KIrkuk, Iran and the Kurds' vision

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/144/combustible.html

Iran's strategy to break Iraq into three component territories, and to dominate those territories in order to reduce regional opposition and to gain unfettered access to Syria and the Mediterranean as a result of the Western invasion of Iraq in 2003, has had profound success.

The country is now, at best, a federation, with elements of a slide toward confederacy or even the breaking away of some territory. Iran dominates, and will increasingly dominate, the Shi'a-controlled central heartland and the Government of Iraq, particularly when US and Coalition forces depart. Iraq's northern — and predominantly Kurdish — region is now virtually an independent state. It is certainly an autonomous state.

And yet the solution which Tehran sought — the break-up of Iraq — may hold more problems for it than a unified Iraq, as the modern Iraqi state was created under British tutelage in 1922. Indeed, the Kurds, who had been financially swayed by both Baghdad and Tehran for decades, may feel sufficient strength that the foundations of a sovereign state can be laid. That sovereign state would — as the Iraqi Kurds have made clear — have aspirations on territory inside Iran, in Syria, and, significantly, Turkey (and possibly Azerbaijan and Armenia). In that respect, the Turkish-Iranian-Syrian rapprochement could not have come at a more propitious time.

This reality, too, fuels the momentum in Ankara toward phasing out its strategic relationship with Israel. A Turkey-Armenia-Iran arrangement would help curtail Kurdish dreams of unity (even though the Kurdish tribes have historically been anything but trusting of each other, in many respects). And, fueling Ankara's concerns has been the heavy Israeli commercial involvement in the autonomous Kurdish region since the collapse of the Saddam Hussein Government in 2004.

The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, under the newly-appointed Prime Minister, Dr Barham Salih, has just begun to flex its muscles, and resents the fact that the the additional 48 seats created in the Iraqi Parliament (from 275 to 323) gave only three additional seats to the Kurds as a result of the November 8, 2009, election law. Clearly, under US pressure, the new law was designed to give the electoral process greater appeal to the Sunni Iraqi population who had boycotted the 2005 elections, but while the redistricting alienated the Kurds — who felt betrayed — it also did not win over Sunni support. The dissatisfaction with the new election law has meant that national Parliamentary elections, scheduled for January 31, 2010, are likely to be postponed, voiding the Constitution, and dampening the hope of the US Barack Obama Administration to have US troops very symbolically withdrawn by August 2010, in time to give Obama and his Democratic Party a fillip for the November 2010 US Congressional mid-term elections.

Resolving the election law, to permit the 2010 Parliamentary elections, will be no easy matter. The law ran into immense difficulties in Parliament after it was initially passed on November 8, 2009, and may undergo more compromises, and certainly more delays, before an acceptable bill is finally approved. The bill, after all, determines the power of the respective ethnic and confessional groups in Parliament.
For the moment, however, energy issues and private financial arrangements (including the financing of some Kurdish and Shi'a leaders by Iran) are holding all the players together, including the Iraqi Kurds, who need to feed into the Eurasian energy pipeline network via Turkey. Equally, however, in the medium- to long-term, Iraqi Kurdistan might see its interests best served by realigning with Baghdad in order to move petroleum out from the oilfields of Kurdistan — or, more accurately, the Turkmen areas now being dominated by Kurds — and across Iraqi territory to the Persian Gulf, or through Iraq to Jordan and its Red Sea port of Aqaba. Israel has even offered the prospect of rebuilding the pipeline which once linked Iraq with the Mediterranean across what is now Israel.

The outlook, then, is fluid.

It should not be forgotten that, although the Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Maliki, is Shi'a, President Jalal Talabani is Kurdish, and both he and the Prime Minister have been very close to the Iranian leadership for some time. The Shah of Iran told this analyst in the mid-1970s that most of the key Kurdish leaders were in his pay, but particularly the late Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader, Mustafa Barzani, who was succeeded as Barzani clan leader and as head of the Barzani-dominated PUK, by his son, Masoud Barzani, 63, who is now President of the KRG. The Kurdish-Iranian relationship is one, then, based on mutual distrust but mutual need. The Iranian Government does not hesitate to clamp down heavily on potential Kurdish dissidence inside Iran, and has recently done so.

Meanwhile, the KRG is moving rapidly to build an autonomous Kurdish standing army, which would supercede, and abolish, the various tribal armies run, for example, by the Barzani clan, and other tribes.

In a bid to stem the power of the increasingly-autonomous KRG based in Erbil, the Central Iraqi Government in 2010 had decided to close three of the four military academies in Iraq; two of them were in the Zakkho and Qalachwalan districts of the Kurdish region. The Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Peshmerga (essentially, Kurdish fighters) — the KRG's Ministry of Defense — has, in late 2009, taking preparations to open two special colleges belonging to the Ministry to substitute for the Qalachwallan and Zakho military colleges.

Jabar Yawar, General Director of the KRG's Ministry of Peshmerga, said in November 2009 that the Kurdish region's share in the Iraqi Army was now only 8.2 percent, whereas it should be 22 percent according to Region’s real population share. Kurdistan Region Minister of Peshmerga Affairs Sheikh Ja’far Mustafa said that there was a Iraqi Central Government political purpose behind the decision to close Qalachwalan and Zakho military colleges, which had been built largely with Kurdish funds. “The institutional government [ie: the KRG] should certainly possess a regular army, and this is a historical need to unify Peshmerga Such a regular army will help other security forces to provide the security for Kurdistan Region’s people,” Mustafa said. He said in November 2009 that there were negotiations to organize the Ministry of Peshmerga forces, and to form military units. “The last decision has been decreed concerning the existence of one unified Peshmerga Army under the [at least nominal] control of [Iraqi] Ministry of Defense. No army is allowed outside the control of the ministry’s rules.”

Minister Mustafa noted: “Due to the Iraqi Constitution, Kurdistan Region has its own military forces. Every region in Iraq is allowed to have its own potent armed forces. For that reason, the KRG can sign protocols with different companies in order to buy weapons that will be different from the Iraqi Army’s heavy weapons, because they have different duties. We will benefit from those countries that are similar to Kurdistan.”

