MOSSAD in AMERICA and the Siamese Twins, CIA/MOSSAD...

http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2010/08/17/the-israel-lobby-swims-the-atlantic/

Ammo ban.... UN Small Arms Treaty....... Don't worry, it's not about you, just the turbaned guys and maybe the domestic conspiracy........ loonies to safeguard the nice folks..... And then a little full-spectrum dominance to keep the old democracy in tidy order....... Why did they name it "full spectrum dominance" anyway.....? Sounds like something Cheney found on the take-out menu at the DC Madam's place.

UN Small Arms Treaty

Full Spectrum Dominance[

MOSSAD in AMERICA and the Siamese Twins, CIA/MOSSAD...DIA/OSP/AMAN....and the
infamous White House Murder INC, on the Potomac, Tel Aviv, Damascus and Beirut....

http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/is-there-a-western-conspiracy-to-protect-israeli-agents-1.675321

"Israeli government claims that it does not spy on the United States are intended for the media and popular consumption. The reality is that Israel’s intelligence agencies target the United States intensively, particularly in pursuit of military and dual-use civilian technology. Among nations considered to be friendly to Washington, Israel leads all others in its active espionage directed against American companies and the Defense Department. It also dominates two commercial sectors that enable it to extend its reach inside America’s domestic infrastructure: airline and telecommunications security. Israel is believed to have the ability to monitor nearly all phone records originating in the United States, while numerous Israeli air-travel security companies are known to act as the local Mossad stations....

Did NIST Edit WTC 7 Footage To Hide Evidence Of Implosion?

After filing a lawsuit that prompted NIST to release more than 3 terabytes of photographs and videos from their investigation into the collapse of the twin towers and WTC 7 on 9/11, the International Center for the inside job of 9/11 Studies has obtained evidence that suggests NIST edited several videos of the collapse of Building 7 in order to hide evidence of a controlled implosion....

As tensions with Iran increase, sources in the counterintelligence community report that Israeli agents have become more aggressive in targeting Muslims living in the United States as well as in operating against critics. There have been a number of cases reported to the FBI about Mossad officers who have approached leaders in Arab-American communities and have falsely represented themselves as “U.S. intelligence.” Because few Muslims would assist an Israeli, this is done to increase the likelihood that the target will cooperate. It’s referred to as a “false flag” operation....

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26283.htm

Mossad officers sought to recruit Arab-Americans as sources willing to inform on their associates and neighbors. The approaches, which took place in New York and New Jersey, were reportedly handled clumsily, making the targets of the operation suspicious. These Arab-Americans turned down the requests for cooperation, and some of the contacts were eventually reported to the FBI, which has determined that at least two of the Mossad officers are, ironically, Israeli Arabs operating out of Israel’s mission to the United Nations in New York under cover as consular assistants.

In another bizarre case, U.S.S. Liberty survivor Phil Tourney was recently accosted in Southern California by a foreigner who eventually identified himself as an Israeli government representative. Tourney was taunted, and the Israeli threatened both him and journalist Mark Glenn, who has been reporting on the Liberty story. Tourney was approached in a hotel lounge, and it is not completely clear how the Israeli was able to identify him. But he knew exactly who Tourney was, as the official referred to the Liberty, saying that the people who had been killed on board had gotten what they deserved. There were a number of witnesses to the incident, including Tourney’s wife. The threat has been reported to the FBI, which is investigating, but Tourney and Glenn believe that the incident is not being taken seriously by the bureau.

FBI sources indicate that the increase in Mossad activity is a major problem, particularly when Israelis are posing as U.S. government officials, but they also note that there is little they can do to stop it as the Justice Department refuses to initiate any punitive action or prosecutions of the Mossad officers who have been identified as involved in the illegal activity.

In another ongoing Israeli spy case, Stewart Nozette appears to be headed towards eventual freedom as his case drags on through the District of Columbia courts. Nozette, an aerospace scientist with a top secret clearance and access to highly sensitive information, offered to sell classified material to a man he believed to be a Mossad officer, but who instead turned out to be with the FBI. Nozette has been in jail since October, but he has now been granted an additional 90-day delay so his lawyers can review the documents in the government’s case, many of which are classified. If Nozette demands that sensitive information be used in his defense, his case will likely follow the pattern set in the nine-times-postponed trial of AIPAC spies Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who were ultimately acquitted in April 2009 when prosecutors determined that they could not make their case without doing significant damage to national security. A month after Rosen and Weissman were freed, Ben-Ami Kadish, who admitted to providing defense secrets to Israel while working as an engineer at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, walked out of a Manhattan court after paying a fine. He did no jail time and continues to receive his substantial Defense Department pension.

The mainstream media reported the Rosen and Weissman trial intermittently, but there was virtually no coverage of Ben-Ami Kadish, and there has been even less of Nozette. Compare that with the recent reporting on the Russian spies who, by all accounts, did almost nothing and never obtained any classified information. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that spying for Israel is consequence free."

Institute for Research on Middle Eastern Policy

Declassified Senate investigation Files Reveal Clandestine Israeli PR Campaign in America

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 -- Declassified files from a Senate investigation into Israeli-funded covert public relations and lobbying activity in the United States were released by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on July 23rd, 2010. The subpoenaed documents reveal Israel's clandestine programs for "cultivation of editors," the "stimulation and placement of suitable articles in the major consumer magazines" as well as U.S. reporting about sensitive subjects such as the Dimona nuclear weapons facility.

Documents are now available for download from http://IRmep.org/ila/azc include:

Dimona (excerpt): "The nuclear reactor story inspired comment from many sources; editorial writers, columnists, science writers and cartoonists. Most of the press seemed finally to accept the thesis that the reactor was being built for peaceful purposes and not for bombs." http://www.irmep.org/11-121960AZC.pdf

Content placement and promotion (excerpt): "The Atlantic Monthly in its October issue carried the outstanding Martha Gellhorn piece on the Arab refugees, which made quite an impact around the country. We arranged for the distribution of 10,000 reprints to public opinion molders in all categories… Interested friends are making arrangements with the Atlantic for another reprint of the Gellhorn article to be sent to all 53,000 persons whose names appear in Who's Who in America…Our Committee is now planning articles for the women's magazines for the trade and business publications." http://www.irmep.org/09101961AZC.pdf

Pressure campaigns (excerpt): "It can be said that the press of the nation…has by and large shown sympathy and understanding of Israel's position. There are, of course, exceptions, notably the Scripps-Howard chain where we still need to achieve a 'break-through,' the Pulliam chain (where some progress has been made) and some locally-owned papers." http://www.irmep.org/11-121960AZC.pdf

Magazine Committee achievements (excerpt): "We cannot pinpoint all that has already been accomplished by this Committee except to say that it has been responsible for the writing and placement of articles on Israel in some of America's leading magazines...." http://www.IRmep.org/10301962_AZC.pdf

According to Grant F. Smith, director of IRmep, "It is frightening how easily some in the American news media surrendered to a foreign public relations campaign that spent the 2010 equivalent of $36 million over two years. Time has proven most of the planted content to be misleading, if not dangerous. These historical documents hold many important lessons for Americans who have long needed—but rarely received—straight reporting on key Middle East issues."

