil Exporters Are Unable to Keep Up with Demand: Domestic Needs, Sluggish Investment Crimp Shipments by Neil King, Jr. and Spencer Swartz, WSJ

Rising oil and gas prices are routinely blamed on demand from China and India. The fact that this story attributes them to other factors, especially export and supply constraints, is of interest. In China one now hears many complaints about the contribution to rising oil prices made by US congressional decisions to hold oil supplies off the market by banning exploration and production in parts of Alaska, offshore California, and elsewhere. This story also puts that issue in some perspective.

WALL STREET JOURNAL
5/29/08

Oil Exporters Are Unable To Keep Up With Demand: Domestic Needs, Sluggish Investment Crimp Shipments

Neil King, Jr. and Spencer Swartz

The world's top oil producers are proving unable to put more barrels on thirsty world markets despite sky-high prices, a shift that defies traditional market logic and looks set to continue.


Fresh data from the U.S. Department of Energy show the amount of petroleum products shipped by the world's top oil exporters fell 2.5% last year, despite a 57% increase in prices, a trend that appears to be holding true this year as well.


There are several reasons behind the net-export decline. Soaring profits from high-price crude have fueled a boom in oil demand in Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East, leaving less oil for export. At the same time, aging fields and sluggish investments have caused exports to drop significantly in Mexico, Norway and, most recently, Russia. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries also cut production early last year and didn't move to boost supplies again until last fall.


In all, according to the Energy Department figures, net exports by the world's top 15 suppliers, which account for 45% of all production, fell by nearly a million barrels to 38.7 million barrels a day last year. The drop would have been steeper if not for heightened output in less-developed countries such as Angola and Libya, whose economies have yet to become big energy consumers.


For all the attention paid to China's increasing energy thirst, rising energy demand in the Middle East may pose the greater challenge. Last year, the region's six largest petroleum exporters -- Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq and Qatar -- curbed their output by 544,000 barrels a day. At the same time, their domestic demand increased by 318,000 barrels a day, leading to a loss in net exports of 862,000 barrels a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.


Demand in the Middle East is a major factor right now, said Adam Robinson, an oil analyst at Lehman Brothers in New York. Mr. Robinson predicts the region will constitute more than 40% of increased demand next year.


Saudi Arabia in particular has become a major energy consumer as the country pushes to put its oil riches to greater use. The kingdom is in the middle of a major investment campaign to become a world player in petrochemicals, aluminum and fertilizers, all of which will require huge amounts of oil and natural gas.


Since 2004, Saudi oil consumption has increased nearly 23%, to 2.3 million barrels a day last year. Jeffrey Brown, a Dallas-based petroleum geologist who studies net export numbers, said that at its current growth rate, Saudi Arabia could be consuming 4.6 million barrels a day by 2020.


That would cut significantly into Saudi exports even as the world looks to its largest oil supplier to help manage rising demand. Saudi Arabia has nearly a quarter of the world's proven reserves and supplies around 12% of the 86 million barrels a day that the world now consumes.


One reason Middle Eastern nations are using more oil is a shortage of natural gas, said Bill Farren-Price, director of energy at Medley Global Advisors. This is particularly troublesome during the summer, when governments scramble to keep the lights on and air conditioners cranking.


Some producers, such as the U.A.E., are easing back at times on the crucial industry practice of injecting natural gas into crude oil fields, which is done to boost reservoir pressure and increase crude recovery rates. Halting the injections ends up undercutting oil production, further reducing exports.


As top exporters hit trouble, historically marginal players such as Brazil and Kazakhstan are likely to play a greater role. Three of the four non-OPEC players among the top 15 oil exporters -- Russia, Norway and Mexico -- are reporting declines in production this year. Kazakhstan is showing slight net export gains.


No big exporter is struggling more than Mexico, where net exports dropped 15% in 2007. Mexican officials announced Monday that output from the country's once-mighty offshore Cantarell field had plunged by a third in less than a year.


Analysts said there are reasons for optimism. Russia's government is scrambling to alter the tax rates that many say have put a lid on new oil development. Mr. Robinson said 65 new ultra-deepwater drilling rigs are expected to arrive over the next three years, following a five-year stretch in which the industry gained only 10 such rigs.


Those additional rigs will help companies tap some of the most promising, but now inaccessible, waters off Brazil, Australia, West Africa and in the Gulf of Mexico.


"The sense in the market is that peak oil is here and that things will only get worse," says Mr. Robinson. "But the verdict is still out on that."

U.S. Democracy Promotion During and After Bush

U.S. Democracy Promotion During and After Bush
By Thomas Carothers
Publisher: Carnegie Endowment
Carnegie Endowment Report, September 2007
Full Text (PDF)

Despite sweeping rhetoric about the global spread of democracy, the Bush Administration has significantly damaged U.S. democracy promotion efforts and increased the number of close ties with “friendly tyrants,” concludes a new report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Security interests, such as the war on terrorism, and U.S. energy needs have led the Bush Administration to maintain friendly, unchallenged relations with more than half of the forty-five “non-free” countries in the world.

Carnegie Vice President for Studies Thomas Carothers argues in his new report, U.S. Democracy Promotion During and After Bush, that the main U.S. presidential candidates have voiced support for democracy promotion, but not yet outlined plans to put it back on track. Carothers analyzes the Bush Administration’s record on democracy promotion and its effect on democracy worldwide, and then presents fresh ideas about the role democracy promotion can and should play in future U.S. policies.

Key Report Conclusions and Recommendations:

• Democracy promotion must be decontaminated from the negative taint it has acquired under President Bush by improving U.S. compliance with the rule of law in the war on terrorism, ending the close association of democracy promotion with military intervention and regime change, and reducing the inconsistency of U.S. democracy policy by exerting real pressure for change on some key autocratic partners, such as Pakistan and Egypt.

• Democracy promotion must be repositioned in the war on terrorism. The idea that democratization will undercut the roots of terrorism is appealing but easily overstated. The next administration should deescalate rhetorical emphasis on democracy promotion as the centerpiece of the war on terrorism while escalating actual commitment to the issue in pivotal cases where supporting democratic change can help diminish growing radicalization.

• U.S. democracy promotion must be recalibrated to account for larger changes in the international context. A host of ongoing developments, such as the rise of authoritarian capitalism, new trends in globalization, and the high price of oil and gas, have eroded the validity of a whole set of assumptions on which U.S. democracy promotion was built in the 1980s and 1990s. The next administration will need to respond in large and small ways, such as by drawing an explicit tie between energy policy and democracy policy, re-engaging internationally at the level of basic political ideas, reducing the America-centrism of U.S. democracy building efforts, and strengthening the core institutional sources of democracy assistance.

“More than ever, U.S. democracy promotion must square a daunting circle—it must embody strong elements of modesty, subtlety, and the awareness of limitations without losing the vitality, decisiveness, and creativity necessary for success,” the report concludes.

Click on the link for the full text of this Carnegie report.
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=19549&prog=zgp&proj=zdrl

Is a League of Democracies a Good Idea?

Is a League of Democracies a Good Idea?
By Thomas Carothers
Publisher: Carnegie Endowment
Policy Brief No. 59 May 2008
Full Text (PDF)

Foreign Policy for the Next President
Influential policy experts on both sides of the U.S. political aisle are proposing a “League of Democracies” as a way for the next administration to restore the credibility of U.S. foreign policy priorities and put democracy promotion efforts back on track. However, in a policy brief, Is a League of Democracies a Good Idea?, Thomas Carothers argues that the proposal rests on a false assumption that democracies share sufficient common interests to work effectively together on a wide range of global issues.

Although the proposed “League of Democracies” reflects a useful recognition of the need to rebuild credibility through greater multilateralism, such a league could aggravate rather than alleviate global sensitivities over U.S. democracy promotion and the U.S. global security agenda. Carothers outlines steps the next U.S. president should take to bolster democracy promotion and foreign policy in general.

Recommendations for the next U.S. President:

• Opt for more flexible, case-by-case partnerships to fit specific issues and contexts.
• Make clear that the United States does not intend to use military force or other means to overthrow governments in the name of democracy.
• Reverse policies that produce U.S. abuses of the rule of law and of basic civil liberties at home and abroad.
• Push not only hostile autocrats, but autocratic allies such as Pakistan and Egypt, to take serious steps toward greater openness and political reform.
• Commit to strengthening existing multilateral institutions that deal with democracy issues, such as the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

“The idea for a League of Democracies reflects a valid concern with the fact that the overall state of democracy in the world is troubled and that alternative power centers with an authoritarian character are gaining in strength. The best way to respond to this new context and to rebuild the legitimacy of the United States as a global actor is not to circle the ideological wagons. Instead it is to make the United States a better global citizen on numerous fronts and get the country’s own economic and political houses in order.”

Click on the link above for the full text of this Carnegie publication.

A limited number of print copies are available.
Request a copy

About the Author
Thomas Carothers is vice president for studies—international politics and governance at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A leading authority on democratization and democracy promotion, he has researched and worked on democracy-building programs around the world for 20 years with many U.S., European, and international organizations. He has written numerous books on democracy promotion including most recently Confronting the Weakest Link: Aiding Political Parties in New Democracies and Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad: In Search of Knowledge.

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=20135&prog=zgp&proj=zdrl

EPA Expands Water Security Program

EPA Expands Water Security Program


The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expanding a program to establish continuous monitoring of municipal water systems for the intentional introduction of viruses, bacteria or other dangerous materials, the Associated Press reported Saturday (see GSN, Sept. 19, 2006).

An $11 million pilot program began two years ago in Cincinnati, which spent the first year and a half installing sensors and other equipment. New York City recently received a $12 million EPA grant to conduct the second pilot project and the effort is set to be expanded this year to another three cities.

The anticipated result would be creation of a model for water security that utilities around the country would install using their own money.

“Water supplies are very, very accessible targets for biological or chemical weapons,” said Donna Schlagheck, an international terrorism expert at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. “There are so many potential targets whether you are taking water from the ground or a river and the vulnerability there is enormous.”

Utilities now sometimes only perform random checks for biological contaminants, radioactive substances or other materials such as pesticides, AP reported.

The sensors in the pilot program provide ongoing monitoring of clarity, chlorine levels and other water characteristics.

“We know what the anticipated amount of chlorine would be, and if a decrease shows up that could mean that something had been added that was consuming the chlorine,” said David Hartman, with the Greater Cincinnati Water Works.

Laboratories for analysis of water samples would also be established under the program, along with a computer program to monitor emergency reports and complaint calls that could indicate a threat (Lisa Cornwell, Associated Press/Boston Herald, May 24).http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2008_5_28.html#9FACDF1D

U.S.-Indian Nuclear Deal Opponents Delay Talks

U.S.-Indian Nuclear Deal Opponents Delay Talks


Indian communists delayed talks planned for today with India’s ruling political party over a proposal to open the country’s civilian nuclear sites to international inspections, a key step in implementing a nuclear trade agreement with the United States, the Times of India reported (see GSN, May 21).

The tentative agreement giving New Delhi access to U.S. nuclear technology and materials has faced opposition from Indian communists, who have threatened to force early elections if the government signs the safeguards agreement or take other steps to implement the trade pact.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its allies delayed the talks to prevent New Delhi from finalizing the inspections arrangement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, sources said. The communists communicated the delay to the Indian administration without immediately disclosing it to the public.

The communists hope to push talks on the U.S.-Indian deal into August, sources said. “By then [U.S. President George W. Bush] would be in no position to help India clinch the deal. Even in India people have given up on the deal,” one source said (see GSN, May 13).

The delay could undermine negotiations with the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, which must grant New Delhi a waiver to import nuclear fuel under the trade deal because India has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (Akshaya Mukul, Times of India I, May 27),

Last week, Indian officials told NSG members meeting in Berlin that the U.S.-Indian deal would be implemented despite the months-old political stalemate in New Delhi (see GSN, May 19).

Meanwhile, a top Australian official hinted that his government could vote to permit the NSG waiver despite its reversal of a previous administration’s decision to allow uranium sales to India.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith recently told Indian reporters: “The Labor Party has a strong policy of not exporting uranium to any country that has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. We have made this clear to Indian officials that we are bound by the party policy. But if the 123 agreement is passed by the Indian Parliament, we could consider joining a consensus of the NSG and IAEA.”

“We will wait for the 123 agreement between India and the U.S. to emerge and then make a judgment,” Smith said (Indrani Bagchi, Times of India II, May 27).
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2008_5_28.html#9FACDF1D

A Former Nuclear Commander Not Wild About Nukes

A Former Nuclear Commander Not Wild About Nukes

By Elaine M. Grossman
National Journal

WASHINGTON — Back in college, Gen. James Cartwright captained the University of Iowa's diving team, a consuming athletic challenge he pursued "all year long, seven days a week, multiple times a day," he said in an interview. He also did gymnastics on the side as "a good way to build up [the strength and] coordination that was necessary for the diving." But once the prospective marine graduated in 1971, he never returned to the diving board.

"If you walk away from it for a little bit of time, the ability to maintain the standard that you set for yourself is gone," the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff explained. "It becomes more of a disappointment than something that you look forward to. And so when I stopped, I stopped."

Three and a half decades later, the general continues to show the same degree of personal discipline as he faces some daunting Defense Department-wide challenges. He has ascended to the U.S. military's highest ranks not through the old boy's fraternity of service academy graduates but through years of exacting performance. And, as he did with diving, Cartwright retains an uncanny ability to walk away from old commitments, without second thoughts, when he determines the time has come.

So it was not all that difficult to imagine that the Marine Corps general might take a slightly different tack regarding the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal when he arrived at U.S. Strategic Command's Nebraska headquarters in July 2004. In fact, the fighter pilot's military career to that point had little to do with these Cold War weapons.

Before his first year as commander of STRATCOM was up, Cartwright began publicly questioning the role of the nuclear arsenal in a way that none of his predecessors ever had. He did not go so far as to call for the elimination of nuclear weapons — as a former STRATCOM leader, Air Force Gen. George Lee Butler, did in 1996, more than two years after his retirement.

But, while still in uniform, Cartwright has sufficiently broken with years of tradition to make some nuclear strategists nervous. Critics allege that the general naively ventured into an area outside his expertise and contend that he has no idea how much harm he is doing to U.S. national security.

It all started in April 2005, when Cartwright said that the United States could "drastically" reduce the nearly 10,000 warheads then in its atomic weapons stockpile by substituting conventional warheads to destroy many of the targets listed in STRATCOM's secret strategic nuclear war plans. The change became possible, Cartwright said, because conventional warheads are now so precise that they could destroy many of the same targets — buildings, command bunkers, and missile silos — that previously were the sole domain of the "big-bang" nukes.

A conventional weapon could now destroy 10 to 30 percent of STRATCOM's nuclear targets, one military analyst has estimated. Getting at hard-to-reach or very deeply buried, reinforced bunkers would, however, continue to demand levels of explosive energy offered solely by atomic bombs.

The challenge, the general said, would be in the realm of timing — getting a conventional weapon to the target very quickly. For the most urgent targets possibly facing the United States today — perhaps a terrorist ringleader detected at a safe house in Pakistan or a North Korean nuclear-tipped missile being readied for launch — no conventional forces are likely to be on alert and within range. Nuclear-armed weapons mounted on intercontinental ballistic missiles, it turns out, are the nation's only military tools available to hit targets thousands of miles away within minutes.

That didn't sit well with the strategic commander. Cartwright said he could offer the U.S. president no "credible" military tool with which to thwart today's surprise threats. The Information Age — with news and images spread around the globe in fractions of a second — magnifies the psychological power of gruesome attacks and compresses the amount of time national leaders feel they have to respond, he has said.

"A nuclear weapon is still a viable part of our inventory, but ... one size does not fit all," he told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee in March 2006. "What we'd like to do is ... field a [conventional] weapon that will give us a broader and potentially more appropriate choice for the nation."

With that, Cartwright became the first STRATCOM leader to actively press the Pentagon to build viable strategic alternatives to nuclear arms. These conventional missiles for a new mission called "global strike" would offer enough speed and range to hit a target anywhere in the world inside an hour of a launch order.

Late last year, Congress put the brakes on the general's plans for a new conventional missile that would be based on submarines, citing the potential dangers that might arise from launching nuclear and non-nuclear weapons from the same vessel. What if a U.S. submarine launched a strategic missile and the Russians or Chinese couldn't tell if it was a nuke or a conventional warhead — what would they do? lawmakers asked. It could bring World War III. But lawmakers offered Cartwright a politically strategic win by endorsing the broad concept of "global strike."

Yet some defense experts are warning, "Not so fast." Cartwright may be at the forefront of a campaign to improve intelligence-gathering, but the ability to launch precise missiles at long range has outpaced the intel sector's ability to determine exactly who or what would be on the receiving end of that prompt firepower, critics charge.

The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have demonstrated many targeting successes by air strikes. But time and again, the U.S. military has dropped bombs or missiles on suspected enemies only to learn after the fact that allied troops or innocent civilians were the lone victims. The mistakes are painful in the short term. In the long term, they risk damaging the U.S. image and the nation's interests abroad.

"That we can attack faraway targets in a matter of minutes is a reckless idea," Franklin (Chuck) Spinney, a retired Pentagon-reform advocate, said in February. "It is dependent on precise, timely intelligence, which is unlikely to occur in the real world."

"If you're going to strike suddenly, ... it has to be based on very powerful, very convincing intelligence," Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, the CIA director, said last June. And, he added, "in today's world, [a strike decision] has to also wash publicly."

Ironically, it is those very doubts that Cartwright uses to justify building conventionally armed, long-range missiles for quick strike. "The consequence of not having perfect intelligence with nuclear weapons is pretty significant, so you don't use them unless you are absolutely sure," Cartwright said in a February 2006 interview. "Wouldn't you like to have an option other than nuclear?"

Yet some see the general's candor about the geopolitical barriers to using nuclear weapons as near-heresy. If contemplating a nuclear war is "thinking the unthinkable," Cartwright has said the unspeakable: It is hard for him to imagine a U.S. president ever ordering a nuclear strike, he said last fall, even if the weapon were limited to a mere fraction of today's atomic explosive power.

"I don't want to put myself in the shoes of a president," he said, "but who is not going to take [as] incredibly serious the use of a nuclear weapon?" Any such strike "is going to change not just that country's future but all of our futures when we start using these things, big or little," he said.

Cartwright has acknowledged that the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons is a national objective, as outlined clearly in the original Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but he does not think that it could happen any time soon.

"There is a nuclear deterrent that's going to be necessary out there for as long as I can see into the future," Cartwright said early this year. "But it is for those things that are the last ditch in the defense of this nation."

Some critics believe, though, that by so openly questioning whether a president would exercise the nuclear option, Cartwright could embolden adversaries that remain undeterred by U.S. conventional military strength.

"Any senior official who diminishes in any way the perception that the U.S. might use nuclear weapons, effectively denuclearizes us," retired Air Force Col. Tom Ehrhard, a onetime ICBM launch control officer and nuclear strategist, said in e-mailed comments. "It amounts to unilateral arms control by fiat."

Cartwright's response: "I'm not leading you down a path that I can get rid of nuclear weapons."

The general's approach does, however, reflect a realism rarely voiced in debates over nuclear arms. As a combatant commander leading STRATCOM, the Marine general saw it as his job "to kill targets," said a defense analyst who asked not to be identified. "For many of his predecessors, [strategic warfare] was a theoretical — not a practical — problem."

Back in the real world, what military response can a strategic commander recommend to a president, Cartwright asks, once an adversary has crossed a red line?

It is no longer enough to tell a rogue nation that has just attacked a U.S. ally abroad, "OK, you shot at your neighbor. I'm going to sail my armada and I'll be there in a month," the general said last October. The United States needs a tool usable in Information Age timelines, without generating a nuclear holocaust, he said.

"I have a gut feel and a conviction that there is something at the end of this rainbow," Cartwright said in April 2005, just as he was beginning to formulate his concept for long-range conventional strike. Until the United States fields such a weapon, "I'm not letting anybody sleep."
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2008_5_28.html#9FACDF1D

Iran on the offensive over nuclear issue

Iran on the offensive over nuclear issue

(Raheb Homavandi/Reuters)

Ali Larijani at the opening of parliament in Tehran today
Philippe Naughton

Iran warned today that it could impose new limits on its cooperation with the UN's nuclear watchdog after an unusually critical report from the agency.

The warning came from Ali Larijani, the country's former nuclear negotiator, in a tub-thumping declaration only moments after his election as parliamentary speaker. Mr Larijani is a conservative heavyweight who has been critical of President Ahmadinejad and stood against him in the 2005 election.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) yesterday expressed its "serious concern" that Iran was withholding information needed to establish whether it tried to make nuclear weapons, as well as defying UN demands to suspend uranium enrichment.

The report marked a tougher line from the IAEA, which has conducted four years of investigations into Tehran's nuclear programme but has never drawn a conclusion over its nature.

But in his speech to parliament - which drew chants from the chamber of "God is great" and "Death to America" - Mr Larijani warned the IAEA that if its reports were not more “balanced” in the future it would harm cooperation between them. “If they want a more sincere co-operation with Iran they need to have more balanced reports and not look to create a media frenzy," he said.

Mr Larijani also accused the IAEA of "clandestinely" passing its reports to the "5-plus-1" group - the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and German who together handle the Iranian nuclear issue - and added: "This parliament will not allow such deception."

The Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions against Iran for its refusal to halt enriching uranium - a process that can be used to generate electricity or nuclear arms. “Should this behaviour continue, the parliament...will set new limits on cooperation with the IAEA,” said Mr Larijani, who quit as nuclear negotiator last year over difference with Mr Ahmadinejad.

The tone of the IAEA report, which suggested that Tehran continues to stonewall the UN watchdog, revealed a glimpse of the frustration felt by IAEA investigators trying to unravel Iran's past nuclear activities.

In the past, Iran had extensive voluntary cooperation with the IAEA beyond its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including allowing IAEA inspectors to visit its military sites as a goodwill gesture to build trust.

But Tehran ended all voluntary cooperation with the IAEA, including allowing snap inspections of its nuclear facilities, in February 2006 after being reported to the U.N. Security Council. Ever since, Iran has limited its cooperation to only its obligations under the NPT. The treaty does not require Iran to allow short notice intrusive inspections of its facilities.

Mr Larijani did not specify what limits parliament might impose on its cooperation with the IAEA.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4019255.ece

Search is Urged for Syrian Nuclear Sites: US Presses UN on 3 Alleged Facilities

Search Is Urged for Syrian Nuclear Sites
U.S. Presses U.N. on 3 Alleged Facilities

By Joby Warrick and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 29, 2008; Page A14

The Bush administration is pressing U.N. inspectors to broaden their search for possible secret nuclear facilities in Syria, hinting that Damascus's nuclear program might be bigger than the single alleged reactor destroyed by Israeli warplanes last year.

At least three sites have been identified by U.S. officials and passed along to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is negotiating with Syria for permission to conduct inspections in the country, according to U.S. government officials and Western diplomats. U.S. officials want to know if the suspect sites may have been support facilities for the alleged Al Kibar reactor destroyed in an Israeli air raid Sept. 6, the sources said.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog, which has been seeking access to the Al Kibar site since shortly after the bombing, has acknowledged receiving requests to expand the scope of its inspections, but provided no details.

U.S. government officials declined to describe the specific sites that have drawn interest, or to discuss how they were identified. However, the United States and other Western governments have long been interested in identifying possible locations for a facility in Syria that might have supplied nuclear fuel rods for a Syrian reactor. Although the Al Kibar site was described as nearly operational at the time of the Sept. 6 bombing, it had no clear source of the uranium fuel necessary for operation, according to U.S. intelligence officials and diplomats familiar with the site.

Syria, which has denied having a nuclear weapons program, has not yet responded to IAEA requests for a firm date for inspections.

U.S. intelligence officials contend that the Al Kibar facility was built with North Korean assistance, to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said in an interview that the intelligence community's insight into Syria's nuclear ambitions has deepened since the Israeli raid.

"Do not assume that Al Kibar exhausted our knowledge of Syrian efforts with regard to nuclear weapons," Hayden said. "I am very comfortable -- certainly with Al Kibar and what was there, and what the intent was. It was the highest confidence level. And nothing since the attack last September has changed our mind. In fact, events since the attack give us even greater confidence as to what it was."

He predicted that Syria would "almost certainly attempt to delay and deceive" the IAEA. But he added: "We know what they did."

The absence of a clear fuel source for the reactor -- as well as a fuel-reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium -- has baffled experts who have studied the Syrian project. "It's like having a car but not enough gas to run it," said David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear inspector in Iraq and the president of the Institute for Science and International Security.

But weapons experts also noted that Western intelligence has had a mixed record on the reliability of leads provided to U.N. inspectors. "U.S. intelligence has had a serious credibility problem on weapons of mass destruction for a decade," said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, adding that "they have been known to be right on occasions."

Weapons experts also noted that IAEA inspectors face a difficult task in assessing claims about Syria's program. After the Sept. 6 bombing, Syria bulldozed the ruins of the Al Kibar facility and erected a new building on the same spot. "I think by now they've had enough time to cover their trail," Pike said.

In recent weeks, the Bush administration has increased diplomatic pressure on Syria. Yesterday, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley said Syria was caught last year trying to procure equipment that could have been used to test ballistic missile components.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/28/AR2008052803061.html

Washington touts success of non-proliferation initiative

Washington touts success of non-proliferation initiative

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A key US arms control official on Tuesday hailed a five-year-old US-led initiative aimed at halting trafficking in weapons of mass destruction, but offered little proof of the scheme's success.

The Proliferation Security Initiative was unveiled by President George W. Bush in Krakow, Poland on May 31, 2003, with a view to improving global coordination to intercept weapons shipments by rogue states and terrorist groups.

A year later, the White House declared the initiative a "great success" and said it played "a central role in our overall efforts to counter WMD (weapons of mass destruction) proliferation."

On Tuesday, when reporters asked for proof that PSI was as effective as claimed, under secretary of state for arms control and international security John Rood outlined "a number of successes" for the initiative, including international exercises and the burgeoning numbers of signatories to the US-led pact.

But he refused to go into detail about how many illicit arms shipment have been thwarted since PSI was launched.