The US has not supported with weapons or training the creation of the Kurdish Army, but it has encouraged the Ministry of Peshmerga, possibly because the move would lead to the abolition of the private armies of the Kurdish tribal leaders. Significantly, the armed power of the Kurdish groups has been a significant factor already in consolidating Kurdish control of the region, while the US actively discouraged the Turkmen minority in the region from forming their own militias to counter the Kurdish militias, which enforced the removal of Turkmen from lands in the regions which they once dominated, particularly around the oil-producing areas. The net result has been the emasculation of the power of the Turkmen people, who the neighboring Turkish Government had pledged to support.

The result has been that the oil-rich city of Kirkuk is now regarded as a "disputed city". The newly-appointed Prime Minister of the KRG, Dr Barham Salih, a man with considerable skills and extensive experience living and working in Washington, DC, said during a visit to Kirkuk in November 2009: “I am a Kurd and see Kirkuk as part of the Kurdistan Region, but the Turkmen and Arab brothers have a different view than mine.” In the meantime, Kirkuk has not officially been incorporated into Iraqi Kurdistan, and operates on its own budget. Kirkuk Governorate is part of the disputed areas covered by Article 140 of the Iraqi Permanent Constitution, the KRG claims that Kirkuk should be part of the KRG, while the Central Government has maintained that it should be a separate independent province remaining under Central Government control. The Turkmen population of the city claims that it should take control of the province.

Iraqi Kurdistan has proven successful in building a regional economy and international relations separate from that of Iraq proper, but it needs to absorb Kirkuk's wealth if it is to succeed as it plans. This would make the careful relations which the region has fostered (even during the Ba'athist era of Pres. Saddam Hussein) with Iraq more delicate, even though it would appear that Turkey has for the moment shelved its earlier plans to intervene militarily into the region, on the premise of hunting down the Kurdistan-based Turkish armed group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan: PKK). Turkey's military thrusts into the region in recent years were effectively repulsed by PKK fighters inside Iraqi Kurdistan, causing Ankara to re-think its adventurism. Subsequent major structural shifts in the Turkish strategic architecture have led Ankara into accord with Tehran, once considered a regional rival to Turkey, and with Iran's principal regional ally, Armenia.

Turkey will work hard not to undermine the accord it has with the KRG, but only if the KRG can broker a modus vivendi with the PKK, which, just two years ago, seemed likely to be able to destabilize much of Eastern Turkey, partly from its safe-havens in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Afghanistan is developing into a political proxy war between India and Pakistan.

With 30,000 more United States troops on their way to Afghanistan, it is growing clearer that they will not suffice and that larger challenges loom. Afghanistan is also increasingly developing into a political proxy war between India and Pakistan.

Pakistan, which backed the mujahideen against the Soviets in the 1980s and offered a safe haven and breeding ground to the Taliban in the 1990s, is now looking askance at the government of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, which it sees as pro-India. Conversely, India has fond memories of the time when Kabul was firmly under Moscow's hands and out of Islamabad's fist - and worries that the present American strategy will hand Kabul back to Pakistan.

India is also worried about the US's diplomatic warming with China, the latter being Pakistan's long-time ally. US PresidentBarack Obama's recent visit to Beijing was a major success - despite some criticism - and set in motion a higher phase in bilateral ties.

Moreover, China is pressing in around India. It backed the peace process between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Colombo government this year, thus gaining new leverage in Sri Lanka. Nepal's neo-Maoists are fashionably pro-Chinese, and sympathy for the Chinese government can be found in the neo-Maoist rebels active in about a third of India's territory.

Further, on the eastern front, there is Myanmar, where New Delhimay gain ground but Beijing's interests are firmly entrenched. If the new American policies in Afghanistan let Islamabad increase its clout in Kabul, New Delhi could rightly feel it is caught in a vice in which China - with American help - is pressing the levers.

However, this perception might be wrong. Afghanistan and Pakistan are not unstable domino tiles that can be moved at will in a careful balance of weights and counterweights, as in oldpolitical power games. Pakistan and Afghanistan are part of a more complex balancing act that is both domestic and international and in which we also find China and India. It is no mystery that the Afghanistan wound has festered to the point of poisoning Pakistan's body.

Parts of Pakistan are subject to tribal rule, That is, tribes straddling the border have brought their rule to Pakistan, and Islamabad, vying for its own state legitimacy, has to cope with them. In other words, Afghanistan's falling apart puts Pakistan in jeopardy, as the latter could also crumble, split between tribal and national interests: Pashtuns versus Punjabis or Sindhi or Balochi. The problem has become so big that the real issue now is no longer to simply stabilize Afghanistan, but to also stabilize Pakistan and prevent its fall into anarchy, as many pundits see it as an almost failing state. Thinking of Pakistan as a failing state does not help its recovery, and it further fuels the flames of chaos.
From the simple view of looking for a power play, India should rejoice in the weakening or even the disappearance of its major regional rival, Pakistan. If Pakistan fails, its large territory could fall under New Delhi's brotherly embrace, as happened with Bangladesh. Thus, modern India could recover de facto the borders of the former British Indian Empire. It would be a major geopolitical victory for New Delhi - or would it?

The "new India" with Pakistan would add some 180 millions Muslims. Adding the some 145 million Muslims in Bangladesh and about 160 millions Muslims in India proper, the subcontinent has about half a billion Muslims out of a total population of 1.5 billion. That is, one-third of the total population of a united subcontinent would be Muslim and planted with the seeds of radicalism born out of the long Afghan war and the despair at the loss of a "pure" Pakistani state.

The objective weight of Islam and extremist Islam would be bound to increase in New Delhi, even if it managed to keep Pakistan and Bangladesh separate from the rest of the body of the potential Indian union. This could easily incense already inflammable radical Hindu nationalist parties, presently backing or defending frequent, violent anti-Muslim or anti-Christian protests in India.

In other words, more radical Muslims would create space for more radical Hindu nationalists, which could then start a vicious circle of tension. These would not be the only elements of the dangerous powder keg. Neo-Maoist guerrillas threaten a third of the territory and would also be rallied by growing religious confrontations; differences from north (Indo-European) and south (Dravidian) India could flare, spiced by caste and pro-independence struggles.

