" Resetting USA - RUSSIA Relations " one contract at a time....

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa60ah_us-diplomat-cia-spy-kyle-hatcher-in_news

Germany's ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is a legend in Russia... He serves Gazprom's interests for a measly couple of million euros a year, sits in on sessions of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and writes books about his staunch friendship with "Genosse Wladimir," who, in the not-so-distant past, earned himself the well-deserved nickname of "Stasi" among business circles in gangster-ridden St. Petersburg....

But it is not immediately obvious whether it is Schroeder licking Vladimir Putin's boots nowadays or vice versa. The two are building, or trying to build, the Nord Stream gas pipeline, an exceptionally costly project that satisfies twin strategic objectives. Demonstratively hostile to the interests of both Belarus and Ukraine, the pipeline is intended to ensure that these countries are under Russia's energy thumb, regardless of who is in power....

As a bonus, the pipeline will also consolidate the Russian economy's status as an appendage of Germany's — its supplier of natural resources. Some of Schroeder's predecessors as German chancellor sought to attain the same objective by rather different means....

The Kremlin's achievements in securing the help of Americans willing to offer their influence are equally impressive. Indeed, the Obama administration's Russia policy is being nurtured with advice from people who have no official position in the administration but who do have close business ties to Russia and the Kremlin: Henry Kissinger, James A. Baker, Thomas Graham and Dimitri Simes.

The first two are major geo-politicians; Graham and Simes are respected as outstanding Russia specialists. They write key reports for the administration, and shuttle between Moscow and Washington, coordinating the parameters of the Obama administration's effort to "reset" the bilateral relationship....

Like Schroeder, all these people are not economically disinterested. Baker is a consultant for the two companies at the commanding heights of the Russian economy, Gazprom and Rosneft. The Kissinger Associates lobbying group, whose Russian section is headed by Graham, feeds into the Kissinger- Primakov working group, a quasi- private sector effort, blessed by Putin, to deepen ties between Russia and the United States...

It is highly instructive to read the recommendations of these people and groups, as they unobtrusively render the objectives of their Kremlin clients into a language familiar to American leaders.

Graham's latest contribution, "Resurgent Russia and U.S. Purposes," is most revealing in this respect. The author finds the government of a "Russia getting up off its knees" to consist of progressive modernizers fully aware of the challenges facing their country as it attempts to "return to the great powers club."

To become a genuinely developed and "modern country," Graham continues, "in the coming decade Russia will need to invest at least one trillion dollars in modernizing its infrastructure. America and the West in general have a vital interest in seeing the modernization of Russia succeed. The lion's share of the technologies, knowhow, and a substantial proportion of the investment, needs to come from Europe and the U.S."

In addition to the technology and investments, Graham quietly slips in a foreign policy suggestion for the Obama administration that is sure to please the Kremlin: "Finlandizing" Ukraine. Unless that sort of appeasement is pursued, he warns, Russia will continue to oppose the U.S. "wherever and whenever it can."

According to Graham, "At the extreme, a weak Russia, with its vast resources and sparse population east of the Urals, could become the object of competition among the great powers, notably China and the U.S."

That unspoken help-us-develop-or- we'll-let-the-Chinese-do-it threat is a logical development of Putin's homily at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, where he advocated decisive action to end the world economic crisis. His recipe? Western countries should write off half a trillion dollars' worth of debt owed to them by the Russian state corporations run by his pals from the Dresden KGB and the Ozero dacha cooperative. But no amount of money will succeed in modernizing Putin's kleptocratic regime, which has already squandered trillions in oil wealth.

Simply put, the Putin system is institutionally and intellectually antithetical to the task of modernization.

Graham's only error in his presentation is his attempt to frighten the administration with a hypothetical confrontation between the U.S. and China over Russian resources. This is not his area of specialization. Kissinger works personally with the Chinese account, jointly propounding with his longtime rival Zbigniew Brzezinski the notion, so seductive for an America growing weary of its imperial burden, of a global Big Two.

Here is a recent sample of Kissinger's geopolitical arts: "The role of China in a new world order is crucial. A relationship that started on both sides as essentially a strategic design to constrain a common adversary has evolved over the decades into a pillar of the international system . . . The Sino-American relationship needs to be taken to a new level. This generation of leaders has the opportunity to shape relations into a design for a common destiny, much as was done with trans-Atlantic relations" after the war.

No doubt Kissinger believes every word he wrote, but his ideas also honestly articulate the aspirations of his customers. It's just that not all customers have the same motives.

One wants to get his hooks into a further trillion dollars that it can pick away at, while the other wants to become "a central construct of the system of international relations." In both cases, the customers are getting the influence for which they are paying....

For Such a Time as This.....

The Sino-Russian Axis and Security Challenges for Transatlantic Relations...

This paper examines the strategic implications of the interplay between NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). The author sheds light on the possibility of the SCO counterbalancing the influence of NATO in Central Asia and describes possible flashpoints where the US and its allies might be pulled into a regional conflict. The paper also provides background information on Chinese-Russian relations and attempts by Russia to divide NATO's unity.
© 2009 Institut für Strategie- Politik- Sicherheits- und Wirtschaftsberatung (ISPSW)
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English (PDF · 15 pages · 349 KB)

Series:
ISPSW Publications
Publisher:

Institut für Strategie- Politik- Sicherheits- und Wirtschaftsberatung (ISPSW), Berlin, Germany

Europe and the EU, major losers in the Asian Energy chess game

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8090104.stm

Europe and the EU, major losers in the Asian Energy chess game

When the Kremlin proposed Khabarovsk as a possible venue for the European Union-Russia summit meeting of May 21-22, Vaclav Klaus, Czech president who holds the revolving EU presidency, reportedly warmed up to the idea....

http://rpc.senate.gov/releases/1997/iran.htm


Khabarovsk has nothing to match the architectural ensemble in Prague. But the frontier town in the Russian Far East, nine time zones from Brussels, can be a delightful watering hole of boulevards named after Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx and Alexander Pushkin, where a lapdance is hard to steer clear of, especially after a shot of fiery Siebierka vodka. It seems Klaus sold the splendid idea to Jose Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, and Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief.

But it was a cultural misstep of the first order that could have leaped out of E M Forster's classic novel Passage to India. The Kremlin was making a strategic point in the harsh world of Eurasian politics. Nothing symbolizes Russia's complex ties with China better than the old Cossack settlement of Khabarovsk.

Khabarovsk is at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri rivers, hardly 30 kilometers from the Chinese border. Five-and-a-half days after the Trans-Siberian left Moscow, you could sit in the dining car for a late breakfast and almost peep into snow-clad China as the train hugged the border and stealthily approached Khabarovsk.

Russia plays "China card"

By proposing Khabarovsk, as the Moscow publication RBC Daily noted, "Russia was reminding Europe about Asia". The Kremlin was surely hoping that the EU's "Troika" could see "China is just across the border ... Russia's patience is not limitless. Europe is by no means the only potential consumer of Russian gas; and if Brussels continues to ignore Russia's interests, exports may be redirected elsewhere."

However, the post-summit press conference in Khabarovsk showed that the "Troika" either didn't see or impetuously decided not to take cognizance of what it actually saw. The press conference turned out to be a spectacle of recriminations. Clearly, EU-Russia strategic partnership is in tatters. Russia sees the EU's Eastern Partnership, launched in early May, as an affront to its legitimate interests in the post-Soviet space, while Brussels maintains Moscow has nothing to worry as Eastern Partnership is only a benign attempt at sharing influence in Eurasia.

The Khabarovsk summit followed a series of energy conferences that EU convened recently in pursuit of its search of diversifying energy supplies by creating a "Southern Corridor" from the Caspian and Central Asia to Europe that bypasses Russia. Moscow sees the venture as essentially geopolitical and detects Washington's hand in it.

After surveying the debris of the Khabarovsk summit, Moscow issued its strictest warning so far to the EU last Friday that it was close to playing the "China card". It came at the level of the powerful Kremlin boss, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin. He said, "Whatever amounts they [China] ask for, we have the gas." He revealed that Moscow would put forward its proposals during Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Russia to attend the 2009 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg next Monday.