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation's record keeper. It retains 1%-3% of the most important documents of business conducted by the United States Federal government. The Israel Lobby Archive, http://IRmep.org/ila is a unit of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington.

Videos .....

The Israeli Nuclear Arsenal: Espionage, Opacity and Future 1/2

The Israeli Nuclear Arsenal: Espionage, Opacity and Future 2/2


9/11 was/is a CIA/DIA/MOSSAD/COG wall to wall... with patsies Galore....

This one is very good, y'all. Want to see what controlled demolitions look and sound like?

US troops marching out - or are they?

DynCorp: The Creepiest Company You Never Heard Of
Interesting forum thread...

US troops marching out - or are they?
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - When the Barack Obama administration unveiled its plan last week for an improvised State Department-controlled army of contractors to replace all US combat troops in Iraq by the end of 2011, critics associated with the US command attacked the transition plan, insisting that the United States must continue to assume that US combat forces should and can remain in Iraq indefinitely.

And indeed, all indications are that the administration expects to renegotiate the security agreement with the Iraqi government to allow a post-2011 combat presence of up to 10,000 troops, once a new government is formed in Baghdad.

However, Obama, fearing a backlash from anti-war voters in the Democratic Party who have already become disenchanted with him over Afghanistan, is trying to play down that possibility. Instead, the White House is trying to reassure its anti-war base that the US military role in Iraq is coming to an end.

An unnamed administration official who favors a longer-term presence in Iraq suggested to New York Times correspondent Michael Gordon last week that the administration's refusal to openly refer to plans for such a US combat force in Iraq beyond 2011 hinges on its concern about the coming congressional elections and wariness about the continuing Iraqi negotiations on a new government.

Vice President Joe Biden said in an address prepared for delivery on Monday that it would take a "complete failure" of Iraqi security forces to prompt the United States to resume combat.

Obama referred to what he called "a transitional force" in his speech on August 2, pledging that it would remain "until we remove all our troops from Iraq by the end of the next year".

He also declared an end to the US "combat mission" in Iraq as of August 31. But an official acknowledged to Inter Press Service that combat would continue and would not necessarily be confined to defending against attacks on US personnel.

The administration decided on the transition from military to civilian responsibility for security at an inter-agency meeting in the week of July 19. It made the broad outlines of the plan public at an August 16 State Department news briefing and another briefing the following day, even though crucial details had not been worked out.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle Eastern Affairs Colin Kahl and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Michael Corbin presented the administration plan for what they called a "transition from a military to civilian relationship" with Iraq.

The plan involves replacing the official US military presence in Iraq with a much smaller State Department-run force of private security contractors. Press reports have indicated that the force will number several thousand, and that it is seeking 29 helicopters, 60 improvised explosive device-proof personnel carriers and a fleet of 1,320 armored cars.

The contractor force would also operate radars so it could call in air strikes and fly reconnaissance drones, according to the New York Times on August 21.

Kahl argued that the transition was justified by security trends in Iraq. He said al-Qaeda was "weaker than it's ever been", that Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army had been "largely disbanded", and that there was no strategic threat to the regime.

That provoked predictable criticism from those whose careers have become linked to the fate of the US military in Iraq and who continue to view the United States as having enormous power to decide the fate of the country.

Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, a frequent visitor to Iraq at the invitation of General David Petraeus and his successor General Ray Odierno, dismissed the idea of giving the former US military role in Iraq to the State Department and said Kahl's assessment of security trends was far too optimistic.

Some officials were talking "as if we're on the five-yard line," Pollack told the Christian Science Monitor. "We're on more like the 40 - and it's probably our 40."

Pollack argued that the US had great influence in Iraq, which it must use for "persuading" Iraqi leaders to do various things. If the US troop presence ended in 2011, he argued, that US power would suffer.

Other variants of that argument were offered by Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations and Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, both of whom have been frequent guests of the US command in Iraq and who have generally hewed to the military view of Iraq policy.

Former ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, who shared the media spotlight and adulation of the US Congress with Petraeus in 2007-2009 before retiring from the Foreign Service, opined that the military needed to keep enough presence in Iraq to encourage Iraq's generals to stay out of politics.

The real position of the administration over the issue is not much different from that of its critics, however. In answer to a question after a briefing on August 17, Kahl said, "We're not going to abandon them. We're in this for the long term."

Then Kahl observed, "Iraq is not going to need tens of thousands of [American] forces." That is consistent with the figure of 5,000 to 10,000 being called for by the military, according to the administration official quoted in New York Times on August 18.

At another point, Kahl said, "We'll just have to see what the Iraqi government will do," adding that the "vast majority of political actors in Iraq want a long-term partnership with the United States".

It is been generally assumed among US officers and diplomats and the Iraqi officials with whom they talk that once a new Iraqi government is agreed on, it will begin talks on a longer-term US troop presence, as former National Security Council official Brett H McGurk told the New York Times last month.

At a Pentagon press conference on February 22, Odierno, US overall commander in Iraq, referred to the purchase by the Iraqi government of "significant amounts of military material from the United States", including M1A1 tanks and helicopters.

Odierno said he expected it would require a "small contingent" to "train and advise" the Iraqis. That formula implicitly anticipated a continuation of the US combat presence in the guise of "advisory and assistance" units.

But the administration apparently made it clear to Odierno and others that they were not to contradict the administration's public posture that US troops were being withdrawn by the end of 2011.

During the inter-agency meeting that adopted the Obama administration transition plan, Odierno told reporters at a breakfast meeting on July 21 he expected US troops to be down to zero by the end of 2011.

Meanwhile, the Nuri al-Maliki government is not admitting publicly that it would consider such an extension of the US troop presence. A spokesman for Maliki said on August 12 there were alternatives to keeping US troops in the country, such as signing "non-aggression and non- interference pacts" with neighbors.

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in US national security policy.

US clutches at flood relief opportunities

US clutches at flood relief opportunities
By M K Bhadrakumar

The humanitarian situation resulting from the unprecedented floods in Pakistan has been turned into a playground of regional geopolitics. The responsibility for this primarily lies with the United States, which fashioned its response to the crisis in a needlessly competitive spirit.

The needs of Pakistan are of stupendous proportions. Even cold statistics bring this out. One fifth of the landmass of Pakistan is inundated and the lives of 20 million people have been affected. Nothing further needs to be said about the enormity of the human sorrow.

The fact that the United Nations launched an initial appeal for US$460 million for the immediate relief underscores the magnitude of the crisis - although, according to the Pakistani foreign minister, that amount "will only cater to about 6 to 8 million people for 90 days only".

Yet, Pakistan's crisis presents itself as a theater of public diplomacy for the United States to burnish its image among Pakistani people, of whom 59% regarded America as an enemy country, according to a July 29 Pew Global Attitudes Project poll.

A flood of opportunities
The window of opportunity opens in other directions, too. The areas of Pakistan where the extremists and terrorists have been most active also happen to be the most affected. The expectation in Washington seems to be that US marines will be working in the field closely with the Pakistani military, and that a sort of rank-and-file camaraderie is expected to develop that could have useful fallouts for the war in Afghanistan.