"We have released some examples of successes but there are intelligence and other issues involved," he said.

"There are reasons why, when information has been clandestinely acquired, you want to protect that to the extent that you can from public disclosure.

"Depending on the circumstances of the interdiction, various people will know, or they may not know, exactly what led to it," he said.

He described PSI as having "grown to be recognized as one of the standards for non-proliferation behavior around the world," and said its aim "was first to build awareness and support among nations to stop proliferation-related shipments," he said.

"Metric (of success) number one: we have 90 countries participating in just five years," Rood said.

"Are those countries really committed? Are they working together more? I think there we have very good metrics as well," he said.

US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley is due to hold a news conference on Wednesday about PSI, Rood said, urging reporters not to "measure PSI's success from the number of scalps."
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iRKd1kgGLUVPl-_nPi81GPo9R-Vg

Security Chief Blasts "War on Terror"

Security Chief Blasts "War on Terror"
ft.com — The west needs a more comprehensive strategy to counter al-Qaida propaganda and the U.S. should stop using the term "war on terror," according to a top intelligence official. Charles Allen, the senior intelligence official at the Department of Homeland Security, says the phrase is counter-productive because it creates "animus" in Islamic countries.
http://www.ourfuture.org/news-headline/security-chief-blasts-war-terror

Obstacles to an Israeli-Syrian Deal by Patrick Seale

Obstacles to an Israeli-Syrian Deal

by Patrick Seale

One would need to be an incurable optimist to expect real progress from the indirect talks that Syria and Israel have begun in Ankara under Turkish mediation. The obstacles to peace between the two long-time adversaries are so formidable as to rule out any realistic possibility of a deal in the near or medium-term future.

Certainly, there can be no substantial movement while President George W. Bush remains in the White House. He has made it abundantly clear that he disapproves of Israeli-Syrian contacts and would prefer Israel to concentrate instead on the Palestinian track.

Bush detests the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Asad and has sought, by means of sanctions, intimidation and diplomatic pressure, to isolate it and reduce its regional influence, especially in Lebanon. The Syrians, in turn, have no confidence in, or liking for, the Bush administration, and are eagerly awaiting its replacement.

For reasons of his own, Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has chosen to override American objections to his contacts with Syria -- but there are limits to how far he can risk offending Washington.

An even more serious obstacle is the fierce opposition of a substantial slice of Israeli opinion -- at least 60 per cent of the population according to the latest polls -- to the idea of returning the Golan Heights to Syria. Yet, without a return of the Golan, Syria will never consent to peace.

Captured over 40 years ago in 1967, the Golan is considered by many Israelis an integral part of Israel. It has become a recreational area, where Israelis go to escape from the narrow confines of their country. It is a place to rediscover nature, ride horses, enjoy the spectacular landscape and drink wine from the local settler-owned winery. The Golan is also an important water source and a strategic asset. The Golan settler lobby, representing close to 20,000 Jewish settlers, is powerful and vociferous, and is totally opposed to withdrawal.

Few observers believe Olmert is sincere in wanting peace with Syria or is strong enough to deliver his part of any bargain reached. He does not have the political or the moral authority necessary to persuade a skeptical Israeli public that the price of peace with Syria is worth paying. His agreement to indirect talks with Damascus is widely seen, therefore, either as a ploy to distract attention from the allegations of corruption that now threaten his tenure of office, or as an attempt to pressure the Palestinians into concessions.

Israel has traditionally sought to play the Syrian track against the Palestinian track, and vice versa. By seeming to move forward with Syria, Olmert might hope to frighten the Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas into believing that he will be left to fend for himself alone against an all-powerful Israel.

Israel's main leaders -- Olmert himself, Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni -- make no secret of their prime motive in wanting peace with Syria: it is to sever Syria's ties with Iran, seen as Israel's most dangerous enemy, and with both Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hama in Gaza.

But this is as unrealistic as Syria asking Israel to sever its ties with the United States. Syria has had a strategic partnership with Iran for nearly 30 years, ever since the overthrow of the Shah and the emergence of the Islamic Republic in 1979. The Tehran-Damascus-Hizbullah axis forms the backbone of Syria's foreign policy and the main challenge to U.S./Israeli hegemony over the region.

The Syrian counter-argument is that Israel should not seek to dictate Syria's foreign relations, but should recognize that peace and normal good-neighbourly relations are worth having for their own sake. The Syrians add, however, that in a context of peace, they would be less dependent on Iran, while Hizbullah would revert to being a normal Lebanese political party, rather than an armed militia.

In Syrian eyes, a peace agreement must comprise two essential components: first, an Israeli undertaking to withdraw from the entire Golan down to the 4 June 1967 line, which Syria held immediately before the Six Day War; and secondly, an agreement that the security arrangements eventually negotiated between the two countries must be mutual, reciprocal, and balanced.

These security arrangements would comprise of demilitarized zones, areas of limited forces, and early warning or monitoring stations in the border region. Syria is insistent that Israel, already militarily far more powerful than Syria, must not seek to gain additional strategic advantages from these security arrangements.

The start of indirect talks between Syria and Israel will serve to lower tension in the troubled Middle East region. This, in itself, is a welcome development. But the gulf between the two countries is wide and deep, and it would be rash to expect it to be bridged any time soon.
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Where is the Outrage? by Robert Scheer

Published on Wednesday, May 28, 2008 by TruthDig.com

Where Is the Outrage?

by Robert Scheer

Are we Americans truly savages or merely tone-deaf in matters of morality, and therefore more guilty of terminal indifference than venality? It's a question demanding an answer in response to the publication of the detailed 370-page report on U.S. complicity in torture, issued last week by the Justice Department's inspector general.

Because the report was widely cited in the media and easily accessed as a pdf file on the Internet, it is fair to assume that those of our citizens who remain ignorant of the extent of their government's commitment to torture as an official policy have made a choice not to be informed. A less appealing conclusion would be that they are aware of the heinous acts fully authorized by our president but conclude that such barbarism is not inconsistent with that American way of life that we celebrate.

But that troubling assessment of moral indifference is contradicted by the scores of law enforcement officers, mostly from the FBI, who were so appalled by what they observed as routine official practice in the treatment of prisoners by the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo that they risked their careers to officially complain. A few brave souls from the FBI even compiled a "war crimes file," suggesting the unthinkable — that we might come to be judged as guilty by the standard we have imposed on others. Superiors in the Justice Department soon put a stop to such FBI efforts to hold CIA agents and other U.S. officials accountable for the crimes they committed.

That this systematic torture was carried out not by a few conveniently described "bad apples" but rather represented official policy condoned at the highest level of government was captured in one of those rare media reports that remind us why the Founding Fathers signed off on the First Amendment.

"These were not random acts," The New York Times editorialized. "It is clear from the inspector general's report that this was organized behavior by both civilian and military interrogators following the specific orders of top officials. The report shows what happens when an American president, his secretary of defense, his Justice Department and other top officials corrupt American law to rationalize and authorize the abuse, humiliation and torture of prisoners."

One of those top officials, who stands revealed in the inspector general's report as approving the torture policy, is Condoleezza Rice, who in her capacity as White House national security adviser turned away the concerns of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft as to the severe interrogation measures being employed. Rice, as ABC-TV reported in April, chaired the top-level meetings in 2002 in the White House Situation Room that signed off on the CIA treatment of prisoners — "whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called water boarding. …" According to the report, the former academic provost of Stanford University came down on the side of simulated drowning.

As further proof that women are not necessarily more squeamish than men in condoning such practices, the report offers examples of sexual and religious denigration of the mostly Muslim prisoners by female interrogators carrying out an official policy of "invasion of space by a female." In one recorded instance observed by startled FBI agents, a female interrogator was seen with a prisoner "bending his thumbs back and grabbing his genitals … to cause him pain." One of the agents testified that this was not "a case of a rogue interrogator acting on her own." He said he witnessed a "pep rally" meeting conducted by a top Defense Department official "in which the interrogators were encouraged to get as close to the torture statute line as possible."

That was evidently the norm, according to FBI agents who witnessed the interrogations. As The New York Times reported, "One bureau memorandum spoke of 'torture techniques' used by military interrogators. Agents described seeing things like inmates handcuffed in a fetal position for up to 24 hours, left to defecate on themselves, intimidated by dogs, made to wear women's underwear and subjected to strobe lights and extreme heat and cold."

In the end, what seems to have most outraged the hundreds of FBI agents interviewed for the report is that the interrogation tactics were counterproductive. Evidently the FBI's long history in such matters had led to a protocol that stressed gaining the confidence of witnesses rather than terrorizing them into madness. But an insane prisoner is the one most likely to tell this president of the United States what he wants to hear: They hate us for our values.

Robert Scheer's new book, "The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America," will be released June 9 by Twelve.

Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C.

Who is the Enemy? Part I by Eric Walberg

Who is the Enemy? Part I

by Eric Walberg / May 21st, 2008

Twenty years ago this week the Soviet Union began its withdrawal from Afghanistan, eight and a half years after it was invited by the desperate People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), which had degenerated into intra-party squabbling and was beset by Islamic rebels massively financed by the United States. The straw that broke the Soviets’ back was when the US began providing Stinger missiles to Osama bin Laden and his friends.

Now, after eight years of US/NATO occupation, the parallels — and differences — between the two occupation are many and stark, as confirmed by the current Russian ambassador to …
(Full article …)
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/05/who-is-the-enemy-part-i/

Red Team Penetrates Nuke Lab's Security, Reaches "Superblock"

“Red Team” Penetrates Nuke Lab’s Security, Reaches “Superblock”

by Tom Burghardt / May 22nd, 2008

During a mock exercise at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), an antiterrorist “red team” breached security and penetrated Building 332, the so-called “Superblock” where some 2,000 pounds of plutonium and weapons-grade uranium are stored. Lab security personnel failed miserably, Time magazine reported.

Situated in Livermore, California, LLNL is about an hour’s drive from San Francisco; approximately seven million people live within a 50 mile radius of the weapons facility. But as the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) disclosed in March,


…the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has given Livermore Lab a waiver so that it does not have to meet the …
(Full article …)
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/05/red-team-penetrates-nuke-labs-security-reaches-superblock/

Kennedy Negotiated — Lucky He Did

Kennedy Negotiated — Lucky He Did

by Edward Jayne / May 28th, 2008

Two weeks ago the issue of negotiation with foreign enemies was brought to the fore by the hostile exchange among President Bush and the two presidential candidates, Barrack Obama and John McCain. With the obvious exception of North Korea once it had developed the atomic bomb, the Bush administration rejects any negotiations whatsoever with presumed enemies, and, if elected, Senator McCain apparently intends to continue this policy. In contrast, Obama wants to feature negotiations and has even suggested in front of a Miami Cuban audience the possibility of negotiating with the present Cuban government a loosening in Cuban visitation …
(Full article …)
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/05/kennedy-negotiated-lucky-he-did/

Coexistence, Not Apartheid by Ramzy Baroud

Coexistence, Not Apartheid

by Ramzy Baroud / May 28th, 2008

For the last 60 years, all those who have sought a genuinely peaceful and fair solution for Israel and Palestine have faced the same obstacle — Israel’s sense of invincibility and military arrogance, abetted by the US and other Western governments’ unwavering support.

Despite recent setbacks on the military front, the Israeli government is yet to awaken to the reality that Israel is simply not invincible. The wheel of history, which has seen the rise and fall of many great powers, won’t grind to a halt. Experiences have also repeatedly shown that neither Israel’s nuclear arms nor Washington’s billions of dollars …
(Full article …)
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/05/coexistence-not-apartheid/

Lessons from the Ancients by Winslow Wheeler

The military reform movement in the 1970s and 1980s in the Pentagon and Congress is ancient history - at least that is surely what many advocates of contemporary business-as-usual hope. What could be worse (for them) than reversing the modern tide of ever-increasing budgets that do nothing to make our forces more effective?

There are valuable lessons in our past. A new review of "Military Reform: A Reference Handbook," the latest publication of the Straus Military Reform Project, cites some of the themes that were major problems two decades ago and have become even worse today. While the review has some harsh comments about one of the authors of the book, the review also conveys an important message. It , "The Ancient History of Military Reform," was written by William S. Lind, who was, and is, a central figure in the military reform movement. His review appeared in the May 29 edition of Antiwar.com. It can also be found at http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?articleid=12912.


May 29, 2008
The Ancient History of Military Reform

by William S. Lind

When the world was young and hope dared live in Washington, a small group of people put together something called the Military Reform Movement. Its purpose was to measure defense policies and programs by the standard of what works in combat rather than who benefits financially. Launched in the 1970s, it peaked in the early 1980s and was gone by 1990. Why did it fail? Because in a contest between ideas and money, the money always wins.

Two authors, Winslow Wheeler and Larry Korb, recently published a history of the Military Reform Movement, Military Reform: A Reference Handbook. Win Wheeler was in the thick of it at the time as a staffer to several members of the Congressional Military Reform Caucus. Larry Korb was at most on the periperheries, one of Washington's innumerable unemployed jockies looking for a horse to ride.

To make my own position clear, I was a staffer first to the Senator who started the whole thing, Bob Taft, Jr. of Ohio, then to Secretary Gary Hart, who gave the movement its name and founded the Caucus (with Congressman Bill Whitehurst of Virginia). I was also part of the informal “Reform Group,” which included John Boyd, Pierre Sprey, Jeff Record and Norman Polmar, that did the intellectual work for the Caucus.

The book's stronger chapters are those by Wheeler, who pulls no punches when discussing the ways various members of Congress betrayed the reform cause. The “Washington Game” is to create an image with the public that is a direct opposite to what the Senator or Congressman actually does behind closed doors, and the Caucus saw plenty of that game. Standouts were Senator Bill Cohen of Maine, who attended Caucus meetings while busily working with Senator John Tower to block any reform of the Navy (he went on to be perhaps the most ineffectual Secretary of Defense in the Department's history); Newt Gingrich, who really “got” reform and played a big role in the early history of the Caucus, then did nothing to advance its ideas once he gained power; and Dick Cheney, who also used reform to generate an image and now, as Vice President, does nothing.

As I said years ago to a Marine friend who was trying to get a job on Capitol Hill, working as Hill staff is the post-doctoral course in spiritual proctology. Wheeler's chapters dissect many an ass.

He does an equally good job on the press, which did what it always does: build something up (which creates news) and then tear it down again (which creates more news). What drew many members of Congress to the Reform Caucus was the opportunity it offered to get some good ink. When the wind started blowing the other way, those illustrious legislators blew with it. But the corruption of the press itself is a story told less often, and it needs telling. Why do defense companies buy full-page ads in major newspapers? Not because anyone buys a fighter plane based on a newspaper ad, but because the six-figure price for a full page buys the newspaper.

Larry Korb's most important chapter is on “Defense Transformation,” and he makes something of a hash of it. “Transformation” is the latest buzzword for what started out (in the Soviet military) as the “Revolution in Military Affairs,” the notion that new technology would magically eliminate war's confusion, uncertainty and friction. Reform always took the opposite view, namely that to be effective in war, technology must be used in ways that conform to war's nature. Korb fails to see Reform and Transformation as opposites and enemies, although in the end he does lay out how Transformation failed in Iraq.

Wheeler's last chapter defines reform, with the hopeful purpose of renewing it and making its ideas available to a new President. The fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with Federal spending that is endangering the country's financial stability, should put military reform back on the political front burner. But that “should” means nothing in Washington, where all that counts is helping the usual interests feed off the nation's decay. The only Presidential candidate who might pick up the reform agenda is Bob Barr, if he gets the Libertarian nomination.

The book concludes with four important appendices, including a condensed version of the FMFM-1A, Fourth Generation War, and a superb piece by Don Vandergriff on improving military education. The last alone is worth the price of the book.

It may be that the Military Reform Movement remains nothing but a historical footnote, one of many vain attempts to rescue a decaying empire from its appointment with history's dustbin. But as Win Wheeler makes clear in Military Reform: A Reference Handbook, it was also the source of some important ideas on how to win wars and, for those of us who were involved in it, a hell of a ride.




Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?articleid=12912

Winslow T. Wheeler
Director
Straus Military Reform Project
Center for Defense Information
301 791-2397
winslowwheeler@msn.com

Peak Food and Peak Water

Peak Food and Peak Water

by Shepherd Bliss / May 29th, 2008

Peak Oil theorists such as Richard Heinberg, James Howard Kunstler, Matthew Simmons, and others turn out to be correct. Petroleum supplies are declining as demand increases. This unfolding trend will radically change human habitation on the Earth. Among the consequences will be the drastic reduction of food and fresh water available to people, not only in poorer parts of the globe, but throughout the planet.

Industrial societies with their industrial agriculture are dependent upon fossil fuels such as petroleum, natural gas, and coal for many things, including transportation, electricity, and making plastics and other modern essentials. Oil is the main ingredient …
(Full article …)
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/05/peak-food-and-peak-water/

Why Doesn't al-Qaeda Attack the US? by Michael Scheuer

Why Doesn't al-Qaeda Attack the US?
by Michael Scheuer

With daily television coverage of suicide car-bomb attacks, ambushes, drive-by shootings, stabbings, and other Intifada-type attacks around the world, the question arises as to why al-Qaeda does not stage such small-scale but deadly operations in the United States. From Washington and the presidential campaign trail comes a cocky, multi-part answer: our massive homeland security spending has worked; al-Qaeda is on the run and hiding; and/or the U.S. military is fighting the Islamists in Iraq and Afghanistan so they cannot come to America. There may be a mite of truth in each claim, but the correct answer would be frankly to acknowledge that al-Qaeda would have no trouble mounting the kind of attacks made against Israel in America – guns, cars, militant Muslims, and open borders for other needs are all readily available – but that, at this time, it has no interest in staging Intifada-type attacks in the United States.

There are at least three solid reasons why al-Qaeda is not running an Intifada-like campaign in the United States:

1.) Al-Qaeda does not want to fight the United States for any longer than is needed to drive it as far as possible out of the Middle East, and its doctrine for so doing has, in Osama bin Laden's formulation, three components: (a) bleed America to bankruptcy; (b) spread out U.S. forces to the greatest extent possible; and (c) promote Vietnam-era-like domestic disunity. Based on this doctrine, al-Qaeda leaders have decided that attacks in the United States are only worthwhile if they have maximum and simultaneous impact in three areas: high and enduring economic costs, severe casualties, and lasting negative psychological impact. Such an attack, they believe, would require significant U.S. military participation in the post-attack phase – especially if the weapon used is the nuclear device they have sought since the early 1990s – and thereby reduce the military's ability to operate overseas. They also believe that a greater-than-9/11 attack would greatly undermine the confidence of Americans in Washington's ability to protect them. (NB: The usually deft Osama bin Laden also has put himself in something of a box regarding another attack in America because he pledged the next attack will be more destructive than 9/11. Paradoxically, a spate of Intifada-type attacks by al-Qaeda in the United States could well be good news because it probably would signal an admission by bin Laden, et. al that they no longer have the capability to match or exceed the attacks of 9/11 inside America.)

2.) Al-Qaeda appears to recognize the huge difference between attacking Israel and attacking the United States. For Palestinian and Hezbollah insurgents, Intifada-style attacks have sufficed; over the decades, the limited number of casualties the Palestinians and Hezbollah have inflicted on Israel's small population has repeatedly won concessions. Suicide attacks, ambushes, and stabbings against America's 300-plus-million population would cause outrage, a few casualties, and some panic, internal confusion, and perhaps limited inter-ethnic-group violence. They would not, however, shift the strategic balance in al-Qaeda's favor. Intifada-style attacks could not satisfy any of al-Qaeda's three-part doctrine: they would not (a) cause U.S. bankruptcy, (b) require large numbers of U.S. troops to clean-up after, or (c) significantly undermine political cohesion. Indeed, there is reason to surmise that al-Qaeda's leaders have concluded that attacks like those used against Israel – which intend to cause deaths of women, children, and the elderly – would unite Americans rather than divide them.

3.) Al-Qaeda leaders probably think, for the moment, that it would be counterproductive to stage any but a larger-than-9/11 attack in America. Currently, Bin Laden and his senior lieutenants are clearly off balance vis-à-vis the United State because so much substantive success has accrued to al-Qaeda's interests so quickly since 9/11. Neither al-Qaeda nor the Taliban were destroyed in 2001; both escaped with most of their forces largely intact. Each has regrouped, rearmed, and retrained in safe havens in the Pashtun tribal lands that straddle the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The Pakistan army's incursion into the tribal zone was defeated; the new, less-pro-U.S. government in Islamabad is suing for peace with the tribes; and the Islamization of Pakistan continues unabated. The Muslim world perceives that the U.S. military is being defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has been further alienated by the U.S. treatment of captured mujahedin. Finally, the U.S. economy is slowing, Americans are severely divided over Washington's activities overseas, and none of the three major presidential candidates are likely to drastically alter the foreign policies all polls show are hated by up to 80 percent of Muslims. This embarrassment of riches advances each part of al-Qaeda's doctrine for fighting America – casualties, costs, and disunity – and it has been accumulated without a follow-up-to-9/11 attack. While bin Laden might well risk this good fortune for a chance to detonate a nuclear device in the United States, he certainly would not risk it now for the sake of shooting up a half-dozen theaters, coffee shops, and pizza parlors.

So, Americans can relax a bit, go to the movies or the mall, and stop afterwards for coffee or pizza without worrying too much about al-Qaeda launching small-scale attacks. For now, Americans should see themselves as being in standby mode for the larger-than-9/11 attack bin Laden eventually will trigger because the last two U.S. administrations and Senators McCain, Clinton, and Obama have warned about the severe Islamist threat, while knowingly encouraging its worldwide growth by championing status quo foreign policies that degrade U.S. security, as well as by supinely appeasing their Saudi and Israeli masters.
http://www.antiwar.com/scheuer/?articleid=12911

Opium for the Masses: Who is the Enemy in Afghanistan by Eric Walberg

Opium for the Masses
Who is the Enemy in Afghanistan?

By ERIC WALBERG

While the current occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq look to be part of an ambitious plan of US domination of the Muslim world, both are proving to be a much greater problem than their shadowy planners supposed. And whatever conspiracy jigsaw puzzle Afghanistan forms a key piece in, it is certainly not one made in Russia, despite current US attempts to paint Russia, formerly enemy number one, as enemy number two, after the current enemy du jour — Islam.

So what is the current relationship between the heir to the Soviet Union and its nemesis?

The overwhelming legacy of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan for Russia can be summed up in one phrase — drug addiction — something almost unknown to the Soviet Union, but which rapidly spread with Soviet soldiers returning in the 1980s from this culture where hashish is far cheaper and more readily smoked than tobacco, and opium poppies have long been cultivated uncontrolled. Hashish is widely used by Afghans, though not opium, which is for export or used medicinally. But when added to the chronic overuse of alcohol in Russia, drug use there soon became a crisis.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union in December 1991 meant the rigorous border controls for one-sixth of the globe vanished overnight, facilitating drug trafficking from Afghanistan across Central Asia to Russia and further west to Europe . Afghanistan ’s narcotics struck Russia like a tsunami, threatening to decimate its already shrinking population. Russia today has about six million drug-users — a 20-fold increase since the collapse of the Soviet Union and a huge figure for a country of 142 million.

Russia today is a pale reflection of what the SU was as a world power. Its foreign politics have veered sharply from the cautious anti-imperialism of Soviet days, first seemingly embracing the former enemy under Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and even during the first term of President Vladimir Putin. He strongly backed the US attempt to overthrow the Taleban prior to and following 9/11, and put up no resistance to the US as it began snapping up bases in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

However, as Russia began to recover from the collapse of the 1990s, as NATO expanded eastward, and the US under President George W Bush began to wreak more and more havoc, seemingly oblivious to Russian concerns, trust in the Cold War enemy evaporated and the Soviet heritage began to look better and better. The threshold was in 2004 when Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union “a national tragedy on an enormous scale” and reached a zenith in 2007 when he criticised the US at the 8 May Victory Day celebration for “disrespect for human life, claims to global exclusiveness and dictate, just as in the times of the Third Reich.”

The crisis of drug addiction in Russia, now compounded by the post-2001 explosion of opium and hashish flooding the federation courtesy of US/NATO-occupied Afghanistan, was in no small measure inspiration for this lashing out. The last thing Russia expected when it opened its arms to America was to see the Taleban’s zero-tolerance policy towards opium give way to a huge explosion of opium production and smuggling, presided over by US/NATO forces.

This is surely the most creative of all the US’s innovations over the Soviets in Afghanistan, as it loudly denounces narcotics, condemns the Taleban for tithing farmers who produce opium, and convinces a credulous world that it is doing its damnedest to stamp this phenomenon out. There are more BBC/CNN documentaries than you can shake a stick at showing heavily armed troops trying to wean the nasty Afghans from their perverse insistence on producing opium.

The facts speak for themselves, however. The Taleban wiped out heroin production entirely by 2001. Three years later, there were once again bumper opium crops, accounting for over half Afghanistan’s GNP, and ninety percent of the world’s heroin. And not only turning a blind eye, but actively engaging in drug smuggling, according to many observers, including Russian Ambassador Zamir Kabulov.

Commenting on widespread reports that US military transport planes are used for shipping narcotics out of Afghanistan, Kabulov told the Russian Vesti news channel, “If such actions do take place they cannot be undertaken without contact with Afghans, and if one Afghan man knows this, at least a half of Afghanistan will know about this sooner or later. That is why I think this is possible, but cannot prove it.” The Vesti report said drugs from Afghanistan are flown by US transport aircraft to bases Ganci in Kyrgyzstan and Incirlik in Turkey.

Russian journalist Arkadi Dubnov quotes Afghan sources as saying that “85 per cent of all drugs produced in southern and southeastern provinces are shipped abroad by US aviation.” A source in Afghanistan’s security services told Dubnov that the American military buy drugs from local Afghan officials who deal with field commanders overseeing eradication of drug production. Dubnov claimed in Vesti Novostei that the administration of President Hamid Karzai, including his two brothers, Kajum Karzai and Akhmed Vali Karzai, are involved in the narcotics trade.

