Reconceptualising China's String of Pearls: From Strategic Vulnerability to Enduring Tactical Advantage.

http://www.dailypioneer.com/280387/US--India-should-counter-Chinas-maritime-influence.html

http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/ChinasStringofPearlsandIndiasEnduringTacticalAdvantage_irehman_080610

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4768239&c=ASI&s=AIR

Intro:

When in 2003 a team of "Booz CIA Allen" consultants, in a report for the Pentagon, coined the term ‘string of pearls’ in order to describe Beijing’s attempts to gain a strategic foothold in the Indian Ocean, they were in all likelihood little aware of how rapidly their colorful image was to gain currency in turn of the century geopolitical discourse.

Amidst Delhi’s vibrant strategic community, in particular, the expression has come to embody, occasionally more metaphorically than factually, India’s innate, almost visceral fear of maritime encirclement.

What, however, is the reality behind China’s so-called string of pearls? And in what way does it pose such an existential threat to Indian security? It will be argued here that China’s naval positioning in the Indian Ocean is not only legitimate to a certain degree, but also, paradoxically, to Delhi’s tactical advantage in the event of a Sino-Indian conflict. This tactical edge can only be guaranteed, however, by the dogged pursuit of certain diplomatic and military measures.

I) A STRING OF CLOUDED PEARLS:

The term ‘string of pearls’ was implemented in order to describe Beijing’s increasing forays into the Indian Ocean , discernible through its efforts to establish ‘nodes of influence’ in the region, via an assertive diplomacy primarily geared towards strengthening its economic and security ties with countries as diverse as Pakistan, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. In some cases this firming up of ties has led to joint port construction or enlargement deals, such as with Pakistan at Gwadar, or with Sri Lanka at Hambantota[1].

When evoking its Indian Ocean Policy, Beijing tends to paint it in broader economic and maritime security-related terms. Increasingly dependent on foreign oil, China is to some extent a prisoner of its own geography, as it is positioned far from some of the world’s most strategically salient shipping lanes, where the US and Indian Navies hold sway. It is in order to remedy this ‘Malacca dilemma’, argue Chinese strategists, that Beijing is compelled to venture further afield, and slip into the balmy waters of the Indian Ocean. For India, which has been entrapped in an often tension-fraught relationship with China for over half a century, China’s strategy bears greater resemblance to a noose, woven in order to encircle and constrict India within its own backyard, than a sparkly, peace-imbued constellation of trade linkages. In short, it could be argued that both nations are imprisoned in a textbook security dilemma.

The String of Pearls has become one of the most widely commented subjects in contemporary strategic debate, despite the fact that it also one of the most factually opaque. This paradox is especially blatant in India, where there seems to be an increasing disconnect in-between strategic commentary and official declarations[2], which has been taking great pains to emphasize that China has currently no naval bases in the Indian Ocean. Regularly stories surface in the press that are subsequently disavowed or contested, ranging from the supposed presence of a Chinese submarine base at Marao in the Maldives, to conflicting accounts of the extent of Chinese military presence in the Coco Islands off Burma.

What is clear, however, is that there is no compelling evidence yet to suggest that the PLAN has engaged in basing activities of an overtly military nature. Nevertheless, this does not mean that it has no future intention to do so. Chinese naval commanders have said as much, recently stating that China may also seek to obtain a base in the Gulf of Aden. The deep-sea water port of Gwadar, of which the first phase of construction has been completed, is projected to undergo militarization by the Pakistani Navy, which means that Chinese surface and sub-surface platforms could easily be stationed there. Most of the ports the PRC is helping to develop, whether it be at Hambantota or Chittagong, can have a dual use, by hosting both merchant and military vessels. And the absence as of yet of Chinese warships at berth does not mean that China is not busy conducting naval espionage, whether it be via the alleged SIGINT facilities it is erecting in places such as the Coco Islands, or via discreet hydrographic research.

It seems clear that China’s string of pearl strategy is still very much in a nascent, or even embryonic, phase. If it were to take on an decidedly military nature, however, what would be the security implications for India?

II) WHY CHINA’S STRING OF PEARLS WILL ULTIMATELY BE TO INDIA’S TACTICAL ADVANTAGE:

While many in India lament the supposed military emasculation induced by the presence of permanent Chinese bases in the region, it will be argued here that such a development would actually be to India’s tactical benefit, provided that it took certain preparatory measures, measures that will be detailed further on.

The unresolved land border issue and Tibet, both of which are intrinsically linked, are the focal points of Sino-Indian tension and are likely to remain so in the future. This means that if a conflict in-between both rising powers did occur, it would most likely be a largely land-waged war, most probably in the Himalayan Northeast. As of now, the Indian Navy can only be expected to play a minor role in such a conflict. With the future presence of Chinese naval bases in the region however, this could change, by providing the Indian Navy with a novel warfighting role.

A cursory review of the tactical options available to the Indian fleet in the event of a Sino-Indian war reveals the tactical flexibility on offer:

Tactical Option number 1:

A strategy of commodity denial, either via sea-lane blockade or through the targeted interdiction of Chinese shipping.

This option would require a long, protracted conflict in order to be effective. This effectiveness is likely to take ever longer to attain as China continues to build up its strategic oil reserves over the next decade, until it reaches its avowed goal of six months self-sufficiency[3]. Furthermore, as the recent tragedy off the coast of Gaza starkly brought to light, naval blockades can be messy affairs, resulting in collateral civilian casualties. This risk would be further compounded if Chinese merchant ships started to provide their crew members with small arms in order to fend off Somali pirate attacks. Finally, such a blockade would severely disrupt international trade, and would put into question India’s role as a responsible stakeholder in the international system.

Tactical Option number 2:

An expeditionary force into the South China Sea.

Not only would this escalate the conflict into a full-spectrum war, it would also result in disaster for the Indian fleet. Even if by 2020 the Indian Navy can boast two immediately deployable carrier groups, they would not be able to withstand a sustained aerial assault from Chinese fighters stationed on the mainland or on Hainan, especially when combined with a salvo of DF-21 anti-ship ballistic missiles. In addition to this, the Indian Navy would have to face down the rapidly expanding South China Sea Fleet, as well as the latest Jin class SSBNs and Shang Class SSNs stationed at Sanya.