Indeed, Russia has already wrapped up a massive US$25 billion loan-for-oil deal with China in April. China has agreed to lend $10 billion to the Russian oil pipeline monopoly, Transneft, and another $15 billion to the state-run oil major, Rosneft, at a discounted rate of 6% in exchange for assured supply of 15 million tonnes of Russian oil annually for the next 20 years also at a discounted price. The Russian supply is equivalent to about 4% of China's daily fuel consumption.

China commenced the construction of a crude oil pipeline on its side of the border in Mohe in Northwest China's Heilongjiang province on May 19. Vice-Premier Wang Qishan who was present at the ceremony acknowledged, "Energy cooperation plays a vital role in Sino-Russian strategic cooperative partnership". He stressed the pipeline will go into full operation by the end of 2010. The construction of the Russian section of the pipeline with a total length of 64 kilometers started on April 27. The Chinese section runs for 965 kilometers.

There is a proposal to boost the pipeline capacity to 20 million tons. Under the agreement, China and Russia will jointly build and operate the pipeline from the Siberian city of Skovorodno to China's northeastern city of Daqing via the Chinese border town of Mohe.

The vice-president of PetroChina Co, China's largest oil and gas producer, described the project as a win-win deal for the two countries "as it helped diversify China's oil import as well as Russia's oil sales". The government newspaper China Daily commented, "China's push to gain resources as the credit freeze, the collapse of the [Russian] rouble and the depressed global commodity prices prompts countries such as Russia to sell energy assets ... cash-rich Chinese oil firms are eager to secure a steady supply of oil to power the country's growth in anticipation of an economic recovery".

The newspaper revealed that PetroChina gained approval at its annual shareholders' meeting to raise as much as 100 billion yuan (US$14.6 billion) this year to finance key projects including exploration, refining, oil and gas pipeline networks and overseas operation.

China accesses Yolotan-Osman

Thus, Beijing watched the Khabarovsk summit with intense curiosity and took note that the differences between Russia and the EU do not lend to easy resolution. Needless to say, that opens a window of opportunity for Chinese energy diplomacy in the Caspian.

For one thing, Russia will now be more inclined than ever before to pay attention to China's burgeoning market for gas. Russia at present has virtually no gas exports to China, whereas Beijing is hugely expanding the share of gas in the country's total use of energy. In fact, the intake of gas is being doubled this year. China can, therefore, absorb all the gas that Russia can supply. So far, in its craze for the European gas market, Moscow has shied away from the Chinese market. But that fixation now promises to change.

More important, China visualizes that a stalemate is prevailing in the Caspian sweepstakes. It may not last long, but a power vacuum of sorts has lately developed, as Russia's hold is under sustained Western assault. The EU and the US one side and Russia on the other are locked in a zero-sum game, while the Central Asian producers are eager for customers. China knows nature abhors vacuums. It has done the sensible thing under the circumstances by putting forth its own bid on terms that neither the EU nor Russia can possibly match at the moment.

Beijing has made a beeline for the main theatre of EU-Russia rivalry - Turkmenistan - and simply waded into one of the greatest gas fields known to exist, South Yolotan-Osman. The Turkmen government on Saturday announced Beijing's offer to lend $3 billion to develop the vast gas field. President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov stated in Ashgabat on Friday: "The deposits at South Yolotan alone, if it produces 50 bcm [billion cubic meters] of gas annually, could produce enough gas to supply any state for 100 years."

Last October, the well-known British petroleum consulting firm Gaffney, Cline and Associates (GCA), which was contracted by Ashgabat, reported that its low estimate for Turkmenistan's Yolotan-Osman gas field could be 140 trillion cubic feet (tcf) while the high estimate was touching 500 tcf. If the gas field has even 210 tcf, that will make South Yolotan-Osman one of the five largest gas fields on earth. (In comparison, Daulatabad, which is currently Turkmenistan's largest gas field, has an estimated 50 tcf Russia's giant Shtokman holds 140 tcf.)

The big question for the near term has been: who will get the best access to South Yolotan-Osman gas? Will it be Europe or Russia? We now have the answer - China.

The Chinese diplomacy proceeded hand-in-hand with the work on the 7,000-kilometer pipeline from Turkmenistan to China with a whopping capacity to deliver 52 billion cubic yards of gas annually, which will be completed by the end of the year.

Ironically, Ashgabat announced the Chinese offer when the Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov was holding consultations in Brussels. The spin-doctors in Brussels happily interpreted Meredov's visit as "a sign of Ashgabat's growing frustration with Russia". True, strains have appeared lately in the Russian-Turkmen energy equations. Simply put, Moscow is unable to lift the agreed annual volume of 50 bcm Turkmen gas at the contracted price of $340 per bcm. The sharp drop in gas prices on the one hand - global market price is heading toward $200 per bcm - and Europe's reduced imports due to the economic recession on the other make nonsense of the Russian-Turkmen gas transactions. Ashgabat is peeved.

The West hopes to exacerbate the strains. A sustained Western campaign to woo Berdymukhamedov has been apparent. The US commentators were certain that the "psy-war" was making headway when Ashgabat recently granted German company RWE the prospecting rights off its shores in the Caspian Sea. Ashgabat's move was promptly interpreted as the manifestation of a "new hue" in the EU-Turkmen ties to the detriment of Russia.

At the root of the "Great Game" is the stark reality that if the "South Corridor" projects are to see the light of the day, Ashgabat must commit to sell its gas directly to the European companies without Russian middlemen. In other words, Washington and Brussels must kick Russia out of the Turkmen energy market. It is a tall order, as Moscow too has immense reserve leverage in Ashgabat. More important, Ashgabat will forever remain wary of the West's hidden agenda on human-rights issues and "color revolutions", no matter Washington's current soft-pedaling on such issues.

Ashgabat is no doubt having a whale of a time playing the EU and the US against Russia, and then playing the whole lot of them "occidentals" against China. The Turkmen grasp of the bazaar is a legion. We do not know the terms and conditions of the Chinese loan for Yolotan-Osman but they are bound to be incredibly soft, which cash-strapped West or Russia cannot match in the present hard times.

China in South Pars

China is proceeding according to a set agenda. Beijing steers clear of the shrill rhetoric of the Caspian Great Game that we constantly hear from the US, EU and Russian capitals. Nor has Beijing any use of the extravaganza of "energy summits" that the EU specializes in. Certainly, Chinese diplomacy in the Caspian never brags about its success stories. It is secretive, result-oriented and purposive. The most fascinating part is that Beijing is not indulging in one-upmanship - at least, openly. It knows Central Asians respect discretion. It doesn't speak disparagingly of either the Russians or the Europeans and the Americans.

In particular, it takes care not to ruffle Russian sensitivities. Its measure of success lies insofar as it is poised to advance its energy cooperation with both Russia and Central Asian countries. Arguably, it suits Moscow as well that it is China rather than the EU which is succeeding in the Caspian. So long as Europe's energy dependence on Russia remains at its current level, Moscow remains content.

Equally, China's latest foray into the Iranian gas scene will be welcomed by Moscow. On Wednesday, China National Petroleum Corporation [CNPC] and the National Iranian Oil Company signed a $4.7 billion deal to develop upstream phase 11 of the South Pars field with an estimated reserve of 14 trillion cubic meters, which is enough to supply Europe's gas needs for a quarter century.

France's Total had originally signed a memorandum of understanding in 2000 to execute the project but retracted under US pressure. As Iran moves slowly into the gas export market, Moscow will be pleased with more Chinese deals (and with the proposed $7.5 billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline from South Pars). Moscow's preference is that Iran shapes up as a regional gas exporter in the huge Asian market.