Indeed, the marines will likely come across the relief workers of the Islamist charity organizations affiliated to rabidly "anti-American" groups, especially the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (which figures in the US' list of terrorist groups) and the political party Jamaat-e-Islami, which takes pride - publicly at least - in berating the US regional policies. The US operatives could make useful contacts with the Islamist elements involved in relief work and these could be followed up.

Again, the US is a global power and, unsurprisingly, it has begun linking the floods in Pakistan with the problem of climate change, one of the lead items on the foreign policy agenda of the Barack Obama administration.

Richard Holbrooke, the US special representative for AfPak, openly wondered: ''I know we don't have a definitive answer, but to what extent is there some connection between the [Pakistani] floods, the Russia fires, global warming, the Himalayan [glacier] runoff, what is the preliminary best sense of that?''

Another senior US official, Rajiv Shah, Administrator of the US Agency for International Development added: ''I think we all can recognize ... that we should expect to have more large-scale, erratic weather events ... that trend is leading to a greater number of large-scale hurricanes, a greater number of floods, hotter and dryer growing conditions ... and it's making it very hard for the least resilient, the most lower income communities in the world to survive.''

How the US links these ''ink-spots'' in climate change - Pakistan's floods, Russia's fires and the glacier melt up north of Kashmir in the contested region of Siachen - on the geopolitical plane and transfers the impulses to its regional and global diplomacy in the coming period will bear watching.

Then, there are the profound implications of the Pakistani floods from the strategic and political angles, which are uniquely important to the US's war effort in Afghanistan at the present time. First, there is the lurking possibility that the Taliban might take advantage of the crisis in Pakistan.

The noted Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid wrote recently in the British Daily Telegraph: ''Large parts of the country that are now cut off will be taken over by the Pakistani Taliban and affiliated groups, and governance will collapse.'' The scary scenario may seem far-fetched - and somewhat propagandistic - but the possibility remains that tepid response by the Pakistani government to the massive reconstruction task would alienate public opinion.

War spirit dampened
However, the bigger danger lies elsewhere: to what extent would the crisis be seized by the Pakistani military to fob off any continuing US pressure to crack down on the so-called Haqqani network affiliated with al-Qaeda which is ensconced in the North Waziristan?

The Pakistani military can claim that its hands are full with the priority tasks of relief and reconstruction work and that leaves hardly any surplus capacity for attending to unfinished business on the Afghan-Pakistan border region.

Clearly, the floods may have helped washed away to some extent from the public perceptions the stigma of the recent WikiLeaks disclosures. But the well-established ground reality, which Washington quietly acknowledges, cannot be wished away - the Pakistani security establishment and the military continue to keep an unholy alliance with the Haqqani network.

All in all, therefore, the Obama administration, which is gearing up for the latest troop ''surge'' aimed at an intensification of counter-insurgency operations inside Afghanistan, need not expect a simultaneous thrust by the Pakistani military from its side of the border. This disconnect imparts urgency to the search for a political settlement with the Taliban, which will also be precisely what the Pakistani military is seeking.

Significantly, John Kerry, the chairman of the US senate foreign relations committee and who visited Kabul and Islamabad last week, has been quoted as saying on his return to Washington that there is a ''very active'' effort under way to reach a negotiated political settlement with the Taliban. Kerry told National Public Radio: ''I can report without being specific that there are efforts under way. They are serious and I completely agree with that fundamental premise - and so does General [David] Petraeus and so does President Obama - there is no military solution. And there are very active efforts now to seek an appropriate kind of political settlement.''

The Obama administration's best hope is that Pakistan will reciprocate the robust US support - financially, materially and politically - by helping out on the Afghan front. Quite obviously, US officials are bending over backward to create goodwill with Pakistan.

All this is linked to a much bigger question as well: to what extent will the 2010 floods turn out to be a game changer for Pakistan's political economy? Will the civilian leadership grab the opportunity to seize the political high ground in its shadow-boxing with the military?

The signs available so far are that, on the contrary, the Pakistani civilian leadership stands tarnished by its handling of the crisis. This means the military retains the upper hand vis-a-vis the embattled civilian government in the calculus of power for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, aid politics is likely to become a divisive issue among the civilian politicians as the blame game begins, and the smaller provinces are bound to harbor grievances of discrimination in aid allocation by the Punjabi-dominated establishment. Political corruption will most certainly take its toll too.

Finally, geopolitics has already descended on the Pakistani flood situation. In an extraordinary outburst to the media, Holbrooke mocked China for being allegedly tight-fisted in helping Pakistan. ''I think the Chinese should step up to the plate. They always say that Pakistan is their closest ally, and vice versa.'' He was rubbing in that China's assistance to Pakistan so far amounts to only 5% of the $150 million the US has pledged.

Holbrooke remarked that the US suffers from ''famously low popularity'' in Pakistan. ''And although other countries' popularity is greater, including China's, the US is first and foremost'' in aid to Pakistan. The Faustian tone patently laid claim to the Pakistani soul. Beijing refrained from joining issue.

A Middle East "roadmap to nowhere" and why .....for the umpteen's time.....

A farce is never truly a farce if it doesn't contain a character that thinks he is making some historical change while the rest of the cast and the audience snigger at his naiveté.....

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2015602,00.html

The ass in this farce though is not Obama; The ass is that body of people called the Palestinians who continue to suffer ALL the fools that lead them.... since 1900...

This "conference" is all about Abbas and Netanyahu making all the right noises so that they can maintain the status quo and in the end say "well we tried". Netanyahu can then make his cabinet buddies happy by lifting the settlement freeze and Abbas can go back to making himself and his cronies wealthier....

Arafart hated Abbas and only kept him close because he knew he was "close" to the USA....i.e. a paid CIA/MOSSAD agent, lackey and puppet extraordinaire .....

http://palestinecry.blogspot.com/2010/03/snippits-and-snappits-dejan.html

A "road to nowhere" and why ...

Walt/ FP:

"...1. There is no sign that the Palestinians are willing to accept less than a viable, territorially contiguous state in the West Bank (and eventually, Gaza), including a capital in East Jerusalem and some sort of political formula (i.e., fig-leaf) on the refugee issue. By the way, this outcome supposedly what the Clinton and Bush adminstrations favored, and what Obama supposedly supports as well.

2. There is no sign that Israel's government is willing to accept anything more than a symbolic Palestinian "state" consisting of a set of disconnected Bantustans, with Israel in full control of the borders, air space, water supplies, electromagnetic spectrum. etc. Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it clear that this is what he means by a "two-state solution," and he has repeatedly declared that Israel intends to keep all of Jerusalem and maybe a long-term military presence in the Jordan River valley. There are now roughly 500,000 Israeli Jews living outside the 1967 borders, and it is hard to imagine any Israeli government evacuating a significant fraction of them. Even if Netanyahu wanted to be more forthcoming, his coalition wouldn't let him make any meaningful concessions. And while the talks drag on, the illegal settlements will continue to expand.

3. There is no sign that the U.S. government is willing to put meaningful pressure on Israel....

(Enough said!)"

"... His father, Benzion, changed his name from Milikovsky to Netanyahu after he emigrated from Lithuania to Palestine..."

Max Blumenthal:

"... What is Bibi Netanyahu’s connection to the ring, and by extension, to the ancient land of Israel? There is none. His father, Benzion, changed his name from Milikovsky to Netanyahu after he emigrated from Lithuania to Palestine. Thus Bibi has a much closer relation to Sarah Palin, whose Lithuanian maternal grandfather was rumored to be a Jew, than to any late Bronze Age “Jewish official” from the Middle East.