A US expert on Afghanistan, Barnett Rubin, told an anti-narcotics conference in Kabul last October that “drug dealers had infiltrated Afghani state structures to such an extent that they could easily paralyse the work of the government if the decision to arrest one of them was ever made.” Former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke said in January that “government officials, including some with close ties to the presidency, are protecting the drug trade and profiting from it. He described the $1-billion-a-year US counter-narcotics effort in Afghanistan in The Washington Post in January as “the single most ineffective programme in the history of American foreign policy. It’s not just a waste of money. It actually strengthens the Taleban and Al-Qaeda, as well as criminal elements within Afghanistan.”

According to Vladimir Radyuhin at globalresearch.ca, the US and NATO have stonewalled numerous offers of cooperation to deal with the problem from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)and the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). A Pentagon general told Nikolai Bordyuzha, CSTO Secretary-General, “We are not fighting narcotics because this is not our task in Afghanistan .” Russian border guards on the Tajik-Afghan border were asked to leave by Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon in 2005, under US pressure, resulting in a sharp increase in cross-border drug trafficking.

Bordyuzha explained that the US was trying to set up rival security structures in the region, to “drive a geopolitical wedge between Central Asian countries and Russia and to reorient the region towards the US.” “Unfortunately, they [NATO] are doing nothing to reduce the narcotic threat from Afghanistan even a tiny bit,” Putin angrily remarked three years ago. He accused the coalition forces of “sitting back and watching caravans haul drugs across Afghanistan to the former Soviet Union and Europe.” Last year he bluntly stated that Russia and Europe had been victims of “narco-aggression”. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Afghanistan was on the brink of becoming a “narco state”. Interestingly, the cultivation of opium poppies is spreading rapidly in Iraq too.

Russia and the CSTO continue to confront US indifference to this nightmare, and have initiated an aid and military assistance programme for Afghanistan, which includes training Afghan anti-narcotics police. At the SCO summit in Kyrgyzstan last August, a draft plan was unveiled to work with the CSTO to create an “anti-narcotics belt” around Afghanistan.

Is all this part of some conspiracy by the US? From the Russians’ point of view, it certainly looks that way. US refusal to address the Russians’ complaints seriously just might be because Afghanistan’s opium requires secure routes to markets in Europe. A few conversations with US troops and/or mercenaries there strongly suggest they are not there for altruistic reasons. Cui bono?

No wonder Putin has reacted more and more as Russia wakes up the the reality of what the US is up to. The Russians might have been wise to take their Soviet-era propaganda a bit more seriously before it was too late. “The Americans are working hard to keep narco business flourishing in both countries,” says Mikhail Khazin, president of the consultancy firm Niakon. “They consistently destroy the local infrastructure, pushing the local population to look for illegal means of subsistence. And the CIA provides protection to drug trafficking.” In March 2002 he told NewsMax.com, “The CIA did almost the identical thing during the Vietnam War, which had catastrophic consequences — the increase in the heroin trade in the USA beginning in the 1970s is directly attributable to the CIA.”

While originally backing the Tajik Northern Alliance that the US used to oust the Taleban and install Hamid Karzai as president, Russia soon began to regret allowing it to secure such a strong political foothold in what is clearly its own geopolitical backyard. When US-inspired “colour revolutions” brought down governments in Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Ukraine, and as eastern Europe and the Baltics flocked to join NATO, the backlash against the US strengthened.

So the Russians are in a very different position with respect to Afghanistan a quarter century on, a much, much worse one. All but the most die-hard Stalinists now regret the attempt to prop up the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) in its fantasy of turning Afghanistan into a “soviet socialist republic”, though it’s hard to see what option the aging Politbureau members had. The alternative — to let it collapse — would have opened the door to a takeover by US-armed Islamists. It should be remember that this was at the height of the Cold War, and would have meant a friendly, if feudal, Afghanistan now joining forces with a hostile China, Pakistan and Iran as the SU’s neighbours to the south and east of its own Muslim Turkestan. The starry-eyed Afghan revolutionaries led by Nur Muhammad Taraki clearly did not have broader Soviet concerns in mind when they carried out their coup in 1978. The decision to cut short the campaign of terror of his successor, President Hafizullah Amin, in December 1979 — he had murdered President Taraki and began an anti-religious campaign in the countryside — was not taken lightly, and turned out to be the beginning of the end for both the SU and Afghanistan.

Clearly the Soviets were tripped up by the US, getting their own back for Vietnam, so to speak. What is surprising is not how “unpredictable and hostile” the Russians are with regards the West these days, but how forgiving and conciliatory they have been. It is hardly surprising that their relations with the US and NATO have soured considerably since 9/11, though they are still leaving open the possibility of working together to stabilise Afghanistan and facilitate reconstruction — the Soviet debt was cancelled this year, leading the way for greater assistance, and at the NATO conference in Bucharest in April, Russia’s new ambassador to NATO, Dmitri Rogozin, offered to accelerate transport of materiel to Afghanistan from Europe.

According to Moscow-based political analyst Fred Weir, Russia is eking out a niche in the world order as a kind of good cop to the US’s bad cop, as seen in its positions on Iran, North Korea and the Middle East. However, its raison d’etre is not just to placate the US, but to deal with its neighbours sensibly. It has been negotiating a rail route through Afghanistan to Iran and the Persian Gulf. President Dmitri Medvedev’s first official visit was to China. Ambassador Kabulov warned in a BBC Persian language service interview: “We see the military presence of armed forces of the United States of America and NATO in Afghanistan just in the framework of our common campaign against terrorism. As long as this presence goes on for this end, we have no concern. But if the military presence is for other political or economic gains in Afghanistan and in the region, this certainly and definitely will cause special concerns.”

Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly. You can reach him at www.geocities.com/walberg2002/
http://www.counterpunch.org/walberg05282008.html

Iraq: Winston Churchill and Déjà Vu

http://atlantic-community.org/index/articles/view/Iraq%3A_Winston_Churchill_and_D%E9j%E0_Vu_/print
Iraq: Winston Churchill and Déjà Vu

James Cricks: We are indebted to Christopher Catherwood for doing the homework about Iraq and the West that current policymakers should be considering.

"On one hand it is perfectly clear we cannot go on spending these enormous sums on Mesopotamia [Iraq] and that the forces that we maintain there must be promptly and drastically reduced." Letter from Churchill, 1921

We would also like to extract our military forces yet support a friendly Iraqi government as it tries to establish its credibility. It is sad we have such a short view of history that we don't see the stunning parallels with the situation Winston Churchill and the British government faced in 1921. For professionals interested in Iraq, a careful reading of Christopher Catherwood's 2004 book, Churchill's Folly: How Winston Churchill Created Modern Iraq, would be an illuminating guide to a failed policy which contributed to the predicament we are now in. As the British created a unilateral plan for Iraq, they made some bad compromises as they yielded to time pressures.

As Catherwood asserts, Iraq would not even exist if it were not for many of the choices which Churchill and other British officials made. Churchill was assisted by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and other Arab experts who understood many of the regional details yet were unable to devise a workable strategy. They tried to balance Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds in a nation which had previously not existed. As the British used surrogate rulers before, they hoped to have an Arab King formally leading Iraq while they continued exerting indirect guidance. This arrangement was attempted after Churchill gave up his idea of a separate Kurdish state. We still have huge identity issues within the contrived Iraqi state.

Great Britain was driven to their untenable compromise by the pressure of military and financial overextension. They had forces stretched across an empire. Earlier, in 1916, a British expeditionary force lost more than twenty thousand lives near Baghdad when they were en route to protect the oil fields in Basra. To lessen the size of the British ground force, Churchill calculated airpower could be used as effectively and at cheaper cost. He assessed "Personally, I believe the military forces in Mesopotamia [Iraq] are out of all proportion to what is justifiable or reasonable to employ in that part of the world."

Diplomatically, the British government was also struggling. Churchill sought to balance a military solution with a more comprehensive plan worked out with the Turks and the wider Moslem world. Although he perceived Arab issues were "all one" issue, any potential outreach was stalled by British infighting.

Ultimately, Churchill's desire for a cheap solution overruled all other considerations. Training of local forces was to be accelerated as much as possible. Churchill saw to it that an Arab King, King Feisal, was installed after a highly questionable referendum process. Feisal was never able to gain the credibility needed to effectively rule Iraq. His successor was a staunch Arab nationalist, strongly opposed to British interests. I can't think of a better cautionary study for the U.S. and the Western world as we approach the new end-game.

McCain's Remarks on Nuclear Security

McCain's Remarks on Nuclear Security
John McCain

University of Denver
Denver, Colorado

For much of our history, the world considered the United States a young country. Today, we are the world's oldest constitutional democracy, yet we remain a young nation. We still possess the attributes of youth -- spirit, energy, vitality, and creativity. America will always be young as long as we are looking forward, and leading, to a better world.

Innovative and energetic American leadership is as vital to the world's future today as it was during the Cold War. I have spent my life in public service working to ensure our great nation is strong enough to counter those who wish us ill. To be an effective leader in the 21st century, however, it is not enough to be strong. We must be a model for others. That means not only pursuing our own interests but recognizing that we share interests with peoples across our planet. There is such a thing as good international citizenship, and America must be a good citizen of the world-leading the way to address the danger of global warming and preserve our environment, strengthening existing international institutions and helping to build new ones, and engaging the world in a broad dialogue on the threat of violent extremists, who would, if they could, use weapons of mass destruction to attack us and our allies.

Today we also need to apply our spirit of optimism, energy, and innovation to a crisis that has been building for decades but is now coming to a head: the global spread of nuclear weapons. Forty-five years ago, President John F. Kennedy asked the American people to imagine what the world would look like if nuclear weapons spread beyond the few powers that then held them to the many other nations that sought them. "Stop and think for a moment," he said, "what it would mean to have nuclear weapons in so many hands, in the hands of countries large and small, stable and unstable, responsible and irresponsible, scattered throughout the world." If that happened, he warned, "there would be no rest for anyone."

Kennedy's warning resonates more today than ever before. North Korea pursues a nuclear weapons program to the point where, today, the dictator Kim Jong-Il has tested a nuclear weapon, and almost certainly possesses several more nuclear warheads. And it has shared its nuclear and missile know-how with others, including Syria. It is a vital national interest for the North Korean nuclear program to be completely, verifiably and irreversibly ended. Likewise, we have seen Iran marching with single-minded determination toward the same goal. President Ahmadinejad has threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, and represents a threat to every country in the region - one we cannot ignore or minimize.

Other nations have begun to wonder whether they, too, need to have such weapons, if only in self-defense. As a result, we could find ourselves in a world where a dozen or more nations, small and large, stable and unstable, responsible and irresponsible, have viable nuclear weapons programs. But there is a flip side to President Kennedy's warning. We should stop and think for a moment not only of the perils of a world awash with nuclear weapons, but also of the more hopeful alternative -- a world in which there are far fewer such weapons than there are today, and in which proliferation, instability, and nuclear terrorism are far less likely. This is the world it is our responsibility to build.

There is no simple answer to the problem. If you look back over the past two decades, I don't think any of us, Republican or Democrat, can take much satisfaction in what we've accomplished to control nuclear proliferation. Today, some people seem to think they've discovered a brand new cause, something no one before them ever thought of. Many believe all we need to do to end the nuclear programs of hostile governments is have our president talk with leaders in Pyongyang and Tehran, as if we haven't tried talking to these governments repeatedly over the past two decades. Others think military action alone can achieve our goals, as if military actions were not fraught with their own terrible risks. While the use of force may be necessary, it can only be as a last resort not a first step. The truth is we will only address the terrible prospect of the worldwide spread of nuclear arms if we transcend our partisan differences, co mbine our energies, learn from our past mistakes, and seek practical and effective solutions.

I'd like to suggest some steps we should take to chart a common vision for the future. It is a vision in which the United States returns to a tradition of innovative thinking, broad-minded internationalism, and determined diplomacy, backed by America's great and enduring power to lead. It is a vision not of the United States acting alone, but building and participating in a community of nations all drawn together in this vital common purpose. It is a vision of a responsible America, dedicated to an enduring peace based on freedom.

A quarter of a century ago, President Ronald Reagan declared, "our dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the Earth." That is my dream, too. It is a distant and difficult goal. And we must proceed toward it prudently and pragmatically, and with a focused concern for our security and the security of allies who depend on us. But the Cold War ended almost twenty years ago, and the time has come to take further measures to reduce dramatically the number of nuclear weapons in the world's arsenals. It is time for the United States to show the kind of leadership the world expects from us, in the tradition of American presidents who worked to reduce the nuclear threat to mankind.

Our highest priority must be to reduce the danger that nuclear weapons will ever be used. Such weapons, while still important to deter an attack with weapons of mass destruction against us and our allies, represent the most abhorrent and indiscriminate form of warfare known to man. We do, quite literally, possess the means to destroy all of mankind. We must seek to do all we can to ensure that nuclear weapons will never again be used.

While working closely with allies who rely on our nuclear umbrella for their security, I would ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff to engage in a comprehensive review of all aspects of our nuclear strategy and policy. I would keep an open mind on all responsible proposals. At the same time, we must continue to deploy a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent, robust missile defenses and superior conventional forces that are capable of defending the United States and our allies. But I will seek to reduce the size of our nuclear arsenal to the lowest number possible consistent with our security requirements and global commitments. Today we deploy thousands of nuclear warheads. It is my hope to move as rapidly as possible to a significantly smaller force.

While we have serious differences, with the end of the Cold War, Russia and the United States are no longer mortal enemies. As our two countries possess the overwhelming majority of the world's nuclear weapons, we have a special responsibility to reduce their number. I believe we should reduce our nuclear forces to the lowest level we judge necessary, and we should be prepared to enter into a new arms control agreement with Russia reflecting the nuclear reductions I will seek. Further, we should be able to agree with Russia on binding verification measures based on those currently in effect under the START Agreement, to enhance confidence and transparency. In close consultation with our allies, I would also like to explore ways we and Russia can reduce -- and hopefully eliminate -- deployments of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. I also believe we should work with Russia to build confidence in our missile defens e program, including through such initiatives as the sharing of early warning data and prior notification of missile launches.

There are other areas in which we can work in partnership with Russia to strengthen protections against weapons of mass destruction. I would seriously consider Russia's recent proposal to work together to globalize the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. I would also redouble our common efforts to reduce the risk that nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons may fall into the hands of terrorists or unfriendly governments.

I believe we should also begin a dialogue with China on strategic and nuclear issues. We have important shared interests with China and should begin discussing ways to achieve the greatest possible transparency and cooperation on nuclear force structure and doctrine. We should work with China to encourage conformity with the practices of the other four nuclear weapon states recognized in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, including working toward nuclear arsenal reductions and toward a moratorium on the production of additional fissile material.

I believe we must also address nuclear testing. As president I will pledge to continue America's current moratorium on testing, but also begin a dialogue with our allies, and with the U.S. Senate, to identify ways we can move forward to limit testing in a verifiable manner that does not undermine the security or viability of our nuclear deterrent. This would include taking another look at the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to see what can be done to overcome the shortcomings that prevented it from entering into force. I opposed that treaty in 1999, but said at the time I would keep an open mind about future developments.

I would only support the development of any new type of nuclear weapon that is absolutely essential for the viability of our deterrent, that results in making possible further decreases in the size of our nuclear arsenal, and furthers our global nuclear security goals. I would cancel all further work on the so-called Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, a weapon that does not make strategic or political sense.

Finally, we cannot achieve our non-proliferation goals on our own. We must strengthen existing international treaties and institutions to combat proliferation, and develop new ones when necessary. We should move quickly with other nations to negotiate a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty to end production of the most dangerous nuclear materials. The international community needs to improve its ability to interdict the spread of nuclear weapons and material under the Proliferation Security Initiative. And we need to increase funding for our own non-proliferation efforts, including the Cooperative Threat Reduction programs established by the landmark Nunn-Lugar legislation, and ensure the highest possible standards of security for existing nuclear materials.

In 2010, an international conference will meet to review the Non-Proliferation Treaty. If I am President, I will seize that opportunity to strengthen and enhance all aspects of the non-proliferation regime. We need to strengthen enforcement of the so-called "atoms for peace" bargain by insisting that countries that receive the benefits of peaceful nuclear cooperation must return or dismantle what they receive if they violate or withdraw from the NPT. We need to increase IAEA funding and enhance the intelligence support it receives. We also need to reverse the burden of proof when it comes to discovering whether a nation is cheating on its NPT commitments. The IAEA shouldn't have to play cat-and-mouse games to prove a country is in compliance. It is for suspected violators to prove they are in compliance. We should establish a requirement by the UN Security Council that international transfers of sensitive nuclear technology must be disclosed in advance to an international authority such as the IAEA, and further require that undisclosed transfers be deemed illicit and subject to interdiction. Finally, to enforce treaty obligations, IAEA member states must be willing to impose sanctions on nations that seek to withdraw from it.

We need to enlist all willing partners in the global battle against nuclear proliferation. I support the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Accord as a means of strengthening our relationship with the world's largest democracy, and further involving India in the fight against proliferation. We should engage actively with both India and Pakistan to improve the security of nuclear stockpiles and weapons materials, and construct a secure global nuclear order that eliminates the likelihood of proliferation and the possibility of nuclear conflict.

As we improve the national and multilateral tools to catch and reverse illicit nuclear programs, I am convinced civilian nuclear energy can be a critical part of our fight against global warming. Civilian nuclear power provides a way for the United States and other responsible nations to achieve energy independence and reduce our dependence on foreign oil and gas. But in order to take advantage of civilian nuclear energy, we must do a better job of ensuring it remains civilian. Some nations use the pretense of civilian nuclear programs as cover for nuclear weapons programs. We need to build an international consensus that exposes this deception, and holds nations accountable for it. We cannot continue allowing nations to enrich and reprocess uranium, ostensibly for civilian purposes, and stand by impotently as they develop weapons programs.

The most effective way to prevent this deception is to limit the further spread of enrichment and reprocessing. To persuade countries to forego enrichment and reprocessing, I would support international guarantees of nuclear fuel supply to countries that renounce enrichment and reprocessing, as well as the establishment of multinational nuclear enrichment centers in which they can participate. Nations that seek nuclear fuel for legitimate civilian purposes will be able to acquire what they need under international supervision. This is one suggestion Russia and others have made to Iran. Unfortunately, the Iranian government has so far rejected this idea. Perhaps with enough outside pressure and encouragement, they can be persuaded to change their minds before it is too late.

I would seek to establish an international repository for spent nuclear fuel that could collect and safely store materials overseas that might otherwise be reprocessed to acquire bomb-grade materials. It is even possible that such an international center could make it unnecessary to open the proposed spent nuclear fuel storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

This is a long list of steps we need to take. It is long because there is no single answer to this crisis, and there are no easy answers. It is long because no nation can meet this dire challenge alone and none can be indifferent to its outcome. The United States cannot and will not stop the spread of nuclear weapons by unilateral action. We must lead concerted and persistent multilateral efforts. As powerful as we are, America's ability to defend ourselves and our allies against the threat of nuclear attack depends on our ability to encourage effective international cooperation. We must strengthen the accords and institutions that make such cooperation possible. No problem we face poses a greater threat to us and the world than nuclear proliferation. In a time when followers of a hateful and remorseless ideology are willing to destroy themselves to destroy us, the threat of suicide bombers with the means to wreak incompreh ensible devastation should call the entire world to action. The civilized nations of the world must act as one or we will suffer consequences once thought remote when the threat of mutually assured destruction could deter responsible states from thinking the unthinkable.

Americans have always risen to the challenges of their time. And we have always done so successfully not by hiding from history, but by making history; by encouraging a sometimes reluctant world to follow our lead, and defend civilization from old mistakes and old animosities, and the folly of relying on policies that no longer keep us safe. I want to keep the country I love and have served all my life secure in our freedom. I want us to rise to the challenges of our times, as generations before us rose to theirs. It is incumbent on America, more than any other nation on earth, to lead in building the foundations for a stable and enduring peace, a peace built on the strength of our commitment to it, on the transformative ideals on which we were founded, on our ability to see around the corner of history, and on our courage and wisdom to make new and better choices. No matter how dangerous the threats we face in our day, it still remains within our power to make in our time another, better world than we inherited. And that, my friends, is what I am running for President to do.

Thank you.
John McCain, a U.S. Senator from Arizona, is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/mccains_remarks_on_nuclear_sec.html

The Beginning of the End for Al Qaeda? by Paul Cruickshank

The Beginning of the End for Al Qaeda?
By Paul Cruickshank


Peter Bergen (my colleague at the NYU Center on Law and Security) and myself have a cover story out in the latest issue of the New Republic -- published online last week and now on news stands --- entitled the ‘Jihadist Revolt against Bin Laden.’ We report that key figures in the Jihadist movement, many of them veterans of the Afghan anti-Soviet Jihad, are increasingly publicly repudiating Bin Laden, alarmed by Al Qaeda’s indiscriminate targeting of civilians and the fact that most of its victims since 9/11 have been Muslim.

Although several veterans of the Afghan Jihad saw 9/11 as an illegitimate attack on civilians and a blunder by Bin Laden because Jihadists lost their ability to train in Afghanistan, the emergence of a fully-fledged ‘Jihadist Critique’ of Al Qaeda was almost certainly delayed by the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, ‘a cause celebre’ for Jihadists around the world.

Since then, however, al Qaeda’s brutal campaign of violence in Iraq (over 10,000 Iraqis have been killed by Al Qaeda’s suicide bombers) has horrified even battle-hardened Jihadists, and ideologues once closely aligned with al Qaeda. One such jihadist, Sayyid Imam al Sharif is profiled this week by Larry Wright (also a fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security) in the New Yorker.

While mainstream Muslim leaders have long criticized Al Qaeda, the new wave of criticism coming from key figures in the jihadist movement has real extra bite, because it is very difficult for Bin Laden to dismiss the arguments of jihadist leaders who once fought at his side, or provided guidance to his organization, or inspired his recruits. To the degree that this makes radical leaning youngsters from London to Lahore think twice about joining al Qaeda, this could be a watershed moment in the war on terrorism. Here is our assessment of just how impactful this new jihadist critique has been.
May 28, 2008 08:01 PM Link
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2008/05/the_beginning_of_the_end_for_a.php

Brzezinski: US Suffering from Iran Paranoia

Brzezinski: U.S. Suffering From Iran Paranoia
( Published on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 )
Former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski says Washington has founded its Iran policy on 'paranoia' and 'demagogy'

http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=6703

US presses UN to broaden nuclear search in Syria: report

US presses UN to broaden nuclear search in Syria: report
WASHINGTON, May 28 (AFP) May 29, 2008
The United States is pressing UN inspectors to broaden a search for secret nuclear sites in Syria to check if it has other hidden facilities beyond an alleged reactor destroyed by Israel, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

US officials have given information on three suspect sites to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, which is negotiating with Syria for permission to conduct inspections in the country, the Post said, citing US government officials and Western diplomats.

US officials want to know if the suspect sites were support facilities for the alleged Al Kibar reactor, which Washington says was built with North Korean help, the daily said.

Officials declined to describe the suspect sites or discuss how they were identified, the newspaper said.

Western governments have long wanted to identify possible locations for a facility in Syria that might have supplied fuel rods for a reactor, it said.

The Al Kibar site, while described as nearly operational when it was bombed, had no clear source of uranium fuel needed for operation, the Post said, citing US intelligence officials and diplomats familiar with the site.

The US government charges that the reactor, which was destroyed in an Israeli air raid on September 6, had a military purpose.

Syria has denied the US allegations and has promised full cooperation with the UN watchdog.

CIA Director Michael Hayden told the Post that the intelligence community's insight into Syria's nuclear ambitions had deepened since the Israeli raid.

"Do not assume that Al Kibar exhausted our knowledge of Syrian efforts with regard to nuclear weapons," Hayden was quoted as saying.

"I am very comfortable -- certainly with Al Kibar and what was there, and what the intent was. It was the highest confidence level. And nothing since the attack last September has changed our mind," he said.

"In fact, events since the attack give us even greater confidence as to what it was."

Hayden predicted that Syria would "almost certainly attempt to delay and deceive" the IAEA.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.
http://www.spacewar.com/2006/080529044355.2th9xif3.html

Pakistan nuclear scientist says more revelations to come

Pakistan nuclear scientist says more revelations to come
ISLAMABAD, May 29 (AFP) May 29, 2008
Pakistan's disgraced atomic scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan said on Thursday that there would be further revelations to come about the country's nuclear proliferation scandal.

Khan, regarded as the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, said in a televised confession in February 2004 that he had run a network that passed atomic secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

President Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan but has kept him under house arrest ever since. Musharraf has denied any state involvement in the episode but refuses to let foreign investigators question Khan.

In a rare interview with a television station the day after the 10th anniversary of Pakistan's first nuclear tests, Khan said that most of the facts about the scandal were widely known.

But when asked what was yet to be revealed, Khan told Dawn News television: "They will be out, there are some things -- they will be out in time, when an appropriate time is there."

Khan said that there were certain subjects he could not talk about because of the "national interest".

The scientist told AFP last month that he took the blame for exporting nuclear secrets in order to "save his country."

Khan, who was treated for prostate cancer in 2006, told Dawn that Musharraf and his allies were to blame for Pakistan's current troubles.