Tactical Option number 3:

Breaking China’s String of Pearls.

If one looks at a potential naval conflict in-between both powers in the Indian Ocean, it makes no sense to compare each force in its totality ship for ship, missile for missile.

Theatre dominance is all that matters, and in this respect India will display two unalterable advantages:

First of all, by virtue of India’s immense geographical advantages in the region, it is difficult to imagine China ever being able to wield as much military clout in the region as its transhimalayan neighbour.

India’s natural peninsular formation means that it has been described by some as akin to an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” jutting out into the Indian Ocean. Any naval taskforce venturing into the Bay of Bengal with hostile intentions would have to contend with India’s airforce and naval aviation, operating not only from the mainland, but also from the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago in the Andaman Sea, whose airstrips are currently being extended, and which is slated to eventually host Sukhoi squadrons, and possibly MiGs and Mirages.[4]

Secondly, China’s naval presence in the region will be dispersed along the several, often distant, nodal points that constitute its string of pearls. Even if taken together these forces are superior in both quantity to quality to the Indian Navy, which, is all in all most unlikely, India will have the immediate advantage of force concentration and hence superiority if it decides to conduct a rapid strike at an isolated group of Chinese vessels. A direct attack on a naval base would be highly undesirable, as it would trigger a severe crisis with the hosting country. A massive naval deployment outside one such base could have the desired effect however, by compelling the Chinese to deescalate their land assault, much as the Indian Navy’s stationing of its fleet 13 nautical miles outside Karachi during the Kargil War prompted, some claim, the Pakistani Army to accelerate the withdrawal of its forces from the disputed areas[5].

III) NECESSARY PREPARATORY MEASURES:

Reinforcing the ANC:

The Andaman and Nicobar Command, which was inaugurated as India’s first joint command structure in 2001, is of absolutely vital strategic import. Separated from the mainland by almost 1200kms of sea, the island chain, which lies only 18km from the Coco Islands, constitutes India’s first eastern maritime defense perimeter. It has been also been described by certain Chinese analysts as a ‘metal chain’ which could lock China out of the Indian Ocean[6]. It goes without saying that the command will play a first-line role in the event of a Sino-Indian naval clash in the Indian Ocean. Although measures have been taken to strengthen India’s force presence on the islands, most notably by enlarging airstrips for Sukhois, or by announcing the stationing of India’s first full-bodied joint amphibious force and the ramping up of its existing 3000 strong 108 Mountain Brigade to a division level force of 15000 troops, the ANC is still having to making do with an assortment of fast offshore patrol vessels, LSTs and aging Dornier-228 Maritime Patrol Aircraft[7]. More needs to be done to accelerate the strengthening of India’s military deterrent in the Andaman Sea. This can be done by stationing one or two large warships there on a permanent basis, by setting up Brahmos cruise missile silos on some of the larger islands, and by providing the ANC with its own separate budget, so that its platform acquisition efforts no longer fall victim to inter-service turf wars.

Signing an Intelligence Sharing Agreement with the US involving the sharing of maritime satellite-based surveillance:

As the Chinese Navy extends its presence into the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, the region will be witness to a growing strategic congruence in-between both Washington and Delhi in their desire to carefully monitor the PLAN's comings and goings. Both navies already share very strong ties and have begun to display an ever increasing degree of interoperability, in large part thanks to the Malabar bilateral or multilateral exercises held each spring. India and the United States have recently upgraded their intelligence sharing in the field of counter-terrorism. In the future, both states may well find that the surveillance of China’s naval activities in the region is an equally pressing concern.

It would be in India’s interest to press for a maritime intelligence sharing agreement, which would result in the linking of India’s new ocean surveillance satellite with the US’s own satellite-based surveillance system. India could also offer to share radar and sonar data compiled in the Andaman Sea with US Naval Intelligence in exchange for US satellite imagery, thus gifting the Indian Navy’s with a bird’s eye view of everything that goes on in the Indian Ocean. This would be a good stop-gap measure while waiting for India’s own burgeoning satellite-based surveillance system to be capable of covering the entire region in real time. In order to not make the measure appear too overtly directed against China, both countries could ‘sell’ the initiative as being part of their larger effort to ensure maritime security in the region, and help protect maritime shipping from non-traditional threats.

Sustain and Reinforce Indian Maritime Diplomacy in the Indian Ocean Region:

While much has been said of China’s inroads into the Indian Ocean, India’s own charm offensive in the region has also been bearing fruit over the past two to three years, whether it be through the establishment of electronic monitoring systems in Madagascar in 2007, or more recently, in August 2009, in the Maldives. Indian officials have also become more reactive to their Chinese counterparts attempts to woo small but strategically placed nations such as the Seychelles or Mauritius. For example, Delhi reacted to Beijing’s offer of military assistance to the Seychelles by rapidly bestowing on its minute navy one of its own patrol aircraft[8]. This sort of rapid, reactive diplomacy, when combined with more long-term institutionalized efforts such as the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium launched in 2008, will help sustain the strength and visibility of India’s presence in the region.

Conclusion:

China’s so-called string of pearls strategy, the degree of advancement of which has frequently been overstated, is not likely to immediately put Indian maritime security in jeopardy. Nevertheless, there will inevitably come a time when India will have to face the reality of a Chinese naval presence in its own backyard. Beijing cannot afford for its Achilles heel- i.e. its acute vulnerability to any interruption of its overseas trade-to be bared for much longer.

Only when India’s strategic community grasp that India is already squarely poised over China’s energy jugular, will they be able to break with a deeply ingrained sense of vulnerability. Not only would the presence of Chinese vessels present no real existential threat to Indian naval dominance in the region, it would also, paradoxically , provide the Navy with a far greater degree of tactical flexibility in the event of a future conflict with China, be it on land or sea. This advantage can only be guaranteed however, if India undertakes certain preparatory measures designed to effectively lock down its control of its maritime surroundings, and curb Chinese influence among certain key oceanic ‘swing’ states.