To understand the sheer insanity of Netanyahu’s magical ring story, consider how I would be received if my grandfather, Hymie Blumenthal, changed his name to Hymie Quetzalcoatl, then I asserted a historical mandate to rule over Mexico because Quetzalcoatl was a diety of the inhabitants of the ancient Toltec city of Teotihuacan. I would have a hard time being taken as seriously as David Koresh or the Unabomber..."

Medvedev's wishful thinking

Medvedev's wishful thinking....
By M K Bhadrakumar

There was an element of hyperbole when a Moscow news service airily speculated this week that Catherine the Great's historic dream of gaining access to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea was nearing realization even as Russia was getting ready to propose to Pakistan an "extensive road and rail system being largely bankrolled by Moscow" to connect Central Asia with Pakistan's sea ports.

The Moscow commentator was anticipating the agenda of discussions at the quadripartite summit of Russia, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, hosted by President Dmitry Medvedev at his vacation home in the picturesque Black Sea resort of Sochi on Wednesday.

For good measure, the commentator added that "Any apprehension Islamabad may have over granting docking privileges [for Russian ships] in the ports of the Arabian Sea will be offset by the monetary benefits connected with the leasing rights." He then began fantasizing about the appearance of a Russian naval outpost in the Arabian Sea:

For Russia, although access to Pakistan's ports on the Arabian Sea promises lucrative economic dividends, it is tempting to ask whether the leasing privileges will acquire any sort of a military dimension.

With Russia's naval force lacking an outlet in the Middle East/Central Asian waters, a Russian naval base off the coast of Pakistan would place Moscow smack in the middle of highly unstable territory as US military incursions into the border zones between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the hunt for suspected terrorists continue unabated. At the very least, a Russian security presence in and around the Arabian Sea would help to thwart heroin shipments from reaching Russia via Afghanistan.

This might appear an hilarious case of counting chickens before the eggs are hatched - and even by Russian standards it was too much swagger considering that Russia's post-Soviet bluewater navy is barely keeping body and soul together.

But all the same it underscored the thought processes that envelop Medvedev's initiative in forming a quadripartite regional forum.

Tajiks on tight leash
The Russian initiative first surfaced last year in June in Yekaterinburg when Medvedev sat down with his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts. A month later, the format was expanded to include Tajikistan, and the four presidents confabulated for the first time in Dushanbe, the Tajikistan capital.

The Sochi summit on Wednesday decided that Dushanbe would be the venue of their next round also. Quite obviously, Moscow is pinning down Tajikistan to a 100% political commitment to the quadripartite format.

Interestingly, Moscow's latest Central Asian initiative bypasses the two key players in the region - Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan - while it is riveted around Tajikistan, the weakest link. The delimitation of the format gives some clues as to Russian regional policy objectives.

It is at once evident that Russia wants to keep Tajikistan, where its biggest military base anywhere abroad is located, on a tight leash. Dushanbe has been of late trying to break loose from Russian domination, and the US has been astutely encouraging this trend - as indeed it has in all the Central Asian capitals. Last year, Dushanbe suddenly began demanding US$300 million in annual fees for leasing the military base to the Russians, who have been having a free ride so far. Besides, Tajikistan has been forging links with Iran, France, China and the US as a sort of counterweight to Moscow.

Moscow's quadrilateral initiative is an attempt to reverse trends that dilute the Russian influence in Tajikistan. The Sochi summit paid much attention to the four countries undertaking joint projects in the field of energy. The flagship is the Central Asia-South Asia (CASA) 1,000 MW energy project whereby Tajikistan will export electricity to Pakistan via Afghan territory. CASA will export the hydropower generated by Sangtuda-1 plant in Tajikistan, of which 75% is owned by Russia.

As things stand, Tajikistan is indebted to Russia since Sangtuda-1 cannot break even without tapping foreign markets with export of electricity. In short, CASA is a win-win for all participants: Russia makes good money and keeps control of the project (which is vital to the Tajik economy), while locking in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which face energy shortages, within a regional cooperation grid that Moscow controls.

Conceivably, Dushanbe will have no option but to reciprocate to such a lifeline for the Tajik economy by accepting Moscow's lead role in regional security issues. This involves the status of the Russian military base in Tajikistan as well as an unequivocal foreign policy orientation by Dushanbe in favor of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) as the principal vehicle to safeguard regional security.

A second lead project Russia is advancing within the quadripartite format is in the field of railways. Dushanbe would have preferred to build its communication links with its southern neighbors - China, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran - without Russian guidance. Moscow, however, is forcefully taking charge. The proposed 1,340-kilometer rail and road system envisions connecting Pakistan's Chitral region via the Durrah Pass into Afghanistan and with Dushanbe. Russia has mooted it as an extensive road and rail link from Islamabad to Dushanbe and Ferghana valley.

Moscow estimates that the communication link will give Russia access to Pakistani ports and in return Pakistan will get access to Central Asian markets and the ''rich Siberian regions through road and rail".

In essence, this seems to be Moscow's response to the United States' so-called Great Central Asia strategy, which aims at drawing the Central Asian region away from the orbit of Russian influence. However, both the Russian and American strategies sound grandiose on paper, but at least in the foreseeable future neither seems within the realms of possibility as they seem fated to neutralize each other.

Also, the paradox is that neither the Russian nor American strategy is backed by the financial clout needed to translate the stuff of dreams into reality on the ground, whereas the one country that does have the surplus capital, China, is keeping its own plans and ideas about regional integration to itself.

Without doubt, Moscow is rattled that its influence is waning in a wide arc stretching from Kazakhstan to Iran and thinks that it must do something about it.

The latest evidence of shrinking influence is Turkmenistan's defiant decision last week to allow American oil majors into its gas sector, which might at last pave the way for the realization of the US's trans-Caspian energy pipelines, especially Nabucco, bypassing Russian territory and heading directly to Western markets - something that Moscow all along has been opposing tooth and nail.

The US has also repaired its relations with Kazakhstan. Here, the upcoming OSCE summit in Astana becomes a major forum for the two countries to work closer than ever on issues of regional security. It is a safe bet that American diplomats will strain every nerve to bring Kazakh policies into harmony with US strategy in Central Asia and the post-Soviet space in general.

Similarly, the US is steadily advancing its influence on the political scene in Kyrgyzstan even amid the extreme volatility there at the moment. The project to bring in the OSCE as the main provider of regional security has been a masterstroke in sidelining the CSTO.

The US is pushing its OSCE project while blithely ignoring Moscow's disquiet and is sidestepping the Kyrgyz public's outcry against foreign intervention in internal affairs. Unsurprisingly, in the process Washington has succeeded in getting its military base in Manas delisted as a point of controversy.

Kyrgyzstan must be counted as a signal victory for the US regional strategy of engaging Russia within the ambit of an overall ''reset'' of ties. The single biggest success of American diplomacy in Central Asia, however, has been the normalization of relations with Uzbekistan, which arguably is the key country on regional security issues.