Beijing will step up its energy diplomacy in Iran in the coming period. Its focus will be to pre-empt the Western oil majors. It will try to optimally exploit the window of opportunity that is fast closing. Beijing will anticipate that by the year end there is a strong likelihood of the US-Iran engagement accelerating. US President Barack Obama said in a BBC interview on Tuesday that "Although I don't want to put artificial timetables in that [US-Iran] process, we do want to make sure that by the end of this year we've actually seen a serious process move forward. And I think that we can measure whether or not the Iranians are serious."

Unless Washington's engagement of Tehran breaks down, which seems highly unlikely given the high stakes for both sides, the Iranian energy scene is destined to become a turf of intense international competition within the coming six months to one year. China's objective, therefore, will be to gain access to as much of the Iranian reserves as possible and work out the evacuation of supplies either via the Turkmen-China gas pipeline (which can have a loop connecting Iran) or through the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline on which the formal agreement is likely to be signed in Ankara on June 14.

As in the Caspian, the race for Iranian gas pits China against the European countries rather than against Russia. The Kremlin made a big point in organizing its summit meeting with the EU in Khabarovsk...

US Agenda and Foreign Policy

US Agenda & Foreign Policy


In order to understand the present US foreign policy we need to understand the various global political agendas of various groups in the US. Depending on the administration one group or the other or a combination of these groups will be in power....Oil and Islam. Will America Shift Away from Its Past Unilateralist Policies?


Agenda-1: Neo-Con Agenda


This agenda's main philosophy is making US super powerful even at the cost of other nations or other people. People who follow this agenda are generally Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld etc. The present US administration is mainly controlled by the people who believe in this ideology. This group believes that

1. US should be the only leader/king nation in this World. US should be able to subjugate any nation which does not follow US order (famous words "you are with us or against us"). This implies only US needs to have most sophisticated weapons. As there are some nations which already have nukes, hence this group wishes that US develop more sophisticated weapons like "space nukes" by which they can even control nuclear weapon states. This also involves discouraging and also threatening other nations who wish to develop nukes.

2. This group believes only pure White Christian Americans should rule the World. They believe in a hierarchy of power structure based on the races and religions. In their belief US comes first and next comes Europe's some main states like UK, France, and Germany etc. Next in the order are Israel, Russia, China and India. The bottoms of this list are Islamic nations like Pakistan, Iraq, Iran etc.

3. This group also believes US should have the first right on entire World's resources. Presently if they don't have such a right they try to get that control through various means. Adding to this if US can't have the resource then make the region messy so that no other nation will be able to use those resources.

4. This group also believes that there should be continuous conflict in the Middle East so that US will have complete control over the resources. This group also wants to have a permanent US military in this region so that they control the region better.

5. This group supported and wanted the "Iraq War" mainly because it showed the World US military strength (by hanging Saddam) and they wish to have permanent presence in Iraq. They really don't really care about the chaos in Iraq as long as US causalities are minimum. The logic is that as long as Iraq is under civil war the resources are used by none. And the US force in Iraq will enable it control the control the wreaked country after few years of civil war. The only problem now is that US causalities are increasing daily and it is becoming difficult with US electorate (Republicans lost US congress).

6. This group doesn't mind India having nukes as long they are minimal and US has control over India's foreign policy. Adding to this India's nukes will never be a threat to US as US will develop more sophisticated nukes by which small time nuclear states like India will be no match.


Agenda-2: Conservative Agenda



This is a slightly milder version of Neo-Con agenda. This is basically a modified colonial agenda. This agenda involves making US a superpower and making other powerful nations like China, Russia, Europe perpetually dependent on US economy and technology. This group mainly believes in using political and financial strengths of US. The best example of a person who propagates this agenda is "Henry Kissinger". The US administration which closely resembles this agenda was Ronald Regan's US administration.

1. This agenda involves "Anglo-White" imperialistic World order (Ronald Regan + Margaret Thatcher does this ring the bell?). This group in the olden times used to believe in colonial power structure. In order to maintain power these people employ generally the following strategies viz. creating client states by bribing the leaders or continuously keeping certain regions of the World under conflict or arming the guerillas. These strategies fail with democratic states and hence the US never creates any democratic state. US only created puppet client states.

2. This agenda involves sharing the World resources only with the worthy nations or people. The first in the list of worthy nations are obviously the western nations. Reluctantly these people have come to the conclusion that they need to share some resources with China. Adding to this China is managing the US administration very
intelligently.

3. This group believes in creating huge number of client states globally like Iran under Shaw, entire Latin America under dummy governments etc. These people don't like if a country becomes extremely nationalistic. They try some way or the other to create problems. They hate the present Venezuela's president Chavez as his
policies are complete contrary to their political vision.

4. This group also supported and wanted the Iraq war. The reason is that after 911 attack they felt the "Anglo-White" order was threatened and US needed to show them (Muslims and others) who controls the World. This was the reason Henry Kissinger said just attacking Afghanistan was not enough after the 911 attacks; US needed to remove Saddam also. His exact words were "we need to teach them a lesson". Teach whom the answer is obvious!!

5. This group after winning the Iraq war would have setup a puppet Iraq regime and left the country once satisfied the Iraq's resources are under their control. These people will be satisfied if Iraq becomes a client state like Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately the present Iraq war has strengthen Iran as US will be leaving Iraq in about a year.

6. This group also supports India-US nuclear deal but want to make sure US is getting enough in return for their "kindness". Like support for squeezing Iran etc. These people always hated India's independent foreign policy as it gives ideas for other states and also their opponents. They must have wished for India's democracy to become failure as that didn't happen they wish to control India through some
carrots. Adding to this India's independent behavior didn't fit in their "Anglo-White" supremacy principle.


Agenda-3: Realistic Agenda


This agenda is followed by people like Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright etc. This involves making the US a World leader by proving to the World that US is the only country which can solve all the World's problems (because US is powerful and has money). This group is neither racists nor anti-religious. This group believes in pluralistic World order having leadership centered on US. This group has lot of
intellectuals.

1. This group is willing to cut down some US nuclear weapons if other countries are willing to give up their nuclear weapons. This vision will never happen because as Agenda-1&2 groups will block any attempt to make US a less nuclear weapon state. Remember the way they have rejected the CTBT during Clinton's regime.

2. This group will try to settle the World's disputes with whatever way it is possible, which may not be fair and they try to create balance. Generally they have soft corner for Islamic nations, I guess because they are more noisier. As India is a soft state they squeeze India.

3. This group will always try to keep India and Pakistan at the same level. And they will always support Pakistan over India. The main reason being by supporting Pakistan they get extra leverage with other Islamic nations.

4. War is the last resort for this group and they try to rally all the nations if they wish to punish a dictator like Saddam.

5. This group wants neither India nor Pakistan have any nukes. Hence they will try very hard to push both these countries for peaceful talks (remember during Clinton's time Vajpayee invited Musharaff). This group is very bad for India remember the sanctions slapped on India after the 1998 nuclear tests.

6. This group will aggressively push NPT and they are not happy with the India-US nuke deal. They agreed for the deal as they could get NPT+CTBT in the final deal. US have already tightened the NSG rules so that India is denied any help if US decides not to support India. India will end up in multi-level Tarapore traps with this US-India nuclear deal.


Agenda-4: Puritan Agenda


This is a highly fair agenda for the World. These people are very honest and sincere. People like Howard Dean (Dem) follow this agenda. They neither want the US to be the World leader nor a superpower. They want total Worldwide nuclear disarmament (including US) and US not getting involved in World's conflicts. These people would like the US to become like Canada. As we all know Islamic terrorists only want to bomb US but they are not bothering with Canada.


Conclusion

I have always noticed US administration following Agenda-1 or Agenda-2 or Agenda-1+2 or Agenda-2+3 only. Agenda-4 is purely academic. Even Clinton administration followed Agenda-3+2, it was not purely Agenda-3. I have also noticed India gained maximum by making deals with US administration that follows Agenda-1 or Agenda-2. Other US administrations (i.e mainly Agenda-3 administrations) generally sermon India rather than helping India with anything worth mentioning.