Finally, as China edges its way into the Indian Ocean over the course of the next few decades, both nations would do well to agree to draft a “Sino-Indian Incidents at Sea Agreement”, which could be loosely modeled on the Cold-War era INCSEA, and which helped prevent routine US-Soviet naval encounters from spiraling out of control. The quest for adequate military readiness and tactical flexibility does not, after all, render the prospect of a future Sino-Indian naval conflict any less dire.....

CIA/MOSSAD getting involved... up close and personal at Bab Al-Mandeb/Yemen....

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/04/somali-pirates200904?currentPage=all

The idea undergirding this comment’s main argument was brought up during a most interesting luncheon with Lt.Col. Peter Garretson of the US Air Force. I would like to thank him here, both for his input and for his strategic acumen....

---

[1] For an in-depth analysis of China’s String of Pearls Strategy, see Gurpreet S.Khurana, « China’s String of Pearls in the Indian Ocean and its Security Implications. », Strategic Analysis, Vol.32, N°1, January 2008.

[2] « No Chinese Military Bases in the Indian Ocean, says Menon », The Indian Express, Friday September 11th 2009.

[3] « A peek at China’s Strategic Oil Reserves », Global Times, 14^th of June 2009.

[4] Rajat Pandit, « Strategically Important A and N Command to receive a boost », The Times of India, 6th of February 2010.

[5] Shyam Parekh, « Indian Navy Celebrates its silent Kargil Victory », http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=12113

[6] Zhang Ming, quoted by Robert D.Kaplan in “Center-Stage for the 21^st Century, Power Plays in the Indian Ocean”, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2009.

[7] « India to plug gaps in security of Andaman and Nicobar Islands », 8th of February 2010, http://www.dnaindia.com/dnaprint910.php?newsid=1345128

[8] Event recounted by Harsh V.Pant, in « India in the Indian Ocean : Growing Mismatch Between Ambitions and Capabilities », Pacific Affairs : Volume 82, N°2 Summer 2009.

Turkey To Put Military Base In Azerbaijan As NATO Surrogate?

27 08 2010

[The great deception in this phase involves creating the image that Gul and Erdogan are acting independently of Washington, as they present a challenge to Russian domination of former Soviet territory (SEE: America’s “Islamists” Go Where Oilmen Fear to Tread). Little by little, everything seems to be working out according to CIA/MOSSAD plans....?]

Typical CIA, FDDC, DOD and Strartfor/CIA Disinformation gimmicks....

http://www.rferl.org/content/Azerbaijan_Claims_Five_Killed_In_Clash_On_NagornoKarabakh_Border_/2145292.html

DynCorp: The Creepiest Company You Never Heard Of

Interesting forum thread...

[The CIA "leaked" document, allegedly about the dangers of American support for terrorism weakening public support for the organized aggression, is an exercise in misleading an inquisitive American public into ignoring the real state supported terrorism emanating from Washington, London and Tel Aviv. Such disinformation in the past has been labeled a "red herring," for the typical stink and misdirection presented, distracting the observer from less odoriferous, though more threatening issues. It has been purposely leaked from Wikileaks/CIA to give it substance, where it clearly has none. There isn't a single word in the alleged internal memo from the working minds of the CIA spooks about the prominent role played by American support for "Islamist" terrorism throughout the world, nor support for the countless other non-Islamic terror groups murdering civilians to force America's will upon the world.

Every revelation that has come to us from Wikileaks/CIA has been this way, devoid of anything really incriminating about the greatest source of state terrorism in the history of the world, while painting a very ugly picture of America's greatest ally, Pakistan, the next target for American military actions. Stop looking for an attack upon Iran. Look to where American "Islamists" are softening-up the next Muslim nation at the top of the US hit list. Wikileaks/CIA is making it all possible.....]

http://file.wikileaks.org/file/us-cia-redcell-exporter-of-terrorism-2010.pdf

European Nato governments should emphasize the suffering of women under Taliban rule to counter domestic calls for troop withdrawal a leaked CIA analysis suggests.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7535681/CIA-suggests-Europe-should-understand-suffering-of-women-under-Taliban.html

[This memo advised that antiwar sentiment in Germany and France could drive the governments to withdraw support for the war if their casualties rise. It also suggested that public perceptions on the plight of Afghan (and Pakistani?) women could drive American emotions towards supporting the continued American aggression as a path to protecting Afghanistan's females. There has been a wave of attacks upon girls and girls' schools since then, specifically in the two areas that are marked for new US military action, North Afghanistan and Western Balochistan Province in Pakistan. The brutal attacks have been in the form of poison gas attacks northeast of Kabul near the Panjshir Valley (the "safest area in Afghanistan") and acid thrown in girls' faces near Quetta, Balochistan. Either the Taliban are mind-readers, or someone with access to the memo has used it as a signal to commit terrorist attacks upon girls. If this memo had been made available to the Taliban then it would explain the connection, but, since we are allegedly at war with this militant force, then logic would suggest that this explanation is ridiculous. On the other hand, history is replete with examples where "militant Islamists" have attacked America's adversaries, justifying military action against them, miraculously putting American military forces where they wanted to be, but couldn't quite get there on their own (SEE: America’s “Islamists” Go Where Oilmen Fear to Tread).]

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=90257

RF President Dmitry Medvedev’s state visit to Armeniaovershadowed the earlier begum Turkish-Azerbaijani meetings. On August 16-17, Turkish President Abdullah Gul was on an official visit to Baku. A Turkish-Azerbaijani agreement on strategic partnership and mutual assistance was signed during the visit. The document provides for the deployment of Turkish military units in Azerbaijan or, in other words, the creation of military bases of Turkey, a NATO member, in the country.

Following the Russian leaders’ visit, Russian and Armenian experts, speaking of a new level of bilateral relations, addressed the possible enhancement of Turkey’s role in the region in the context of the latest Azerbaijani-Turkish agreements. Talking to NEWS.am, Head of the Russian Center of Military Forecasts Anatoly Tsyganok voiced the opinion that a Turkish military base might be deployed in Nakhichevan as well. “It can be supposed due to Gul’s gentle hints in Azerbaijan,” he said. Many other Russian experts, addressing the recent developments in Armenian-Russian relations, have spoken of Armenia’s increasing role in the region, Russia’s greater strategic role, pointing out closer Turkish-Azerbaijani military ties.