In other words, the fall of Pakistan - even if we were naive enough to believe that it could be managed in an orderly way - would inevitably bring about massive destabilization in India, home to about one-fourth of the world's population. The world - scared enough of the destabilization of Afghanistan, home of 44 million Muslims - would be confronting the nightmare of the destabilization of some 500 million Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. Is New Delhi ready for it? Hardly. China may have reasons for supporting Pakistan to contain India, but India could be totally destabilized by the destabilization of Pakistan. Indiahas more to lose than China out of the loss of Pakistan - it could jeopardize its own country.

Thus, New Delhi has an objective interest in stabilizing Pakistan.In other words, to forestall its own destabilization, India should help stabilize Pakistan. This could be something new in Indian politics - it could propel India out of 60 years of zero-sum politics with Pakistan and help India and Pakistan find common politicalground for the subcontinent.

Within this general logic, India and Pakistan have a common interest in envisaging a political solution for Afghanistan. Will they do it? Will they understand the long- and medium-term dangers of a narrow geopolitical vision?

Certainly, America, with troops on the ground and eager to withdraw them, and neighboring China, with a restive Islamic minority of its own and concerned about ensuring peace and development at its borders to guarantee its own, have a keen interest in finding a political solution in Afghanistan.

This solution is bound to consider the broad, long-term interests of India, Pakistan and the subcontinent. All of them needeconomic development, thus market stability and freedom as well as political and social peace as preconditions to cure their own domestic grievances.

If one experience can be drawn from the past 30 years of Chinese development, it is that for three decades Beijing has decided to shelve - partly or totally - its geopolitical gripes and ambitions in order to achieve the higher goal of economic development. That approach by itself cast all geopolitics in a different light. This ought to be also the recipe for Afghanistan, Pakistan and the whole Indian subcontinent.

Ex-GOP Governor confirms NSA role in Spitzer takedown

Ex-GOP Governor confirms NSA role in Spitzer takedown

WMR has learned from a reliable source that, for the first time, a former Republican Governor has confirmed that wireless intercepts of communications by the National Security Agency (NSA), are being used to publicly embarrass and "take down" politicians in the United States, including New York's former Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer.

The conversation was revealed in a privileged and personal conversation and WMR will honor the privacy of the former Republican governor by not revealing his identity. However, the former governor stated that Spitzer's phone and other conversations, as well as his credit card transactions, were picked up by warrantless wiretaps conducted under the authority of President George W. Bush's "Terrorist Surveillance Program," code named "STELLAR WIND" by the NSA, and the details were leaked to the media to force Spitzer's resignation. Spitzer, both as Governor and Attorney General of New York, was aggressively pursuing fraud by such Wall Street powerhouses as AIG and Goldman Sachs.

Spitzer was forced to resign as governor after details of his trysts with an escort named Ashley Alexandra Dupre, aka "Kristen," were leaked to the media. The former GOP governor said it was clear that Spitzer was a target of a political dirty trick when federal prosecutors hinted Spitzer may have violated the arcane Mann Act, which makes it a federal crime to travel with a member of the opposite sex over state lines for the purpose of prostitution. Spitzer was also identified a "Client 9" in the leak of the federal investigation information to the media. Spitzer's trysts with Dupre reportedly took place at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC.

Dupre's employer, Emperors Club VIP, was headed up by Mark Brener, aka "Michael," a former Israeli tax agency official whose call girl service extended from New York to Beverly Hills, Paris, London, and Miami. WMR previously reported that Emperor's Club VIP, which operated under a corporate shell called QAT Consulting of Manhattan, was linked to a Mossad intelligence operation. It is noteworthy that as part of Brener's guilty plea deal with federal authorities, he was granted immunity from testifying before any federal grand jury probes of either Spitzer or any other of his escort service's clients, who reportedly also included London's Duke of Westminster --identified as Client 6" -- another wealthy British notable, and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, who was never openly identified but was said by an Emperors Club escort named "Annie" to be married to a "prominent" woman. Rendell's wife is federal Judge Marjorie Rendell, who sits on the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

The former GOP governor who revealed the use of illegal wiretaps against Spitzer has significant experience in the Department of Justice and feared that his own pursuit of corporate malfeasance could end up in his own victimization in a conspiracy involving wrongful prosecution.

WMR has previously reported that New Mexico's Governor Bill Richardson confirmed that he, too, was a victim of NSA wiretapping during his discussions with North Korean diplomats and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell on that North Korea's nuclear program. We also reported that Illinois's ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich was eavesdropped upon by NSA without a warrant and raw signals intelligence was turned over to U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald.

The NSA's warrantless wiretapping program is continuing, unabated, under President Obama....

Turkmenistan Gas is now flowing to China Overland

Turkmenistan Gas is now flowing to China Overland

With one flick of a switch, Russia's long-standing dominance and near monopoly over Central Asian natural-gas exports officially came to an end on Monday.

The Turkmenistan-China pipeline, which will carry natural gas from eastern Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan into China's northwestern Xinjiang region, went on line on December 14 during an inauguration ceremony attended by regional leaders. It marks the first time in more than a decade that a pipeline has been constructed to pump gas out of the region, and is the biggest effort to date to export Central Asian gas without using Russian routes.

The ceremony in Samandepe, the starting point of the 1,833-kilometer pipeline that originates in Turkmenistan's gas-rich but previously untapped east, took place just over three years after the China-funded project was agreed upon.

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov called the launch of the new pipeline "a new chronicle in the relations of our countries" that "will stand as a golden page" in their history.

Joining the Turkmen president to witness the event were the presidents of China, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan - Hu Jintao, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and Islam Karimov, respectively - whose countries are all involved in the project.

Quite a bit bigger

Jennifer DeLay, editor of "FSU Oil And Gas Monitor," a weekly publication from the Scotland-based Newsbase Group, says the significance of the new route rests primarily in the fact that it is the first high-volume export route opening up for Turkmenistan that does not go through Russia.

DeLay notes that a gas pipeline connecting Turkmenistan to northern Iran was constructed in 1997. But she says its rather modest annual capacity of 8 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas pales in comparison to the new route to China.

"Sea transport has its own pitfalls; a lot of it has to go through the Straits of Malacca, which is infested with pirates ... The pipeline from Turkmenistan, by contrast, is going overland and is a little bit easier to predict and protect.