"The team leader is to be responsible for the members of the team. But all those who were with him, they did not assert themselves and they did not do the proper job -- all those scandals," Khan said.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

Israel PM calls for naval blockade of Iran: report

Israel PM calls for naval blockade of Iran: report
Jerusalem (AFP) May 21, 2008
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has urged the United States to impose a naval blockade on Iran to pressure it to stop its controversial nuclear programme, the Haaretz daily reported on Wednesday. Olmert raised the issue during a meeting in Jerusalem on Tuesday with US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the newspaper said. "The present economic sanctions on Iran have exhaus ... more
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Israel_PM_calls_for_naval_blockade_of_Iran_report_999.html

US: Iran must not 'stall' on nuclear issue

US: Iran must not 'stall' on nuclear issue
Washington (AFP) May 28, 2008
The United States warned Wednesday that it would not let Iran "stall" the world with nuclear negotiations while Tehran pursues what the West fears is an atomic weapons quest. "We cannot allow the Iranian regime to use negotiations to stall for time, hedge its bets and keep open an indigenous route to a nuclear weapon," US national security adviser Stephen Hadley said in a speech. ... read more
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Iran_must_not_stall_on_nuclear_issue_999.html

The Mosul Riddle by Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE
The Mosul riddle
While most attention in Iraq is focused on Baghdad and the troubles in Sadr City, under the global radar an invisible war in Mosul drags on, officially against al-Qaeda jihadis but in fact a barely disguised anti-Sunni mini-pogrom conducted by government-embedded militias. - Pepe Escobar (May 23, '08)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE24Ak01.html

Where are those Iranian arms in Iraq? by Gareth Porter

Where are those Iranian arms in Iraq?
The United States military continues to imply that Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq to arm Shi'ite groups opposed to the US occupation. Yet US officials have not even come close to providing evidence to support the claims - most weapons most likely are bought on the open market. - Gareth Porter (May 23, '08)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE24Ak02.html

History in the making for Hezbollah

History in the making for Hezbollah
Somewhere in Beirut, the head of Hezbollah, the resilient Hasan Nasrallah, is a happy man. Resolutions were hammered out in Doha on Wednesday giving Hezbollah and its backers long-coveted veto power in the Lebanese government - and the group gets to keep its arms, no questions asked. Syria and Iran were also winners and Saudi Arabia's proxies, defeated militarily last week, were beaten politically in Doha. Nasrallah is writing history, his way. - Sami Moubayed (May 22, '08)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE23Ak03.html

At War with the Taliban: In the footsteps of Osama by Syed Saleem Shahzad

AT WAR WITH THE TALIBAN, Part 3
In the footsteps of Osama ...
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

(Part 1: Ducking and diving under B-52s
Part 2: A fighter and a financier)

KUNAR VALLEY, Afghanistan - Nearly seven years after invading Afghanistan to go after Osama bin Laden, the United States has stepped up its campaign to catch the al-Qaeda leader and his senior associates, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, who are believed to be in the rugged terrain spanning Bajaur Agency in Pakistan and the neighboring Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nooristan.

The US has increased surveillance operations through newly built
bases in the region and additional daily flights of Predator drones scour the area for any suspicious characters who might lead the US to the world's most wanted man.

The recent killing of leading al-Qaeda figures Sheikh Abu Soliman and Sheikh Osman in Damadolah, Bajaur Agency, by US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) drones was the result of the spy network's stepped-up surveillance in this vital corridor. (See Ducking and diving under B-52s Asia Times Online, May 22, 2008, in which the news of the death of the two men was first reported.)

According to some reports, in the past few days, US security and military officials held a top-level summit at a military base in the Qatari capital of Doha to plan an operation to hunt for the al-Qaeda leader. General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, and the US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Petersen, were reported to have attended the summit.

Last week, Petraeus testified before a US Congressional committee about security in Iraq and warned that members of al-Qaeda based in Pakistan's tribal areas were planning a new September 11-style attack.

Revelations on the road to Pakistan
I have witnessed how the Taliban rule the Pakistani Mohmand and Bajaur tribal agencies and the Kunar Valley without any formal government. The Taliban are undoubtedly the real regional force "which can only be heard but cannot be seen". The Taliban are more a feeling than a physical presence in these tribal areas, yet they are a force that can transform society.

Seven months ago I visited Bajaur and Mohmand agencies. As my taxi driver headed from Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province, he was played some Pashtu music on the car's CD. Quickly, though, he changed it for jihadi songs.

"The militants have not only brought guns to the tribal areas, they have also brought a culture which has transformed tribal society," commented a passenger traveling with me.

This set me thinking. Where are people like Nashanas - a legendary singer? His songs are only heard in urban centers such as Kabul, Peshawar, Herat, Quetta and Kandahar. In his place are poetry and songs that talk not of love and lovers but of a mujahid and his gun - his long hair and beard, his wounds of war, his passion for resistance and his preference for the battlefield rather than intimacy with his lover.

This has given rise to a new breed of people who inspire such poetry, such as Mr S, whom I met this month while returning from Kunar province to Pakistan after a stay with the Taliban.

"Mr Saleem, you are extremist. Please be moderate," he bluntly told me. The reasons for calling me an extremist were twofold: my wearing the traditional warm Pakhol cap in the hot weather, and that I had managed to travel to the Kunar Valley and back despite being out of condition.

S is 25 and initially seemed like any other foot soldier who had taken his inspiration from the lectures of a radical cleric. I was very wrong and the Punjabi with a soft face revealed much humility as I got to know him better on our hike through the mountains.

S is the son of a Pakistani military officer and left his home after completing school at the age of 17. Ever since, he has been an active jihadi, and in eight years he has only seen his family once.

He joined al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan before September 11, 2001 - even serving for bin Laden - but soon after that event he went to the South Waziristan tribal area in Pakistan with Arab-Afghans such as Sheikh Ahmad Saeed Khadr and Sheikh Essa.

S said his association with Arab-Afghan militants turned him from an ordinary jihadi into an astute trainer. "In my early 20s, I was training big names of this region, including young Arabs and Uzbeks who were many years older than me," said S.

S could have earned a monthly stipend to devote himself to being a jihad, but he chose to work as a trader in Pakistani cities to earn extra money. He then returned to the mountain vastness of Afghanistan to join the Taliban's fight against NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in Afghanistan.

A turning point in S's life came when, returning from Khost province in Afghanistan where he ran a training camp, he was arrested by Pakistani Frontier Corps.

"I was passed on from one security agency to another, and each time the interrogation methods changed. My pre-9/11 association with bin Laden and Zawahiri and occasional meetings with Zawahiri after 9/11 boosted me as an 'al-Qaeda associate' in the eyes of my Pakistani examiners. For one-and-half years I did not see a single ray of sunlight. After thorough interrogations, they concluded that I was just a fighter and a trainer against NATO troops who happened to be a 'renegade' son of an army officer," said S.

"They contacted my father and despite that he had abandoned me a long time ago, when he heard about my situation all his fatherly affection returned and he agreed to become my guarantor that I would not take part in any jihadi activities.

"So I was released in front of Peshawar railway station, blindfolded, and when my blinds were removed there was my old father in front of me. I was standing with my hands and feet chained, and when my guards removed these my father hugged me and wept profusely.

"That was the only brief interaction between me and my family as I once again went into my own world of jihad. It was me and my gun, and I never looked back to see if there was any family, a father or a mother, waiting for me ... though I miss them a lot," S related in a sad, soft voice.

S then went on to tell of his first showdown with American soldiers in Birmal (near Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area) in Afghanistan. Some Americans were killed, but most of S's colleagues were either killed or wounded. Shattered, S only just managed to make it back to his base.

S has earned a reputation in jihadi circles as a spiritual healer. Whether for headaches, stomach aches or wounds, his recitation of the Koran has a healing effect.

"What worldly gains do we get in these mountains?" S asks rhetorically. "None! We have left everything behind ... even this mass of flesh does not belong to us. Hence we are left with our soul ... which is now very much alive and awakened," said S.

Later, while walking in the forested mountains of Kunar, I shot a question at S: "Where is bin Laden?"

"First, you tell me what your guess is," said S with a smile. So I sat down under a tree, and in the light of the moon I drew a circle in the sand with the dried branch of tree.

"This is the region of Kunar-Nooristan-Bajaur and Chitral [the region that spans the Afghan-Pakistani border]. I suppose this is where Osama is supposed to be ... I have reason to believe he might be in Nooristan, in some deserted place near the Afghan province of Badakshan," I smiled back at S, giving him a challenging stare.

For a moment S did not speak, he just watched my face; he seemed surprised. "You have got a good vision of this region at least," S finally commented, then he stood up and we continued the journey.

"I also have the same region in mind ... though I do not know where exactly he is," S said, adding that the main concern is that the Americans are also attracted by this region and are now focussing their efforts on it in their search for bin Laden.

"If, God forbid, they catch or kill the sheikh [bin Laden] it would cause a huge loss to the mujahideen. Believe you me, it would be like almost winning the war. The morale of the mujahideen would be low and all the money pouring in from the Middle East would stop because it only comes in the sheikh's name," S said.

"This is a guess according to material knowledge. But I will share with you the spiritual experience. As you are aware, people in this region take me into their homes if they suspect someone is haunted by a jinni [supernatural spirit].

"Some time ago in this region I was invited to treat such a person [a man]. The effect of the jinni was removed as I overwhelmed the jinni. It was in my control [and it later, according to S, embraced Islam] so I asked him [the jinni] to tell him [the man] the whereabouts of bin Laden. He [the man] came back after a while and told me he could only travel up as far as the Kunar Valley before he was stopped by Muslim jinnis who had placed a heavy guard in the region," S said.

"So even judging by my spiritual experience, you seem to be correct that the sheikh is somewhere in Nooristan at the crossroads of Kunar and Badakshan," said S.

Switching topics, S said he is against the use of suicide attacks. "I do not know the exact status of such attacks in Islamic law, but certainly in my manuals of war it is prohibited. I have argued with all the top commanders that any target can be hit without the use of suicide attacks," S said.

On strategic matters, S is clear that attacks on Pakistani security forces in the tribal areas can only add up to problems. "I always argued with top ideologues like Sheikh Essa that the more success we get in Afghanistan, the more we will gain support from Pakistan. If NATO remains strong in Afghanistan, it will put pressure on Pakistan. If NATO remains weaker in Afghanistan, it will dare [encourage] Pakistan to support the Taliban, its only real allies in the region," S said.

Our chat was interrupted by our guide Zubair Mujahid, who directed us not to speak as a border crossing was near. "We will cross in half an hour and will reach Pakistani territory at about 3 o'clock in the morning," he said.

"So early ... do you not fear that a group of goons will try to kidnap us for ransom?" I teased Zubair.

"Goons! Who is a bigger goon than us ... we have left the entire world and the entire world has abandoned us. Yet we freely challenge the world powers without any fear ... you think those little robbers who snatch money from people can dare stand in front of us?" Zubair replied.

In an hour we reached a point in Pakistan from where I could take video footage of the whole region of Kunar and Bajaur and the mountain belt going towards Chitral, Nooristan and Tajikistan.

Zubair and S, along with two other fellows, were saying their morning prayers on a wide stone on the edge of a cliff. The sun was showing its first struggling signs of rising in the east. I had the strong feeling that the region is on the threshold of a new culture whose rays are about to spread beyond war games and war theaters.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
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Time to do something about oil by Martin Hutchinson

THE BEAR'S LAIR
Time to do something about oil
By Martin Hutchinson

The oil price rise of more than US$50 per barrel since the US Federal Reserve started cutting interest rates in September is beginning to get serious. Since the rise of oil import prices alone removes $170 billion from the US economy, more than 1% of gross domestic product, it is both inflationary and highly recession-producing, especially since it has been accompanied by similar rises in other commodity prices. Its full effects have not been seen yet but they're coming - don't worry! At some point we are probably going to have to do something about it. The question is: what?

In general, the populist clamor to "do something" about a sharp
move in commodity prices makes no sense. The price mechanism acts as a shock absorber for supply and demand hiccups, so that if storms shut down the Gulf oil platforms or rapid growth in China causes its use of automobiles to soar, oil price rises can signal to other consumers to cut back consumption and to producers to enter into new exploration projects.

That's why the fuel subsidies in Third World countries are foolish. They encourage the consumption of a substance that is increasingly scarce and at times like the present impose an appalling burden on local taxpayers or the government's financing mechanisms (as in India, where government deficits threaten to derail that country's magnificent economic boom.)

While oil prices were rising from $20 to $80 per barrel in 2002-07, this rationale seemed unquestionable. The rise was gradual, and the price remained well within the parameters that the world economy had survived, albeit with some difficulty, in the early eighties. (Although the peak 1980 price of $40 per barrel was equivalent to about $105 in today's dollars, that peak was ephemeral; the major economic effect of expensive oil came from the roughly six years of oil prices hovering around $30, or $70-80 in today’s dollars, in 1980-85.)

However, the $50 rise since September has been sudden, has taken oil prices to a level never before experienced, and shows no sign of abating. Its principal short-term cause has been the excessive lowering of interest rates and relaxation of credit conditions in the United States and elsewhere, but there are a number of long-term factors which may make it difficult to reverse.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is said to be producing a study showing that future oil supplies will be more restricted than had been thought, topping out at about 100 million barrels per day rather than the 115 million that had been thought necessary to accommodate the world's growth to 2030. The IEA's new caution is probably inevitable, given the rise in prices and the considerable uncertainty in reserve and production estimates; it's mostly a matter of IEA geologists seeing the inexorable rise in prices and deciding to use more pessimistic assumptions about future trends.

In any case, since current production is only around 85 million barrels per day, the decline in estimated future production is not an immediate problem. However, its psychological effect on the market is considerable.

Whatever the views of the IEA, it should be clear that the recent rise in oil prices is not driven by fundamentals. Economists differ about the price elasticity of oil, but the lowest plausible estimates for short-term price elasticity are around 10%, with medium-term elasticity being much higher. Thus if oil legend T Boone Pickens is right that oil supplies are currently 85 million barrels per day and oil demand is 87 million, that is a supply shortfall of 2.4%, which at a 10% elasticity should produce a price increase of 24%, not 60%.

The principal influence behind the huge rise in oil prices has been speculation, whether by the international oil companies, by hedge funds deprived of easy pickings in the housing and equities markets, or by the oil suppliers themselves, drunk with the glory of their new-found wealth. Naturally, easy money provided by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, European counterpart Jacques Trichet and the rest of the gang since September has empowered the speculators. Indeed, while real interest rates remain below zero oil speculators would appear to be on to a one-way bet, provided they are rich enough to sustain their buying - and the combined resources of the world's hedge funds, oil companies and dubious energy-rich Third World dictators are very great indeed.

Hence if we do nothing, but continue to focus on housing, consumer inflation and the NBA playoffs, oil prices will continue rising. This will have only a modest short-term effect, but a highly damaging effect in the medium term, as the recession-producing tendency of high oil prices works its malign magic on the long-suffering world economy.

Further rises are additionally dangerous because they may not quickly be reversed. In a market of entirely rational trading robots, the 1980 oil price spike to $40 might have been just a spike, with prices reverting within weeks to the $15 or so that was then the equilibrium. In the world of fallible speculators and other humans, the psychology of a rise to $40 made the price "sticky" on the downside at around $30, so that it was November 1985 before prices collapsed to $10. Thus if the oil price soars to $200 next week, we are probably condemned to $150 oil until 2013 or so, after which the price will collapse to $25 for several decades, as new supplies and bizarre and expensive government-mandated conservation schemes overwhelm the market.

To avoid this dreadful fate, what should we do? There are a number of possibilities:

We could invade somewhere. Considered as an oil acquisition exercise, Operation Iraqi Freedom has been a smashing success, and only appalling Wilsonian wimpiness in the US government has prevented the United States from taking full advantage of it. Iraq's known oil reserves have been increased by about 100 billion barrels since the invasion, as competent US oil companies have been free to explore for new oil employing techniques more advanced than the 40-year-old dowsing sticks used by Saddam's oil operation. At today's oil price of $130, less a generous $20 for drilling and extraction, those additional reserves have a value of $11 trillion, or approximately 10 times the most alarmist estimate of the cost of the war to date.

The problem is that the US did not secure itself a proper royalty on the new oil finds (even 10% would have been worthwhile - $1.1 trillion over the next few decades.) Nor did it ensure, by setting up a privatized oil company and a trust fund for the Iraqi people diverting oil revenues from the Iraqi government, that the new oil finds would be exploited in an efficient manner and the supplies directed properly into the world oil market. Any future invasion of an oil-producing country should avoid these two mistakes and thus make itself self-financing.

The obvious place to invade is Venezuela (even if current estimates of Venezuelan and Saudi reserves are wrong and there is in reality more oil in Saudi Arabia that could be unlocked if ExxonMobil and the boys were given free rein, the Saudis are nominally our allies, so an invasion would be considered unsporting by world opinion.) Since the 1.8 trillion barrels of Venezuelan oil deposits consist largely of the Orinoco tar sands, a Venezuelan oil-related invasion would impose an additional requirement: to keep the environmentalists away in order that reserves could be exploited with maximum efficiency.

For those who feel that invasion-for-oil is altogether too Bismarckian in its implications, there are other alternatives. The most effective would be to use the interest-rate weapon, reversing the damage caused by the cuts since September and ideally going a little further, to fight the resulting consumer price inflation. A series of small interest rate rises would not be effective, because it would enable speculators to adjust. (The 0.25% rate rises in 2004-06, all 17 of them, we now know were completely ineffective in quelling housing speculation as they allowed the speculating frog to bask in the gradually warming interest rate water, rather than being forced by a sudden temperature rise to jump out of the saucepan.)

The most effective interest rate trajectory would probably be an immediate reversal of the post-September cuts, jumping the Federal Funds rate from 2% back to 5.25%. This would still be too low to be effective in fighting consumer price inflation, currently around 4% even on the suspect government figures. However it should shock commodity speculators sufficiently to cause a sharp drop in oil and commodity prices which might, if we were lucky, become self-reinforcing enough to push oil prices down to the $80 level, which is probably the lowest we can currently expect. Once the immediate effect of higher interest rates had worn off, further rate rises, probably to around an 8% Federal Funds rate, would be needed to wring out inflation, but those could be undertaken over the next 18-24 months in the normal manner.

# It is quite certain that the interest rate weapon, if used with sufficient vigor, would quell oil prices, but it's not entirely clear whether a single rise to 5.25% would do it. However, draconian rate rises beyond 5.25% to quell oil price rises would be deeply unpopular and would cause further catastrophe in the US housing market. Since invasion is presumably off the table, the political classes may thus attempt to impose other remedies for high oil prices, all of which would be either counterproductive, disastrous or both. These might include some or all of the following: Price controls on oil companies. These would have the cathartic effect of eliminating the profits of Western oil companies, but would have little effect on the market, since the majority of oil supplies are today not controlled by Western oil companies.
# Subsidies. The effect on consumers of spiraling oil prices could be reduced by cutting petroleum taxes (as recently proposed by Senators John McCain and Hillary Clinton) or subsidizing gasoline prices directly. Such subsidies would increase rather than reduce consumption and would divert income from taxpayers (the ultimate providers of the subsidies) to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other oil producers. Terrible and counterproductive idea.
# Rationing. Britain did this at the time of the Suez crisis in 1956, when overall rationing was still a recent memory. Its initial psychological effect would be considerable and it might well prove politically appealing to a populist, economically illiterate president after January 2009. The principal gainers from such a measure would be the Mafia, who would find a new business in stolen and forged ration coupons.
# Intensified corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards, ethanol mandates and public transportation subsidies. These would be highly politically attractive to the left, and are thus probably quite likely. Their effect would be far too long term to change short-term price movements. Apart from increasing costs in the economy, they would result in tens of thousands of additional fatalities a year, as the feeble mini-cars took to America's roads.
# Intensified drilling in Alaska and offshore US areas. The right-wing alternative to CAFE standards; equally ineffective in the short term but much more helpful long term. Would probably intensify the 2013 price collapse as the new sources came on stream.
# Closing down the commodities exchanges. The speculators have already found the counter to this one; a new crude oil contract is opening for trading in Dubai. To close that down, we would need to revert to the invasion option.

In summary, a sharp rise in US and world interest rates is the best way to solve the problem of spiraling energy and commodity prices, which will probably not solve itself. If that doesn't work or is "politically impossible" it's time to prepare the 82nd Airborne for jungle warfare in the Orinoco Basin.

Martin Hutchinson is the author of Great Conservatives (Academica Press, 2005) - details can be found at www.greatconservatives.com.

(Republished with permission from PrudentBear.com. Copyright 2005-07 David W Tice & Associates.)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JE28Dj02.html

Bush 'plans Iran air strike by August'

Bush 'plans Iran air strike by August'
By Muhammad Cohen

NEW YORK - The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.

Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.

The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that the US plans an air strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC's elite Quds force. With an estimated strength of up to 90,000 fighters, the Quds' stated mission is to spread Iran's revolution of 1979 throughout the region.

Targets could include IRGC garrisons in southern and southwestern Iran, near the border with Iraq. US officials have repeatedly claimed Iran is aiding Iraqi insurgents. In January 2007, US forces raided the Iranian consulate general in Erbil, Iraq, arresting five staff members, including two Iranian diplomats it held until November. Last September, the US Senate approved a resolution by a vote of 76-22 urging President George W Bush to declare the IRGC a terrorist organization. Following this non-binding "sense of the senate" resolution, the White House declared sanctions against the Quds Force as a terrorist group in October. The Bush administration has also accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, though most intelligence analysts say the program has been abandoned.

Rockin' and a-reelin'
Senators and the Bush administration denied the resolution and terrorist declaration were preludes to an attack on Iran. However, attacking Iran rarely seems far from some American leaders' minds. Arizona senator and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain recast the classic Beach Boys tune Barbara Ann as "Bomb Iran". Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton promised "total obliteration" for Iran if it attacked Israel.

The US and Iran have a long and troubled history, even without the proposed air strike. US and British intelligence were behind attempts to unseat prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq, who nationalized Britain's Anglo-Iranian Petroleum Company, and returned Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power in 1953. President Jimmy Carter's pressure on the Shah to improve his dismal human-rights record and loosen political control helped the 1979 Islamic revolution unseat the Shah.

But the new government under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned the US as "the Great Satan" for its decades of support for the Shah and its reluctant admission into the US of the fallen monarch for cancer treatment. Students occupied the US Embassy in Teheran, holding 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days. Eight American commandos died in a failed rescue mission in 1980. The US broke diplomatic relations with Iran during the hostage holding and has yet to restore them. Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's rhetoric often sounds lifted from the Khomeini era.

The source said the White House views the proposed air strike as a limited action to punish Iran for its involvement in Iraq. The source, an ambassador during the administration of president H W Bush, did not provide details on the types of weapons to be used in the attack, nor on the precise stage of planning at this time. It is not known whether the White House has already consulted with allies about the air strike, or if it plans to do so.

Sense in the senate
Details provided by the administration raised alarm bells on Capitol Hill, the source said. After receiving secret briefings on the planned air strike, Senator Diane Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, said they would write a New York Times op-ed piece "within days", the source said last week, to express their opposition. Feinstein is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Lugar is the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.

In a statement received by Asia Times Online from Feinstein's office, the senator said she "has not received any briefing, classified or unclassified, from the administration involving any plans to strike Iran".

Given their obligations to uphold the secrecy of classified information, it is unlikely the senators would reveal the Bush administration's plan or their knowledge of it. However, going public on the issue, even without specifics, would likely create a public groundswell of criticism that could induce the Bush administration reconsider its plan.

The proposed air strike on Iran would have huge implications for geopolitics and for the ongoing US presidential campaign. The biggest question, of course, is how would Iran respond?

Iran's options
Iran could flex its muscles in any number of ways. It could step up support for insurgents in Iraq and for its allies throughout the Middle East. Iran aids both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Israel's Occupied Territories. It is also widely suspected of assisting Taliban rebels in Afghanistan.

Iran could also choose direct confrontation with the US in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, with which Iran shares a long, porous border. Iran has a fighting force of more than 500,000. Iran is also believed to have missiles capable of reaching US allies in the Gulf region.

Iran could also declare a complete or selective oil embargo on US allies. Iran is the second-largest oil exporter in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and fourth-largest overall. About 70% of its oil exports go to Asia. The US has barred oil imports from Iran since 1995 and restricts US companies from investing there.

China is Iran's biggest customer for oil, and Iran buys weapons from China. Trade between the two countries hit US$20 billion last year and continues to expand. China's reaction to an attack on Iran is also a troubling unknown for the US.

Three for the money
The Islamic world could also react strongly against a US attack against a third predominantly Muslim nation. Pakistan, which also shares a border with Iran, could face additional pressure from Islamic parties to end its cooperation with the US to fight al-Qaeda and hunt for Osama bin Laden. Turkey, another key ally, could be pushed further off its secular base. American companies, diplomatic installations and other US interests could face retaliation from governments or mobs in Muslim-majority states from Indonesia to Morocco.

A US air strike on Iran would have seismic impact on the presidential race at home, but it's difficult to determine where the pieces would fall.

At first glance, a military attack against Iran would seem to favor McCain. The Arizona senator says the US is locked in battle across the globe with radical Islamic extremists, and he believes Iran is one of biggest instigators and supporters of the extremist tide. A strike on Iran could rally American voters to back the war effort and vote for McCain.

On the other hand, an air strike on Iran could heighten public disenchantment with Bush administration policy in the Middle East, leading to support for the Democratic candidate, whoever it is.

But an air strike will provoke reactions far beyond US voting booths. That would explain why two veteran senators, one Republican and one Democrat, were reportedly so horrified at the prospect.

Former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen told America's story to the world as a US diplomat and is author of Hong Kong On Air (www.hongkongonair.com), a novel set during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, high finance and cheap lingerie.

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)

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Russian think-tank rattles US by Heather Maher

Russian think-tank rattles US
By Heather Maher

The first Russian think-tank based in the United States has yet to officially open its doors. But it's already generating a lot of controversy.

Critics say the Russian Institute for Democracy and Cooperation (RIDC) is little more than a new propaganda tool for the Kremlin as it sharpens its attacks on the West. But the head of the institute's New York branch says he and his colleagues intend to study US democracy - not criticize it.

Andranik Migranyan bristles at the suggestion that the new think-tank is seen as Kremlin tool meant to respond in kind to the
harsh critiques often heard from Western non-governmental organizations like Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders.

The political scientist says scrutinizing US conduct at Guantanamo Bay or the George W Bush administration's public-surveillance program are not on RIDC's agenda. Instead, the organization's main goal is to study the United States for potential solutions to common problems back in Russia.

"We have very serious problems today concerning these problems of immigration, integration and adaptation," Migranyan said at a recent press conference in Washington. "Russia is becoming more multinational, multiethnic, multireligious, and we have serious problems in this area. This country [the United States] has a long-lasting history on all these issues. And we would like to know how these problems are discussed here, how they are solved here - as well as institutional problems, and problems [with values]. What do those things mean?"