All roads lead to Kabul
Tashkent is perceptibly warming up to the US invitation for it to play a more active role in the stabilization of Afghanistan and to the steady build-up of Navoi as the strategic hub of the so-called Northern Distribution Network [NDN] handling of military supplies for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the Afghan war. Navoi as an important transshipment hub helps the US to shift the locus of the NDN away from Russia (though which it passes) toward the route through the Caucasus - via Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan - that would reduce the dependence on Moscow's cooperation.

Thus, the reasons are not far to seek why Moscow is compelled to turn to Tajikistan (rather than Uzbekistan) as the anchor sheet of its attempt to stem the drain in regional influence.

Moscow's choice of Tajikistan as its number one partner with regard to the Afghan problem cannot be faulted since Tajikistan is strategically placed and is perhaps the most crucial Central Asian player in Afghanistan, given the long common border stretching for 1,206 kilometers (as against Uzbekistan's 137 km; Turkmenistan's 744 km; or China's 76 km) and the presence of the big Tajik community within Afghanistan, which also happens to be a politico-cultural affinity that Dushanbe shares with Tehran....

Simply put, Moscow could not choose a better beachhead than Tajikistan as it gears up for its historic return to the Afghan chessboard as a grandmaster after an absence of two decades.

The leitmotif of the Russian-Tajik-Afghan-Pakistani quadrilateral format is indeed Russia's return to an active role in the search of an Afghan settlement. The Kremlin's account of Wednesday's Sochi summit acknowledged it saying that the meeting ''concentrated specifically on the situation in Afghanistan, fighting terrorism and preventing drug trafficking ... to step us efforts in these areas, including through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization [SCO] and the CSTO.''

Evidently, Moscow is taking into account the huge variables in the Afghan situation and the any number of directions the current situation may take. It therefore keeps the option of working on the Afghan problem both bilaterally and multilaterally, bearing in mind the slim possibility that the US may abruptly decide on a dramatic drawdown of forces in Afghanistan against the backdrop of exigencies in domestic American politics in an election year or the high probability that Washington aims at a long-term military presence in the region as integral to its global strategies.

The status of the US forces in Afghanistan from a medium-term perspective certainly worries Moscow. This came out clearly in Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's speech at the international conference in Kabul on July 20 when he singled out that ''[O]ne of the key factors in cresting an atmosphere of good-neighborliness and cooperation in the region after completion of the international stabilization efforts here is to be the restoration of the neutral status of Afghanistan. We expect that this idea will find support among the Afghans.''

US diplomats have been soft-pedaling the idea of a ''neutral'' Afghanistan and Lavrov thought it necessary to remind Washington that ''[T]he Presidents of Russia and the United States already spoke for it in their joint statement adopted on June 24 in Washington.''

Moscow has utilized the Sochi summit to develop a ''chemistry'' with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that has been hitherto lacking, in spite of sustained Russian efforts. To be sure, Moscow has taken note that Karzai's crisis of confidence with the US is deepening and he is gradually beginning to shift his dependence onto the regional powers to help him to incrementally ease the current American stranglehold on him.

Moscow is willing to play a role here. As the Kremlin's top aide, Sergei Prikhodko, put it in a media briefing, the core Russian agenda of the Sochi summit was ''the stepping up of regional cooperation in the efforts to assist the stabilization of the situation in Afghanistan and on the Afghan-Pakistan border, with the participation of authoritative organizations, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Organization.''

Some ''chemistry'' seems to have developed in Sochi as Karzai invited Medvedev to visit Kabul ''as soon as possible, as your [Medvedev's] schedule allows it. And Afghanistan is more than happy, rather privileged, to engage with Russia in all forms of economic, cultural, and political relations.''

Most certainly, Washington will have reason to feel irritated that Moscow is inserting itself so blatantly into its Afghan preserve. It will keep a close tab on Karzai. A defining moment will be the upcoming Afghan tender for purchase of military helicopters for the army. Washington is nervous that Russia is eyeing the prospect of shaping up as the provider of equipment and weapons for the Afghan army.

To quote Prikhodko, ''The Russian side is definitely interested in this [helicopter deal]; there are no impediments on our side.'' Russia has a tactical advantage insofar as Russian military equipment has proven more suitable for the tough Afghan conditions and the Afghan army is quite familiar with them already. Curiously, even NATO uses Soviet-era weapons, especially the Mi-17 helicopters, out of the stockpiles with the erstwhile Warsaw Pact countries of Central Europe who are today participants in the war as member countries of the western alliance.

Briefing the media after Medvedev's talks with Karzai, Lavrov said:

We are talking [with NATO] about a couple of dozen helicopters with the relevant equipment. I hope that in a month or month and a half there will be more clarity on the issue ... We handed our proposals about how we would carry out the initiative to Brussels a few months ago. We are now waiting for a definite answer from our partners.

Washington finds itself in quandary here as NATO would do well to acquire Russian helicopters on their merits from the operational (and commercial) angle, but then such cooperation would not only make Moscow a "participant" in the war but also might alter the overall alchemy of NATO-Russia ties. Moscow is not helping matters by offering that it is open to dealing with individual NATO member countries directly in such arms transactions.

The crux of the matter is what sort of Russian role Washington is willing to concede to Moscow in the Afghan endgame. Some time ago, in a media remark last October, Russia's irrepressible envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, who has a panache for hitting hard in the most colorful diplomatic idiom available, forecast the developing paradigm in the Hindu Kush when he said that while ''no Russian soldier will step onto Afghan soil'', Moscow would not ''sit on the substitutes' bench as regards supporting the fight against Taliban militants.''

The linchpin is Pakistan
Rogozin was prescient about the way the Kremlin was likely to think, and what he forecast is exactly what is happening. Which also explains the urgency with which Moscow is sensing the importance of forging some sort of a meaningful relationship with Pakistan on which it has been in a mode of self-denial, historically speaking, due to its apprehension that any perceptible warming up of Russia-Pakistan ties might raise hackles in the nearby Indian capital with which Moscow has a time-tested partnership of profound significance to the Russian global strategies.

The fact of the matter is that Moscow - like Tehran or Washington or London - understands that any effective Afghan policy needs to go hand in hand with a meaningful bilateral relationship with Islamabad. Ideally speaking, a degree of strategic understanding becomes necessary, but then the Pakistanis aren't easy customers. Moscow sees the usefulness of the quadripartite format from this perspective.

What Moscow needs to work on is to emulate the current policies of Iran, the US and UK to also ''engage'' Pakistan bilaterally. The Sochi summit seems to have been a step in this direction. The original plan was that Pakistani President Asif Zardari would undertake a full-fledged visit to Russia alongside the Sochi summit, but in the current emergency of the floods in Pakistan, this had to be scuttled.

All the same, the Kremlin account of the Medvedev-Zardari bilateral was exceedingly warm and indicative of a promising future period of close cooperation between the two countries. Medvedev made it clear that Moscow is making up for lost time in building a partnership with Islamabad:

I think that now, unlike in the past, we have very regular, frequent contacts, and this is good, as it enables us to promote our relations with Pakistan, our economic ties, and our contacts on security issues and regional problems. We live in an unsettled region and the way we work together is crucial for the way a whole number of complicated processes will unfold.