"That's still pretty small compared to the one they [Turkmenistan] have to Russia, which is handling upward of 50, 60, 70 bcm per year," DeLay says. "The new pipeline to China is going to be handling 30 to 40 billion cubic meters a year, and that's quite a bit bigger than 8 [billion bcm]."

According to plan, the Turkmenistan-China pipeline's full capacity of 40 bcm should be achieved by 2012, but Turkmenistan and China have already signed preliminary agreements to add another 10 bcm eventually.

Russian energy giant Gazprom is contracted to purchase between 50 to 65 bcm annually from Turkmenistan, accounting for about 90% of the Central Asian country's gas exports.

But since an explosion along the pipeline connecting Turkmenistan to Russia in April, no gas has been flowing, stoking tensions between the two countries and leading Turkmenistan to speed up efforts to find alternative export avenues.

The two sides are close to agreement on renewing supplies, but when the flow of gas does resume Gazprom's share of Turkmen gas will have fallen to just over 50% as a result of the new China route and others expected to go on line soon.

A new pipeline to Iran, due to be launched later this month, will eventually send another 8 bcm to Iran, with plans to add 4 bcm more, bringing the total slated for the Turkmenistan's southern neighbor to 20 bcm.

The Turkmenistan-China pipeline is also due to take some gas from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to China. Uzbekistan has already said it is contracted to provide 10 bcm to the project. A second section of the pipeline that will extend through Kazakhstan from north of the Aral Sea to China - the Beyneu-Bozoy-Kzylorda-Shymkent pipeline - will provide 10 bcm of Kazakh gas.

During a visit to Kazakhstan on December 12 en route to Turkmenistan, Chinese President Hu attended the opening of the Kazakh-China spur of the pipeline and held discussions with Kazakh President Nazarbayev.

In the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, ahead of this week's ceremony, Hu said the new pipeline will benefit all countries in the region, and expressed China's interest in continued cooperation with Central Asian states in the development and transportation of energy resources.

So much the better

DeLay of "FSU Oil And Gas Monitor" explains that China has a keen interest in diversifying its energy sources.

"China is looking, at this point, to gasify as much of its economy as possible," she says. "To date it's dependent mostly on coal, which is of course a much dirtier burning fuel, and they're looking to switch over to gas. At present, gas still accounts for a fairly low share of total energy consumption, I believe it may still be less than 10%.

"So at the moment they're looking for gas from pretty much any source they can get it, and if they can get it through a secure overland pipeline, so much the better."

DeLay says the new Turkmenistan-China route fits the bill.

"One of the big attractions of the pipeline from Central Asia is that it's an overland route. A good amount of the gas that China has started buying lately has come from overseas in the form of LNG [liquefied natural gas], which has to be brought in by tankers," DeLay says.

"Sea transport has its own pitfalls; a lot of it has to go through the Strait of Malacca, which is infested with pirates, and there's some other security concerns. The pipeline from Turkmenistan, by contrast, is going overland and is a little bit easier to predict and protect."

The opening of the new pipeline could also have a ripple effect, as Central Asia's gas-exporting states consider offers to join projects leading west to Europe. The European Union-backed Nabucco gas pipeline aims to carry 31 bcm annually and would be nearly twice as long as the Turkmenistan-China pipeline. So far, however, Central Asian leaders have been hesitant to sign contracts to fill the Nabucco pipeline. That may be about to change.

One of Nabucco's shareholders, Germany's RWE Dea, in July was awarded the rights to explore Turkmenistan's offshore gas fields in the Caspian Sea. In October, the company opened a representative office in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat.

Observers see RWE's activities as the first steps in securing Turkmen gas for Nabucco. And for Nabucco shareholders and supporters, the example of the new Turkmenistan-China going online demonstrates with certainty that it is possible to build a high-volume pipeline that avoids Russia.

Why would the United States be so obsessed with the breakup of Pakistan ?

What is Israel's Role in the Destabilization of Pakistan?

When waging war “by way of deception,” the motto of the Israeli Mossad, well-timed crises play a critical agenda-setting role by displacing facts with what a target population can be deceived to believe. Thus the force-multiplier effect when staged crises are reinforced with pre-staged intelligence. In combination, the two often prove persuasive......

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2009/08/14/the-united-states%E2%80%99-global-agenda-vis-a-vis-south-asia/

Why would the United States be so obsessed with the breakup of Pakistan ?

WASHINGTON, DC -- Obama's West Point speech of December 1 represents far more than the obvious brutal escalation in Afghanistan -- it is nothing less than a declaration of all-out war by the United States against Pakistan . This is a brand-new war, a much wider war now targeting Pakistan , a country of 160 million people armed with nuclear weapons. In the process, Afghanistan is scheduled to be broken up. This is no longer the Bush Cheney Afghan war we have known in the past. This is something immensely bigger: the attempt to destroy the Pakistani central government in Islamabad and to sink that country into a chaos of civil war, Balkanization, subdivision and general mayhem. The chosen strategy is to massively export the Afghan civil war into Pakistan and beyond, fracturing Pakistan along ethnic lines. It is an oblique war using fourth-generation or guerrilla warfare techniques to assail a country which the United States and its associates in aggression are far too weak to attack directly. In this war, the Taliban are employed as US proxies. This aggression against Pakistan is Obama's attempt to wage the Great Game against the hub of Central Asia and Eurasia or more generally.

US DETERRED FROM OPEN WAR BY PAKISTAN 'S NUKES

The ongoing civil war in Afghanistan is merely a pretext, a cover story designed to provide the United States with a springboard for a geopolitical destabilization campaign in the entire region which cannot be publicly avowed. In the blunt cynical world of imperialist aggression à la Bush and Cheney, a pretext might have been manufactured to attack Pakistan directly. But Pakistan is far too large and the United States is far too weak and too bankrupt for such an undertaking. In addition, Pakistan is a nuclear power, possessing atomic bombs and medium range missiles needed to deliver them. What we are seeing is a novel case of nuclear deterrence in action. The US cannot send an invasion fleet or set up airbases nearby because Pakistani nuclear weapons might destroy them. To this extent, the efforts of Ali Bhutto and A.Q. Khan to provide Pakistan a deterrent capability have been vindicated. But the US answer is to find ways to attack Pakistan below the nuclear threshold, and even below the conventional threshold. This is where the tactic of exporting the Afghan civil war to Pakistan comes in.