It is always better for India to evaluate the behavior of all the groups before getting in to any deals with US. Most of the times US gives guarantees only orally which means they are valid only for that administration, while they extract perpetual guarantees from the other nations. The best example is India-US nuclear deal. The conditions attached by the US congress may be considered as advisory by the present Bush administration but the next president of the US most certainly will act differently.

Energy security, diplomacy and pipeline corridors in EURASIA

Energy security, diplomacy and pipeline corridors...all over EURASIA


The high probability is that United States President Barack Obama's Muslim speech on June 4 from Cairo will not contain specifics. Most wise men underscore that the charismatic statesman should stick to values rather than waste breath on substance.

True, that is a safe route for a great orator like Obama. Values resonate in Obama's magnificent voice. Grand speeches, after all, can hardly be a good platform for policy-making.

However, substance, fresh substance, and lots of it - that's what Middle Easterners impatiently seek to hear from the youthful president. With native Levantine wisdom dipped in wit, prominent columnist Rami Khouri wrote, "No offense, but nobody in the Middle East really cares about Obama's ancestors or youth years, or his views on other religions. What we care about - and what the US president should explain on this trip - is whether the US government believes that habeas corpus and the Fourth Geneva Convention, for example, apply with equal force to Arabs as well as to Israelis.....and to American Forces worldwide....and about the ICC double standards....."

Equally, for southwest Asians tuning into the Cairo speech, the big question is what the US president can offer by way of renewed momentum to his AfPak strategy, which vacillates between failure and avoidance of failure. What the US needs is a grand idea that can decisively propel the AfPak strategy over the barren, stony, steep ridge onto the lush green valley that lies beyond. Cairo could just be the platform from where to introduce such an idea.

It won't happen, but the idea exists. It has been around and may seem a hackneyed idea but it is still a workable one, which, if fleshed out, could potentially become a solid underpinning of the AfPak strategy. The fantastic thing about it is that in a manner of speaking, it is also a "Muslim idea", as it engages the US with two countries in the topmost rungs of the Islamic world.

It is not only cost-effective but also eminently profitable, as it concerns the priceless commodity of natural gas. Most important, it creates a geostrategic matrix involving some of the key countries that can make all the difference between success and failure of the AfPak strategy - Iran, Pakistan, India and China.

The time has come for the US to take a serious look at the idea that it should be the promoter of a natural gas pipeline project leading from Iran's gigantic, untapped South Pars fields to Pakistan and further on to India and possibly extending all the way to China's heavily populated southeastern provinces.

As the US's direct engagement of Iran gets going after the presidential election in Iran later this month, Obama will come across the dilemma of prompting Iran to think on the "right track": how to make Iran a "stakeholder" in the region? Offering hot dogs to Iranian diplomats at garden parties on Independence Day in the sprawling American chancelleries is one way of doing it, but Iranians have sharp bazaar instincts and are unlikely to be impressed. Releasing spare parts for Iran's aging fleet of Boeing aircraft could be another way, or the opening of an Interest Section in the Iranian capital, but Persians aren't rabbits nibbling at carrots. Persians settle only for grandiloquent, sweeping conceptions.

No doubt, the moveable feast of US-Iran engagement needs a tantalizing confidence-building measure as an "appetizer". Iran's archaic energy sector could just provide the right quarter. Iran's oil industry desperately needs technology and modernization. And income from oil is Iran's lifeline. Iran's managerial cadres and technocrats have a high opinion of American oil technology. Big Oil needs no introduction to Iran, either. The Chinese would say this is a "win-win" situation.

Provided, of course, Big Oil moves fast. The Europeans are ahead of it, and so are the Russians. The race for Iran's South Pars promises to be a photo-finish. As a perceptive American expert put it, the signing event of the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project in Tehran on May 24 by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari "illustrates the obsolescence and, increasingly, the futility of an 'isolation' policy that tries to keep Iranian gas locked in the ground".

Russia's Gazprom is poised to join the Iran-Pakistan project, no matter the US sanctions. "We are ready to join as soon as we receive an offer," Russia's Deputy Energy Minister Anatoly Yanovsky said. That offer may well be made to the Russians on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit meeting scheduled to take place in Yekaterinburg in Russia on June 15, which brings together the leaders of Iran, Pakistan and Russia (and China and India). The Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline meshes with the grand idea that former Russian president Vladimir Putin (now premier) floated four years ago - a SCO "energy club".

Gazprom executives have done their homework. According to Kommersant newspaper, Gazprom can act as a contractor for the pipeline construction work and as the operator of the pipeline even after its completion. Also, Gazprom is keen to get access to gas volumes from South Pars which it could then sell to India.

Russia is keen that Iranian gas is diverted to the Asian market. Kommersant quoted a Russian official as saying, "This project is advantageous to Moscow since its realization would carry Iranian gas toward South Asian markets so that in the near future it would not compete with Russian gas to Europe." Moscow is enormously experienced in the gas market. It anticipates that gas demand in the Asian market is bound to go up exponentially once the current recession is over.

In political terms, Moscow visualizes that once the US engages Iran directly in the very near future, the enforceability of US sanctions will dissipate overnight and therefore, it is necessary to strike ahead of potential Western competitors.

To be sure, from the US perspective, there is a lot more to the South Pars area than highly lucrative business. The Iran-Pakistan pipeline project is one of those rare business deals where geostrategy comes into play from day one. Consider the following.
Making Iran a stakeholder in regional stability will immeasurably strengthen the hand of the US's AfPak special representative Richard Holbrooke when he negotiates a "grand bargain" with Tehran for Afghanistan's stabilization. In short, the gas pipeline project can be a vital component of Holbrooke's "regional initiative". Diplomacy gains in momentum when it deals with tangibles.

Holbrooke should also speak to the Indians to shed their reservations about participating in this project. Delhi is presently holding back for two or three reasons, which seem tenuous at best. One, Indians are wary of having anything to do with a capital-intensive project that involves Pakistan. They say Pakistanis are an unpredictable lot and might cut off the gas supplies, which could put in jeopardy billions of dollars worth of downstream investments in the Indian economy.

They say the ground situation in the Pakistani province of Balochistan through which the pipeline passes is highly volatile and disruptions in supplies can ensue. Finally, Indians are ostensibly unhappy with the price structure offered by Tehran. At the back of it all, there are unspoken considerations. First, Delhi is upset that Tehran retracted on a massive gas deal that Delhi thought it had wrapped up in 2004.

Second, Delhi is petrified as to what Washington would think if it stepped out of line and dealt with Iran so long as the US-Iran standoff continued. Then, there is the increasingly influential pro-Israel lobby within the Indian establishment. On top of it all, there are powerful Indian energy conglomerates that are the driving force behind the government's energy policies and who fear the price for gas in India's opaque gas market will be affected once Iranian gas enters the Indian grid.

But Obama can easily wade through this South Asian mumbo-jumbo. Arguably, he is the only man under the sun today who can do so. The Indian strategic community would be hard-pressed to say "nyet" if he proposed. Therefore, Washington should step forward as the guarantor of an Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project. At one stroke, that takes care of the Indian elite's angst.

Obama should tell Indians that the huge gas pipeline project is the right thing to do for stabilizing the India-Pakistan relationship and for putting it on a predictable footing. The relationship is inherently brittle because it lacks content. Content engenders mutuality of interests, creates leverages and locks partnerships. Washington's regional policies stand to gain if the India-Pakistan relationship is stabilized and therefore, Obama is an interested party.

Big Oil should also play a part in the project on the lines Gazprom offered. In fact, one of the biggest energy markets in the world opens up in the Indian sub-continent in terms of activities such as developing a South Asian gas grid, retail trade and petrochemical industries.

China will be eager to join the South Asian gas pipeline project. In strategic terms, the US has an opportunity to get Iran, Pakistan, India and China on board on one single project. The strategic implications for US regional policies are far-reaching. The Cold War experience on the European theater is that mega-pipeline projects can act as stabilizers in East-West relations.

If German policies toward Russia are transforming so visibly today, the principal reason is the bond that ties them together via energy deals. The proposed North Stream project will accentuate the trend in German-Russian ties; Russian-Italian relations gain from the South Stream and Russian-Turkish relations from the Blue Stream pipeline.