“Turkey’s latest actions, as well as possible deployment of a military base in Azerbaijan, are nothing but a challenge sent to Russia. It is surprising Russian experts are not frank about it,” the military expert Artsrun Hovhannisyan told NEWS.am.

President Gul’s visit to Azerbaijan on August 15-17 was not mere coincidence. It was planned in advance, as Turks knew Armenia and Russian were going to sign a document on military base #102. “Gul’s visit was ‘a counterblow’ to Medvedev’s Caucasian triumph, which made it clear Turkey laid as serious claims to the South Caucasus as Russia did,” the expert said. He stressed that the current Turkish administration is the author and bearer of Neo-Ottomanism.

Hovhannisyan believes Neo-Ottomanism is a political ideology aimed at extending Turkey’s influence over the borders of the former Ottoman Empire. This ideology also supports Pan-Turkism and lays claims to leadership in the entire Islamic and Turkic world. “Gul, Erdogan and Davutoglu told the whole world their foreign policy was aimed at restoring the once great influence of the Ottoman Empire. However, Russia is the first world power preventing this ideology from becoming reality. So it is really surprising that Russian experts hardly address the topic,” Hovhannisyan said. Delegating greater powers to the Russian military base or the Turkish-Azerbaijani agreement on strategic partnership can by no means be considered local factors. Turkey is making obvious moves to bring the South Caucasus from under Russia’s control. In response, Russia should make a bolder step, the expert said.

“Rumors about possible reopening of a Turkish military base in Nakhichevan are circulating at various levels. I think it is absurd, and Russia should properly respond at a state level. Under a Moscow Treaty of 1921, Russia and Turkey pledged to deal with any issue related to military presence in Nakhichevan. Even a soldier’s presence – to say nothing of a military base – is a matter of bilateral intergovernmental discussions,” the expert said. Abrogating or even revising the treaty poses a great risk to the region. “An explosive situation may develop, with potential hostilities of a much larger scale than the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict – Nakhichevan’s geographical location is of strategic importance for Pan-Turkism programs,” Hovhannisyan said.

The Armenian expert also commented on his Russian counterparts’ opinion that in making moves toward Nakhichevan Turkey would not damage its relations with Russia – Ankara and Moscow signed agreements on large-scale investment programs. “The needle for injecting Turkey is presently in Russia’s hands. It should be remembered, however, that Turkey has changed several doctors over the past several hundred years – France, Great Britain, Germany and the United States – and, after being strengthened, aimed its power at Russia,” Hovhannisyan said. Taking advantage of the fact of its getting out of the U.S. control, Turkey is strengthening its ties with Russia. On a large scale, it is one more step to get a new donor for economic development.

Turkey will remain Russia’s traditional rival, as it seeks to extend its influence over entire Central Asia, as far as Siberia, the entire Caucasus, as far as the Volga River and Tatarstan, as well as the Crimea and Ukraine. “As to the Russian needle, Turkey may replace it with a Chinese or Indian one tomorrow. Or it will continue on the Russian needle, ‘doing its business’,” Hovhannisyan said.

NEWS.am reminds readers that during the hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh the press circulated rumors about Turkish companies in Nakhichevan and Azerbaijan, which pledged to defend Nakhichevan. Indeed, Russians repeatedly faced big and little problems after ignoring or underestimating the Turkish factor. For example, the Turkish army has for a long time been implementing a re-equipment program worth hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars. Besides numerous types of modern weapons, it plans to purchase 100 U.S. fighters of the 5th generation, whereas Russia only recently started the relevant development work.

Two minutes to midnight? NO, the USA is wheeling and dealing with IRAN behind a smoke screen of utter lies...Mousavi secrets 'put his life in danger?

Two minutes to midnight? NO, the USA is wheeling and dealing with IRAN behind a smoke screen of utter lies.....Mousavi secrets 'put his life in danger'....???
By Tony Karon

America's march to a disastrous war in Iraq began in the media, where an unprovoked United States invasion of an Arab country was introduced as a legitimate policy option, then debated as a prudent and necessary one. Now, a similarly flawed media conversation on Iran is gaining momentum.

Last month, TIME's Joe Klein warned that Barack Obama administration sources had told him bombing Iran's nuclear facilities was "back on the table". In an interview with CNN, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Admiral Mike Hayden next spoke of an "inexorable" dynamic toward confrontation, claiming that bombing was a more viable option for the Obama administration than it had been for his predecessor, George W Bush.

The piece de resistance in the most recent drum roll of bomb-Iran alerts, however, came from Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic Monthly. A journalist influential in US pro-Israeli circles, he also has access to Israel's corridors of power. Because sanctions were unlikely to force Iran to back down on its uranium enrichment project, Goldberg invited readers to believe that there was a more than even chance Israel would launch a military strike on the country by next summer.

His piece, which sparked considerable debate in both the blogosphere and the traditional media, was certainly an odd one. After all, despite the dramatics he deployed, including vivid descriptions of the Israeli battle plan, and his tendency to paint Iran as a new Auschwitz, he also made clear that many of his top Israeli sources simply didn't believe Iran would launch nuclear weapons against Israel, even if it acquired them.

Nonetheless, Goldberg warned, absent an Iranian white flag soon, Israel would indeed launch that war in summer 2011, and it, in turn, was guaranteed to plunge the region into chaos. The message: the Obama administration better do more to confront Iran or Israel will act crazy.

It's not lost on many of his progressive critics that, when it came to supporting a prospective invasion of Iraq in 2002, Goldberg proved effective in lobbying liberal America, especially through his reports of "evidence" linking Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Then and now, he presents himself as an interlocutor who has no point of view. In his most recent Atlantic piece, he professed a "profound, paralyzing ambivalence" on the question of a military strike on Iran and subsequently, in radio interviews, claimed to be "personally opposed" to military action.

His piece, however, conveniently skipped over the obvious inconsistencies in what his Israeli sources were telling him. In addition, he excluded perspectives from Israeli leaders that might have challenged his narrative in which an embattled Jewish state feels it has no alternative but to launch a quixotic military strike.