The architect of the new Pakistani civil war is US Special Forces General Stanley McChrystal, who organized the infamous network of US torture chambers in Iraq . McChrystal's specific credential for the Pakistani civil war is his role in unleashing the Iraqi civil war of Sunnis versus Shiites by creating "al Qaeda in Iraq " under the infamous and now departed double agent Zarkawi. If Iraqi society as a whole had lined up against the US invaders, the occupiers would have soon been driven out. The counter-gang known as "Al Qaeda in Iraq " avoided that possibility by killing Shiites, and thus calling forth massive retaliation in the form of a civil war. These tactics are drawn from the work of British General Frank Kitson, who wrote about them in his book Low Intensity Warfare. If the United States possesses a modern analog to Heinrich Himmler of the SS, it is surely General McChrystal, Obama's hand-picked choice. McChrystal's superior, Gen Petraeus, wants to be the new Field Marshal von Hindenburg ­ in other words, he wants to be the next US president.

The vulnerability of Pakistan which the US and its NATO associates are seeking to exploit can best be understood using a map of the prevalent ethnic groups of Afghanistan , Pakistan , Iran , and India . Most maps show only political borders which date back to the time of British imperialism, and therefore fail to reflect the principal ethnic groups of the region. For the purposes of this analysis, we must start by recognizing a number of groups. First is the Pashtun people, located mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan . Then we have the Baluchis, located primarily in Pakistan and Iran . The Punjabis inhabit Pakistan , as do the Sindhis. The Bhutto family came from Sind .

PASHTUNISTAN

The US and NATO strategy begins with the Pashtuns, the ethnic group from which the so-called Taliban are largely drawn. The Pashtuns represent a substantial portion of the population of Afghanistan , but here they are alienated from the central government under President Karzai in Kabul , even though the US puppet Karzai passes for a Pashtun himself. The issue involves the Afghan National Army, which was created by the United States after the 2001 invasion. The Afghan officer corps are largely Tajiks drawn from the Northern Alliance that allied with the United States against the Pashtun Talibans. The Tajiks speak Dari, sometimes known as eastern Persian. Other Afghan officers come from the Hazara people. The important thing is that the Pashtuns feel shut out.

The US strategy can best be understood as a deliberate effort at persecuting, harassing, antagonizing, strafing, repressing, and murdering the Pashtuns. The additional 40,000 US and NATO forces which Obama demands for Afghanistan will concentrate in Helmand province and other areas where the Pashtuns are in the majority. The net effect will be to increase the rebellion of the fiercely independent Pashtuns against Kabul and the foreign occupation, and at the same time to push many of these newly radicalized mujaheddin fighters across the border into Pakistan , where they can wage war against the central government in Islamabad . US aid will flow directly to war lords and drug lords, increasing the centrifugal tendencies.

On the Pakistani side, the Pashtuns are also alienated from the central government. Islamabad and the army are seen by them as too much the creatures of the Punjabis, with some input from the Sindhis. On the Pakistani side of the Pashtun territory, US operations include wholesale assassinations from unmanned aerial vehicles or drones, murders by CIA and reportedly Blackwater snipers, plus blind terrorist massacres like the recent ones in Peshawar which the Pakistani Taliban are blaming on Blackwater, acting as a subcontractor of the CIA. These actions are intolerable and humiliating for a proud sovereign state. Every time the Pashtuns are clobbered, they blame the Punjabis in Islamabad for the dirty deals with the US that allow this to happen. The most immediate goal of Obama's Afghan-Pakistan escalation is therefore to promote a general secessionist uprising of the entire Pashtun people under Taliban auspices, which would already have the effect of destroying the national unity of both Kabul and Islamabad .

BALUCHISTAN

The other ethnic group which the Obama strategy seeks to goad into insurrection and secession is the Baluchis. The Baluchis have their own grievances against the Iranian central government in Tehran , which they see as being dominated by Persians. An integral part of the new Obama policy is to expand the deadly flights of the CIA Predators and other assassination drones into Baluchistan . One pretext for this is the report, peddled for example by Michael Ware of CNN, that Osama bin Laden and his MI-6 sidekick Zawahiri are both holed up in the Baluchi city of Quetta, where they operate as the kingpins of the so-called "Quetta Shura." Blackwater teams cannot be far behind. In Iranian Baluchistan, the CIA is funding the murderous Jundullah organization, which was recently denounced by Teheran for the murder of a number of top officials of the Iranian Pasdaran Revolutionary guards. The rebellion of Baluchistan would smash the national unity of both Pakistan and Iran , thus helping to destroy two of the leading targets of US policy.

OBAMA'S RUBE GOLDBERG STRATEGY

Even Chris Matthews of MSNBC, normally a devoted acolyte of Obama, pointed out that the US strategy as announced at West Point very much resembles a Rube Goldberg contraption. (In the real world, "al Qaeda" is of course the CIA's own Arab and terrorist legion.) In the world of official US myth, the enemy is supposed to be "Al Qaeda." But, even according to the US government, there are precious few "Al Qaeda" fighters left in Afghanistan . Why then, asked Matthews, concentrate US forces in Afghanistan where "Al Qaeda" is not, rather than in Pakistan where "Al Qaeda" is now alleged to be?

One elected official who has criticized this incongruous mismatch is Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, who said in a television interview that 'Pakistan, in the border region near Afghanistan, is perhaps the epicenter [of global terrorism], although al Qaida is operating all over the world, in Yemen, in Somalia, in northern Africa, affiliates in Southeast Asia. Why would we build up 100,000 or more troops in parts of Afghanistan included that are not even near the border? You know, this buildup is in Helmand Province . That's not next door to Waziristan . So I'm wondering, what exactly is this strategy, given the fact that we have seen that there is a minimal presence of Al Qaida in Afghanistan, but a significant presence in Pakistan? It just defies common sense that a huge boots on the ground presence in a place where these people are not is the right strategy. It doesn't make any sense to me.' Indeed. 'The Wisconsin Democrat also warned that U.S. policy in Afghanistan could actually push terrorists and extremists into Pakistan and, as a consequence, further destabilize the region: "You know, I asked the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen, and Mr. Holbrooke, our envoy over there, a while ago, you know, is there a risk that if we build up troops in Afghanistan, that will push more extremists into Pakistan?" he told ABC. "They couldn't deny it, and this week, Prime Minister Gilani of Pakistan specifically said that his concern about the buildup is that it will drive more extremists into Pakistan, so I think it's just the opposite, that this boots-on-the-ground approach alienates the Afghan population and specifically encourages the Taliban to further coalesce with Al Qaida, which is the complete opposite of our national security interest."'[1] Of course, this is all intentional and motivated by US imperialist raison d'état. .