There's no disputing that during most of Russian president Vladimir Putin's eight-year rule, which ended this month, US rights groups like Human Rights Watch and Freedom House - not to mention the US State Department, in its annual human rights report - have frequently criticized the Russian government for a variety of sins against democracy.

Such groups have noted a steep decline in Russia's civil liberties under Putin, pointing to the forced closure of independent media outlets, the jailing of political opposition figures, and tight state control of campaigns and elections.

Russia often seeks to discredit the findings of such Western rights groups. But with the formation of RIDC and other initiatives like Russia Today, a government-funded English-language news channel begun in 2005, the Kremlin appears to be moving from a defensive posture to an offensive one.

Yet Migranyan said the idea for the institute was not a tit-for-tat response to Western criticism, describing it instead as the brainchild of a number of Russian political thinkers who are interested in the concept of democracy and in making sure Russia's own thoughts on the subject are heard.

"In Russia, from [former] president Putin to President [Dmitry] Medvedev to the rest of academics to the mainstream, or at least majority, they accept the idea of liberal democracy," he said. "They value institutions and values, they understand that this gives efficiency to the economy, efficiency to political system[s]. But at the same time, the idea of sovereign democracy means that you can't just impose it."

Questions remain
Migranyan, who has held several advisory posts with the State Duma and Federation Council, describes himself as an avid student - if not a fan - of American political affairs. Unabashedly in the Kremlin's camp, he is quick to criticize opposition leaders like Garry Kasparov and Duma deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov.

The launch of RIDC was announced with fanfare at the start of 2008. Its operations, however, remain somewhat vague. The institute has yet to create a website, for example, and a Paris branch, reportedly already open, has shown little sign of life. Migranyan says he has already signed leases on office space for the New York office and is waiting for a US bank to approve the institute's status as a non-profit charity.

While he waits, he says he's holding meetings with potential US partners - think-tanks like the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Institute; Russian studies centers like the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard; and academic institutions like the University of California at Berkeley.

Questions remain about RIDC's funding. Many observers have alleged that the group receives handsome support from the Kremlin. But Migranyan says that while the Kremlin approved the group's creation, financial support comes from "different business structures and donors who are interested in America" - and not the government.

Still, a fellow speaker at Migranyan's press conference - while not acknowledging Kremlin funding - saw nothing wrong with accepting government support. Edward Lozansky, the president of the American University in Moscow, lashed out at a questioner from the National Endowment for Democracy for what he characterized as a double standard on the question of government funds.

"The last time I [checked] the National Endowment for Democracy was funded by the US government," Lozansky said. "I don't know, probably you get some private funds, too, but most of the money comes from the government. The same with the National Democratic Institute, the same with National Republican Institute."

Lozansky, who was stripped of his academic position in the 1970s for publicly criticizing Soviet policy, appeared convinced his country was on the right track - and that naysayers should find another country to inspect. "It may take Russia 50 or 100 years to achieve total democracy, but it will get there," he said. "Let them do their own thing."

Heather Maher is a senior correspondent in RFE/RL's Washington bureau. Previously, she was a senior editor and director of training at Transitions Online in Prague. She has also been a reporter for ABCNews.com, an international assignment editor at CNN, and the news editor of the Prague Post.

Copyright (c) 2008, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington DC 20036
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JE29Ag02.html

Bush's Middle East policy in tatters by M K Bhadrakumar

Bush's Middle East policy in tatters
By M K Bhadrakumar

"They [Arab leaders] have stopped taking their instructions from Islam, they have decided that peace with the Zionists is their strategic option, so damn their decision." - Osama bin Laden, audio message, May 18

Last Tuesday, while United States President George W Bush was setting out from Washington on a five-day tour of the Middle East, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency quoted Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad as hinting that Tehran might consider a cut in oil exports. Of course, Iranian Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari quickly clarified that Tehran was only reviewing its exports
and here, too, a decision was to be taken on a possible increase or decrease.

Neither Ahmadinejad nor Nozari said anything like Iran was reviewing oil output as such (which exceeds 4.2 million barrels per day, the highest level since the 1979 Islamic revolution). But US oil prices went into a tizzy nonetheless and hit a record high of US$126 per barrel by the time Bush landed in the Persian Gulf region.

Bush was expected to press the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for an early meet to raise oil production. (OPEC is scheduled to next meet in September to decide on its oil output policy.) Stephen Hadley, the US national security advisor, was on record that Bush would tell Saudi King Abdullah that the oil-exporting countries should regard it to be in their self-interest to "take into account the economic health of their customers who pay these prices". In the event, when they met on Friday, Bush found that the Saudi king was not to be persuaded.

Meanwhile, Nozari was back on stage. He told Fars news agency, "I believe there is no need for an [emergency] OPEC meeting. Why should there be this meeting when oil prices go up? The OPEC members are currently utilizing their full capacity and are supplying the market ... With oil at US$126, it is not wise for those with oil not to supply it." Nozari then added, "I believe it is not that oil is becoming more expensive, but the dollar is becoming cheaper."

It would have been unthinkable five or six years ago that a visiting US president would receive such an open rebuff in the Middle East. Last weekend's exchanges revealed the extent of decline in the US's dominance of the Middle East through the present Bush administration. No doubt, oil lies at the very center of the decline of the American dominion. The cascading rise in oil prices has led to a massive transfer of resources to the energy exporting countries. Iran is one principal beneficiary.

The huge accumulation of wealth enables Iran to exert influence regionally and ensure there is practically nothing the US can do to stop its rise as a regional power. Goldman Sachs in a report on Friday predicted oil would further jump to a level of $140 by July. "The near-term outlook for oil prices continues to be bullish," Goldman said. Investors are flocking to the oil market as a hedge against the fall in the value of the dollar. The Wall Street Journal has reported that at the moment the Iranians hold about 25 million barrels - about twice the quantum of the US's daily imports - of heavy crude in offshore tankers in the Persian Gulf.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov underscored these realities of the new regional order when he called on the big powers recently to "put concrete proposals on the table guaranteeing the security of Iran and ensuring Iran a worthy, equal place in talks on resolving all problems in the Near and Middle East."

Lavrov is not alone in doing some fast-forward thinking. US specialists also realize the need for new thinking regarding the shaping of a nuclear Iran. Essentially, it boils down to reflecting the limits of American power. A leading US expert on Iran, Ray Takeyh a senior fellow at the influential Council on Foreign Relations, took the bull by the horns when he suggested recently that the time had come for the US to "concede to Iranian indigenous enrichment capability of considerable size" and to concentrate instead on ways and means to make certain that "untoward activities" do not take place within the perimeters of its nuclear infrastructure.

Takeyh wrote last week while Bush was in Iran's neighborhood, "Iran has an elaborate nuclear apparatus and is enriching uranium. It is impossible to turn the clock back. Instead of reviving an incentive package rejected long ago by Iran or issuing calls for military retribution that worry no one in the country's hierarchy, the United States and its European allies would be wise to negotiate an arrangement that would meet at least some of their demands."

True, oil and nuclear proliferation make a serious mix. But they form only one facet of the breakdown of the Bush administration's Iran strategy. The breakdown is comprehensive. During his tour, Bush kept trying to secure support for his containment policy toward Iran. However, the regional countries remain circumspect. Iraq's Arab neighbors refuse to get involved in the quagmire in that country despite their constant wailing that Iranian influence in Iraq has reached an intolerable level. They won't allow themselves being lined up with any further efforts by the Bush administration to confront Iran. While criticizing Iran in private to their American interlocutors and urging US counter-measures, they hedge their bets, factoring that the next US president might well engage Iran in unconditional talks.

The developments in Lebanon have further exposed that the Bush administration has no effective plan for coping. If the Washington-based newsletter Counterpunch is to be believed, a pre-planned Israeli intervention (with US acquiescence) in Lebanon during the recent fighting had to be called off at the last minute on the basis of intelligence that Hezbollah would massively retaliate. In the view of the US intelligence community, Tel Aviv would have been subject to "approximately 600 Hezbollah rockets in the first 24 hours in retaliation".

Counterpunch says the Bush administration developed cold feet after it "initially green-lighted" plans regarding Israeli military intervention on the side of the US-backed militias. "The Hezbollah rout of the militias in West Beirut plus the fear of retaliation on Tel Aviv, forced cancelation of the supportive [Israeli] attack."

Unsurprisingly, there is much anger and bitterness among Lebanese warlords that they were let down by the Bush administration. Prime Minister Fuad al-Siniora wanted to resign and the Saudis had to dissuade him from doing so. The result is plain to see. The political balance has shifted in favor of the Hezbollah and the pro-West militias have been humiliated. Most important, an improbable alliance formed between the Hezbollah and the Lebanese army (which the Bush administration assisted to the tune of $400 million in the past two-year period).

The regional implications are equally significant. Saudi Arabia and Egypt are backing Arab League mediation efforts, distancing themselves from the US denunciations of Iran and Syria. The two Arab heavyweights would be uneasy about the lengthening shadows of Iranian influence on Lebanon, but they realize at the same time that Iran is a regional power with which they need to come to terms.

To quote well-known British author and Middle East scholar Patrick Seale, "The Arab Gulf States in particular trade briskly with Iran and are home to a large Iranian population. They do not want to isolate Iran or undermine its economy, as the United States and Israel would like them to do. It seems clear that greater understanding and confidence between Saudi Arabia and Egypt on the one hand and Iran and Syria on the other - free from US and Israeli interference - would do much to ease Lebanon's path to peace and security."

In sum, the Bush administration has no Plan B on Lebanon, either. The Arab League mediation coolly ignored Washington's keenness to open a Lebanon file in the United Nations Security Council and to pillory Syria and Iran. All that the US officials could do was to keep mumbling skepticism concerning the prospects of the intra-Lebanese talks in Doha under the Arab League.

However, the US's failure in rolling back Syrian and Iranian influence in Lebanon pales in comparison with the withering away of the US-sponsored Arab-Israeli "peace process". The latter hung like an albatross's cross on Bush's Middle East tour. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' credibility has greatly suffered; Fatah has been eliminated from Gaza; Hamas is significantly gaining ground in the West Bank after its consolidation in Gaza. Thus, there were no takers when Bush told the Arab audience in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Friday, "All nations in the region must stand together in confronting Hamas, which is attempting to undermine efforts at peace with continued acts of terror and violence."

The Arabs knew that at any rate, there is an air of unreality in Bush's anti-Hamas rhetoric. Hamas had announced only a couple of days ago that it would send a delegation to Egypt on Monday for a new round of talks with mediators. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported on Sunday that several former Israeli military and security officials - including ex-Mossad head Ephraim Halevi, former army chief Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and the former commander of Israeli troops in Gaza, Shmuel Zakai - wrote to the government a month ago supporting indirect talks with Hamas and expressing opposition to any large-scale military assault on Gaza.

They wrote, "Recognizing that ending the Hamas regime in Gaza is not a realistic goal and reinstating Fatah in the Gaza Strip by means of Israeli bayonets is not desirable ... non-public negotiations should take place with Hamas through Egypt or anyone else acceptable to both sides."

Time and again during Bush's Middle East tour, what emerges is this palpable sense that the US has been all but marginalized from a new Middle East that is taking shape. All of Bush's rhetoric couldn't hide the fact that even by adding 300 million Americans to 7 million Israelis, he failed to disprove the erosion in Israel's regional supremacy.

In a brilliant article recently, former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer underlined that the center of gravity of the regional power and politics in the wake of the Iraq war has shifted to the Persian Gulf. To quote Fischer, "Indeed, it is now virtually impossible to implement any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without Iran and its local allies - Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine."

The point is, the historic failure of the Iraq war is yet to be fully grasped. On a regional plane, as the Iraq war interminably rolls on, the situation is fraught with the immense consequence of the unraveling of the entire system of states that was created in the Anglo-French settlement after the fall of Ottoman Empire in 1918. The Iraq war has triggered Shi'ite empowerment and unleashed historical forces that lay chained for centuries. Its geopolitical significance is yet to sink in as winds of change sweep across the entire region.

Fischer underscored that the Iraq war has conclusively finished off secular Arab nationalism, which was, historically speaking, European-inspired. In its wake has appeared political Islam, which cultivates "anti-Western" nationalism and taps into social, economic and cultural grievances and combines them with a revolutionary fervor to confront the authoritarian, corrupt, unjust regimes lacking popular legitimacy. Islamists pilot this trend of "modernization", while the future of political Islam itself remains far from clear.

Equally, China has appeared on the Middle Eastern chessboard, which would make the decline in the US dominance of the region increasingly difficult to be arrested. Curiously, on the eve of Bush's arrival in the Middle East, a prominent Chinese scholar, Weiming Zhao, professor at the Middle East Studies Institute of the Shanghai International Studies University, assertively wrote: "China has a significant interest in the Middle East, and any changes in the situation there will affect China's energy security ... Therefore, it will remain a basic posture of China's diplomacy for a long time to come to pay more attention to the development of the situation in the Middle East, to be more concerned with Middle East affairs and to establish closer relations with Middle East countries."

Bush's tour exposed that, alas, the US doesn't have a Middle East strategy to address these manifold trends. It seems all the while, the Bush administration was only pretending it had one. A formidable challenge awaits the next US president.

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

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Syrian talks offer more than hot air by Sami Moubayed

Syrian talks offer more than hot air
By Sami Moubayed

DAMASCUS - Observers of the Middle East peace process since 1990 are divided on what to make of the current stage of indirect talks between Syria and Israel, carried out through Turkish mediation.

Some claim these talks are sincere, stemming from a mutual desire for peace on behalf of both President Bashar al-Assad and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The fact that indirect messages were being sent back and forth between April 2007 and
April 2008 is ample testimony to their seriousness.

Optimists have high hopes that a peace treaty can be signed before the end of 2008. Others argue that regardless of how sincere all parties are, peace is impossible as long as US President George W Bush is not interested in a Syrian-Israeli peace treaty. A third group argues that regardless of how involved the Americans are, neither Assad nor Olmert really wants peace at this stage, but are killing time, talking indirectly through the Turks, in order to downplay domestic problems in both Syria and Israel.

Ibrahim Hamidi, a well-informed Damascus correspondent for the Saudi pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, wrote a feature on May 28 saying that perhaps direct peace talks are on the horizon without having to wait until Bush leaves the White House. He claimed the Syrians no longer link direct talks to a new US administration, adding that the Syrians will engage in direct talks when they receive guarantees that the entire Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in 1967, will be restored to Syria.

Many had previously argued that Syria was testing the waters through indirect talks, knowing perfectly well that the Turks cannot pull through with a peace treaty. If anything serious were to happen, it would need full American endorsement, which at this stage does not exist. Bush was loud and clear in 2003, saying that peace will not materialize between Syria and Israel, claiming that "Syria is a very weak country that just has to wait" until all pending Middle East issues are solved before it makes peace with Israel.

Then, talks and messages came to a grinding halt. There was no sense talking peace if Bush was not interested, and nor was then-prime minister Ariel Sharon.

Things have changed, according to Hamidi, who says that during his last visit to Israel, Olmert talked Bush into accepting (at least not vetoing) a Syrian-Israeli peace track. He wrote, "Bush changed from red light to orange, without turning on the green light [for Olmert]."

Olmert, who has been sending signals to the Syrians for over a year, lobbied for the Syrian track, apparently for a variety of reasons. First and foremost would be to divert attention from the accusations of corruption he is facing inside Israel, which might force him to resign in the very near future. Olmert has been charged with taking campaign contributions while running for mayor of Jerusalem from a Jewish-American businessman, Morris Talansky.

Second is to free himself from the burden of talking peace with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, a man who clearly can no longer deliver. Abbas is no Yasser Arafat (former Palestinian Liberation Organization leader) and cannot pull through with a peace treaty, nor can he control, appease, silence or crush Hamas. Wasting more time and effort on the Palestinian track (as Bush has been urging Olmert to do) is a great turn-off for the Israeli premier.

Engaging the Syrians - even if it doesn't work - is a great excuse to temporarily disengage from the Palestinian track, which is too complicated, with a bundle of thorny issues still unresolved.

Why did Bush transform from "red light" to "orange" without turning on the green light for Olmert? One of the reasons why the US changed course is Syria's participation in the November 2007 Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland. Syria's willingness to walk that extra mile to Maryland, despite objection from its main ally, Iran, was noted by the Americans. So were a bundle of other Syrian gestures, such as greater security on the Iraqi border, more concrete steps towards supporting the political process in Baghdad, and major steps at combating Islamic fundamentalism in the region.

This did not mean, however, that the Americans were going to engage the Syrians directly. The most they would do is not say "no" to the Israelis. The US made it loud and clear to Olmert: "Although we will not encourage a peace track, we also will not stand in its way."

Progress on the Lebanon file and the election of a Lebanese president (Michel Suleiman) on May 25 has also been noted by the Americans, who realize that the deal hammered out in Doha over Lebanon had Syria's fingerprints all over it and that, if anything, the Syrians knew what they were talking about when they came to Lebanon, more so than the French or the Saudis.

Syria did in fact walk an extra mile to attend Annapolis, while never fully convinced that the US conference could produce a peace deal with Israel. It wanted to show good faith to the international community and prove that, unlike what the West was saying, it was neither a satellite state to Iran nor did it take orders from Tehran.

To better understand the dynamics of the current Middle East crisis, it is important to note that although strategically allied on a basket of issues, the Syrians and Iranians do not have identical agendas for the Arab world. It is almost like British premier Winston Churchill and French president Charles de Gaulle during World War II. They had a common enemy indeed in Nazi Germany, but after that, they had very different visions for the Middle East.

The British wanted to help liberate the Arabs from the hated French Mandate system and replace the French in terms of political, military and economic influence in Syria.

And in today's world, the Iranians want to create an Iranian satellite state in Iraq, which the Syrians do not want. They want to empower the religiously driven Shi'ite politicians, while the Syrians want to see secular nationalists in control of Iraq. The Iranians want autonomy for the Shi'ites in southern Iraq; the Syrians do not. The Iranians want a regional war of liberation against Israel, refusing to recognize any peace talks with the Jewish state. Since the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991, Syria has been committed to peace based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (land-for-peace) and a return of the occupied Golan Heights to its June 4, 1967 border.

In the mid-1990s, Syria engaged in direct talks with Israel, under the auspices of the Bill Clinton White House, much to the displeasure of Iran. Then again in April 2007, it welcomed Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House, to Damascus, carrying a message from Olmert. One month later in May, Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem met with US Secretary of States Condoleezza Rice in Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt, which equally angered the Iranians. Reports of Iranian anger, carried in the Lebanese and Saudi press, circulated freely in Damascus.

It was almost as if the Syrians were telling the world: "We are allied but we have never let anyone dictate what we see is in our best national interest. And returning the Golan, by any means possible, peace talks included, is the highest priority for Syria, regardless of whether the Iranians or Arabs approve or disapprove talks with Israel."

Shortly after the Syrian-Israeli talks started this time, indirectly though through the Turks, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, met with Khaled Meshaal, the head of the political office of Hamas. Khamenei said, which some observers claim was a message intended for Syria to hear, "The only way to liberate Palestine is through brave resistance. Those who choose another path will be abandoned by God."

Many speculated that if Syrian-Israeli peace ever materializes, left in the dark would be former allies like Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas. The Syrians have strongly stressed, however, that they will not abandon their allies, although logic states that if and when a peace treaty materializes, Syria will have to cease its support for Hamas and Hezbollah.

It will not severe relations with Tehran, arguing that peace could be used as a stepping stone towards the Iranians. Syria has already taken symbolic and concrete gestures over the past few days to assure the Iranians that tension is not what it seeks in Syrian-Iranian relations. A symbolic one was the warm chat between Mouallem and his Iranian foreign minister counterpart (Manuchehr Mottaki) when Suleiman was being sworn in.

More symbolic was the signing of an agreement between Iranian Defense Minister Mohammad Najjar and his Syrian counterpart, Hasan al-Turkmani. Signed in Tehran, it calls for technical cooperation and the exchange of higher defense expertise. Earlier this week, Turkmani met with Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the top advisor to Khamenei, signaling that Syrian-Iranian relations are as strong as ever.

The Syrians are now walking a tight rope with the Iranians, wanting to prove that their friendship remains intact but also, stating loud and clear, that all options are still on the table for the Syrians. Iran is not the only ally for Damascus and isolation of the Syrian government has failed. There are the Turks, who are playing a newfound role in the region under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. There are the Qataris, who have emerged as Syria's new "best friend" and who brokered the latest consensus between the Lebanese, through around-the-clock consultations with the Syrians.

And regardless of how tense things have been under Bush, there remains a door open to Washington once a new administration comes into power next January.

Many believe that although these latest talks between Syria and Israel will not lead to anything today, since Bush is not interested, they will nevertheless give something to whomever succeeds him at the White House to build on in his (or her) dealings with Damascus.

The peace talks will also help end the isolation imposed on Syria by the Bush White House since 2003. It would drown the nuclear issue, raised recently by the US Central Intelligence Agency, claiming that the Syrians are developing a nuclear reactor with the help of North Korea, prompting the International Atomic Energy Agency to interfere.

Additionally, the peace talks reduce any kind of tension that has been boiling on the Syrian-Israeli front, especially in April when the Israeli Defense Forces carried out its largest maneuver ever on the Golan Heights.

Finally, the talks create a feeling of security both within Syria and in the Arab investment community, where people will be more encouraged to pump money into the Syrian market, anticipating a boom once peace is signed. The Syrians are badly in need of money since the economy is suffering from a shortage of revenue.
Syrian domestics, peace, and investment
A brief look at the domestic Syrian scene shows revenue from the oil sector is now in deficit. Surpluses from state-run agencies and industries are in decline; they are no longer making money after decades of mismanagement. Meanwhile, expenditure is increasing by 19%. Syria still has a gigantic civil service (1.3 million employees) and cannot lay off people by nature of the socialist system. Their salaries, as well as those of retired workers, means salaries and pensions account for 50% of the state budget.

Syria seriously needs to consider new resources for the state treasury, which simply won't come while there are American sanctions, tension with certain Arab states, and talk of war looming with Israel. It becomes difficult to attract investment while the Israelis are maneuvering on the Syrian border, where Syria has to mobilize for war whenever that happens, and where the lion's share of the treasury goes to military spending.

While many people are talking about regional and international gains from peace, the decision mainly stems from a domestic need to move forward.

Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.

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Now it's a blockade against Iran by Jim Lobe

DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
Now it's a blockade against Iran
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - There was considerable speculation in press circles when he took over the Wall Street Journal that Rupert Murdoch would make the newspaper's editorial positions a little bit more mainstream and a little less neo-conservative than they had been, if for no other reason than to further expand its competitiveness with the New York Times. While I only read the Journal's foreign policy-related editorials, columns, and op-eds, I think I'm safe in saying that the speculation has so far proved unfounded.

Take just the past couple of days' opinion pages as examples. On
Tuesday, it published yet another Islamophobic rant by its Global View columnist and former Jerusalem Post editor, Bret Stephens, comparing the recent guidelines by the departments of Homeland Security and State on the possibly counter-productive use of politically and religiously provocative words in the "global war on terror" with George Orwell's "Newspeak".

It also published a particularly unenlightening - and not very credible - excerpt from ultra-Likudist Doug Feith's recent book, War and Decision. Although it's hard to figure out exactly why the Journal published the article other than to help him promote the book - Stephens wrote a glowing review (unfortunately not available online) of it a few weeks ago - the excerpt appeared designed to reassure readers that Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs and terrorist ties really were the main reasons President George W Bush took the nation to war in Iraq (a thesis that has once again been cast into doubt by former White House spokesman Scott McClellan's new book) and that he, Feith, was right and everyone else was wrong about the administration's post-invasion "communications strategy" that made democracy promotion the principal justification.

(It apparently didn't occur to Feith that the administration had to come up with a new rationale, beyond WMD and terrorist ties his office worked so hard to establish, in order to justify keeping US troops there.)

But both Stephens' column and Feith's op-ed were relatively tame compared with Wednesday's opinion pages. In the lead editorial, entitled "Punxsutawney Condi", [1] the newspaper called for the US to drop its diplomatic efforts to get Tehran to freeze its uranium-enrichment program and instead mount a "month-long naval blockade of Iran's imports of refined gasoline" - a clear act of war - in order to, in its words, "to clarify for the Iranians just how unacceptable their nuclear program is to the civilized world".

It also carried a companion op-ed by Amir Taheri, the Iranian-born, London-based journalist occasionally featured by the Journal who gained considerable notoriety two years ago by falsely reporting that Iran's Majlis (parliament) would soon pass legislation requiring Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians to wear distinctly colored ribbons on their clothes. The op-ed argued (for the nth time) that it was useless to engage an Iran that is "bent on world conquest under the guidance of the Hidden Imam" and whose revolutionary identity impelled it to act in ways that recalled Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler and the Soviet Union. Like "Punxsutawney Condi", the op-ed was as much an attack on the secretary of state as it was on that other foreign-policy naif, Democratic Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Indeed, it seems that Murdoch and the neo-cons really have it in for Rice these days, quite a change from when they greeted her replacement of Colin Powell with undisguised glee at the beginning of Bush's second term. Thus, this week's feature article in the Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard blames her - and her exclusively - for "jettisoning the Bush Doctrine" and leading the president himself down the garden path toward appeasement, particularly with respect to Syria, Iran and North Korea.

While the article does not tell us much that was not already in the public record, the fact that it was written by Feith's former favorite leakee and Vice President Dick Cheney's personally authorized biographer, favorite reporter and occasional travel companion, Stephen Hayes, makes it worth at least a quick read-through if, for no other reason, than to demonstrate the contempt that the vice president and presumably Deputy White House National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams (if I'm reading the anonymous sources correctly) bear for Bush's secretary of state. That Rice gave Hayes at least two extended interviews - from which he published what have to be the most unflattering and frankly embarrassing excerpts - shows a remarkable lack of judgment on her part.

Of course, Murdoch may not have had anything to do with running the story; it may have been solely Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol's call, which would be particularly ironic in light of Kristol's earlier infatuation with Condi. At a dinner with Bates College Republicans very early in the second term, I am reliably told, he couldn't stop talking about her many virtues as a political asset, her unlimited future, and her irresistible persona as a "psycho-sexual dominatrix" (his words) in her then-recent appearance at a US air base in Wiesbaden.