Such an attack, as he presented it, would have limited hope of doing more than briefly setting back the Iranian nuclear program, perhaps at catastrophic cost, and so Israeli leaders would act only because they believe the "goyim" (non-Jews) won't stop another Auschwitz. Or as my friend Paul Woodward, editor of the War in Context website, so brilliantly summed up the Israeli message to America: "You must do what we can't, because if you don't, we will."

Goldberg insists that he is merely initiating a debate about how to tackle Iran and that debate is already underway on his terms - that is, like its Iraq War predecessor, based on a fabricated sense of crisis and arbitrary deadlines.

Last Friday, the New York Times reported that the Obama administration had convinced Israel that there was no need to rush on the issue. Should Iran decide to build a nuclear weapon (which it has not done), it would, administration officials pointed out, quickly make its intentions clear by expelling the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors who routinely monitor its nuclear work, and breaking out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). After that, it would still need another year or more to assemble its first weapon.

In other words, despite Goldberg's breathless two-minutes-to-midnight schedule, there's no urgency whatsoever about debating military action against Iran. And then there's the question of the very premises of the to-bomb-or-not-to-bomb "debate".

Perhaps, after all these years of obsessive Iran nuclear mania, it's too much to request a moment of sanity on the issue of Iran and the bomb. If, however, we really have a couple of years to think this over, what about starting by asking three crucial questions, each of which our debaters would prefer to avoid or ignore?

The right to fight
1. Does the US have a right to launch wars of aggression without provocation, in defiance of international law and an international consensus, simply on the basis of its own suspicions about another country's future intentions?

Or to put it bluntly, as former National Security Council staffers Flint Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett have: Does the US have the right to attack Iran because it is enriching uranium?

The idea that the US has the right to take such a catastrophic step based on the fevered imaginations of Biblically inspired Israeli extremists - Goldberg has previously suggested that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes Iran to be the reincarnation of the Biblical Amalekites, mortal enemies the ancient Hebrews were to smite - or simply to preserve an Israeli monopoly on nuclear force in the Middle East is as bizarre as it is reckless.

Even debating the possibility of launching a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities as a matter of rational policy, absent any Iranian aggression or even solid evidence that the Iranian leadership intends to wage its own version of aggressive war, gives an undeserved respectability to what would otherwise be considered steps beyond the bounds of rational foreign policy discussion.

Perhaps someone in our media hothouse could take just a moment to ask why, outside of the United States and Israel, there is no support - nada, zero, zip - for military action against Iran. In Goldberg's world, this may be nothing more than the eternal beast of anti-Semitism rearing its ugly head in the form of disdain for the rise of yet another Amalek/Haman/Torquemada/Hitler. A more sober reading of the international situation would, however, suggest that most of the international community simply doesn't share an alarmist view of what Iran's nuclear program represents.

Indeed, it is notable that, in Goldberg's world, Arabs and Iranians never get to speak. The Arabs, we are told, secretly want Israel or the US to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities out of fear that the acquisition of nuclear weapons would embolden their Persian rivals. They are, so the story goes, just not able to say so in public. When Arab leaders do publicly express their opposition to the idea of another war being launched in the Middle East, they are ignored in the Goldberg-led debate.

Similarly, their rejection of Washington's long-held premise that Israel's special security must be exempted from any discussion of the creation of a nuclear-free Middle East remains outside the bounds of the Iran-debate story. And don't expect to see any mention of the authoritative University of Maryland annual survey of Arab public opinion either. After all, it recently reported that, contrary to claims of an Arab world cowering under the threat of Iranian nukes, 57% of the Arab public actually believe a nuclear-armed Iran would be good for the Middle East!

The idea that Iran's regime might exist for any purpose other than to destroy Israel is largely ignored as well. Bizarrely enough, Iranians don't actually feature much in the American "debate" at all (beyond citations of mad-mullah-like pronouncements by some Iranian leaders who wish Israel would disappear).

The long, nuanced relationship between Israel and the Islamic Republic, as explained by Trita Parsi, author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States, is simply ignored. So, too, is every indication Iran's leaders have given that they have no intention of attacking Israel or any other country. In fact, in the Goldberg debate, domestic politics in both the US and Israel is understood as an important factor in future decisions; Iran, with the Green movement presently suppressed, is considered to have no domestic politics at all, just those mad mullahs.

The reason to fight
2. Even if Iran were to acquire the means to build a nuclear weapon, would that be a legitimate or prudent reason for launching a war?

If Iran is actually pursuing the capability to build nuclear weapons, its leaders would be doing so in response to a strategic environment in which two of its key adversaries, the US and Israel, and two of its sometime friends/sometime adversaries, Russia and Pakistan, have substantial nuclear arsenals.

By all sober accounts, Iran's security posture is primarily focused on the survival of its regime. Some Israeli military and intelligence officials have been quoted in Israel's media as saying that Iran's motivation in seeking a nuclear weapon would be primarily to head off a threat of US intervention aimed at regime change.

Most states do not pursue weapons systems as ends in themselves, and most states are hardwired to prioritize their own survival. It is to that end that they acquire weapons systems - to protect, enhance, or advance their own strategic position, or up the odds against more powerful rivals. In other words, the conflicts that fuel the drive for nuclear weapons are more dangerous than the weapons themselves, and the problem of those weapons can't be addressed separately from those conflicts.

An Iran that had been bombed to destroy its nuclear power program would likely emerge from the experience far more dangerous to the US and its allies over the decades to come than an Iran that had nuclear weapons within reach. The only way to diminish the danger of an escalating confrontation with Iran is to address the conflict between Tehran and its rivals directly, and seek a modus vivendi that would manage their conflicting interests.

Unfortunately, such a dialogue between Washington and Tehran has scarcely begun, even as, amid alarmist warnings, Goldberg and others insist it must be curtailed so as to avoid the Iranians "playing for time".

The need to fight
3. Is Iran actually developing nuclear weapons?

No, it is not. That's the conclusion of the CIA, the IAEA, whose inspectors are inside Iran's nuclear facilities, and most of the world's intelligence agencies, including the Israelis. US intelligence believes that Iran is using a civilian nuclear energy program to assemble much of the infrastructure that could, in the future, be used to build a bomb, and that Iran may also be continuing theoretical work on designing such a weapon.