MALICK: "DID OBAMA DECLARE WAR ON PAKISTAN ?"

Obama's speech did everything possible to blur the distinction between Afghanistan and Pakistan , which are after all two sovereign states and both members of the United Nations in their own right. Ibrahim Sajid Malick, US correspondent for Samaa TV, one of the largest Pakistan television networks, called attention to this ploy: 'Speaking to a hall full of cadets at the US Military Academy of West Point, President Barack Obama almost seemed like he might be declaring war on Pakistan . Every time he mentioned Afghanistan , Pakistan preceded mention. Sitting at the back benches of the hall at one point I almost jumped out of my chair when he said: "the stakes are even higher within a nuclear-armed Pakistan , because we know that al Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them." I was shocked because a succession of American officials recently confirmed that the Pakistani arsenal is secure.'[2] This article is entitled "Did Obama Declare War On Pakistan?", and we can chalk the question mark up to diplomatic discretion. During congressional hearings involving General McChrystal and US Ambassador Eikenberry, Afghanistan and Pakistan were simply fused into one sinister entity known as "Afpak" or even "Afpakia."

In the summer of 2007, Obama, coached by Zbigniew Brzezinski and other controllers, was the originator of the unilateral US policy of using Predator drones for political assassinations inside Pakistan . This assassination policy is now being massively escalated along with the troop strength: "Two weeks ago in Pakistan, Central Intelligence Agency sharpshooters killed eight people suspected of being militants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and wounded two others in a compound that was said to be used for terrorist training. The White House has authorized an expansion of the C.I.A.'s drone program in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, officials said this week, to parallel the president's decisionto send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. American officials are talking with Pakistan about the possibility of striking in Baluchistan for the first time - a controversial move since it is outside the tribal areas - because that is where Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to hide."[3] The US is now training more Predator operators than combat pilots.

BLACKWATER ACCUSED IN PESHAWAR MASSACRE OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN

The CIA, the Pentagon, and their various contractors among the private military firms are now on a murder spree across Pakistan , attacking peaceful villages and wedding parties, among other targets. Blackwater, now calling itself Xe Services and Total Intelligence Solutions, is heavily involved: 'At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.' [4]

As shocking as Scahill's report is, it must nevertheless be viewed as a limited hangout, since there is no mention of the persistent charges that a large part of the deadly bombings in Peshawar and other Pakistani cities are being carried out by Blackwater, as this news item suggests: "ISLAMABAD Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Chief of Taliban movement in Pakistan Hakimullah Mehsud has blamed the controversial American private firm Blackwater for the bomb blast in Peshawar which killed 108 people, local news agency NNI reported Thursday."[5] This was blind terrorism designed for maximum slaughter, especially among women and children.

US ALSO AT WAR WITH UZBEKISTAN ?

Scahill's report also suggests that US black ops have reached into Uzbekistan, a post-Soviet country of 25 million which borders Afghanistan to the north: 'In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to the military intelligence source. Blackwater does not actually carry out the operations, he said, which are executed on the ground by JSOC forces. "That piqued my curiosity and really worries me because I don't know if you noticed but I was never told we are at war with Uzbekistan ," he said. "So, did I miss something, did Rumsfeld come back into power?"' [6] Such are the ways of hope and change.

The role of US intelligence in fomenting the Baluchistan rebellion for the purpose of breaking Pakistan apart is also confirmed by Professor Chossudovsky: 'Already in 2005, a report by the US National Intelligence Council and the CIA forecast a "Yugoslav-like fate" for Pakistan "in a decade with the country riven by civil war, bloodshed and inter-provincial rivalries, as seen recently in Baluchistan." (Energy Compass, 2 March 2005 ). According to the NIC-CIA, Pakistan is slated to become a "failed state" by 2015, "as it would be affected by civil war, complete Talibanization and struggle for control of its nuclear weapons". (Quoted by former Pakistan High Commissioner to UK , Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Times of India, 13 February 2005 ). Washington favors the creation of a "Greater Baluchistan" which would integrate the Baluch areas of Pakistan with those of Iran and possibly the Southern tip of Afghanistan, thereby leading to a process of political fracturing in both Iran and Pakistan.'[7] The Iranians, for their part, are adamant that the US is committing acts of war on their territory in Baluchistan : " TEHRAN , Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Iran 's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said that there are some concrete evidences showing U.S. involvement in recent deadly bomb explosions in the country's Sistan-Baluchistan province, the official IRNA news agency reported. . The deadly suicide attack by Sunni rebel group Jundallah (God's soldiers) occurred on Oct. 18 in Iran 's Sistan-Baluchistan province near the border with Pakistan when the local officials were preparing a ceremony in which the local tribal leaders were to meet the military commanders of Iran 's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).[8]