Note
1. Punxsutawney Phil, the "seer of seers and prognosticator of prognosticators", is a groundhog resident of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, US. On February 2, (Groundhog Day) of each year, the town of Punxsutawney celebrates the groundhog with a festive atmosphere of music and food. During the ceremony, which begins well before the winter sunrise, Phil emerges from his temporary home on Gobbler's Knob near the town. According to the tradition, if Phil sees his shadow and returns to his hole, the US will have six more weeks of winter. If Phil does not see his shadow, spring will arrive early. - Wikipedia

This article is reproduced from the blog of Jim Lobe, best known for his coverage of US foreign policy, particularly the neo-conservative influence in the Bush administration. He is the Washington bureau chief of the international news agency Inter Press Service.

(Copyright 2008 Jim Lobe.)
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A Giant Backward Step on Iran by Kaveh Afrasiabi

A giant backward step on Iran
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

"We haven't seen indications or any concrete evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons and I've been saying that consistently for the last five years," Mohammad ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated last week at the World Economic Forum in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Unfortunately, the only thing consistent about ElBaradei is his inconsistency, reflected in his subsequent report, just delivered to the United Nations Security Council, which has been widely interpreted as "a grim reminder that Tehran is pressing ahead with its nuclear program", to paraphrase a New York Times editorial; the editorial goes on to say that ElBaradei's report "expresses
serious concern about evidence [outlined in 18 documents accompanying the report] that Iran is working on programs with clear military applications".

The report said Iran continued to stonewall investigators looking into documents alleging its government researched atomic weapons.

But, didn't the same respected chief of the UN's atomic agency admit in his earlier report, in February, that his agency "has no credible information" regarding the so-called "alleged weaponization" studies? What magic was pulled on the IAEA to bestow sudden legitimacy on the admittedly "unreliable" and "dubious" information (other than the heat of US pressure)? Is this now the end of the IAEA's hitherto heroic standing up to the external pressures that threatened to compromise its integrity?

Sadly, ElBaradei's latest report gives a strong impression that this may indeed be what is in store for the IAEA, which does not bode well either for the agency's own international prestige or for the future of its relationship with Iran - which has reacted angrily by calling the report a work of "deception" and deeply "flawed".

New Majlis (parliament) speaker Ali Larijani - a former negotiator for Iran on its nuclear case - said in his first address to the legislature, "If they [the IAEA] want to continue along this path, the Majlis will surely take up the nuclear case and will set a new line for cooperation with the agency."

Indeed, this report represents a giant leap backward with respect to the IAEA's performance on the Iran nuclear question, casting serious doubt on the agency's ability to conduct its business professionally and impartially. It was a mere two months ago that the agency gave a rather glowing report that declared all the "outstanding questions" minus the "alleged studies", which were never a part of the Iran-IAEA work plan in the first place, had been successfully resolved. Now the IAEA has now responded to the tremendous US backlash in the form of retracting some of its statements and adopting the US's allegations basically as facts warranting "serious concerns" about the peacefulness of Iran's nuclear program.

In so doing, ElBaradei may have done some damage control in his relations with Washington, yet he has surely undermined the international community's confidence in his ability to operate independently and objectively, thus causing a widening perception gap toward the IAEA, between the West and the developing nations that are members of the Non-Aligned Movement.

A clue to the bias of this report, ElBaradei fully contradicts himself by on the one hand stating that Iran's May 14 response to the IAEA's query regarding the alleged studies "could not yet be assessed by the agency" yet, on the other hand, puts a negative assessment on it by declaring it inadequate by statements such as "substantive explanations are required for Iran to support its statements".

A more prudent director general would have issued his report after a careful assessment of Iran's response, including for example Iran's claim that some of the studies pertain to conventional military purposes.

Although both this and prior IAEA reports confirm that the "agency has not detected the actual use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies", the tone of the latest report is so severe as to thoroughly discount this important observation as well as the fact that the IAEA has had unprecedented access to all nuclear facilities in Iran well beyond the scope of its inspection and verification agreements with Tehran.

Another clue to the report's bias deals with its request for "more information on the circumstances of the acquisition of the uranium metal document". This pertains to a 15-page document describing the procedures for the reduction of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) to uranium metal, which can have weapons applications. Iran's position is that this was given to Iran, by the Pakistanis, in 1987 on their own volition and no activities were ever taken on them. The latter is confirmed in the IAEA's November 2007 report that states, "The agency has seen no indication of any UF6 reconversion and casting activity in Iran."

In his February report, ElBaradei stated he was waiting for information from Pakistan to confirm Iran's response. Now, he admits in his latest report that the IAEA has indeed received such information that is consistent with Iran's statements, yet the issue has not been put to rest.

Isn't the real purpose of keeping alive a moot issue, pertaining to a 21-year-old document, anything other than appeasing the Western powers that thirst in their desire for accusing Iran of nuclear proliferation?

As a result, is it any wonder that US officials and media pundits have turned a deaf ear to the IAEA's categorical statement that it has not detected any evidence of military diversion, that it has been able to "verify" the non-diversion?

The weight of disproportionate attention given to the "alleged studies" in ElBaradei's report facilitates the selective attention seen in the New York Times editorial, cited above, as well as in a slew of other US editorials, as if the entire US media have been put on automatic control on an "Iran offensive" fueled by this report, repeating parrot-like the official Washington line.

Conspicuously absent in all reports is any reflection on the simple fact that these IAEA reports cite no evidence of safeguard breaches by Iran. Their frenzy of spinning things in an anti-Iran direction is clearly directed toward generating more heat on the recalcitrant UN Security Council members - Russia and China - to go along with more UN sanctions on Iran. And this while the previous IAEA report raised hopes that the council would gradually wash its hands of the Iran nuclear dossier and let it return to its proper forum, the IAEA.

Wiping out that glimmer of hope by the fiat of his new emphasis on the "possible military dimensions" of Iran's nuclear program, ElBaradei has also potentially jeopardized the well-spring of Iran's confidence in his agency, reflected in the stern statements that Tehran may now reconsider its cooperation with the IAEA. After all, if the net result of Tehran's nuclear transparency and cooperation is more fuel to punish Iran, why bother.

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.

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Bitter Lemons Middle East Roundtable May 29, 2008 The political effects of rising prices

bitterlemons-international.org
Middle East Roundtable


Edition 21 Volume 6 - May 29, 2008

The political effects of rising prices

• Catch 22 - an interview with Leila Farsakh
The only avenue the PA has is international aid, and we are already among the most subsidized countries in the world.

• Egypt: social unrest and deteriorating politics - Amr Hamzawy
The regime's lack of an overall strategy to address the country's enduring troubles extends far beyond the economic sphere.

• The fallout from rising prices in Jordan - Yusuf Mansur
Fearing embarrassment, no new study is being commissioned of the poverty line in Jordan.

Catch 22
an interview with Leila Farsakh

BI: What kind of effect will rising food prices have on Palestinian society?

Farsakh: Rising food prices will have major effects on the Palestinian economy. The first way we're noticing it is with inflation. Inflation in Gaza has increased by 4.6 percent and in the West Bank by around two percent. People are already complaining about oil prices, which is one factor that affects food prices, and we know today that 36 percent of Palestinians are food insecure. That increase in prices is just going to increase demand for food aid.

So if you combine the fact that you have poverty at around 65 percent, which means that 65 percent of the population are living under two dollars a day, and all predictions are that food prices are going to double, that means two things: the international community will have to increase its aid and this aid will go mostly on food security. If the predictions are right, food insecurity will double and that's a significant amount.

The second is how to alleviate this food insecurity: is it going to be with cash, which then can raise inflation, or food, which will create unemployment. So we are in a catch 22 situation that can only aggravate the political and economic catastrophe we are living.

BI: Palestine has a significant agricultural sector. Is there not a way in which the international community can strengthen that sector to alleviate the effects of rising food prices, even take advantage of them?

Farsakh: There is a misconception that Palestine is mainly an agricultural society. Palestine was an agricultural society when the occupation started 40 years ago. Today, less than 15 percent of Palestinians work in the sector. During the second intifada and with the Israeli closures we've seen a return of labor to agriculture. But there is low productivity and low efficiency because of the financial and political constraints on production. For instance, we don't have a significant rise in percentage of land use.

There has been a doubling of vegetable production over the last ten years, which is not insignificant. But at the same time there has been a drop in cash crops, most importantly for flour. That is largely because of constraints in exports, that you can't export anything. What is happening with vegetable production and crops is that they have become localized, since you can't get Gaza produce to Hebron or Hebron produce to Ramallah.

What we conclude from that is we have an agricultural sector that has become a reservoir for labor. It is productive, but not efficient enough, partly because of a lack of investment but mainly because of lack of export markets and accessibility even to local markets. Rising food prices should improve the chances of production, but if there is no access they won't help.

BI: Potentially, then, 60 percent of Palestinians are likely to end up food insecure. What can the government do?

Farsakh: The government has limited resources, cannot increase taxes on the population and depends on customs revenue from Israel. The only avenue it has is international aid. And we already have a lot of international aid, we are among the most subsidized countries in the world, about a quarter of GDP, so the PA cannot do much.

What it can do is try to solve the political crisis and the crisis of negotiations, but it seems to me at this particular junction that Annapolis is not going anywhere and the Israelis don't seem very interested in reaching a solution. If the PA wants to do something it should consider dissolving itself and let the international community and Israel take responsibility for what is going on. This of course would be a major political and economic move. I don't think the situation will improve as a result, in fact it will worsen before it improves. But I think we have reached a stalemate on the economic, political and diplomatic level and maybe it will do more good in the long run to dissolve the PA than to continue in this way.

BI: Do you think the rising food prices alone could force such a situation?

Farsakh: We have to see what are the manifestations of rising food prices. In Egypt rising food prices will lead to demonstrations. In the West Bank I do not see that rising food prices will lead to strikes or demonstrations against the PA because everybody is aware of the limitations of the PA. We had that crisis last year when the Hamas government was suffering from the international boycott and still is in Gaza. The real question is will the food crisis create a situation as bad and alarming as the international boycott. I do not see that happening in the short run, though it may happen in the long run.- Published 29/5/2008 © bitterlemons-international.org

Leila Farsakh is a US-based political economist currently teaching at Birzeit University.

Egypt: social unrest and deteriorating politics
Amr Hamzawy

In diverse Arab countries such as Morocco, Egypt and Jordan, a burgeoning social crisis caused by out-of-control global inflationary pressures, a crippled welfare system and persisting high levels of poverty and unemployment is further complicated by a broader political deterioration. Taken together, the simultaneous trajectories of social unrest and deteriorating politics call into question the prospects of stability in those countries.

Over the past two years, Egypt has come to be a case in point for the dangers inherent in that kind of development. On April 6, 2008 a number of civil society organizations including independent unions, syndicates and networks of young activists--some of whom belong to political parties--organized a national strike day to express their frustration with deteriorating social and economic conditions. Although government security forces contained the strike in most Egyptian cities, they could not stop workers in state-owned industrial complexes in Mahalla, a city in northern Egypt, from orchestrating massive demonstrations. There were numerous reports of violent confrontations and clashes between thousands of protesters and security forces that went on for two days.

Workers' strikes have become frequent in Egypt. Hundreds of strikes and protests have been carried out over the past two years, but none escalated to the levels witnessed in early April. The primary demand of workers has been to link their wages to commodity price levels. Inflation has been a problem for many years in Egypt, settling at around eight percent in late 2007, according to the International Monetary Fund. Earlier in March, unanticipated shortages of subsidized bread caused considerable popular agitation, prompting President Husni Mubarak to instruct army bakeries to boost their production.

The social unrest of the last two years is quite different from what Egypt witnessed briefly between 2004 and 2005. Back then, street level outbursts were the result of reform-driven activism led by several opposition movements, most notably the Muslim Brotherhood and Kifaya. By and large, the present unrest is a reaction to the acute decline in socio-economic conditions, and its instigators do not appear to have a well thought-out agenda.

The regime has consistently tried to contain the situation through a combination of repressive and conciliatory measures. Government officials have issued warnings to industrial workers that participation in strikes or any other protest activities would cost them their jobs. More often than not, security forces have been deployed to preempt or smother strikes. At times, however, the regime has yielded to certain demands such as increases in wages, expanding the beneficiary pool of state welfare programs and sustaining some subsidies. Most recently, President Mubarak announced a 30 percent increase in public sector wages. Yet the persistence of protest activities demonstrates the seriousness of popular discontent and the failure of both oppressive methods and minor peace-making concessions to mollify the public.

The Egyptian regime's lack of an overall strategy to address the country's enduring troubles extends far beyond the economic sphere. The regime seems to have abandoned the often implemented option of using political reforms to defuse socio-economic tensions. The strong showing of the Muslim Brotherhood in the parliamentary elections of 2005, when its candidates won 20 percent of the seats of the People's Assembly (the lower chamber of the Egyptian parliament), tested the regime's grip on power and led it to crack down on the political activism of the years before. In 2006, the regime postponed local elections, extended the state of emergency and repressed opposition activists. And it suppressed efforts by the country's judiciary to accrue some measure of independence. The Muslim Brotherhood also became a target: in 2006 and 2007, the regime launched a wave of arrests targeting the movement's high-ranking leaders and financiers.

The resultant weakness of the organized political opposition is further augmenting social unrest. The capacity of opposition groups to operate effectively has been terribly deflated. The consequence of this condition has been a massive increase in spontaneous, unstructured outbreaks of civil disobedience. Leading these discordant waves of activism are labor leaders, human rights activists, bloggers and young journalists. They have roots that stretch across the ideological spectrum and are remarkably responsive to the public's sentiments. In spite of attempts by some political parties to develop links to these activists, they have remained largely autonomous. Nevertheless, this dispersion of energy from the center of the political system to its peripheries has also obstructed the emergence of a coherent movement with a clear set of demands.

Egypt is trapped in an unenviable position, characterized by growing social unrest and political deterioration. Choices made by the Egyptian regime will most likely determine whether the current social convulsions will be followed by more instability or, if matters are handled prudently, sustainable recovery. In all likelihood, the option of moderating the perilous effects of economic strain by orchestrating a new wave of political reforms is one that the regime will hesitate to embrace at this stage. The concern that such openings might make worse the odds of the approaching presidential succession (Mubarak turned 80 on May 4 and his fifth terms ends in 2011) seems to surpass any other considerations.

The current resurgence of protest activism constitutes the one promising development in Egyptian political life. But progress on the street needs to be complemented by real progress in the performance of organized opposition forces in the political process. Notwithstanding the fact that this progress is largely predicated on the regime's willingness to welcome the opposition's input, it is also dependent on the quality of the opposition. Only through active, disciplined, credible and committed participation in the political process can organized political forces in Egypt effectively advance the reform agenda and push for sensible and comprehensive policies that address the socio-economic exigencies at hand.- Published 29/5/2008 © bitterlemons-international.org

Amr Hamzawy is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC.

The fallout from rising prices in Jordan
Yusuf Mansur

Jordan's enduring dilemma of the dual challenge of endemic high poverty and unemployment rates is joined by a third equally dangerous contingent, inflation, especially as global food prices rise. The political impact and reactions to this third test of the political-economic environment are hard to gauge.

Ordinary Jordanians have become numb to the double-digit poverty and unemployment rates (around 14 percent each). These rates have hovered steady over the last decade without any marked improvement. Hence, there is a settled realization in the Jordanian psyche that little can be done. Past and present promises of improvement and a departure from what has sadly become recognized as the status quo quickly hit the receptacle of unfulfilled dreams and soon became forgotten. The frequent changes of guard, the similarity of promises from one cabinet to the next and their dismal achievements have helped douse the possibility of emergence from the catacomb of policy ineffectiveness. Blame, played like a broken record, is fashionably but quietly heaped upon those that preceded the incumbents.

Inflation, however, is a new phenomenon and a challenge that increases the severity of the other two. The consumer price index rose by almost 11 percent in the first quarter and an inflation rate of 10 percent is expected for 2008. Not only are prices too high in Jordan, which according to some sources is the region's most globalized economy, but the price increase is due to rising food and energy prices, thus severely impacting the poor. Moreover, in a country where income has not grown while income disparities have, inflation erodes the purchasing power of all. Since inflation is mainly in food prices, low income groups, the poor and the unemployed will be further immiserized at a time when the majority of the people have not benefited from the fruits of the economic growth of the past four years. As in the rest of the world, the gap between rich and poor has risen in Jordan.

In addition, unlike poverty and unemployment, inflation rises fast and knows no ceiling. The inflation being imported and thus beyond the control of the central banks of developing and transition economies like Jordan's, highlights the foibles of governments that espoused globalization and rushed into freeing trade without buttressing and protecting the local economy from the risks of globalization.

The nagging question in the streets is quite sophisticated: how could bureaucrats, elected or appointed--in the case of Jordan the latter--believe that they would possess the necessary acumen and resources to muster the rewards and survive the ever-rising globalization risks when they are unable to manage Jordan's small economy. Contrary to the supply-side view, it is this question that has trickled down to the poor and laypeople that had never pondered macroeconomic issues, nor wealth and welfare. The upshot is manifest discontent and rising poverty. Consequently, and fearing embarrassment, no new study is being commissioned of the poverty line in Jordan, which has not been updated since 2002.

The dangerous tripod of inflation, poverty and unemployment has not gone unnoticed by the six-month old Jordanian cabinet, which captured the sympathy of all Jordanians for having arrived at the scene with the three problems already out of Pandora's box. However, such sympathy may soon turn into apathy if inflation continues to bite into the livelihoods of Jordanians; last year the average household consumed 20 percent more than it earned, not a sustainable phenomena.

Poverty pockets, which are highly concentrated in the rural areas, are assured through spontaneous injections and official visits that relief is on the way. Attempts by the new cabinet to curb inflation by encouraging imports of previously protected commodities, removing sales tax and customs on certain imports, establishing parallel markets and better informing the public, have held temporary relief and are costly to maintain at a time when the budget deficit is at an all time high and the budget itself is in excess of 50 percent of GDP.

Jordan, a country where security and stability are prized and prioritized above all else, will surely survive the era of this unholy trinity. The political dimension of such challenges has translated into an obvious dismay that has materialized into whispered, albeit heated gossip and accusations at the street level and in the parliament. It is, therefore, safe to say that the riots seen in Egypt, Yemen and other countries will not be replicated in Jordan. Furthermore, since bread is still affordable, the Ma'an riots of the 1990s are not likely to be repeated.

As in the past, when the challenges become too foreboding, scapegoats will be found and officially sacrificed. Concomitantly, there is hope within official circles that 2009 will be a deflationary year, that globalization, which brought forth inflation, will on its own resolve the problem by deflating prices domestically and that the year of rising prices will be soon forgotten: a curious wish by the neo-liberals for Adam Smith's "invisible hand".- Published 29/5/2008 © bitterlemons-international.org

Yusuf Mansur is the managing partner of the Envision Consulting Group (EnConsult) and former CEO of the Jordan Agency for Enterprise and Investment Development.



Bitterlemons-international.org is an internet forum for an array of world perspectives on the Middle East and its specific concerns. It aspires to engender greater understanding about the Middle East region and open a new common space for world thinkers and political leaders to present their viewpoints and initiatives on the region. Editors Ghassan Khatib and Yossi Alpher can be reached at ghassan@bitterlemons-international.org and yossi@bitterlemons-international.org, respectively.

Whose face to the world? by Steven Barnes, ABU ARDVAARK

ABU ARDVAARK



5/28/08

Whose face to the world?

Steven W. Barnes

There is a growing debate in the United States and abroad over which presidential candidate is best positioned to improve America's standing in the world.

The candidates themselves are taking this issue seriously; all seem to agree that America's current public diplomacy efforts are badly flawed.

On the Democratic side, Senator Barack Obama outlined elements of his public diplomacy program in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in February. He talked of funding "America Houses" overseas that would "incorporate youth centers and libraries that are needed throughout the broader Muslim world."

He also promised to establish a "Voice Corps" - an administration would "rapidly recruit and train fluent speakers of Arabic, Bahasa, Farsi, Urdu and Turkish who can ensure our voice is heard - and that we listen - throughout the world."

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's foreign policy speeches have included the theme of re-establishing America's "moral authority" on the world stage.

The Clinton supporters Lissa Muscatine and Melanne Verveer recently argued on the popular Huffington Post blog that "Hillary Clinton has been practicing public diplomacy for years and is widely respected around the world for her longtime commitment to international development, human rights and America's global leadership."

On the Republican side, Senator John McCain, last year outlined a key element of his plan for overseas outreach in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel.

"I would establish a single, independent agency responsible for all of America's public diplomacy," he said. Such an agency would, among other things, establish "American libraries with Internet access throughout the world" and create "a professional corps of public-diplomacy experts who speak the local language and whose careers are spent promoting American values, ideas, culture and education."

The candidates' positions have generated a lively debate among analysts, particularly online. One contributor to a public-diplomacy blog hosted by Marc Lynch of George Washington University, Steve Corman of Arizona State University, recently wrote of the candidates' positions: "They all seem to assume that the problem is in the way we have been designing, organizing and/or deploying messages [overseas], and that if we just correct that we will start winning the 'war of ideas.' But the problem goes much deeper than that: As study after study has shown, the international credibility of the U.S. is in the basement, if not underground."

A former American diplomat, John Brown, also weighed in on Lynch's blog, saying that the next president should "take foreign public opinion into serious consideration at the beginning, not at the end, of the policy-making process."

On a blog cohosted by the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy and the Foreign Policy Association, a representative of the Association of International Educators asserted, "U.S. foreign policy must be underpinned by a strong foundation for dialogue and collaboration with other nations."

This goal may be accomplished, they advised, by "building the international knowledge and cross-cultural skills of Americans through study abroad and foreign-language and area studies; and attracting the international students and scholars who are the world's next generation of leaders and innovators."

Recently, Justin Logan, blogging for the libertarian think-tank, the Cato Institute, as part of a wider public diplomacy discussion, hit on a key aspect of the larger debate, citing a 2006 U.S. Government Accountability Office report evaluating how the State Department engages Islamic audiences abroad.

The GAO, Logan noted, unequivocally stated that "U.S. foreign policy is the major root cause behind anti-American sentiments among Muslim populations and that this point needs to be better researched, absorbed, and acted upon by government officials."

The presidential contenders and voters should ignore this dialogue at their own peril, for the next president's foreign policy will determine whether and how America's standing in the world improves or founders.

By engaging in this important policy debate now, the candidates will be better prepared to achieve a consensus on the way forward, so that the full measure of America's diplomatic strength may be brought to bear come January 2009.

Fortunately, there is a wealth of research and analysis being conducted in policy and academic circles that can inform how the next president employs the various elements of public diplomacy, so that U.S. foreign policy more effectively shapes, rather than is shaped by, global public opinion.
Steven W. Barnes is assistant dean of public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.

Jewish Israel's Ongoing Suicide

Jewish Israel's Ongoing Suicide
Date 2008/5/28 14:30:00

Paris – The laws of physics say that actions produce equivalent counter-action. They do not add that in international relations these may not be what is expected.

American policy in the Middle East under George Bush and Condoleezza Rice has sought to polarize the region's forces in the belief that this produces a desirable confrontation between those, as President George W. Bush said in 2001, "who are with us and those who are against us." Washington reckons that it wins because it is, in conventional terms, the more powerful.

But suppose the situation is not a conventional one, and the application of power produces ricochet, or indirect or asymmetrical reactions.

First take the case of Lebanon, whose modern history is one of compromise among the communities that make up the country, which are not automatically hostile to one another but have distinct and divergent interests, and historically have also been the object of foreign intervention and attempts to set the communities against one another.

American policy has never acknowledged the fact that, to exist as a nation, the divided Lebanese have to compromise. Washington and Israel have both consistently seen Lebanon as a country that could be divided, polarized, and toppled into their camp, or made to serve their interests inside the Arab camp.

Both have promoted policies intended to put the Christians in power over the Moslems, and if that proved impossible (as it has), to promote an alliance of Sunni Moslems, Druze and Christians against the Syrian and Iranian-supported Hizbollah.

Take what has just happened. Hizbollah, the movement that has mobilized what historically has been the poorest and least powerful Lebanese community, that of the Shia population, has seen its power and prestige vastly increased by recent Israeli actions. Israel's bombardment and invasion of Lebanon in 2006, provoked by Hizbollah, intended by Israel to destroy or decisively weaken Hizbollah by causing the other communities to hold it responsible for the war, was a failure.

It did not happen. Hezbollah was hailed as the victor over Israel.

Lebanon nonetheless has since been in a political stalemate, between what usually has been described as the "American-backed" prime minister and the hostile Shia sympathizers of Hizbollah, over nomination of a new president.

In May the prime minister ordered dismantlement of a secret Hizbollah-controlled communications network, clearly built to improve Hizbollah's military performance in another war. A crisis ensued, during which Hizbollah and allied Amal armed militants displayed their military strength by occupying western Beirut, and their political sophistication by going no further They accepted a proposal by the secretary general of the Arab League and the Emir of Qatar for talks to settle the crisis.

This Arab intervention was an unpleasant surprise to Washington, but produced agreement for a new government under a new president, the former head of the carefully neutral Lebanese army. He has been sworn into office.

The experienced commentator on Third World affairs, Jonathan Power, has recently drawn attention to another case where policies aimed at one result have produced its opposite, this time in Israel.

He quotes Edward Luttwak's argument (last year, in Prospect Magazine) that the Middle East since the end of the cold war has lost its strategic interest for the West. It possesses oil, certainly. But it is much easier to buy oil on the international market than to invade countries and fight for it. The American experience in Iraq is a demonstration.

The West, and the United States in particular, have always acknowledged a strategic interest, as well as moral obligation, to defend a Jewish Israel. However the strategic interest now is absent, and as Power says, there may soon no longer be a Jewish Israel.

Israel's systematic colonization and annexation of the Palestinian territories over the last forty years, and equally systematic opposition to the creation of an independent Palestinian state – no longer a serious prospect, as was evident during President's Bush's recent visit to Israel -- have turned Israel into an Arab-Jewish state under Jewish control.