Prikhodko was far more specific in his media briefing. He anticipated that Medvedev and Zardari would discuss ''Russia's interaction with Pakistan, Pakistan's interaction with Afghanistan and India and the situation in the region in general.'' He added:

The two leaders will consider stepping up trade and economic ties, including the implementation of joint projects in the fuel/energy, metallurgy, and railway transport sectors ... we're hoping that the Sochi meeting will give an impulse to the preparation of a full-scale visit by the Pakistani leader to Moscow.

Russia has formed an intergovernmental commission with Pakistan - on the pattern of its traditional cooperation with India - and the first meeting of the commission is due to take place on September 21. Equally, the Sochi meeting has created a quadripartite format of foreign ministers within which Lavrov will have the opportunity to ''work on foreign policy coordination'' with his Pakistani counterpart in a structured fashion on a regular basis.

In sum, Moscow is not only copying the US approach to ''engage'' Pakistan but is also outstripping it by conducting such engagement within the bilateral and regional framework.

Catherine's dream
No matter what ultimately happens to Catherine the Great's dream of dipping her toes in the warm waters of the Arabian Sea, the regional security paradigm is witnessing a transformational phase even as the current Afghan conflict is uneasily edging toward a denouement.

Several vectors come into play. 1. Russia is showing a muscular policy to assert the legitimacy of its interests in the Hindu Kush and Central Asia.
2. The Russian ''entry'' changes the nature of the brew in the Afghan cauldron: it is no more an American concoction and Karzai has a new recipe to try for creating political space for himself.
3. Any form of long-term US military presence in the region will be severely contested by Russia (alongside China and Iran).
4. Moscow has accepted Beijing's counseling as regards the critical importance of not leaving Pakistan to the wolves.

It is now up to the Pakistani elites (civilian and military) to expand Islamabad's autonomy in regional politics so as to withstand the US's coercive diplomacy although they are passionately wedded to the strategic partnership with the US.

Finally, of course, an overarching template is appearing - a potential transformation of the Russian-Indian partnership in the event of the nascent Russian-Pakistan strategic partnership gaining traction in the period ahead. As things stand, Moscow is uneasy about the huge build-up of the US-Indian partnership in the recent years. Curiously, so is Islamabad.

Moscow's choice of Islamabad as its partner in regional security issues will not go unnoticed in Delhi. To be sure, the upcoming visit by the US President Barack Obama to Delhi in November will take place against the backdrop of a massive shift in what the Soviets would have called the ''correlation of forces'' in the region's politics.

CIA "anticipated" collapse of IAEA in 1981...

August , 2010 -- CIA "anticipated" collapse of IAEA in 1981...

IAEA in neocon CIA/MOSSAD gun sights for decades......

A CIA memorandum from the CIA's Special Assistant for Nuclear Proliferation Intelligence, dated December 8, 1981, states that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the bane of neo-conservatives during the George W. Bush administration, maintained a record of "sustained and proven failure of its safeguard and control functions in contrast to its promotional activities." The CIA memo to the Chairman of President Reagan's National Intelligence Council came at the same time the CIA was undermining efforts to control nuclear proliferation by its Afghanistan mujaheddin war partner Pakistan, as well as Israel....

The CIA memo states that an "anticipatory paper" should be prepared on the "disintegration of the IAEA." One paragraph in the formerly Secret memo has been redacted by the CIA.

The CIA memo was written some six months after the Israelis destroyed the Iraqi nuclear Tammuz 1 reactor at Osirak on June 7, 1981 and as the Abdul Qadeer Khan network centered in Pakistan was beginning to engage in large-scale clandestine procurement of nuclear materials for Pakistan's, and later, North Korea's, Iran's, Libya's, and Saudi Arabia's, nuclear weapons programs.

The CIA memo states that the "Paks have encountered [problems] in the construction of the Kahuta plant," the chief nuclear weapons development facility in Pakistan.

The CIA's "anticipation," almost wishful thinking, that the IAEA would collapse lends credence to the belief of former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers that the CIA was actively engaged in countenancing nuclear proliferation. In 2005, Lubbers told the Dutch National Radio program Argos that the CIA prevented the Dutch intelligence service (then BVD, now AIVD) from arresting Khan so that Khan's network could be followed. Lubbers said, "Under the influence of the so-called Cold War, all 'western' intelligence services were ordered around by the CIA, and were told to back off so the CIA could follow Khan's spy activities." Lubbers added that the CIA told their Dutch counterparts,"Just let him go, we'll follow him and that way get more information." As Prime Minister, Lubbers tried to get the United States to shut down Khan's operations in 1986 but was told the U.S. "did not want to interfere." Lubbers, who is also a member of the Bilderberg Group, served as Dutch Prime Minister from 1982 to 1994. In 1981, Lubbers was a parliamentary leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party,

The CIA memo was written after CIA director William Casey brought his friend and GOP fundraiser Max C. Hugel into the agency in January 1981. Casey shocked agency rank-and-file officers when he eventually named Hugel as Deputy Director for Operations. Hugel resigned in mid-1981 after allegations of improprieties with his stock portfolio. However, there was much more to the Hugel story. On January 26, 2006, WMR reported: "CIA director William Casey's deputy director for operations Max Hugel, a confidant of Casey who was forced to resign from the CIA over suspicions that his close ties to Israel made him a security risk, an agency move that infuriated Wolf Blitzer, then a reporter for the Jerusalem MOSSAD Post and an employee of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Hugel was associated with two Sun Myung Moon-linked organizations - Potomac and Andromeda.

The CIA's interest in seeing the demise of the IAEA would have played into the hands of the Israelis. As far back as the Nixon administration, the United States had tried to pressure Israel into signing the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but it was to no avail. Israel consistently stated that since it was not a nuclear power, there was no need to sign the NPT. In a New York Times article of July 18, 1970, Hedrick Smith reported that the Richard Nixon wanted the Israelis to sign the NPT but the Israelis were concerned about verification procedures and feared that its "scientific and conventional military installations will be subjected to international inspections."

When IAEA Secretary General Mohammed El-Baradei was subjected to an onslaught of criticism from the neocons, the CIA memo provides evidence that the IAEA was a target of the pro-Israeli elements in the CIA and the embryonic future neocons peppered throughout the Reagan administration as early as 1981....

Today, Israel and its crushing lobby that exercises extreme influence over the Obama MOSSAD/CIA administration, has sought to undermine the authority of the IAEA by seeing to it that the United States and European Union applied crippling unilateral sanctions on Iran over its civilian nuclear program....which is similar to Japan's....

And "The Lobby" continues to pour scorn on the IAEA, echoing the CIA's and its internal Israel cheerleaders in 1981. In an article in the Winter 2009 issue of In Focus Quarterly, a publication of the Jewish Policy Center, Barak M. Seener the Greater Middle East Section Director for the Henry Jackson Society of the U.K. wrote, "The IAEA has, over time, lost sight of its original mission. Rather than performing technical studies to assess the nuclear capacity of states and leaving the political considerations to the United Nations Security Council, the IAEA has strayed into the business of international politics."

As can be seen from the CIA memo on 1981, the IAEA has been a convenient scapegoat for the CIA, Mossad, and others to conduct clandestine nuclear proliferation with a crippled IAEA available to blame.....

Obama's CIA Mona Lisa smile....