Washington's spooks and its defense establishment do not, however, believe Iran is currently developing nuclear weapons, nor that its leadership has made the ultimate decision to do so. In fact, the consensus appears to be that Iran will not weaponize nuclear material, but will stop short at "breakout capacity" - the ability, also available, for instance, to Japan

, to move relatively quickly to build such a weapon.

Currently, as the New York Times reported, the time frame for "breakout", if all went well (and it might not), would be about a year, after which Iran would have enough fissile material for one bomb. (The Israelis, by comparison, are believed to have 200 to 400 nuclear weapons in their undeclared program, the Pakistanis between 70 and 90, and the United States more than 5,000.) In addition, a credible nuclear deterrent would require the production of not one or two bombs, but a number of them, which would allow for testing.

For ex-CIA director Hayden, such a breakout capacity would be "as destabilizing as their actually having a weapon". His is a logical leap that's hard to sustain, unless you believe that it's worth launching a war to prevent Iran from, at worst, acquiring a defensive trump card that might prevent it from being attacked.

Iran's enrichment activities are a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions backed by sanctions. Those were imposed to demand that Iran suspend its enrichment program until it satisfied concerns raised by IAEA inspectors over its compliance with the disclosure and transparency requirements of the NPT - especially when it came to aspects of its program which have been developed in secret, raising suspicions over their future use.

Three years before North Korea was in a position to test a nuclear weapon, it had to withdraw from the NPT and kick out IAEA inspectors. Iran remains within the treaty. Even as the standoff over its nuclear program continues, renewed efforts are underway to broker a confidence-building deal to exchange Iranian enriched uranium for fuel rods produced outside the country to power a Tehran reactor that produces medical isotopes.

None of this will be easy. The two main parties are trying to impose their own, mutually exclusive terms on any deal: Washington wants Iran to forego its treaty-guaranteed right to enrich its own uranium because that also gives it the potential means to produce bomb materiel; Iran has no intention of foregoing that right. Such longstanding pillars of foreign policy sobriety as Senator John Kerry and Colin Powell, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and secretary of state, have publicly deemed the US position untenable.

To suggest that Iran's present nuclear program represents the security equivalent of a clock ticking down to midnight is calculated hysteria that bears no relation to reality. Ah, says Goldberg, but the point is that the Israelis believe it to be so. Yes, replies former National Security Council Iran analyst Gary Sick, now at Columbia University, but the Israelis and some Americans have been claiming Iran is just a few years away from a nuclear weapon since 1992.

The premises of the debate just initiated by Goldberg's piece are palpably false. More important, they are remarkably dangerous, since they leap-frog over the three basic questions laid out above and move straight on to arguing the case for war amid visions of annihilation. This campaign of panic is not Goldberg's invention. It's been with us for a long time now. Goldberg is just the present vehicle for an American conversation initiated by others, among them those known in the Bush years as neo-conservatives, who have long been dreaming of war with Iran and are already, as Juan Cole recently indicated, planning for such a war under a future Republican administration, if not sooner.

Similarly, among Israelis, Netanyahu, in particular, believes that Americans are politically feeble-minded; he said as much to a group of Israeli settlers in a video that surfaced recently: "I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in [our] way."

Through Goldberg, the Israeli leader and his aides are seeking to "move America in the right direction" with dark tales of Auschwitz and Amalekites, and of Netanyahu himself as a hostage, in the Freudian sense, to a fierce and unforgiving father who won't tolerate any show of weakness in the face of perceived threats to the Jews.

Goldberg's sources, including Netanyahu, make it perfectly clear that they don't believe Iran would attack Israel. Instead, they warn that an Iranian nuclear weapon would embolden Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, although the logic there is flimsy indeed. After all, if Iran would not attack Israel on its own with a nuclear weapon, why would it do so to defend its insurgent allies?
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has suggested that a nuclear-armed Iran would prompt the best and brightest Israelis to emigrate, because they are clever people who can make a good life for themselves anywhere in the world.

Indeed, and they have been doing exactly that for many years now. Some 750,000 Israeli Jews now live abroad - one in every six Israelis - precisely because anti-Semitism is no longer a threat to Jewish life in most of the industrialized world. None of this has anything to do with an Iranian bomb. It has to do with the frustration of Israel's leadership that 63% of the world's Jews have chosen to live elsewhere.

Despite Goldberg's panic-inducing prediction, there are plenty of reasons to believe that, for all its bluster and threat, Israel won't, in fact, bomb Iran next year - or any time soon. But would the Israelis like to see the United States take on their prime regional enemy? You bet they would. Indeed, Netanyahu continually insists that the US has an obligation to take the lead in confronting Iran.

It's patently clear in Goldberg's piece that the Israelis are trying to create a climate in which the US is pressed onto the path of escalation, adding more and more sanctions, and keeping "all options on the table" in case those don't work.

In an excellent commentary that dismantles the logic of Goldberg's argument, David Kay - the American who served as an United Nations Special Commission arms inspector in search of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the US invasion - suggests that:

Israel is engaged in psychological warfare with the Obama administration - and it only partly concerns Iran ... [B]eyond Iran, of probably greater importance to the current Israeli government is avoiding the Obama administration pushing it into a choice between settlements and territorial arrangements with the Palestinians that it is unwilling to make and permanent damage to its relationship with the US. Hyping the Iranian nuclear program and the need for early military action is a nice bargaining counter ... if the US wants to avoid an imminent Israeli strike, it must make concessions to Israel on the Palestinian issues.

Creating a sense of crisis on the Iran front, narrowing US options in the public mind and precluding a real discussion of US policy towards Iran may serve multiple purposes for various interested groups. Taken together, however, they reduce all discussion to one issue: when to exercise that military option kept "on the table", given the unlikeliness of an Iranian surrender. The debate's ultimate purpose is to plant in the public mind the idea that a march to war with Iran, as Admiral Hayden put it on CNN, "seems inexorable, doesn't it?"

Inexorable - only if the media allow themselves to be fooled twice.