US GOAL: CUT THE PAKISTAN ENERGY CORRIDOR BETWEEN IRAN , CHINA

Why would the United States be so obsessed with the breakup of Pakistan ? One reason is that Pakistan is traditionally a strategic ally and economic partner of China , a country which the US and British are determined to oppose and contain on the world stage. Specifically, Pakistan could function as an energy corridor linking the oil fields of Iran and possibly even Iraq with the Chinese market by means of a pipeline that would cross the Himalayas above Kashmir . This is the so-called "Pipelinestan" issue. This would give China a guaranteed land-based oil supply not subject to Anglo-American naval superiority, while also cutting out the 12,000 mile tanker route around the southern rim of Asia . As a recent news report points out: ' Beijing has been pressuring Tehran for China 's participation in the pipeline project and Islamabad , while willing to sign a bilateral agreement with Iran , has also welcomed China 's participation. According to an estimate, such a pipeline would result in Pakistan getting $200 million to $500 million annually in transit fees alone. China and Pakistan are already working on a proposal for laying a trans-Himalayan pipeline to carry Middle Eastern crude oil to western China . Pakistan provides China the shortest possible route to import oil from the Gulf countries. The pipeline, which would run from the southern Pakistan port of Gwadar and follow the Karakoram highway, would be partly financed by Beijing . The Chinese are also building a refinery at Gwadar. Imports using the pipeline would allow Beijing to reduce the portion of its oil shipped through the narrow and unsafe Strait of Malacca , which at present carries up to 80% of its oil imports. Islamabad also plans to extend a railway track to China to connect it to Gwadar. The port is also considered the likely terminus of proposed multibillion-dollar gas pipelines reaching from the South Pars fields in Iran or from Qatar , and from the Daulatabad fields in Turkmenistan for export to world markets. Syed Fazl-e-Haider, " Pakistan , Iran sign gas pipeline deal," Asia Times, 27 May 2009 .[9] This is the normal, peaceful economic progress and cooperation which the Anglo-Americans are hell-bent on stopping.

Oil and natural gas pipelines from Iran across Pakistan and into China would carry energy resources into the Middle Kingdom, and would also serve as conveyor belts for Chinese economic influence into the Middle East . This would make Anglo-American dominion increasingly tenuous in a part of the world which London and Washington have traditionally sought to control as part of their overall strategy of world domination.

US domestic propaganda is already portraying Pakistan as the new home base of terrorism. The four pathetic patsies going on trial for an alleged plot to bomb a synagogue in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City had been carefully sheep-dipped to associate them with the shadowy and suspicious Jaish-e-Mohammad, allegedly a Pakistani terrorist group. The same goes for the five Moslems from Northern Virginia who have just been arrested near Lahore in Pakistan.

INDIA AND IRAN

As far as the neighboring states are concerned, India under the unfortunate Manmohan Singh seems to be accepting the role of continental dagger against Pakistan and China on behalf of the US and the British. This is a recipe for a colossal tragedy. India should rather make permanent peace with Pakistan by vacating the Vale of Kashmir, where 95% of the population is Moslem and would like to join Pakistan. Without a solution to this issue, there will be no peace on the subcontinent.

Regarding Iran, George Friedman, the head of the Stratfor outlet of the US intelligence community recently told Russia Today that the great novelty of the next decade will be an alliance of the United States with Iran directed against Russia. In that scenario, Iran would cut off oil to China altogether. That is the essence of the Brzezinski strategy. It is urgent that the antiwar movement in the United States regroup and begin a new mobilization against the cynical hypocrisy of Obama's war and escalation policy, which suprasses even the war crimes of the Bush-Cheny neocons. In this new phase of the Great Game, the stakes are incalculable.


[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/06/feingold-why-surge-
where_n_381729.html
[2] Ibrahim Sajid Malick, "Did Obama Declare War On Pakistan?," Pakistan for Pakistanis Blog, 2 December 2009. http://ibrahimsajidmalick.com/did-Obama-declare-war-on-pakis
tan/484/
[3] Scott Shane, "C.I.A. to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan," New York Times, December 3, 2009. See also David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, "Between the Lines, an Expansion in Pakistan," New York Times, 1 December 2009.
[4] Jeremy Scahill, "The Secret US War in Pakistan," The Nation, November 23, 2009
[5] "Taliban in Pakistan blame U.S. Blackwater for deadly blast," Xinhua News Agency, 29 October 2009, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/29/content_1235890
7.htm
[6] Jeremy Scahill, "The Secret US War in Pakistan," The Nation, November 23, 2009
[7] Michel Chossudovsky, The Destabilization of Pakistan, Global Research, December 30, 2007
[8] "Iran says having evidences of U.S. involvement in suicide bomb attacks," Xinhua, 29 October 2009.
[9] http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KE27Df03.html

Un monde multipolaire, de plus en plus chaotique ?

http://cjoint.com/?memzDNKWjD

http://www.senat.fr/rap/r08-630/r08-630_mono.html

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/121309a.html

Les grandes puissances sont engagées dans une redéfinition de leur rôle international. Or le contexte mondial impose la prise en compte de nouvelles solidarités et de formes d'hostilités jusque-là inédites.

En ce début de 21e siècle, les bouleversements qui affectent les équilibres géostratégiques constituent un ensemble de défis importants pour les principales puissances internationales, confrontées à la nécessaire redéfinition de leurs objectifs de politique étrangère, voire de leurs ambitions.

Il est, aujourd'hui, utile de rappeler les propos tenus par Albert Camus lors de la remise de son Prix Nobel pour prendre la mesure des enjeux auxquels notre monde est désormais confronté : "Chaque génération se croit vouée à refaire le monde. La mienne sait pourtant qu'elle ne le refera pas. Mais sa tâche est peut-être plus grande. Elle consiste à empêcher que le monde se défasse". Les propos de l'intellectuel français comportaient alors une double "déconstruction" de la réalité : la première est que les utopies fondatrices ont vécu, la seconde pose l'idée de la persistance d'un (dés) ordre naturel, anarchique dont l'oeuvre de rééquilibrage, loin de représenter une démission intellectuelle et politique, se révèle une tâche noble.

Ce rééquilibrage succède, aujourd'hui, à une décennie marquée par une tentative de domination des Etats-Unis. L'effet pervers de cette évolution se traduit par le gel de nombreux dossiers, chaque puissance jouant désormais de son influence sur les acteurs régionaux (ex. : Syrie, Liban, Iran, Soudan, Zimbabwe, Venezuela...). On comprendra donc que les grandes puissances soient actuellement engagées dans une redéfinition de leur rôle international. Le nouveau contexte mondial se caractérise, en outre, par des situations plus complexes que par le passé. Elles imposent la prise en compte de nouvelles solidarités et de formes d'hostilités jusque-là inédites ou redécouvertes. Les crises, souvent plus opaques, reposent sur des acteurs dont la rationalité d'action diffère des cadres logiques auxquels la guerre froide nous avait habitué. Les crises mêlent, désormais, des facteurs d'origines toutes à la fois politique, religieuse et historique.