Obama's CIA Mona Lisa smile....
By M K Bhadrakumar

Obama No

By Adolph Reed Jr., May 2008 Issue
Prescient and brilliant.

http://www.counterpunch.org/beattie08272010.html

The divide and conquer is working brilliantly.....

The range of interpretations given by the small group of journalists invited to United States President Barack Obama's briefing on Iran last week is truly amazing. What comes to mind is Mona Lisa, the famous song sung in a soft baritone voice six decades ago, before Obama was born, by another African-American from Chicago, Nat King Cole:

Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa,
Or is this your way to hide a broken heart?
Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep
They just lie there and they die there.

Was there a "mystic smile" on Obama's lips when he briefed the media? David Ignatius of the Washington Post was certain Obama put the issue of negotiating with Iran "firmly back on the table", but Peter David of The Economist was equally sure Obama "unveiled no new policy".

Marc Ambinder and Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic thought Obama was grandstanding before his domestic audience about the effectiveness of his policy of engagement joined with tightening the squeeze on Iran economically and politically.

Prominent commentator Robert Kagan drew satisfaction that Obama signaled "there was no new diplomatic initiative [on Iran] in the offing". On the whole, the neo-conservatives in the US are delighted that the glove on their president's fist hides high-quality steel.

They all are probably right in their own way. However, against the backdrop of the upcoming US Congressional elections in November, one main purpose of the briefing was to reassure Israel and the influential pro-Israel lobby in US politics that the Obama presidency's Iran policy of harping on the theme of engagement meant no real harm to the interests of the Jewish state.

The heart of the matter is that the US policy on Iran is again at a crossroads. Obama made the case that he tried to engage Iran early in his presidency, but Tehran failed to respond. But, in actuality, did he really try? While he made overtures to Tehran, sections within his own administration strove for "regime change" in Iran and undertook covert operations. Iran was given the chance to negotiate at gunpoint.

At some stage after last year's presidential election in Iran, Washington convinced itself about the scope for a "color revolution" in Tehran. Whereas, the priority should have been to negotiate with President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who was well ensconced in power and could take tough decisions. Obama instead tried to enter into correspondence with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, forgetting entirely that he himself is but a caesar.

Second, Obama claimed as a pillar of his Iran strategy the emphasis he placed on his nuclear non-proliferation agenda by living up to the US's own responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and organizing a successful NPT conference. Yet, as the world sees it, US policies are riddled with contradictions and in effect are shredding the treaty to pieces.

Moscow's course correction
However, it was his "reset" with Russia that Obama presented as the third crucial leg of the US's Iran policy. In short, Washington takes pleasure that Moscow not only betrayed Tehran but also lent a hand to encourage China, the European Union and Canada also to spurn Iran.

Russia dumped Iran most opportunistically. But anyone who has been opportunistic once can do so again, and the US could already be sensing it.

Nothing else can explain the alacrity with which US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appealed on Wednesday to the US Senate to act favorably on the "new START", the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia signed by Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in April and which needs to be ratified by the US Senate before it goes into effect.

However, Moscow, which places great store in the START treaty for Russia's resurgence on the world stage, calculates that ratification requires 67 votes in the US Senate, which means the Obama administration would have to mobilize all 59 Democrats and independents and find at least another six Republicans to get the "new START" ratified. So far the only Republican senator who has publicly committed to support ratification is Richard Lugar from Indiana.

Moscow seems to factor in that the policy shift on Iran has gone too far without commensurate returns and a course correction is useful. Kremlin rhetoric has tapered off. A new ambivalence has crept into the status of Russia's deal for supply of S-300 missiles to Iran.

Russian company Lukoil last week supplied refined petroleum products to Iran, ignoring the US threat of retaliation - and that too, in partnership with Chinese oil company Zhuhai Zhenrong. Moscow received the Iranian oil minister to discuss bilateral cooperation and Russian officials have spoken of the likely commissioning of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran in August. The diplomatic front too shows signs of stirrings. Russia has joined China to criticize the US and the European Union's moves to impose unilateral sanctions against Iran.

Reset of US-Russia reset?
On Monday, the Iranian ambassador in Moscow, Reza Sajjadi, visited the Russian Foreign Ministry to have a "fruitful exchange of views" with Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin regarding "themes related to the development of mutually beneficial Russian-Iranian economic and trade cooperation". According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, "Mutual interest was expressed in reinvigorating bilateral collaboration in this sphere."

On Tuesday, Sajjadi was back to meet First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Denisov. A Russian statement said, "The parties exchanged views on issues of the bilateral, regional and international agenda with particular focus on Russian-Iranian political dialogue and joint work aimed at resolving key international and regional problems." (Emphasis added.)

The US's reset with Russia seems to be the shakiest leg in its Iran policy. Curiously, this problematic leg also happens to be made of a mixed alloy cast from Russian and Chinese metals.

The US's successive acts of provocation against China in the Asia-Pacific in recent weeks could have fallout on Beijing's stance regarding the Iran issue. Significantly, the US has put Beijing on notice publicly. US special adviser for non-proliferation and arms control Robert Einhorn, who will proceed to Beijing later this month amid the rising tensions in Sino-US relations, said:

We want China to be a responsible stakeholder in the international system and that means cooperating with UN Security Council resolutions. It means not backfilling, not taking advantage of the responsible self-restraint of other countries.

One concern a number of countries expressed when approached to take measures against Iran is that "if we practice restraint, China will fill in behind, China will take advantage of our restraint".

For Iran, the stakes are high, too. Iran's Deputy Oil Minister Hossein Noghrehkar said last week China had invested US$29 billion in Iran's oil sector and another $11 billion worth investment is in the pipeline, including for the setting up of seven refineries.

To be sure, Beijing's perspective on the US-Russia reset comes into play. Beijing seems to estimate that the US-Russia reset has not gone much beyond Obama's "Burger Diplomacy" with Medvedev. On Monday, a Chinese commentary took a good look at Moscow's Iran policy. It said:

As an ally of Iran with many strategic and economic interests in the country, Russia's pro-Western stance is unlikely to last ... Iran not only represents an important regional ally for Russia but also a useful bargaining tool in diplomatic relations with the West, especially the US. For now, Russia has decided its relations with the US are more important than its relations with Iran.

Russia's pandering to Western countries has brought more negative than positive results ... Russia has gained little from its pro-Western stance. Meanwhile, Russians have voiced more doubts and criticism over Medvedev. Against such a backdrop, Russia cannot afford to lose Iran. Therefore, in the near future Russia is very likely to soften its tone toward Iran.

All in all, Obama's "Mona Lisa smile" last week needs to be put in perspective. On the one hand, he apparently indicated to Tehran he was leaving open a "pathway" for a peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue and for a deal that allows the latter to maintain its civilian nuclear program as long as "a clear set of steps" could be negotiated that are "sufficient to show that they are not pursuing nuclear weapons".

Meanwhile, Obama proposed a "separate track" for talks regarding Afghanistan, given the two countries' "mutual interest" in fighting the Taliban. He said Iran should be a "part" of the regional talks about stabilizing Afghanistan and "could be a constructive partner".

The words were conciliatory. On the other hand, Obama insisted the US had the upper hand, the Iranians had been diplomatically isolated and sanctions were already "biting" and that, in this overall context, he was merely being logical in driving home the advantage by choosing to re-engage Iran.