In the ultimate analysis, the answer to South Asian region's severe instability lies in economic development. An editorial in Pakistan's Dawn newspaper said: "Fears have been expressed that the turmoil in Balochistan will threaten the security of the pipeline since a great length of the 1,000 kilometers inside Pakistan passes through that province which borders Iran. Islamabad could convert this factor to its advantage if it can ensure that in the construction of the pipeline indigenous labor is hired and the gains of the economic activity generated by projects of such magnitude are focused on Balochistan for the benefit of its poverty stricken people."

Obama would know that according to hearsay, the troublesome, one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar got onto a motorbike and rode into the night towards these very same poverty stricken people of Balochistan for shelter when he was driven out of Kandahar in the winter of 2001.

The US's regional policies must, therefore, refocus. Whereas today India and Pakistan are locked in a deathly dance - with Indians determined to become the pre-eminent military and nuclear power in the region and Pakistanis ensuring that doesn't happen - Obama can gently initiate them into the Third Way.

No American president in living memory has had Obama's measure of humanism. Cairo could have been the platform from where Obama spelt out an "AfPak dream", to use the words of Dr Martin Luther King....

This is the time for Islamabad to exploit Washington’s desperation. SecDef Robert Gates is pleading Asia to support America’s failed Afghan project, while his colleague the U.S. Treasury Secretary is begging China to continue financing the U.S. government. The Americans are behind a Sunni militant group fighting for secession in Iran’s Baluchistan and another ethnic militia in Pakistan’s Balochistan. The U.S. media leak on American weapons going to Afghan militants is a cover-up meant to hide what the Pakistani Army has discovered in Swat, that terrorists are using sophisticated American [and Indian] weapons to kill Pakistanis. Islamabad needs to end the American highhandedness, beginning with limiting CIA outposts in Pakistan.

—The latest scare story on Pakistan’s nukes is a breath of fresh air. Instead of the unnamed sources, which have been the basis for the anti-Pakistan demonization campaign in the U.S. media, this time we have no less than President Obama’s point man on South Asia, M. Bruce Riedel, coming out with an op-ed that leaves little mystery in the debate over whether Washington is exploiting terrorism to target Islamabad’s nuclear weapons arsenal.

Mr. Riedel is one of the key proponents of the theory that the Pakistani military needs to be transformed into a little more than a glorified local police force watching out for U.S. interests. It is pointless to counter the arguments of such determined imperialists who are shamelessly interfering in Pakistan. What is more important at this stage is to understand how our supposed ally has taken us for a ride and how we need to exploit the new American desperation in the region to get a better deal than the one currently in hand.

There is a growing body of evidence that the U.S. is supporting terrorism in our region to further its strategic objectives. In Iran, a secretive sectarian group is trying to rally the people of Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan province for secession from Tehran. In Pakistan’s Balochistan, an ethnic group has risen from the dead to campaign for secession. The only thing common to both groups is that they emerged after the U.S. landed in Afghanistan and turned that poor country into a source of region-wide destabilization. So much for fighting terror.

The Pakistani military has also admitted over the weekend what Pakistan’s pro-U.S. government has been hiding for months. The weapons that the terrorists – the fake Pakistani Taliban – are using to kill Pakistanis are coming primarily from U.S. and India. The Pakistani military leadership first confronted Adm. Mullen and CIA Deputy Director Stephen Kappes about this in a secret meeting in Rawalpindi last July. As in all insurgencies, the terrorists in our northwestern belt are a mix of local elements bolstered by professional fighters from U.S.-controlled Afghanistan. The Pakistani military has squeezed these terrorists so hard now that there is little doubt where the support for this anti-Pakistan terror campaign is coming from. To avoid embarrassment, Washington quickly ‘leaked’ a story that U.S. weapons meant for the Afghan army have reached insurgents. The timing of the leak conveniently coincides with the Pakistani army catching the American double game pants down.

Some members of the Karzai puppet regime have privately confirmed to Pakistani officials that they are incapable of stopping Indian terrorist activities on Afghan soil.

None of this will stop unless Pakistan firmly puts the leash on CIA outposts inside Pakistan. There is no question that CIA and Pakistani spy agencies were allies during the 1980s. But let us not forget that the CIA station in Pakistan recruited twelve insiders and used them to plan sabotage from within before being busted by chance in 1978.

Now the U.S. strategic interest in the region is largely divergent from that of Pakistan’s. U.S. officials, like Mr. Riedel, have little respect or appreciation for Pakistan’s right to have its own national security perspective and not rely on U.S. think tanks to adopt one. Today, Pakistan is paying for the blank check that our government and intelligence agencies gave the Americans on the ground in Balochistan and the tribal belt.

America is desperate in Afghanistan. U.S. officials have launched a fresh charm offensive to pacify the alienated Pakistanis. A panicked and bankrupt Washington is also trying to scare Asia into doling out money to save America’s failed occupation in Afghanistan. This is the time for Islamabad to demand Washington cease all the propaganda about Pakistan’s nukes, about the fabled ten billion dollars in aid, and stop turning the world against Pakistan. The elected government needs to muster some guts to confront Washington on this instead of leaving all the tough talk to Pakistani military leadership.

There is a golden opportunity out there to put a leash on CIA activities in Pakistan which we had consented to after 9/11. The American goal posts have shifted. Pakistan is no longer bound by the same deal....

A New Ottoman Empire, Deciphering the Davutoglu Doctrine....

A New Ottoman Empire, Deciphering the Davutoglu Doctrine....

ISTANBUL -- This week, Turkey assumed the presidency of the United Nation's Security Council, and while that may just be a passing story in most countries, here it is a big deal.

"This is very important and a big responsibility for our country," said Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu--and he should know. Davutoglu has been the chief architect of Turkey's neo-imperial foreign policy that envisions a far greater role for this pro-western Islamic country than as an aspiring second-tier member of the European club.

No one was surprised last month when Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan appointed his longtime political adviser Davutoglu as the Foreign Minister. The soft-talking professor--who was also an adviser to President Abdullah Gul--has largely been responsible for reshaping Turkey's foreign policy over the past six years, moving it away from its isolationist roots and toward a role as a self-declared regional power broker in the Middle East.

Turks love the spotlight that has come from efforts to mediate between Israelis and Syrians, act as peacekeepers in Lebanon and host high-profile world dignitaries. They got a kick out of seeing their globetrotting leader Erdogan in a face-off with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Davos.

The official television station TRT has recently started to refer to Turkey as a "global power." These days, the book du jour in Turkish power circles is Stratfor/CIA founder George CIA Friedman's The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century. It predicts...../desires....in the traditional disinformation specialty of Stratfor....and Friedman's CIA scheming...... the rise of a hegemonic Turkish empire in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire.....sensing a genuine rapprochement in the caucuses anathema to CIA's likings.....

All that talk may be premature, but not for Davutoglu.

Meeting the Turkish foreign minister, you would never guess that you are talking to one of the most powerful figures in the Middle East. Davutoglu is a short, even-tempered man in his fifties who talks, in fact nearly mumbles, with a relaxing half-smile that gives you the momentary hope that the world's most vicious problems are actually not that difficult to solve. He is more avuncular than imposing, more monotonous than charismatic.

From Damascus to Tel Aviv, regional leaders have been talking to him as the best private channel to the decision-makers in Ankara--making him the most influential consigliore in the history of the modern republic. His book Strategic Depth is a must-read for diplomats coming to Turkey. He has been at the heart of every critical diplomatic initiative over the last few years--from lobbying to attain U.N. Security Council membership for Turkey to conducting secret Israeli-Syrian mediation efforts.

It's not power for power's sake. There is a whole political theory behind the Davutoglu Doctrine. In a nutshell, instead of defining Turkey as the eastern flank of the Transatlantic Alliance, Davutoglu sees it as a pivotal country ("merkez ülke"), the centerpoint of concentric power circles. The governing Justice and Development Party, or AKP, does not see the European Union as an end goal, and does not regard Turkey's western orientation as its sole strategic axis. Instead, they talk of multiple axes of alliances to solidify Turkey's leadership in the Muslim world.