The Palestinian Authority, realistically speaking, has ceased to exist; it is simply an agent of the Israeli government. Israel's problem now is how to survive as an religiously divided single state, half-free and half-unfree.

Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert both warned their people that this would happen. It is why Sharon withdrew from Gaza. But that solved nothing, as the building of colonies continued, and continues.

Israel now finds itself a single amalgamated political entity with a huge Palestinian minority for which it is legally responsible, which before long will become a majority, living in quasi-apartheid conditions. The defense of such a state can scarcely be described as a western strategic interest. Defend it against what? No Arab government has any interest in attacking it. The only threat to it is the hypothetical one of Iran's as yet hypothetical nuclear weapon. But why should Iran attack it, as Israel undoes itself as a Jewish state?

It will have serious continuing problems of internal unrest and control, if Hamas and other groups function as domestic resistance movements. But no foreign country can do anything about that, nor would want to try.

The Zionist movement, by insisting on keeping possession of Palestine, and the Palestinian population conquered in 1967, has destroyed the Jewish state it was its dream to create. This only now is being recognized.

© Copyright 2008 by Tribune Media Services International. All Rights Reserved.

A homemade peace in the Mideast by Barbara Slavin

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-slavin26-2008may26,0,4484067.story
>From the Los Angeles Times
A homemade peace in the Mideast
Recent talks mediated by Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia suggest the region is assuming responsibility for its own stability.
By Barbara Slavin

May 26, 2008

You know something interesting is happening in the Middle East when a major peace agreement is brokered by Qatar. This tiny emirate (population 900,000) has accomplished what the United States, France, the United Nations and the Arab League failed to do: get Lebanon's chronically feuding factions to agree to a deal that will at least give the country a temporary government and allow Qataris and other Gulf Arabs to spend their summer in Beirut without worrying about being caught in another civil war.

Americans who have followed the Middle East for decades and lost any optimism that the region can ever resolve its chronic conflicts should feel good for a change about what is happening these days. Instead of complaining about a lack of U.S. leadership (or evenhandedness), the region is trying to solve problems on its own.

While Qatar was pacifying Lebanon, Turkey was attempting to mediate a peace agreement between Syria and Israel. That effort, which has been going on for months, is a long shot, and its initial progress may have more to do with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's desire to distract attention from corruption charges against him than any real prospect of Israel withdrawing from the Golan Heights. But it also reflects Israel's recognition that it cannot afford to wait for a new U.S. administration to breach a tightening circle of hostility formed by Hamas, a Lebanon in which Hezbollah has veto power and a Syria in the arms of Tehran.

Meanwhile, Saudi King Abdullah has invited former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani to an "Islamic dialogue conference" in Mecca at the end of June. Even as they exchange hostile rhetoric, Saudi Arabia and Iran also have been talking about trying to ease Sunni-Shiite tensions in Lebanon and Iraq. Saudi Arabia also has tried to mediate between Fatah and Hamas in the Palestinian territories, as has Yemen, not exactly known as a diplomatic powerhouse. Egypt, a durable diplomatic heavyweight, has been working for months to arrange a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel.

These developments are not an argument for U.S. neglect. Ultimately, the United States needs to be involved in the region, if for nothing else to guarantee Israel's security. A U.S. imprimatur for peace deals, if not a signing ceremony on the White House lawn, can only be for the good. But what the Bush administration has inadvertently shown is that a policy of neglect and choosing sides -- seeking to isolate those one does not like -- can produce unforeseen good results by forcing other countries to act as mediators.

Perhaps after all the war and bloodshed between Arabs and Israelis, Americans and Arabs, Persians and Arabs, and Arabs and Arabs, the Middle East is collectively saying: Enough.

Barbara Slavin is a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the author of "Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S. and the Twisted Path to Confrontation."

A Sensible Path on Iran by Zbigniew Brzezinski and William Odom

For those who may have missed it, an excellent article on Iran by two former Salon speakers Zbigniew Brzezinski and Bill Odom.

A Sensible Path on Iran

By Zbigniew Brzezinski and William Odom
Tuesday, May 27, 2008; A13

Current U.S. policy toward the regime in Tehran will almost certainly result in an Iran with nuclear weapons. The seemingly clever combination of the use of "sticks" and "carrots," including the frequent official hints of an American military option "remaining on the table," simply intensifies Iran's desire to have its own nuclear arsenal. Alas, such a heavy-handed "sticks" and "carrots" policy may work with donkeys but not with serious countries. The United States would have a better chance of success if the White House abandoned its threats of military action and its calls for regime change.

Consider countries that could have quickly become nuclear weapon states had they been treated similarly. Brazil, Argentina and South Africa had nuclear weapons programs but gave them up, each for different reasons. Had the United States threatened to change their regimes if they would not, probably none would have complied. But when "sticks" and "carrots" failed to prevent India and Pakistan from acquiring nuclear weapons, the United States rapidly accommodated both, preferring good relations with them to hostile ones. What does this suggest to leaders in Iran?

To look at the issue another way, imagine if China, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a country that has deliberately not engaged in a nuclear arms race with Russia or the United States, threatened to change the American regime if it did not begin a steady destruction of its nuclear arsenal. The threat would have an arguable legal basis, because all treaty signatories promised long ago to reduce their arsenals, eventually to zero. The American reaction, of course, would be explosive public opposition to such a demand. U.S. leaders might even mimic the fantasy rhetoric of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regarding the use of nuclear weapons.

A successful approach to Iran has to accommodate its security interests and ours. Neither a U.S. air attack on Iranian nuclear facilities nor a less effective Israeli one could do more than merely set back Iran's nuclear program. In either case, the United States would be held accountable and would have to pay the price resulting from likely Iranian reactions. These would almost certainly involve destabilizing the Middle East, as well as Afghanistan, and serious efforts to disrupt the flow of oil, at the very least generating a massive increase in its already high cost. The turmoil in the Middle East resulting from a preemptive attack on Iran would hurt America and eventually Israel, too.

Given Iran's stated goals -- a nuclear power capability but not nuclear weapons, as well as an alleged desire to discuss broader U.S.-Iranian security issues -- a realistic policy would exploit this opening to see what it might yield. The United States could indicate that it is prepared to negotiate, either on the basis of no preconditions by either side (though retaining the right to terminate the negotiations if Iran remains unyielding but begins to enrich its uranium beyond levels allowed by the Non-Proliferation Treaty); or to negotiate on the basis of an Iranian willingness to suspend enrichment in return for simultaneous U.S. suspension of major economic and financial sanctions.

Such a broader and more flexible approach would increase the prospects of an international arrangement being devised to accommodate Iran's desire for an autonomous nuclear energy program while minimizing the possibility that it could be rapidly transformed into a nuclear weapons program. Moreover, there is no credible reason to assume that the traditional policy of strategic deterrence, which worked so well in U.S. relations with the Soviet Union and with China and which has helped to stabilize India-Pakistan hostility, would not work in the case of Iran. The widely propagated notion of a suicidal Iran detonating its very first nuclear weapon against Israel is more the product of paranoia or demagogy than of serious strategic calculus. It cannot be the basis for U.S. policy, and it should not be for Israel's, either.

An additional longer-range benefit of such a dramatically different diplomatic approach is that it could help bring Iran back into its traditional role of strategic cooperation with the United States in stabilizing the Gulf region. Eventually, Iran could even return to its long-standing and geopolitically natural pre-1979 policy of cooperative relations with Israel. One should note also in this connection Iranian hostility toward al-Qaeda, lately intensified by al-Qaeda's Web-based campaign urging a U.S.-Iranian war, which could both weaken what al-Qaeda views as Iran's apostate Shiite regime and bog America down in a prolonged regional conflict.

Last but not least, consider that American sanctions have been deliberately obstructing Iran's efforts to increase its oil and natural gas outputs. That has contributed to the rising cost of energy. An eventual American-Iranian accommodation would significantly increase the flow of Iranian energy to the world market. Americans doubtless would prefer to pay less for filling their gas tanks than having to pay much more to finance a wider conflict in the Persian Gulf.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was national security adviser in the Carter administration and is the author, most recently, of "Second Chance." William Odom, a retired Army lieutenant general, is a former director of the National Security Agency. Both are affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Will AIPAC join Senator McCain in renouncing Pastor Hagee?

Will AIPAC join Senator McCain in renouncing Pastor Hagee?

I think this presents an interesting test of what AIPAC's politics are
today. Now that Senator McCain has renounced his ties to John Hagee,
what will AIPAC do?

Will AIPAC Join Senator McCain in Renouncing Ties to John Hagee?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naima...m_b_103722.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/27/13550/1585

A Change Needs to Come by Avigail Abarbanel

An interesting insight into the psychology of Zionism from an Israeli emigrant to Australia who now supports a "one-state solution" in the Holy Land.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9567.shtml

A change needs to come
By Avigail Abarbanel, The Electronic Intifada, 26 May 2008

Near Bethlehem, Israeli soldiers detain a Palestinian man demonstrating against new settlement construction in the West Bank, May 2008. (Luay Sababa/MaanImages)

Earlier this month I had the privilege of hearing Ali Abunimah speak at a dinner organized by an Australian pro-Palestinian activist group. Abunimah, an author and a co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, is a supporter of the one-state solution in Palestine/Israel, and so am I. One democratic and secular state for both peoples with a right of return for the Palestinian refugees is the only just solution to the long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Abunimah is optimistic about what is possible. I would like to be as optimistic but am not so sure I can.

Growing up as an Israeli provided me with an intimate understanding of Israeli-Jewish psychology. Ever since I can remember, we in Israel were told that Jews have nowhere else to go because the world didn't like Jews. Seventeen years ago, when my former husband and I were about to migrate to Australia, most of the people we knew were dismayed by our decision. I was told by many that I was making a big mistake. My father's heart surgeon for example, was in complete shock when he heard our news. He took me aside and said that he did not understand how I could leave; that he would never be prepared to live anywhere where there might be even one anti-Semite alive. Like many others he believed that Jews can only safely live in Israel.

This idea that Israel is the only safe place for Jews is critical to understanding the roots of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and Israel's policies and perspective in the present. The majority of Jewish people do not trust non-Jews as life-long compatriots. Experience and cultural narrative have been telling them that since antiquity, rulers and governments as well as populations have become hostile to Jews without warning. This means that no matter how long Jews have lived anywhere, no matter how unobtrusive and well integrated they have been, or how much they contributed to their society, things could turn against them overnight.

With a history of European persecutions, pogroms, discriminatory laws, expulsions, medieval and modern ghettos and a systematic plan of total annihilation in what was considered an enlightened European country, it's hard to blame people for feeling insecure.

Israel was not born in 1948 or because of the Holocaust. Its origins are with Zionism, the Jewish national movement, which was born in the late 19th century. Zionism was to put an end to the precarious situation of European Jews by creating an exclusively Jewish state. The logic was simple: if Jews could not trust that they could ever be unconditionally welcome or safe in the countries in which they lived, they needed a state of their own. This means a state governed by Jews only, and that was largely free of non-Jewish people. The location of the "Jewish national home" was debated at first but eventually the entire Zionist movement agreed on Palestine because of the spiritual meaning it had for Jewish people. The fact that Palestine was populated was known, and openly recognized by the leaders of the Zionist movement. The mainstream view was that it was unfortunate, but that the plan to create a national home for the Jewish people could not be abandoned, because the Jews were in dire need.

Zionists have always believed that Jewish fear justifies ethnic cleansing. Ideas about transferring the existing non-Jewish population of Palestine -- the Palestinians -- elsewhere to make room for an exclusively Jewish state existed long before 1948. The word "transfer" entered modern Hebrew, as a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, an idea or a plan to move the Palestinian population en masse elsewhere, as far away as possible from the borders of Israel.

The ethnic cleansing of Palestine started in 1948 behind the smokescreen of war, but it was not completed. It is not only continuing today but Israeli scholars like Ilan Pappe believe that it is escalating. Zionist ideology is directly responsible for the charter of present day Israel. Attempting to understand the dynamic of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or to analyze Israel's behavior without understanding this charter is bound to be flawed, and to lead to more confusion and misunderstanding.

Since the foundational belief is that Jewish people can only be safe in an exclusively Jewish state, Israel's charter is simple. Israel is required to maintain itself as a safe haven for all Jewish people. Based on their past experience and national and religious narratives Jewish people deeply believe that it's only a matter of time before the tide once again turns against them. When (and not "if") this happens, the state of Israel will be there to take them all in and save them. I am using "they" instead of "we" because I have personally abandoned this narrative, and have chosen not to live my life in its shadow. This is seen by many Israelis as naive or even insane. But I decided to take my chances in the wider world because I do not believe that I can live a full life and make a contribution in the world if I live in a permanent state of fear.

The development of the state of Israel and Israel's behavior in the region have always been consistent with its charter. Israel sees that it would need as much land and natural resources as possible (such as water, which is scarce in the region), in order to accommodate the 13 millions Jews who are expected to flock to it from around the world, "when" a new era of Jewish persecution begins. Israel would have to have enough housing, infrastructure and a functional economy. It would have to be a modern state in which Western Jews accustomed to technology, capitalism and affluence can feel comfortable. There is nothing inconsistent or strange in what Israel is doing to the Palestinians if you understand this charter. It surprises me that this is never discussed openly in any political analysis that I see.

At the heart of this conflict is not economics, oil, "war on terror," religion or various regional loyalties. Rather it is an age-old psychology of persecution and survival to which all other considerations are subservient. Israel's loyalties are utilitarian. There is no great love there for any other peoples or countries. Israelis always think in terms of what is good for the Jews and what isn't, and they watch the world carefully from within this prism. Israeli children learn to see life from this point of view from a very young age. I was the same when I was growing up.

Only when we grasp this we can understand why negotiations with Israel mean so little; why Israel has never stopped building settlements on Palestinian land and has been consistently expanding its territory; why it's making life for Palestinians inside and outside of Israel so unbelievably hellish; why it's brutally restricting them to ever diminishing territories and why Israel is responding to Palestinian resistance with such disproportionate and overwhelming violence. Breaking down Palestinian resistance is critical from Israel's point of view not only because of the pain that Palestinian armed resistance causes in Israel, but also in order to destroy any aspirations Palestinians might have to return to their ancestral lands. Israel simply cannot afford this if it wants to stay an exclusively Jewish state.

Israel is a country based on racist considerations because of its very charter, and the circumstances through which it came into being. From the point of view of Israelis accepting the one-state idea, would change Israel into just another country where Jews live among non-Jews. The whole idea of a Jewish safe haven would have to be abandoned and there will be no guarantee that the new pluralist state would take in Jews if they were ever in need of rescue. Israeli Jews and many Zionists around the world believe that to ask them to live together with the Palestinian people is to ask them to go back to a state of insecurity and potential victimhood. They simply do not believe that this is reasonable, and therefore would never willingly agree to any solution that compromises their safe haven. This is one of the reasons Zionists counteract any criticism of Israel with persistent cries of anti-Semitism. They really believe that to end the exclusively Jewish state would leave all Jews anywhere in the world, vulnerable to another potential Holocaust.

It is clear to me that if justice is to be achieved for the Palestinians this fear-based, racist and immoral ideology has to be overcome because the fear of one people cannot and must not justify the destruction of another. But I do not believe that the Palestinians can afford to wait until Jewish psychology changed by itself, and Jews felt sufficiently safe in the world to let go of the idea of an exclusively Jewish safe haven.

I believe it will take serious international pressure on Israel, or a real change of heart on the part of Israelis for a one state solution to become a reality. I would like to be optimistic and think that this change of heart will happen eventually but am not sure I can. My doubts come from my own experience -- after all it used to be my psychology too. Thus, in order to save the Palestinian people the world must take decisive action in this conflict, as it did in South Africa, or continue sacrificing one people for the sake of another.

Avigail Abarbanel is a former citizen of Israel and a psychotherapist in private practice in Canberra Australia. She can be reached at avigail A T netspace D O T net D O T au.


__________________________________

Politics on the Couch by Justin Frank

Dear Friends,

I have written a new book, Politics on the Couch. Because we live in an interactive world and this election is an interactive process,
I am conducting a new experiment - posting sections of the manuscript twice weekly on my blog at HuffingtonPost.com and am inviting readers' comments which may be folded into the final print edition published by HarperCollins.

Because I value your contribution I would appreciate it if you would comment on these posts as you see fit.
To comment, you need to subscribe - at no cost - by going to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/justin-frank. Then click on the big orange promo that reads "I'M A FAN OF THIS BLOGGER (GET EMAIL ALERTS)." You will receive an e-mail each time a new blog is posted.

If you do not already have a user name and password for HuffingtonPost.com you will need to create one in order to log in. For those of you who have never done this before, here are some tips:
Don’t use your e-mail address as your user name
Don’t use your real name – for example, my wife’s user name is “Miss Information”
Send me your user name if you want to be credited in the book

Thank you very much for your help – just by reading this and considering the idea, you are part of the process. Let me know if you have any questions.

This could be exciting, so thanks again,

Justy




Justy Hussein Frank
Washington, DC
Stay informed, get connected and more with AOL on your phone.

A new Middle East, but not Condi's by Rami Khouri

The Daily Star

Saturday, May 24, 2008
A new Middle East, but not Condi's

By Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff

The Doha agreement that resolved the immediate political crisis in Lebanon is the latest example of the new political power equation that is redefining the Middle East. It reflects both local and global forces and, 18 years after the Cold War ended, provides a glimpse of what a post-Cold War world will look like, at least in the Middle East.

Several dynamics seem to be at play, but one is paramount: the clear limits of the projection of American global power, combined with the assertion and coexistence of multiple regional powers - Turkey, Israel, Iran, Hizbullah, Syria, Hamas, Saudi Arabia and others. These regional actors tend to fight and negotiate at the same time, and ultimately prefer to make compromises rather than perpetually wage absolutist battles.

The Doha accord for Lebanon was much more than simply a victory for Iranian-backed Hizbullah over the American-backed March 14 alliance. It was the first concrete example in the Arab world of a negotiated, formal political agreement by local adversaries to share power and make big national decisions collectively, while maintaining close strategic relationships with diverse external patrons in the United States, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. The Lebanese agreement (unlike the failed Fatah-Hamas unity government agreement) is likely to succeed because all the parties know that to live together peacefully they must make mutual compromises. This accord has been forged in the furnace of Middle Eastern demographic and political realism, in contrast to the hallucinatory absolutism that often drives US-Israeli policy in the region.

The US was not fully defeated, but it was fought to a draw. Recent events put into concrete political form the most powerful force that has defined the Middle East in recent decades: the willingness of individuals, political movements and some governments to openly defy, challenge, resist and occasionally fight the United States, Israel and their Arab and other allies. The US since 2004 has explicitly, repeatedly and passionately singled out Lebanon as an arena where Hizbullah and other regional Islamist forces backed by Iran and Syria would be faced down and defeated. Next week, the US, though its Lebanese allies, will face these forces from across the same Cabinet room table, not as bludgeoned and defeated foes, but rather as partners and colleagues in the national-unity government that is to be formed. When Hizbullah and Hariri exchange kisses, befuddled Condoleezza Rice should take care not to fall off her exercise bicycle.

The US is a slow learner in the Middle East, where the terrain is strange to it, the body language bizarre, the fierce power of historical memory incomprehensible, and the negotiating techniques other-worldly. But the US is not stupid. It learns over time that if you retread a flat tire over and over again, and it keeps going flat on you, perhaps it's time to buy a new tire if you hope to move forward. Now that we have a draw in the broad ideological confrontation throughout the Middle East that pits Israeli-Americanism against Arab Islamo-nationalism, we should expect the players to reconsider their policies if they wish to make new gains.

This, however, is not the most significant development this week that reflects the limits of American power in the Middle East. The remarkable manifestation of how the US has marginalized itself is the conduct of the Israeli government. The US has pushed the Israelis hard to do two things in the past two years: to not negotiate with Syria and to not engage Hamas. What has Israel done? It has been wisely negotiating with Syria via Turkey, and engaging Hamas on a truce deal through the mediation of Egypt. Hold on, Condi, this gets even worse.

It is no big deal in Washington when nearly 500 million Arabs, Iranians and Turks ignore and defy the US. But when Israel - the only democracy in the Middle East, America's eternal ally, and the bastion of the epic modern struggle against fascism, totalitarianism, Nazism, communism and terrorism - ignores the United States, that is newsworthy.

So we now have a rare moment in the Middle East: Iran, Turkey, all the Arabs, Hizbullah, Hamas and Israel all share one and only one common trait: They routinely ignore the advice, and the occasional threats, they get from Washington. Condoleezza Rice was correct in summer 2006 when she said we are witnessing the birth pangs of a new Middle East. But the new regional configuration is very different from what she had in mind and tried to bring into being with multiple wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Somalia and Lebanon, and threats against Iran and Syria. The new rules of the political game in the Middle East are now being written by the key players in the Middle East, which should be welcomed.

Rami G. Khouri is published twice-weekly by THE DAILY STAR.


d

Israel 'has 150 nuclear weapons'

British Broadcasting Corporation
Monday, 26 May 2008 21:26 UK

Israel 'has 150 nuclear weapons'

Ex-US President Jimmy Carter has said Israel has at least 150 atomic weapons in its arsenal.

The Israelis have never confirmed they have nuclear weapons, but this has been widely assumed since a scientist leaked details in the 1980s.

Mr Carter made his comments on Israel's weapons at a press conference at the annual literary Hay Festival in Wales.

He also described Israeli treatment of Palestinians as "one of the greatest human rights crimes on earth".

Mr Carter gave the figure for the Israeli nuclear arsenal in response to a question on US policy on a possible nuclear-armed Iran, arguing that any country newly armed with atomic weapons faced overwhelming odds.

"The US has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons; the Soviet Union (sic) has about the same; Great Britain and France have several hundred, and Israel has 150 or more," he said.

"We have a phalanx of enormous capabilities, not only of weaponry but also of rockets to deliver every one of those missiles on a pinpoint accuracy target."

Most experts estimate that Israel has between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads, largely based on information leaked to the Sunday Times newspaper in the 1980s by Mordechai Vanunu, a former worker at the country's Dimona nuclear reactor.

The US, a key ally of Israel, has in general followed the country's policy of "nuclear ambiguity", neither confirming or denying the existence of its assumed arsenal.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert included Israel among a list of nuclear states in comments in December 2006, a week after US Defence Secretary Robert Gates used a similar form of words during a Senate hearing.

Former Israeli military intelligence chief Aharon Zeevi-Farkash told Reuters news agency he considered Mr Carter's comments "irresponsible".

"The problem is that there are those who can use these statements when it comes to discussing the international effort to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons," he said.

'Imprisonment'

During the press briefing, Mr Carter expressed his support for Israel as a country, but criticised its domestic and foreign policy.

"One of the greatest human rights crimes on earth is the starvation and imprisonment of 1.6m Palestinians," he said.

The former US president cited statistics which he said showed the nutritional intake of some Palestinian children was below that of children in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as saying the European position on Israel could be best described as "supine".

Mr Carter, awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, brokered the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the first between Israel and an Arab state.

In April he controversially held talks in the Syrian capital Damascus with Khaled Meshaal, leader of the militant Palestinian movement Hamas.

The former US president's Carter Center was unavailable for further comment.

"10 Percent Intellectual": The Mind of Condoleezza Rice

Published on Center for Media and Democracy (http://www.prwatch.org)
"10 Percent Intellectual": The Mind of Condoleezza Rice
By John H. Brown
Created 05/21/2008 - 08:44

Condoleezza Rice deplaning

"I tell my students that policy-making is 90 percent blocking and tackling and 10 percent intellectual."--Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, cited in Mary Beth Brown, Condi: The Life of a Steel Magnolia (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc, 2007), p. 180.

"When you never accomplish anything, your weekly summary of what you've done all week is just a bunch of 'accondishments' -- how you've filled the days."--Noah, a reader of "Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog: I keep track of Condoleezza's hairdo so you don't have to [1]" (May 5, 2008).

Notwithstanding the low poll numbers [2] of the president she serves, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice [3] is one of the few people within the Bush administration who has managed to remain relatively unscathed by the public and by pundits. Unlike some in the president's entourage who have left Washington due to criticisms of their performance or ethics, Rice's current standing at home is sufficiently adequate from a PR perspective to allow her (up to now) to stay on in her job without too many embarrassments. True, there have been calls to remove her [4] from her current position because of her recently disclosed role in the administration's use of torture. And doubts about Rice's qualifications as Bush's foreign-policy guru have existed for years, with, for example, her former National Security Council boss in the administration of George H.W. Bush, Brent Scowcroft [5], stating in 2005 that her "expertise is in the former Soviet Union and Europe [6]. Less on the Middle East." More recently, an article by Patrick Seale [7], a British writer on the Middle East, talks about "The Tragic Futility of Condoleezza Rice."

But Condi, rising as she has from her solidly middle-class origins [8] in Birmingham, Alabama to the highest echelons of the US government, remains a subject of admiration. Earlier this year the Harris Poll reported that Rice was "still the 'shining star' [9] of the administration." A 2006 profile by BBC News gushed that "Rice's intellectual brilliance is undisputed [10]," and she "has consistently been one of the most popular members of the Bush administration." Pundits have repeatedly floated her name as a possible Republican vice presidential running mate for John McCain. "For a party that up to now has been clueless about how to run against either a woman or a person of color, Condoleezza Rice is pure political gold [11]," explained Nicholas Von Hoffman in a commentary for CBS News.

In fact, Rice's genius and foreign-policy expertise are more image than substance, as recent biographies by Elisabeth Bumiller [12] and Marcus Mabry [13] suggest. In her ascendance to power, Rice's main instrument has not been ground-breaking thinking about important international issues, but rather what Mabry characterizes as "her phenomenal skill at spinning."

A minor but telling example of Rice's self-promotion is the "Travels with the Secretary [14]" section on the State Department website, which suggests that what she accomplishes equates with how many hours she spends in her "reconfigured U.S. Air Force Boeing 757 that is outfitted with a cabin for the Secretary, seats for the staff, and security and a communications section for continuous information anywhere in the world":

Travel Time: 1830.09 hours (76.25 days)
Total Countries Visited: 72
Total Trips Taken: 70

Rice -- as if she were a football player gaining rushing yards -- traveled 154,347 miles in 2008, the site goes on to say [15].