Tony Karon is a senior editor at TIME.com where he analyzes Middle Eastern and other conflicts.

Mousavi secrets 'put his life in danger' By Omid Memarian SAN FRANCISCO - Responding to pro-government critics, Iran's defiant opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, has said several times in recent months that he would reveal "untold secrets" from his tenure. Mousavi served as prime minister of Iran from 1981 to 1989, until constitutional changes abolished the post. He was a leading opposition candidate in Iran's contested presidential elections last year. Abolhassan Banisadr, Iran's first president after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, who now lives in France, told Inter Press Service (IPS) that he believes Mousavi's life is danger. "Many people who have had access to the regime's secrets or who have tried to reveal them have been murdered," he said. Last month, Banisadr published what he says is Mousavi's 1988 letter of resignation on his website, Enghelab-e Eslami. The letter was addressed to then-president Seyed Ali Khamenei, now Iran's Supreme Leader. Neither Mousavi nor any of the Iranian government authorities, including the Office of the Supreme Leader, has reacted to the letter's contents. In the letter, Mousavi explicitly speaks of terrorist activities carried out abroad and about which, he claims, his cabinet was not aware. In a part of the letter, Mousavi explains his reason for his resignation as his inability to carry out his responsibilities, saying: The operations abroad ... take place without the cabinet's knowledge or orders. You know better [than me] of their catastrophic and undesirable consequences for the country. We are informed only after an airplane is hijacked. We learn only after a machine gun opens fire on a Lebanon street and its sound can be heard all over. I am informed only after explosives are found on our pilgrims in Jeddah. Unfortunately, and against all the losses these actions have brought to the country, the likes of these operations could take place at any moment or any hour in the name of the cabinet. Many Iranian intellectuals and politicians have asked Mousavi to express his opinion about the 1988 mass executions of thousands of political prisoners and to explain his role in them. Recently, on the occasion of Reporters' Day in Iran, he addressed a group of newspaper editors, journalists, and families of arrested journalists. "We must view the 1988 events through their own historical vantage point and then ask whether the cabinet had any knowledge about these events or not? Did it play a role? Was it possible at all for it to interfere? Is there any mention of the cabinet in the documents and rulings?" said Mousavi. Banisadr, who was elected Iran's first president in 1980, fled to Paris after he was impeached by the Iranian parliament in 1981. In an interview with IPS, he addressed the authenticity of the letter, the dangers facing Mousavi after he threatened to reveal secrets, and the importance of revelations of the 1988 mass political executions in Iran. Excerpts from the interview follow. Inter Press Service: How did you gain access to this letter? Abolhassan Banisadr: This letter was published in 1988. We asked our friends to research its authenticity. They told us that it was authentic. Mousavi has not refuted its authenticity during all these years, either. IPS: What was the aim of those who leaked the letter to you? AB: We speculated at the time that the letter was leaked from Mr [Ruhollah] Khomeini's office [a leader of the 1979 Revolution]. Of course Mousavi himself could have leaked it. Or it could have been through Mr Khamenei, in order to make Mousavi look bad to Khomeini for revealing the regime's secrets. IPS: Several government officials have said amid political struggles that there are secrets they do not wish to reveal. How do you think the revelation of these secrets would impact Iran's internal politics? AB: Several people have been murdered in order to prevent the publication of certain secrets. For example, several people were murdered around the "October Surprise", or the story of the secret dealings about the release of American hostages. Inside Iran, Mr Mehdi Hashemi, Mr Omid Najafabadi, and their colleagues were murdered because of the information they had and published about the "Irangate Affair" [also known as Iran-Contra]. IPS: Why would Iranian authorities be concerned about what Mousavi might have to say? AB: It would destroy their legitimacy on the national level as well as the regional level among Islamic nations. IPS: There is mounting pressure on Mousavi for speaking about the 1988 political executions. How might revelations regarding one of Iran's darkest periods be costly for him? AB: It is definitely dangerous. Mr Mousavi's importance to this regime is not more than Ahmad Khomeini's importance [the late son of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini]. Ahmad Khomeini had a lot of information - his own son called him a treasure chest of the regime's secrets. When he started to make noises, he was eliminated. I believe, just as I did myself, that instead of threatening to say or do things, he must spit out the information spontaneously. This might guarantee him his life, because if they want to touch him then, the people of Iran and the world would say that he was taken out because he revealed the secrets. IPS: Why has the authenticity of Mousavi's letter not been denied by Iranian authorities? AB: Because it is real and authentic. If they say they did them [the incidents described], it would prove that the world was right in calling them a terrorist government. If they want to say they didn't do them, it would make the world laugh, because these actions did take place. The only thing they have said in the past is that renegade agents have done some things and the regime itself was not in the know. Now an individual who used to be the prime minister at that time is saying that the regime did know and the agents were carrying out orders. IPS: Why hasn't anything happened to Mousavi yet, even though his nephew was shot dead during the post-election period last year? AB: The most important reason is that Mr Mousavi and Mr [Mehdi] Karroubi were presidential candidates when that huge electoral fraud took place and the protest movement was formed to object to the election results. This movement was not only in Iran. It engaged the public opinion of the world. IPS: But a lot of people were killed and it was said that organizations such as the MEK [Mujahideen-e-Khalq - People's Mujahideen] or the rioters killed them. AB: Those people did not have the same clout as these two presidential candidates who persisted even after the elections. Arrests would not bring a lack of credibility - instead, they would bring credibility. A text was recently published on behalf of Mr Khamenei, saying that these two can be arrested anytime he wants, but that he is looking for a chance to convince people that these two [Mousavi and Karroubi] are not what they seem. IPS: What if a subject like the mass executions of 1988 could be comprehensively discussed in Iran, considering the fact that Ayatollah Khomeini is not alive now? AB: It would have an important impact. Mr Khomeini's handwritten note exists in which he says to execute the prisoners with a "yes" and "no" answer on a question. Three people are known to have been assigned to do the task. There were also people who encouraged Mr Khomeini to do this, even though he did not need much encouragement, because he had the motivation. Who were they? Mr Khamenei was the president, and Mr Hashemi Rafsanjani was the speaker of the parliament [Majlis]. So, it is obvious that these two did not make the slightest objection to that crime. Were they among the ones that encouraged this, and convinced Mr Khomeini to commit such a crime? Clarifying this issue is very important. Why? Since now one of those people is the Leader, and another is the Head of Assembly of Experts and the head of the Expediency Council. Mr Mousavi was the prime minister. Did he know or not? Was he in agreement or not?