But not everyone is happy about the New Turkey. To his critics, Davutoglu is responsible for the neo-Ottomanist revisionism in foreign policy that values Muslim solidarity over the secular nation's long-standing alliance with the West. He was partly blamed in media for Turkey's refusal to open a northern front for U.S. troops in the Iraq war, as well as Ankara's controversial invitation to Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in 2006.

Davutoglu defended both decisions by pointing out that Turkey, in each case, made more gains than losses. Ankara currently differs from the European and American positions on numerous issues, including relations with Russia, the role of Hamas in Israeli-Palestinian issues and Darfur, where the AKP government openly supports the regime of President Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court.

But even his critics agree, AKP reign has somehow elevated Turkey's stature as a democratic Muslim country and an independent actor in the Middle East. Among his fans, including leading members of the Islamist-oriented governing party, he has somewhat of a cult following, "Before AKP, no one in the mainstream media had heard of his name, but in our circles he was a legend. We used to think of him as the next Ozal," says a conservative journalist with close ties to the government.

Born in Konya, Turkey's conservative heartland, Davutoglu is a pious man who has spent a good chunk of his academic career teaching in Malaysia--somewhat unusual among Turkish academics, who gravitate toward European and American colleges for academic research. South Asia's brand of Islamic politics, marked with the growth of religion within a democratic framework, impacted his thinking on state and society. He has been very active in the Balkans with efforts to help Muslims in the Bosnian war. His particular view of Turkey as seen from the outside has led to the development of an unconventional understanding of its place in the world stage.

Davutoglu's vision somewhat differs from traditional Turkish foreign policy. Weary of troubling imperial baggage and decades of wars, the modern Turkish republic, founded in 1923, has predominantly been isolationist--aimed at anchoring Turkey to the "civilized" West and untangling it from the "backward" lands to the East. The AKP challenges this view and sees an active role in the Middle East as an asset for Turkey's relations with the West.

Under AKP, Turkey has been delving into areas that its traditional westward-looking foreign policy establishment considered off-limits, acting as a power-broker in far off disputes from Afghanistan to Palestine. In doing so, it certainly has become more enmeshed in the Muslim world, sometimes even positioning itself as the spokesman for the Islamic world, as reflected in Erdogan's outburst in Davos against Peres, or Turkey's reluctance to accept Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the head of NATO, due to his stance during the Danish cartoon crisis.

When Davutoglu coined the term "Neighborhood Rapprochement Policy" back in 2003, the idea of Turkey becoming friends with its arch enemies--like Syria, a rogue state that hosted Kurdish guerilla leader Abdullah Ocalan for many years, Iran, whose efforts to export Islamic revolution threatened Turkey's secular foundations, or Armenia, with its unyielding diaspora lobbying against Turkey--seemed pointless, at best.

Today, Turkey is best of friends with historical enemies Greece, Syria and Iran, on course to normalize its relations with Armenia and even talking to the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq. Journalists who used to scoff at Davutoglu's theories nowadays generously throw around his terminology, like "zero conflict with neighbors," "flexible focal point" and, of course, Turkey as a "global power."

Conservatives who tend to credit Davutoglu with raising Turkey's influence through a non-aligned foreign policy were encouraged by President Barack Obama's visit here in April. Speaking to lawmakers in Ankara, Obama said, "Turkey's greatness lies in your ability to be at the center of things. This is not where East and West divide--this is where they come together." He sounded almost like Davutoglu himself.

One major problem with Davutoglu's policies has always been the question of what would happen domestically if Turkey traded its place in the West in return for a greater regional role. While Turks enjoy their high-profile role in the Middle East, there are pitfalls. Typically the farther a nation moves from the West and its mechanisms, the more likely it is to see a rise in illiberal tendencies.

Russia, for example, is a very important country, but its independent status is precisely what makes it impossible for the U.S. to pressure Vladimir Putin or Dmitry Medvedev for accountability when it comes to corruption, a free press or democratic norms.

What if Turkey were no longer a candidate for E.U. membership. Would human rights be as closely monitored? Media freedoms and minority rights still protected? Women's rights guaranteed?

No one knows the answer. But Turks seem to like the ride.

North Korea, Nukes and the Missile defense shield.....

There are two forces at work here. North Korea's neighbors are now formulating a strategy to counter a clear cut case of nuclear proliferation in their "neighborhood". They are united in their opposition, but they will now have to agree upon a universal course of action.... This will take some time. The wild card is Japan. If North Korea has a developing and growing nuclear weapons program, Japan may be inclined to change their constitution and start their own nuclear weapons program .... a feat that can be done very quickly. This change in policy will send shock waves throughout Asia....

The other "force" is in the Middle East....

Iran is now looking at developments in Asia, and are realizing that the cost of having a nuclear weapons program is not that steep .... if there is a cost at all... In turn, I believe that this will only embolden the Iranian Government to speedup and pursue their own program ..... and they will do so in the open. The wild card is Israel, and on how they may react .... but for the moment the Iranians are looking at Asia.

The development of an Iranian nuclear weapons program will also change the dynamics of the region appreciably. Do not be surprised if Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt start to develop their own programs also .... and they will do so with the blessings of Europe and from the U.S.A.... This will also send shock waves throughout the region....

......North Korea’s latest round of saber-rattling will be front and center in the coming national debate over missile defense, perhaps prompting some lawmakers to think twice about the Obama administration’s plan to reshape the military.

After the hermetic Stalinist country set off a nuclear device and test-fired several short-range missiles this week, conservative lawmakers and former officials linked the event to their decades-long drive to increase funding and support for a worldwide missile “shield” designed to detect and destroy ballistic missiles fired at the United States or its allies....

.....The original purpose for the U.S. missile defense program was to never be a counter to the then Soviet Union as such....?, but to be used as a tool against rogue nations like North Korea and their missile programs. In short .... the missile program was never envisioned to stop hundreds of missiles .... but to stop a few from a smaller power.

This is the debate that is now going to happen .... and for proponents of the U.S. Missile Defense program .... they definitely now feel comfortable (thanks to North Korea) that they can make their case.....

http://www.janes.com/defence/naval_forces/news/misc/aegis010425.shtml

Pakistan has developed a second-strike Nuclear capability

Pakistan may have developed a second-strike capability to again attain nuclear parity with India even as the United States has breathed new life into long-dormant talks in Geneva for a multi-nation treaty to cap production of bomb-making fissile material.

The Pakistani breakthrough was disclosed in a US Congressional report prepared last month, amid growing concern in world capitals about the safety and security of its nuclear arsenal even as Islamabad is reported to be accelerating and expanding its nuclear program.

''Pakistan has reportedly addressed issues of survivability through second strike capability, possible hard and deeply buried storage and launch facilities, road-mobile missiles, air defenses around strategic sites, and concealment measures,'' the Congressional Research Service (CRS) said in a May 15 report to US lawmakers.

The reported breakthrough ties in with President Asif Ali Zardari’s statement in late 2008 that Pakistan will not be the first to use nuclear weapons against India, in what was virtually an offer of a no-first use pact. The statement, pilloried by hawks in the Pakistani establishment, was seen at that time as an off-the-cuff remark by an inexperienced leader eager to make peace with India.

But it now appears that it stemmed from new-found confidence that Pakistan has developed a second-strike capability.

India’s has long had an official no-first use policy because its nuclear stance is based on a defensive posture that factors in surviving a first strike and then retaliating. In contrast, Pakistan has deliberately adopted a first-strike policy, in part because of its smaller and more vulnerable arsenal. That aspect now appears to have been addressed by ensuring survivability – through dispersion, concealment and enhanced security and protection.

The CRS report offered some clues as to how Pakistan came to develop its second-strike capability. It transpires that as the US prepared to attack the Afghan Taliban after September 11, 2001, President Musharraf ordered that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal be redeployed to ''at least six secret new locations.''