No human mind, of course, can ever be adequately evaluated (least of all by miles traveled), but does Dr. Rice actually possess the intellectual capacity needed to handle her all-important positions in the US government? Sadly, the answer is no. Despite her vaunted academic credentials, Rice has been the willing servant of an administration where intellect has little importance.
Born in the USA

The insulated setting of Rice's deep-South youth, a home-based environment controlled by her doting parents, was an important factor in making it difficult for her, even as an adult, to think creatively beyond the frontiers (or mindset) of the United States. Her upbringing did not include much domestic travel, let alone visits to foreign countries. (She did, however, make it to Coney Island on one occasion with her parents.) Sequestered Titusville, her native neighborhood, was her sheltered bubble for the early years of her life. In the words of Mabry, Rice spent "the most formative years of her life willing away realities she did not want to see."

When Condo, as her pastor father called her, was in her mid-teens, the Rices moved to Denver, Colorado, far away from the "Bombingham," of Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor [16], the Ku Klux Klan 1960s Public Safety Commissioner who was responsible for so much of the violence there. (Rice would later say that Connor "fascinated" her "because he was kind of the personification of evil.") In the mile-high city, Rice went to a then-minor heartland learnery, the University of Denver. ("Very few people go from a doctorate at the University of Denver to a first class research university ," said Donald Kennedy, Stanford president from 1980 to 1992.) It was not until her late years in college that her intellectual interests, until then limited to ice skating and piano playing, were expanded to the field of foreign affairs. As she mentioned recently at the State Department:

I was in college [17] at the University of Denver trying to figure out my way in life and coming to the realization that if I stayed a music major I would end up playing at Nordstrom or perhaps at a piano bar -- (laughter) -- and I tried courses in English literature, and State and local government. And I hated them all. And then one day, I walked into a course in international politics taught by a Soviet specialist, a Czech émigré, a man named Josef Korbel, Secretary Albright's father.

"Before Korbel's class," Mabry points out, "Condoleezza had only glimpsed the world of international power and intrigue while sitting with her father watching the nightly news, worrying about Castro's missiles." Korbel was a defender, according to Mabry, of the Stalin-Hitler pact, which the Central European-born professor saw "as another example of Stalin's strategic genius and his success in building the Soviet state." According to Elizabeth Bumiller, when Rice heard him lecture, she

"fell in love" -- the phrase she has used in virtually every interview she has given about this moment in her life. ...

The lecture that so transfixed Rice was about the ruthless maneuvering and consolidation of power that allowed Stalin to propel himself from general secretary of the Communist Party to effective dictator of the Soviet Union. ... Terry Karl, a Stanford political science professor who later taught with Rice, [said] ... "Like some political scientists of the time, she was impressed with the efficiency and effectiveness of how the Communist parties exercised power."

A Stanford faculty member quoted by Mabry noticed that when Rice became the university's provost in the 1990s, communicating with her "was like talking to a brick wall. You'd try to say something, and she would say [banging on the table], 'No, no, no!' All I could think of was Khrushchev banging the shoe at the UN ... She was a Sovietologist; she learned her lesson well from her subjects."

Compare Rice's Soviet-centered "enlightenment" about the outside world -- focused on how the Communist parties exercised power -- with the foreign experiences of J. William Fulbright, who left his native Arkansas to be a Rhodes Scholar in England in the late 1920s. Elected Senator in 1944, he almost single-handedly established the prestigious educational exchange program [18] that bears his name. "The essence of intercultural education," he wrote, "is the acquisition of empathy [19] -- the ability to see the world as others see it, and to allow for the possibility that others may see something we have failed to see, or may see it more accurately." (Of course, Fulbright left much to be desired [20] with respect to the issue of civil rights in the United States.)

Regarding Fulbright's observation about the need for empathy with the rest of humanity, Mabry's important conclusion about Rice and the outside world is of relevance:

One of the morals of [Rice's] own biography had been that what mattered was what you and your self-defined society believed, because the world beyond was often wrong in its most critical judgments. ... And that history had instilled in Rice a conviction in the veracity of her own judgments and of those closest to her, even when -- perhaps especially when -- those judgments conflicted with the "objective" reality of outsiders.

Speaking in Tongues

An important insight into how well Dr. Rice is able to understand societies distant from American shores is her putative knowledge of foreign languages, which has been hyped no end by her political supporters. "In addition to English, she speaks Russian, French, German, and Spanish," gushes the Race 4 2008 website [21], which calls her the "uncontested frontrunner for the Vice-Presidential slot on the 2008 GOP ticket." Yet, as a student of Russia, she never seized the considerable opportunities offered by exchange programs to learn its language in the country itself. Her lack of proficiency with Russian was ridiculed in April 2005 [22] by Pravda (admittedly an anti-U.S. publication):

How did Condi get appointed as Secretary of State and labelled a Russian expert? Could it be that she told President Bush that she was an expert in rushin' around and he made her his "Rushin' expert"?

Asked whether she would run for President at the next election on Ekho Moskvy Radio programme, Condoleezza Rice answered Da! Nyet! Nyet! Nyet! Nyet! Nyet! Nyet! Nyet! Not bad for someone who is quoted frequently by the Western press as being a fluent Russian speaker and a Russian expert, although she has never lived in the country.

As for Rice's knowledge of French, which she studied at an early age, she herself admitted in 2006 that while she could understand a conversation with President Jacques Chirac of France in his native tongue, "I can't speak it, because I was never very good at French." As for Spanish, she was tutored in the language as a child, but while a graduate student in 1975, she said that "it was not a great time to get a job, particularly if the language you spoke was Russian, not Spanish." In all fairness to the conscientious Rice, she apparently did make an effort to learn some Portuguese on the way to her christening of the Chevron oil tanker, the M/T Condoleezza Rice, named in her honor [23] during her tenure as a Chevron Director from 1991 until January 15, 2001.
The Doctor's Scholarship

No matter how much Rice "fell in love" with Korbel and his lecture on Stalin, an examination of her academic record suggests that she has limited ability to grasp complex issues in international affairs. Though her schoolteacher mother considered the future Secretary of State a genius (based on psychological tests Condi took at Southern University in Baton Rouge in her youth), the reactions of professors and fellow students to her intellectual accomplishments in graduate school were mixed at best. True, she had a great fan in Joseph Korbel. (Was he, as is common in turf-conscious academia, recruiting students to justify his "international" graduate program at a "city" university so that school administrators would continue his program?) At Notre Dame, however, her academic papers were assessed as follows by her adviser, George A. Brinkley, a Soviet scholar and chairman of the Government and International Studies Department:

they lacked depth and attention to different interpretations and points of view ... her evident skills and potential were not developed into more mature scholarship.

At Notre Dame, Rice received a "terminal M.A." (a degree not leading to a Ph.D.). She then returned to the University of Denver, where she wrote another M.A. thesis, titled "Music and Politics in the Soviet Union." Her adviser, Alan Gilbert, a recipient of a doctorate in political science from Harvard, remarked that her study was "not a fantastic piece" in terms of its scholarship. One of her fellow doctoral students, Wayne Glass, who went on to teach at the University of Southern California, had this to say about her:

It was just that her nature was such that she wasn't the one to throw out ideas for everyone else to grapple with.

In 1981, Rice received her Ph.D. Her dissertation was published in 1984 by Princeton University Press under the title, Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, 1948-1963. While the book saw the light of day thanks to a prestigious institution of higher learning, it is rather striking for the current irrelevance of its subject matter. (Neither the Soviet Union nor Czechoslovak army exists today, although nothing in Rice's study anticipated that this would be the case.) It is also full of hollow "poli-sci" prose, as illustrated by this passage from its conclusion:

Examination of the impact of power asymmetries on the development of the nature of domestic institutions may ultimately help us to understand the concepts of power and influence themselves.

The examination of Czechoslovak party-military relations along both dimensions shows quite clearly why models developed in the study of other communist states are inadequate to explain this case. The Czechoslovak party-military apparatus, which closely resembles that of the Soviet Union, does not produce the same pattern of interaction.

The study did receive some favorable reviews from specialized journals. In the American Political Science Review, Dale R. Herspring called it [24] a "first-rate book," noting however that it "could have been improved by a more critical use of certain concepts." But the American Historical Review -- the premier publication of the US historical profession -- panned the volume in a now well-known piece by Joseph Kalvoda [25], a teacher at Saint Joseph College in West Hartford, Connecticut. Kaldova mistook the author for a man, suggesting that Rice was largely unknown in the academic world (doubtless because she had published so little). Kaldova's harsh review states,

To write a scholarly study on the relationship of the Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak army without access to relevant Czechoslovak and Soviet documents is difficult. Therefore, much of this book by Condoleezza Rice is based on secondary works. His thesis is that the Soviets directly influence military elites in the satellite countries, in addition to the Soviet Communist party interacting with the domestic party. Rice selects Czechoslovakia as a case study and attempts to show the role of the military as instrument of both national defense and the Soviet-controlled military alliance.

Rice's selection of sources raises questions, since he frequently does not sift facts from propaganda and valid information from disinformation or misinformation. He passes judgments and expresses opinions without adequate knowledge of facts. ...

Rice's generalizations reflect his lack of knowledge about history and the nationality problem in Czechoslovakia. ...

The writing abounds with meaningless phrases, such as is its "last word": "Thirty-five years after its creation, the Czechoslovak People's Army stands suspended between the Czechoslovak nation and the socialist world order" (p. 245).

Rice complained to the American Historical Review in 1985 about Kalvoda's merciless critique, adding, "I apologize for the imprecise language in reporting some of the details of Czechoslovak history." In his response, Kalvoda did not surrender to Rice's sloppy scholarship:

How can one take seriously opinions and/or interpretations of someone who does not have the facts straight? In scholarly works on the Soviet bloc countries contemporary sources can be used effectively if one knows the relevant historical facts, is familiar with the political theory and practice of the Marxist-Leninists, and is able to separate facts from allegations, propaganda and outright falsehoods. Political analyses, interpretations and opinions have to be based on facts and not on misinformation.

Rice's second book, The Gorbachev Era, was coauthored with the respected scholar Alexander Dallin. It appeared in 1986, when she had already been teaching at Stanford University for several years. This 184-page collection of short essays was published by "The Portable Stanford," "a series publication of the Stanford Alumni Association. ... The PS series is designed to bring the widest possible sampling of Stanford's intellectual resources into the homes of alumni." Rice's own contribution to this slim volume without footnotes was a 12-page piece titled, "The Soviet Alliance System." Written just a few years before the fall of the Berlin wall, it stated,

In spite of all its problems, the Soviet-East European alliance has been remarkably resilient. It has survived three interventions, a Polish military takeover, and countless other less traumatic problems. The alliance is well institutionalized through CMEA [Council of Mutual Economic Assistance], which seeks, with limited success, to coordinate the economies of Eastern Europe and the Warsaw pact -- which has enjoyed greater success in mobilizing the armed forces of the region. ...

Eastern Europe, and to a lesser degree Cuba, will likely remain the center of Moscow's alliance structure for many years to come.

The article that supposedly helped Rice get tenure at Stanford, titled "The Party, the Military, and Decision Authority in the Soviet Union," was published in World Politics in 1987. Mabry quotes this assessment of the article from Lieutenant General William E. Odom, a widely admired expert on the former Soviet Union who has criticized Bush's Iraq policies:

I couldn't even figure out what she meant. [As a scholar] she just wasn't significant. It would be very hard for me to figure out why Stanford gave her tenure on [the basis of] her publication.

The abstract of Rice's article [26], written in academic gobbledygook, leaves little doubt -- even to a non-expert -- as to the study's lack of intellectual depth and precision:

Soviet military decision making is characterized by a division of labor between the party, which issues broad policy guidance, and the professional military, which oversees the development of the armed forces based on that guidance. There is to date no civilian institution whose functions parallel those of the General Staff. The party is now, and has historically been, dependent on the professional military for the formation of options on strategy, organization, and force composition. The Soviets have never equated civilian control and authority with civilian management. Absolute party authority over defense policy has been maintained through control of personnel and resource allocation.

Zelikow to the Rescue

Given the intellectual limitations of Rice's scholarly output, it is fair to ask what her exact role was in the drafting of the well-received volume of nearly 500 pages, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed [27] (Harvard University Press, 1995), which she co-authored with Philip Zelikow, a lawyer, diplomat and historian. Germany Unified and Europe Transformed was a serious study that showed an in-depth analysis not found in Rice's previous two books. "A foreign affairs expert very close to Rice," Mabry notes, said that "[s]he's a conventional mind. Except for the book she did with Zelikow on Germany, the stuff she [wrote] by herself is mediocre."

The Rice-Zelikow relationship, if one is allowed to speculate, sheds light on the kind of "learned professor" Dr. Rice really is. Speaking at a Stanford symposium on the Soviet Union in May 1991, Rice herself (cited by Bumiller) said that Zelikow "has a deep knowledge of international affairs. More often than not, when something was written for him, he'd improve it, and you'd sit there thinking to yourself, 'I wish I'd thought of saying that.'"

This passage brings to mind the famous anecdote [28] of the exchange between James McNeill Whistler and Oscar Wilde after Whistler had said something memorable. "I wish I had said that!" Wilde exclaimed, to which Whistler replied, "Don't worry, Oscar. You will, you will."

Which is what, in some ways, Dr. Rice's role in Germany Unified and Europe Transformed appears to be. Zelikow's name, despite its first letter being the last one of the alphabet, appears before Rice's on the title page of their book, making it clear that he was its main contributor. The preface of the 1995 edition [29] notes:

This book originated in an internal historical study which a senior State Department official, Robert Zoellick, invited Zelikow to write as he was leaving the government to accept an appointment at Harvard University.

After noting that "the book is a joint effort," the preface goes on to say that "Zelikow drafted the original manuscript." Interestingly, these words (and the entire paragraph that contains them) do not appear in the "Preface to the 1995 Edition" that is included in the 1997 edition of the book. Did Rice, no doubt concerned about her lack of publications which are necessary for academic success, have something to do with this omission?

Wikipedia has this to say [30] about the subsequent Zelikow-Rice relationship:

In Rise of the Vulcans (Viking, 2004), James Mann reports that when Richard Haass [31], a senior aide to Secretary of State Colin Powell [32] and the director of policy planning at the State Department, drafted for the administration an overview of America's national security strategy following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Dr. Rice, the national security advisor, "ordered that the document be completely rewritten. She thought the Bush administration needed something bolder, something that would represent a more dramatic break with the ideas of the past. Rice turned the writing over to her old colleague, University of Virginia Professor Philip Zelikow." This document, issued on September 17, 2002, is generally recognized as a significant document in the War on Terrorism.

Don't Know Much about History

For Rice, history is not a guide, but essentially another propaganda tool in advancing immediate political interests. Her knowledge of actual historical events can be surprisingly spotty. In 2005, for example, she spoke to an audience [33] at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. In answer to a question from the audience, she said that in 1947, Greece and Turkey had endured civil wars. In fact, only Greece had. Guillaume Parmentier, director of the French Center on the United States, called Rice's response "a glaring mistake," adding "She's smart, yes, but I don't think she is as knowledgeable as one would expect with a career like hers."

More important than this fairly trivial error is Rice's lack of respect for historical details when the facts get in the way of her generalizations (if not fabrications) about the past. This tendency to rewrite reality was what drew the scathing Kalvoda review cited above. For another example, here are her remarks to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in San Antonio, Texas, on Aug. 25, 2003:

There is an understandable tendency to look back on America's experience in postwar Germany and see only the successes. But as some of you here today surely remember, the road we traveled was very difficult. 1945 through 1947 was an especially challenging period. Germany was not immediately stable or prosperous. SS officers -- called 'werewolves' -- engaged in sabotage and attacked both coalition forces and those locals cooperating with them -- much like today's Baathist and Fedayeen remnants.

Rice made these comments in an attempt to draw parallels between postwar Germany and the chaos that surrounded the U.S. military occupation of Iraq. By comparison to Germany, she suggested, things weren't actually going all that badly in Iraq. This drew a sharp retort from Daniel Benjamin in an essay titled "Condi's Phony History [34]: Sorry, Dr. Rice, postwar Germany was nothing like Iraq." Benjamin pointed out that Rice's "depiction of the Allied occupation of Germany is a farrago of fiction and a few meager facts. Werwolf [35] tales have been a favorite of schlock novels, but the reality bore no resemblance to Iraq today. ... In practice, Werwolf amounted to next to nothing."

Neil King reached similar conclusions in a January 19, 2007 Wall Street Journal article, titled "How Rice Uses History Lessons [36]." He stated,

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice often calls herself "a student of history." And increasingly, she is using history -- or her chosen slice of it -- both to explain and justify the Bush administration's Middle East policy.

When Ms. Rice talks about the challenges the U.S. faces across the Mideast, she points, somewhat surprisingly, to Europe after World War II and to the West's decades-long face-off against the Soviet Union, which happens to be her area of expertise. It is a penchant that has scholars scratching their heads.

In 2005, I pointed out that "the current administration and its cheerleaders [37] cannot abandon their favorite metaphor, aimed at praising Bush's 'successes' in the Muslim world: Events in the Middle East are like the downfall of the Berlin Wall in Eastern Europe." But such a view fails as explanation or vindication of the administration's actions overseas, for two main reasons:

1. Eastern Europe in the Cold War and the Middle East today simply aren't the same; it's like comparing apples and oranges, and it leads to an intellectual dead-end that elucidates little -- least of all about Bush's so-called triumphs abroad.
2. Bush's foreign policy so differs from that of his Cold War predecessors that the downfall of the Berlin Wall and the current situation in the Middle East -- if indeed affected by American foreign policy in the first place -- can't be considered the outcome of similar policies that led to identical results.

As for the mistaken historical assumptions of Rice's "transformational diplomacy," her guide for what she sees as American diplomacy in our new century, please see my "Spreading Bush's Gospel [38]" (TomPaine.com, January 30, 2006).

Rice's versions of history also appear to be an excuse for her to avoid facing problems of the present, perhaps because they are not subject to quick "spinning" solutions. This is suggested by Bret Stephens' account of her interview [39] with the Wall Street Journal editorial board, titled "Secretary of Turbulence Condoleezza Rice takes the long view--maybe too long" (September 30, 2006):

The conversation begins with her describing herself as an academic and ends by saying how glad she'll be to return to Stanford "and do something else." She observes that her stint in the administration of George H.W. Bush took place at the end of one "great historic transformation," and that her current stint takes place at the beginning of another. Her goal for the next two years is to put "some fundamentals in place": "I don't think that this is a battle, if you will, or a struggle that's going to be won on George W. Bush's watch," she says of the war on terror. Maybe this accounts for her sang-froid -- at times seeming to border on emotional detachment -- in the face of all the reversals in Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo and Ramallah: She chooses to read the present as if it were already the past. [my italics]

In June 2003, President Bush told a group of business leaders that "This nation acted to a threat [40] from the dictator of Iraq" [sic], but "now there are some who would like to rewrite history -- revisionist historians is what I like to call them." Here Bush, doubtless under the influence of Rice, is speaking Sovietese, for the accusation of "revisionism" was a tool frequently used by communist hacks to condemn those who dared to stray from the proclaimed ideology and its hold on the past. ("We never know," went the old Soviet joke, "what will happen yesterday.") Here is what the president of the American Historical Association, James McPherson, had to say about the Bush/Rice "revisionism":

This summer the Bush administration [41] thought it had discovered a surefire tactic to discredit critics of its Iraq adventure. President Bush followed the lead of his national security adviser Condoleeza [sic] Rice to accuse such critics of practicing "revisionist history." Neither Bush nor Rice offered a definition of this phrase, but their body language and tone of voice appeared to suggest that they wanted listeners to understand "revisionist history" to be a consciously falsified or distorted interpretation of the past to serve partisan or ideological purposes in the present. ...

Whatever Bush and Rice meant by "revisionist historians," it is safe to say that they did not mean it favorably. The 14,000 members of this Association, however, know that revision is the lifeblood of historical scholarship. History is a continuing dialogue between the present and the past. Interpretations of the past are subject to change in response to new evidence, new questions asked of the evidence, new perspectives gained by the passage of time. There is no single, eternal, and immutable "truth" about past events and their meaning. The unending quest of historians for understanding the past -- that is, "revisionism" -- is what makes history vital and meaningful.

10 Percent Intellectual

Rice's intellectual limitations illustrate a tragic fact about the Bush administration: its conviction that ideas -- ideas stemming from observing, and learning from, the outside world; ideas resulting from scholarly research in international affairs; ideas brought about by an understanding and appreciation of the past -- have no relevance to the conduct of policy. Instead, the Bush administration uses ideas as propaganda, or simply ignores them lest they get in the way of "kicking-ass [42]" action. Blind will to power, not in-depth thinking leading to careful planning, is what has guided the Bush administration's dealings with our small planet for the past seven-plus years. "God and exercise," Mabry quotes James Baker as saying, are the "core principles" of George W. Bush. No wonder Condi hypes her own daily workouts [43] and proclaims her religiosity:

I've been totally unflappable [44] in my religious faith, and believe that it is the principal reason for all that I've been able to do. My faith in God is the most important thing. I never shied from telling people that I am a Christian, and I believe that's why I've been optimistic in my life.

"[P]olicy-making is 90 percent blocking and tackling and 10 percent intellectual," Rice once stated to her students at Stanford. Perhaps more than any official White House or State Department pronouncements, this observation tells us why the Bush team has been such an utter failure on the world stage, with its mindless "blocking and tackling" leading to torture, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and thousands of innocent victims of US military actions spread across the Middle East and Central Asia. The simple and sad lesson we have learned from Condoleezza Rice, Ph.D., and the 43rd President of the United States, a Yale and Harvard grad, is that action, without thought, leads to chaos and needless human suffering.

John Brown was a U.S. Foreign Service officer from 1981 to 2003.

Source URL:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7327

Links:
[1] http://sparklepony.blogspot.com/2008/05/condis-mid-east-strategy-pray-fall.html
[2] http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/01/bush.poll/?iref=mpstoryview
[3] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Condoleezza_Rice
[4] http://condimustgo.com
[5] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Brent_Scowcroft
[6] http://www.ece.unm.edu/faculty/edl/Fact.pdf
[7] http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/opinion/?id=25785
[8] http://www.newstatesman.com/200502210011
[9] http://www.quickinsights.com/harris_poll/printerfriend/index.asp?PID=871
[10] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3609327.stm
[11] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/14/opinion/main3831288.shtml
[12] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/books/27dallek.html?ex=1358830800&en=4e94e6c6f6ccd999&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
[13] http://www.amazon.com/Twice-As-Good-Condoleezza-Power/dp/1594863628
[14] http://www.state.gov/secretary/trvl
[15] http://www.state.gov/secretary/trvl/c25660.htm
[16] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Connor
[17] http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2008/04/103554.htm
[18] http://www.iie.org/Template.cfm?section=Fulbright1
[19] http://vietnam.usembassy.gov/fulbright.html
[20] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._William_Fulbright
[21] http://race42008.com/condoleezza-rice
[22] http://english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/101/399/15326_condy.html
[23] http://www.aztlan.net/oiltanker.htm
[24] http://www.eurospanbookstore.com/display.asp?isb=9780700614677&TAG=&CID=&PGE=/fmtdefault/
[25] http://www.counterpunch.org/kalvoda04202004.html
[26] http://www.jstor.org/pss/2010194
[27] http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/ZELGER.html
[28] http://davidsisler.com/03-08-2004.htm
[29] http://books.google.com/books?id=f5nV146UtRsC
[30] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_D._Zelikow
[31] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Haass
[32] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Colin_Powell
[33] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/international/europe/10france.html?pagewanted=print&position
[34] http://www.slate.com/id/2087768/
[35] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werwolf
[36] http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116917380100681116-1b_a6_y6jD3Fhyk5_9tmPjI4a9U_20080119.html?mod=blogs
[37] http://www.tompaine.com/articles/mr_bush_tear_down_that_metaphor.php
[38] http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/01/30/spreading_bushs_gospel.php
[39] http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009020
[40] http://hnn.us/articles/22700.html
[41] http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2003/0309/0309pre1.cfm
[42] http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/09/07/bush-on-iraq-were-kicking-ass/
[43] http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/workout/lose-weight/build-strength/condoleezza-rices-no-excuses-workout/
[44] http://www.christianitytoday.com/tc/2002/005/1.18.html

Bush Visits His "New" Middle East by Leon Hadar

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/rw/4917.html

Bush Visits His "New" Middle East

Commentary by Leon Hadar | May 23, 2008

PRA Right Web



(Photo: White House/Joyce Boghosian)

As he was drowning politically and personally in scandals that would lead eventually to a humiliating resignation from office, in June 1974 President Richard Nixon took a triumphant seven-day trip to four Arab states and Israel, where, as Time put it, "the huzzas and the hosannas fell like sweet rain." The magazine suggested that, "coming out of the parched Watergate wasteland of Washington, the praise and the cheers of multitudes were welcome indeed, particularly since each stop, each spectacle, was beamed in living color back to the living rooms of the U.S."

Following on the flight-route of another unpopular and disgraced Republican White House occupant, President George W. Bush decided that since it was raining in the Midwest, in the form of his falling approval ratings, it was time to seek the sunshine of the Middle East, hoping that the television images of his five-day excursion to the region would help salvage his personal and political legacy in the Midwest and the rest of the United States.

Bush's legacy includes his ambitious strategy of transforming the Middle East—the destination of his trip—and making it safe for U.S. interests and values. Indeed, Bush's tour to the region took place a month after the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War, which was supposed to mark the launching of the Freedom Agenda in the Middle East. Bush and his neoconservative advisors had promised that ousting Saddam Hussein would lead to the establishment of a stable and prosperous democracy in Mesopotamia that would serve as a model for the rest of the Middle East, creating the conditions for the emergence of a pro-U.S. liberal political system in the Arab World and for the resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict ("the road to Jerusalem leads through Baghdad," as the neoconservatives said).

But if the Nixon-in-the-Mideast