Russia and America Hand-In-Hand In Afghanistan–the Ruse Is Over, the Cold War Was a Scam

24 08 2010

[Anyone who thinks that Putin and Obama are on the same team will find validation in the following piece.....]

NORAD-Russian joint air drill, bomber incursions and Canada’s F-35 jet purchase

By Jason Motlagh

From left: Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev meet in the Russian resort town of Sochi on Aug. 18....

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev played host last week to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the leaders of Pakistan and Tajikistan at the Black Sea resort of Sochi. The group’s second meeting in a year was a low-key affair, but the subtext was significant. Mounting Russian concerns that Islamist militancy and cheap drugs emanating from Afghanistan are a threat to its national security have made Moscow refocus on the region even as the U.S. and its NATO allies maneuver to draw down. Two decades after the Soviet army left Afghanistan in humiliating defeat, Russia is poised to spend billions in the war-wracked country to develop infrastructure, mineral and energy reserves, with new plans taking shape to boost military capability. This time around, it has America’s blessing.

Mutual interests intersect in the former Cold War battleground. Nearly nine years on, the Taliban-led insurgency is costing the U.S. more lives and money than ever before. With a July 2011 deadline looming for troops to begin their withdrawal, the Obama Administration has been angling for regional partners to step in and shoulder a greater share of the burden. Russia kept a safe distance in the years following the Taliban’s ouster, but it has been stirred to action by two issues: deadly Islamist terror attacks within its borders — inspired in no small part by the ideologies spreading from the war zone on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani frontier — and a spike in drug-related crime and deaths — more than 130,000 each year from heroin alone, most of which originates in Afghanistan.(From TIME’s archives: How the Soviet Union conquered Afghanistan.)

Over the past year, a series of contact groups from the U.S. and Russia have ramped up intelligence-sharing to combat the flow of narcotics from Afghanistan, the source of about 90% of the world’s heroin. In a June 9 op-ed in the Moscow newspaper Izvestia, Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, highlighted Russian contributions at length, hailing them as a major step forward in bilateral relations. But while Russia’s intelligence assets in ex-Soviet republics may have a modest impact on combating the trade, myriad other transit routes through Iran and Pakistan will complicate the efforts to curtail the supply line.(From TIME’s archives: How the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan.)

With more of the drug passing through its borders than any other country, Russian officials are convinced the scourge must be confronted at its source. Viktor Ivanov, the national drug czar, has in the past complained about what he sees as America’s reluctance to wage a drug war that could drive farmers into the Taliban ranks. And he’s right: under the current counterinsurgency strategy, drug eradication has become a lesser priority. “Of course the struggle against terrorism should take precedence, but what about liquidating drug production?” Ivanov said in May, wondering aloud why Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium and hashish despite NATO’s continued presence. In his latest meeting with his Afghan counterpart on Wednesday, President Medvedev stressed the nexus between drug trafficking and violent extremism, asserting that opium-poppy crops must be eradicated by any means necessary, including military strikes.

So far, Russian support of NATO operations has largely been limited to allowing ground shipments of nonlethal supplies to cross its territory and airplanes delivering weapons to fly through its airspace. Private Russian companies have been involved in transport logistics for years, of course. But Moscow may now actively complement NATO’s work in Afghanistan. At NATO’s behest, Russia is now negotiating the sale of at least 20 Mi-17 helicopters to the Afghan military — an interesting development given that the medium-sized craft were designed to fight the mujaheddin during the 1980s. Defense Minister Sergei Lavrov has also confirmed they will help train the Afghan air force and police, with a free shipment of weapons to kick things off.

Large-scale investment may also enter Afghanistan to help shore up the embattled Karzai regime — and to make money. Russian companies are currently trying to secure deals to upgrade dozens of Soviet-era installations, among them a $500 million plan to reconstruct hydroelectric plants and a similarly ambitious bid to build wells and irrigation systems in the Afghan countryside. Rosneft, the state-owned oil and gas giant, is exploring potentially lucrative gas fields in the north, while other companies are said to be hunting for minerals such as iron and aluminum. With big bucks to be made in a war economy, Russian officials and business leaders make no secret that they are out to help themselves to the spoils.

Moscow’s decade-long occupation of Afghanistan from 1980 to 1989 may have left the Russians with advantages. Many Soviet-educated Afghans who fled the country under the Taliban have since returned, adding a degree of competence to a fledgling government — with perhaps more affinity for Moscow than for Washington. And, according to Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan’s Center for Research and Policy Studies, ex-communists heavily represented in the upper ranks of the national police and army remain the backbone of the security establishment. “They are knowledgeable and well-trained and we have to rely on them until a new corps can fill the vacuum,” he says.(Comment on this story.)

Faced with bigger worries and less reliable neighbors, the U.S. and NATO appear willing to accept growing Russian influence. “At this point, we can’t afford to be too selective in terms of where we get help,” says one Western diplomat in Kabul. Indeed, the gathering flurry of activity in Afghanistan is a sign: Russia is back....

http://waketheflockup.com/

Leuren Moret exposes the Military in Hawaii

Leuren Moret Discusses MKUltra, Tavistock, HAARP & Mind Control

Leuren Moret says cruise missile hit Pentagon

Here's one more link:

Leuren Moret Methodology of Global Takeover 1-12


NORAD-Russian joint air drill, bomber incursions and Canada’s F-35 jet purchase
By Dana Gabriel

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the Russian Federation Air Force conducted a cooperative air defense exercise from August 8-11 that focused on combating terrorism....
Aug , 2010,

Elections & Voting
Diebold deal in Ohio ensures inaccurate elections
By Bob Fitrakis

The teaser in Thursday, August 12’s Dispatch proclaimed “Diebold deal helps counties.” It should have read, “Diebold settles lawsuits by offering free and discounted shoddy election hardware and software.”