''This action came at a time of uncertainly about the future of the region, including the direction of US-Pakistan relations,'' the CRS report notes, adding that ''Islamabad’s leadership was uncertain whether the US would decide to conduct military strikes against Pakistan’s nuclear assets if Islamabad did not assist the US against the Taliban. Indeed, it recalls, President Musharraf cited protection of Pakistan’s nuclear and missile assets as one of the reasons for Islamabad’s dramatic policy shift.

Such exigencies, including the military face-off with India in 2002 following the attack on India’s parliament by Pakistani terrorists, appear to have compelled Islamabad to ensure survival of its nuclear arsenal from a first strike.

The disclosure of proliferation by A Q Khan also pushed Pakistan into developing better security systems.

The CRS report recalls that US plans to secure Pakistani nuclear weapons in case of a loss of control by the Pakistani government were ''famously'' addressed in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s confirmation hearing in January 2005.

In response to a question from Senator John Kerry asking what would happen to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in the event of a radical Islamic coup in Islamabad, Secretary Rice answered, ''We have noted this problem, and we are prepared to try to deal with it.'' The report also notes that the Pakistani Foreign Office spokesperson subsequently said that, ''Pakistan possesses adequate retaliatory capacity to defend its strategic assets and sovereignty.''

To the extent Pakistan attains the same status and adopted the same posture as India, some analysts reckon it might help defuse tensions arising from Islamabad’s past display of eagerness to use its nuclear weapons in any confrontation with India. But experts also caution that the dispersion of the weapons -- the key to survivability and second-strike capability -- has its downside, including making it vulnerable to any attempted jihadi snatch.

''The guardians of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal currently sit on the horns of a dilemma: Consolidation of Pakistan’s nuclear assets would protect most effectively against insider threats, while dispersion of Pakistan’s nuclear assets would protect most effectively against preemption by external threats,'' notes Michael Krepon, co-founder the Stimson Center and an expert on risk reduction in the region.

Disclosures about Pakistan’s advances in nuclear weapons survivability came even as Washington achieved an important breakthrough in Geneva, where the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament decided to resume talks on the so-called Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), aimed at capping production of bomb-grade material.

The initiative was led by the US, replete with excess of fissile material, while it was largely resisted by countries such as China, India and Pakistan, each of which believed it did not have enough fissile material to deter its rival further up the nuclear hierarchy.

But on Friday, the 12-year old deadlock on the issue was broken, amid mounting concerns over developments in Pakistan and North Korea.

The breakthrough came on the heels of President Obama’s landmark April 5 speech in Prague, where he revived Washington’s non-proliferation agenda starting with slashing US. and Russian arsenals, adopting the treaty banning all nuclear tests, and negotiating a ''new treaty that verifiably ends the production of fissile materials intended for use in state nuclear weapons.''

The previous Bush administration had said such a pact could not be verified by inspections and monitoring.

The Appalling Truth be told

As much as seven months before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Administration was deeply involved in planning and mobilizing for the invasion and military occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan. None of the activity was remotely related to Osama bin Laden or counterterrorism of any stripe.

This is the fundamental truth, it is beyond dispute, and it is fully documented.

The incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq were premeditated, hegemonic wars of conquest and territorial occupation, to gain the geostrategic control of Middle Eastern energy resources. Bald acts of unprovoked military aggression, they are direct violations of the charter of the United Nations. The wars are therefore international crimes, but they were not undertaken until the horror of September 11, 2001 provided a CIA/DIA/MOSSAD/MI6 spectacular smokescreen. A fraudulent label--the “war on terror”—was concocted to disguise the premeditated violence, and it was quickly unleashed.....

Obama has admitted that the U.S. was involved in the Iranian coup in 1953.

When will the U.S. admit that the U.S. was not only "involved", but - as documented by the New York Times - Iranians working for the C.I.A. in the 1950's posed as Communists and staged bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected president (see also this essay)?

And when will America admit that - as confirmed by a former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence - that NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism. As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: "You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security."

And when will we admit that - as confirmed by recently declassified documents - in the 1960's, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. If you view no other links in this article, please read the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings?

Because the important admission is not that the U.S. helped with a coup, but that America and virtually all other powerful nations throughout history have used "false flag terror" as means to political ends.....as well as the use of the infamous White House Murder INC, for decades and multiple False Flag attacks as well.....

Encircelement of RUSSIA ia a Bipartisan Policy goal....

The Georgian upstart overplayed his hand, reflecting divisions among Western states on strategy in the Caucasus.

The US has always pursued a 'Grand Area' strategy. In this design, whole areas of the planet are presumed to be under its command. American planners had an unprecedented opportunity when the USSR broke down

Contrary to some opinion, the placing of 'lily-pads' in the Caucasus and Central Asia did not begin under Bush or after 9/11, but under Clinton in 1997. Encirclement of Russia is a bipartisan policy.

The US political class is less divided. McCain is staking out the most belligerent territory, but Obama is catching up rapidly. His foreign policy advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has compared Putin to Hitler and complained that Western access to crucial oil pipelines will be cut off by Russia's action - which suggests that any administration that takes his advice would be far more aggressive toward Russia than the Bush administration has been.

Obama wants to pour troops into Afghanistan and shore up the Central Asian frontier. Brzezinski has already supplied the rationale for this in The Grand Chessboard: "Eurasia is the world's axial super continent. A power that dominated Eurasia would exercise decisive influence over two of the world's three most economically productive regions, Western Europe and East Asia

Eurasia accounts for 75% of the world's population, 60% of its GNP, and 75% of its energy resources. Collectively, Eurasia's potential power overshadows even America's."

In this account, control of the Middle East is a secondary aim.

You may recall Obama's sabre-rattling toward Pakistan

It would seem that US control of its Pakistani ally is tenuous, and that the US has to threaten it with a bit of ultra-violence to keep it in line.
So Obama was being perfectly realistic about what he might be expected to do.

In his most recent book, Second Chance, Brzezinski offers a future president the purported means to reverse America's declining power. One of his recommendations is to pay more attention to Russia, disrupt its increasingly close relationship with China and make a concerted effort to contain Putin's efforts to restore Russian power. Brzezinski, I suspect, is speaking for a lot of people in the American establishment. So, don't buy the line that Obama is just tail-coating McCain when he talks tough about Russian aggression. It is an integral component of the global 'Grand Area' strategy of a significant component of US power.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

One of the most strident anti-Russian voices was that of former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, a supporter of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. In comments to the British Guardian and the German Die Welt, he compared Putin to Hitler and Stalin, and the Russian intervention in Georgia to the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939. “Georgia is to an extent the Finland of today, both morally and strategically,”

Brzezinski pointed to the central role of oil, particularly the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline built over the last decade with US support to bring oil from the region to the world market, bypassing Russian territory. “If Georgia no longer has its sovereignty, it means... that the West is cut off from the Caspian Sea and Central Asia,”

The strategists of US imperialism have broader interests than oil, however. Brzezinski himself has long sought the breakup, not only of the old Soviet Union, but of the Russian republic which comprises the bulk of the land mass of the former USSR. As the Guardian observed Monday, “The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is only a minor element in a much larger strategic equation: an attempt, sponsored largely by the United States but eagerly subscribed to by several of its new ex-Soviet allies, to reduce every aspect of Russian influence throughout the region, whether it be economic, political, diplomatic or military.”

The breaking up of INDIA is approaching fast...

The breaking up of INDIA is approaching fast...

http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2009/12/did-us-special-forces-carry-out-mumbai.html

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1947392,00.html#ixzz0ZgzNJGMa

clipped from: www.bharat-rakshak.com

FAILED STATES

India is ringed by failed / failing states.