He also offered vaguely hawkish hints regarding the option in reserve to use force if diplomacy fails. Nat King Cole sang, "Are you warm, are you real, Mona Lisa?"

Israelization of Iraq and Indianization of Afghanistan

09. Aug, 2010

Can it Survive the Test of Time?

By Engr. Mansoor A. Malik

Rumsfeld’s Pentagon had novel ideas of their own. With people like Dick Cheney in the White House to oil his ego and his boss the President who knew only childhood cowboy’s tricks, had a free hand to think and act on his own. The somber and popular Secretary of State, Gen Collin Powell was made to look like a comedian in a Greek Tragedy Drama. The checks and balances which the US Congress had put in place after the Vietnam War debacle was conveniently set aside after the 9/11 fiasco and the Pentagon’s young Turks like Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and other likeminded skewed intellectuals in their Policy Planning committee was unleashed to the world in general and our world in particular.

The Babylonian Civilization of Iraq had to be taught new lessons in Democracy ala Israel to make it subservient to this so called shinning nuclear armor in the Nejaf Desert. But first and foremost, on occupation of this country, all the Babylonian artifacts had to be robbed and stolen to make this country free from its past. After this historic banditry, this country had to be de-stabilized from North-South and East-West in order to rebuild it on Democratic Topography of Shia-Sunni on one hand and Kurds-Turkmen on the other. The annihilation of Iraq was carried out thru the earnings of its Petro-dollars and the Israeli area of influence, courtesy Uncle Sam, spread from the Palestinian lands West of Jordan Valley to the Euphrates & Tigress Rivers of Babylon. Israel now had direct access to the two most important Muslim countries of the region i.e. Ottoman’s Turkey in the Northern fringes of Iraq and The Golden Bird, Iran on its Eastern flank. The re-drawing of the Middle-Eastern map to suit Israel was carried out in real earnest by Dum Dum Rumsfeld’s Pentagon. Before that it was Afghanistan’s turn in our midst.

The Shock and Awe of Mr. Rumsfeld’s War on Afghanistan was in full display for the whole world to see. The Daisy Cutters and heavy bombardment of B-52 bombers from the air on dilapidated mud houses in Afghanistan and on the ground the troops from the US Special Forces riding on horse backs and mules along with the Northern Alliance troops entering Kabul appeared to be projected out from the American Comical Characters of yore. The Lone Rangers hadarrived in our neighborhood. Nine years down the line the Lone Rangers along with more than hundred thousand crack troops on the ground are still faced with stubborn resistance from the local inhabitants. The Indians caught up in the Kashmir quagmire over the last 60 years got their golden opportunity to jump into the American Bandwagon in Afghanistan to check mate Pakistan and divert the world attention from its own human atrocities in Kashmir. The singular most suffering country from The War on Terror in terms of men and material and lost opportunities, Pakistan was being painted differently by the Indians in cohort with the Israelis. The Indianization of Afghanistan may not be as smooth as Israelization of Iraq. The Indo-Israeli nexus had been working secretly for many years and had started showing their muscles openly after the 9/11 Tragedy. Such was their combined reach that they in turn started calling the shots at the Pentagon under the Tutelage of old, haggard and deranged Rumsfeld.

Earlier, the Israeli lobby with Uncle Sam’s blessings had penetrated the Dardanelle Straights of Turkey in order to establish their hold on the old champions of the Muslim World. Professor Erbakan, head of the Islamic Rifah Party in the early 1990s’ and an Opposition Leader in Turkey realized this onslaught and his Policy Planning team put up a strategic paper on the concept of the Developing Eight (D-8) Muslim Countries Grouping i.e. Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangla Desh, Egypt and Nigeria as a counter weight to the growing influence of Israel entering our region on an American horse. The first D-8 Summit was soon held in Turkey when Mr. Erbakan became Turkey’s Prime Minister in the mid 1990s’. The last Summit was recently held in Abuja, Nigeria. The present leadership of Turkey is indebted to the role played by Prof Erbakan in bringing back this country to the fold of the Muslim Nations. The recent aggressive mis-handling of the Turkish Humanitarian Flotilla by the Israeli sharks near the Palestinian lands only aggravated the feelings amongst all sensible and sensitive people of the world at the high handedness of the Israeli government and their backers sitting thousands of miles away in their Comfort Zones.

After Israelization of Iraq and Indianization of Afghanistan what is next on their agenda? This million dollar question has to be addressed by every member of the D-8 lest one by one each of them are reduced to a surrogate status. It appears that the appetite of the wolves has not been fully met after the annihilation of the Babylonian lands and the rich Persian Empire may now be under their focus. Malaysia under Dr. Mahathir barely survived the Economic onslaught a few years back along with the political crisis of East Timor in Indonesia. Nigeria and Egypt the only two D-8 countries from the African Continent are undergoing their political leadership transition crisis. Pakistan is under the anvil of Destabilization and Distortion of its image as the first and only Nuclear power in the Muslim World. Bangla Desh has been absorbed by the Indians in South Asian politics and is not free to look elsewhere. We are, therefore, left with only Turkey and Iran in the D-8 countries with Space and Time in their favour, although Iran is in a nut cracker situation under the Most Sanctioned Regime. These are the fault lines within the leading players of the Muslim World which are being fully exploited in the present Power Equilibrium.

Destroying Muslim lands through the American Shock and Awe under the watchful Indo-Israeli nexus could be carried out by high altitude B-52 Bombers flying from Safety Zones but what next? Iraq is no more a country within the grip of its own people while its forty years of development has been overturned into rubble; Afghanistan already a medieval country stuck in the Middle Ages has been unleashed to make other countries in its close vicinity look similar. The division of the Victor and the Vanquished soon disappears when militaries are fighting whole nations. American Military appeared victorious in the Vietnam War till the Rescue Helicopters from the US Naval Fleet were positioned at the roof tops of the Presidential Palace in Saigon to evacuate the marooned Americans and Pro-American leaders from the Palace before their capitulation to the Viet Conges. The Soviets with their draconian Heli-copter Gunships were routing out their enemies in the mountains of Afghanistan till their open and frank leadership of the time admitted and called their Afghan Campaign a “Bleeding Wound” and withdrew from Afghanistan with whatever was left of their pride. The Israelis launched their Armored Pride into Lebanon in the not too distant past only to be check mated for the first time by the rockets fired from the most novel and mobile rocket launchers mounted on motor bikes of the Lebanese volunteers. The historical victors of the First World War may have got the vanquished Germans sign the “Treaty of Versailles” but within twenty years had to face the onslaught of Hitler’s Blitzkrieg in all of Europe. Nations cannot be won by militaries alone. This lesson was very much known in Confucian China of old and in modern times of Jean Paul Sartre’s France, during the Algerian War. Will think tanks in Washington and their cohorts in Tel Eviv and New Delhi draw a lesson or two from the past? Only time will tell.

Mansoor Malik, is Member Board of Advisors, Opinion Maker. In brief, he has been Director General with over 33 year of experience in planning, establishing and managing national level, strategic, high-tech organizations. Director General, Marketing & Industrial Relations Organization (MIRO). Commandant, College of Aeronautical Engineering, Risalpur.