• Pakistan

• Nepal

• Bangladesh

• Myanmar

Failed /failing states export instability, terrorism, religious fundamentalism, arms and drugs

CHINA

On our North, in addition, we face China, the guru that influences / or uses as proxy other countries mentioned earlier in every possible way to weigh India down.

capabilities are more important than perceived intentions, as China has demonstrated not only to India but also to the world. It has intelligently diverted international focus away from itself to North Korea, Pakistan and countries like Iran. For example, in the six country nuclear talks with North Korea , it is Beijing that calls the shots. It can switch on or off the negotiations at its will

PAKISTAN

since its creation, Pakistan has perpetually been resorting to war and export of terrorism to appropriate more Indian territory. Pakistan faces a negative profile of indoctrinated and unemployed youth trained in Islamic Jehad Factory against us. The obsession to harm us ultimately allured Pakistan to become rent-a–state country. It lives on others money. Despite being broke, Islamabad continues to fuel anti-India activities through Nepal and Bangladesh with impunity. India remains the target and operating ground for Islamic fundamentalists and terrorist groups orchestrated by ISI

New Delhi needs to evolve an alternative strategy to comprehensively defeat the adversary’s nefarious activities that poses military, nuclear and demographic inversion threats. This is a do-able proposition provided our elders can think beyond the overwhelming burden created by the inherited fault line.

New Delhi needs to move on three axes simultaneously

• New Delhi –West Asia ,

• New Delhi–Southeast Asia and

• New Delhi–Central Asia .

Out of the three, the most critical is the New Delhi-Kabul-Tehran-Moscow axis, on two counts. First, for centuries this is the route of invasions and will remain so.
Second, as the second largest consumer of oil and gas in Asia , and as one of the engines that will power the world economy, energy security is the most critical factor in India ’s national security calculus.

This resource rich territory will fall prey to Pak sponsored Talibanisation if India and other countries do not preempt it.'

it may be prudent for American capital to join hands with the Indians in a JV
This will in turn check the destructive influence of Islamabad and balance the Chinese strategic thrust

NEPAL/MAOIST

Nepal continues to slip into the Chinese sphere of influence due to counter-productive policy by New Delhi

In Nepal , the Maoists have a sizeable influence in 45 of the 75 districts, their most formidable presence being in mid-western Nepal . The Maoists have linked up with the Peoples War Group (PWG) in India . The latter in a bid to expand its influence has carved a corridor encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh–Madhya Pradesh–Chhatisgarh–Orissa–West Bengal–Jharkhand–Bihar as shown in the map. This corridor that has been formed with ease depicts the Indian Fault Line with stark clarity on ground.

· Combine the bleak picture above with Bangladesh and Myanmar borders and the Indian Fault Line engulfs most of the eastern half of the Union

. Insurgency in varying degrees impacts on the Northeast with the exception of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh and has trans-border dimensions with Myanmar and Bangladesh .



The 21 to 65 km wide and 200 km long narrow Siliguri corridor between Nepal and Bangladesh is delicately poised when also considering China in the north. This corridor threatened by Kamtapuri insurgency and demographic inversion by Bangladesh can cut off the only land link to the Indian Northeast and in such an eventuality supplies will have to be maintained by air.

Consequently, Bhutan may also slip into the Chinese sphere of influence.

There is already a nexus between Maoists in Nepal and ULFA in Assam and is being enlarged to include PWG in India and Islamic terrorist groups in Bangladesh . With Dacca ’s geographical interface with five Indian states i.e. West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram; Indian security stands threatened by: demographic assault, arms and drug smuggling, and safe havens for Indian insurgent groups.

Islamic groups in Bangladesh under ISI tutelage, Saudi finance, and China ’s patronage, have become more vicious, thus adding another dimension to India ’s security headache.

if a vertical line from Central Uttar Pradesh southwards to Eastern Andhra Pradesh were drawn, it would lead to an ineluctale observation that India ’s Eastern Half is in turmoil. The Western Half is not only relatively progressive and peaceful but also generates most of the wealth along with the South

Just imagine the result if the Eastern Half along with Kashmir can be put in order through development and bold counter-measures, to ensure the requisite peace and stability, conducive to generation of wealth.

The battle of the ports... India Vs. China, US Vs. ???

clipped from: acorn.nationalinterest.in

The 218-km road connecting Delaram (on the Kandahar-Herat highway) to Zaranj, on the border with Iran has been completed.
It will provide landlocked Afghanistan an alternative access to the sea, the Iranian port of Chahbahar, allowing it to break free from Pakistan’s traditional stranglehold.

it remains to be seen if Iran will prove to be a better neighbour than Pakistan.
For Afghanistan, this is an opportunity to regain better access to the Indian market that it lost in 1947. For India, it is an opportunity to regain better access to Central Asia that it too lost in 1947.

US MILITARY SUPPLY ROUTE TO AFGHANISTAN

The Taliban has all but shut down the Pakistan supply route to Afghanistan. Russian routes are an option. The other option is to use the Iranian port of Chahbahar. The Indian government has spent over $1 billion to construct a multi-lane highway from the western Afghan city of Heart to the Iranian border to meet up with the road from Chahbahar. Some form of political deal with the regime in Tehran would enable the US and NATO to redirect most, if not all, the traffic that currently goes to Karachi—providing they retain control over Herat.



CHINA ALSO HAS A PLAN

clipped from: http://gawadarinnltd.com/page_1161468194468.html

In fact, Gwadar enjoys the status of a third Deep Sea Port of Pakistan which has a special significance with reference to trade links with Central Asian Countries, Persian Gulf, East Africa, United Arab Emirates and North Western India.

The Gwadar project came about as a result of a Sino-Pakistan agreement in March 2002, under which China Harbor Construction Corporation will build the port.

Beijing has provided $198 million for the first phase of the project and Islamabad's contribution has been $ 50 million. The scope of phase-1 includes construction of three multi-purpose berths each 200 meters long and capable of handling vessels up to 30,000 DWT.

By virtue of its excellent location, Gwadar port is also visualized to become a regional hub serving incoming and outgoing commercial traffic of the Middle Eastern and Gulf countries, the Xinjiang province of China, Iran in the west and Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in the south and east.



According to some sources, Beijing also intends to take advantage of Gwadar's accessible international trade routes to Central Asian republics and Xinjiang. The plan envisages extending China's east-west railway from the border city of Kashi to Peshawar.

The incoming and outgoing cargo from Gwadar can then be delivered to China through the shortest route from Karachi to Peshawar. The same road and rail network can also be used for the supply of oil from the Gulf to the western provinces of China.

Additionally, China could also gain rail and road access to Iran through Pakistan's internal road and rail network. Use of Gwadar port by China should accelerate the growth and development of the port and the hinterland and enhance its overall commercial and strategic value.

India is helping develop the Chabahar port and that would give it access to the oil and gas resources in Iran and the Central Asian states, in this it is competing with the Chinese which is building the Gwadar port, in Pakistani Baluchistan.

Iran plans to use Chabahar for transhipment to Afghanistan and Central Asia while reserving the port of Bandar Abbas as a major hub mainly for trade with Russia and Europe.



India, Iran and Afghanistan have signed an agreement to give Indian goods, heading for Central Asia and Afghanistan, preferential treatment and tariff reductions at Chabahar

Work on the Chabahar-Melak-Zaranj-Dilaram route from Iran to Afghanistan is in progress. Iran is with Indian aid upgrading the Chabahar-Melak road and constructing a bridge on the route to Zaranj. India's BRO is laying the 213-kilometer Zaranj-Dilaram road. It is a part of its USD 750 million aid package to Afghanistan.

The advantages that Chabahar has compared to Gwadar are the greater political stability and security of the Iranian hinterland and the hositlity and mistrust that the Pakistani Baluchis hold against the Punjabi dominated Pakistani Federal government. The Baluchis consider Sino-Pak initiative at Gwadar as a strategy from Islamabad to deny the province its deserved share of development pie. They also look with suspicion on the settlement of more and more non-Baluchis in the port area.

The Chabahar port project is Iran's chance to end its US sponsored economic isolation and benefit form the resurgent Indian economy. Along with Bandar Abbas, Chabahar is the Iranian entrepot on the North - South corridor. A strategic partnership between India, Iran and Russia to establish a multi-modal transport link connecting Mumbai with St. Petersburg. Providing Europe and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia access to Asia and vice-versa.