Le 11 septembre 2001 a définitivement sonné le glas des utopies millénaristes alors annonciatrices d'une hypothétique "fin de l'Histoire", tant défendu par F. Fukuyama. A l'évidence, les puissances sont confrontées à l'un des problèmes majeurs de penser une nouvelle stratégie "intégrale" sans avoir déjà réellement identifié leur nouvel adversaire et sans courir le risque de provoquer les autres puissances du globe.

C'est dans ces circonstances, comme le rappelle le général Salvan que "pour atteindre les buts de leurs concepts les chefs politiques ont besoin d'une méthode et de moyens : c'est la stratégie". Cette dernière est "l'ensemble des méthodes et moyens permettant d'atteindre les fins exigées par le politique". La grande stratégie serait alors un processus en trois temps visant à : 1) déterminer les intérêts sécuritaires vitaux d'un Etat ; 2) identifier les menaces envers ces intérêts et 3) décider comment employer au mieux les ressources politiques, militaires et économiques de l'Etat afin de protéger ces intérêts. La "stratégie intégrale" articulerait ainsi la sécurité extérieure aux facteurs d'ordre interne que représentent les ressources économiques, la capacité de production des acteurs et leur culture ou idéologie ainsi que les institutions politiques qui sont les instruments de leur expression. La grande stratégie d'un Etat représente donc une sorte de feuille de route délimitant les grands objectifs de la politique étrangère. Elle établit les priorités et forme un fil conducteur dépassant les querelles du processus décisionnel. Bien que cela lui soit difficile, il est donc nécessaire pour un Etat d'établir une stratégie générale, une grille de lecture qui lui permette de définir ou de redéfinir, au besoin, ses priorités dans le cadre de son rapport général au monde. En l'absence d'un tel cadre conceptuel structurant, les réponses aux faits sont incohérentes ou à tout le moins réactives et les ressources allouées à ces mêmes réponses le sont à court terme et de manière inefficiente.

Or, toutes les grandes puissances, en ce compris l'Europe, (re) définissent aujourd'hui leur stratégie sans vraiment consulter les autres acteurs. Aussi, croire, comme on l'entend dans de nombreux discours et analyses, qu'un monde multipolaire sera synonyme de multilatéralisme témoigne d'une confusion regrettable des niveaux d'analyse. Cette affirmation ne tient point compte, en outre, ni de l'actualité, ni de l'Histoire.

Il faut d'ailleurs ajouter que dans ce monde multipolaire qui se profile à l'horizon, un facteur bien plus présent que par le passé, et qui continue à être fortement négligé dans les analyses et le discours politique, est la culture et, principalement, la culture stratégique. Si les relations internationales au cours de ces derniers siècles se sont jouées dans le cadre de la civilisation occidentale, elles sont aujourd'hui de plus en plus désoccidentalisées. On évoque d'ailleurs l'idée d'une fragmentation culturelle. En effet chaque grande puissance (en devenir) (Chine, Russie, Inde, Union européenne, etc.) concentre un formidable pouvoir économique, militaire, politique, mais également culturel. Il se développe ainsi des idéologies de rupture par rapport aux valeurs reconnues en Occident. Un semblable fossé idéologico-culturel ne peut qu'entraîner des approches différentes aux niveaux politique, social et stratégico-militaire. La dimension identitaire ou culturelle est ainsi susceptible de devenir une source de conflits de plus en plus importante entre des sociétés mais aussi au sein même de ces dernières. Dans le monde actuel, l'identitaire a pris une dimension encore trop peu souvent prise en compte dans les équilibres géopolitiques.

En définitive, le monde restera encore longtemps caractérisé par la confrontation d'intérêts opposés. Ce monde anarchique n'empêchera toutefois pas les Etats de nouer des alliances ou des partenariats stratégiques avec d'autres en fonction de leurs intérêts propres. Aussi la Realpolitik a-t-elle encore de beaux jours devant elle et la citation de R. Aron n'a rien perdu de sa pertinence : "Le choix en politique n'est pas entre le bien et le mal, mais entre le préférable et le détestable".

The NOBEL peace prize should be "pulled" from OBOMBA

The NOBEL peace prize should be "pulled" from OBOMBA

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16402

The United States is in the midst of the most serious unemployment crisis since the Great Depression, and US President Barack Obama is following George W Bush in lavishing trillions of dollars on a few big banks. American taxpayers got nothing. Now, they get the cherry in the cheesecake; Obama escalating his war in Afghanistan. A Vietnam-lite - with a tentative expiry date, July 2011, for the start of a withdrawal...

http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/4063

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Obama-Puppet--The-wo-by-Paul-Craig-Roberts-091201-447.html

The much-hyped Obama speech on Tuesday night at West Point - edited by the president himself up to the last minute - was a clever rehash of the white man's burden, sketching a progressive narrative for US national security clad in the glorious robes of "the noble struggle for freedom".

On a more pedestrian level, history does repeat itself - as farce. With Obama's surge-lite, US plus North Atlantic Treaty Organization occupation troops in Afghanistan will reach in the first half of 2010 the level of the Soviet occupation at its peak in the first half of the 1980s. And all this formidable firepower to fight no more than 25,000 Afghan Taliban - with only 3,000 fully weaponized.

Each soldier of the new Obama surge (a word he did not pronounce in his speech except when he referred to a "civilian surge") will cost US$1 million - though the Pentagon insists it is only half a million....

http://mwcnews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=34834&Itemid=42

Real men go to Riyadh

Obama still says Afghanistan is a "war of necessity" - because of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Wrong. The Bush administration had planned to attack Afghanistan even before 9/11. See Get Osama! Now! Or else ... , August 30, 2001.)

"War of necessity" is a polite remix of the same old neo-conservative "war on terror"; blame it on the "towelheads" and exploit public ignorance and fear. That's how al-Qaeda was equated with the Taliban and how Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, according to the neo-con gang.

For all his lofty rhetoric, Obama is still pulling a Bush, not making any distinction between al-Qaeda - an Arab jihadi outfit whose objective is a global caliphate - and the Taliban - indigenous Afghans who want an Islamic emirate in Afghanistan but would have no qualms in doing business with the US, as they did during the Bill Clinton years when the US badly wanted to build a trans-Afghan gas pipeline. On top of it, Obama cannot admit that the "Pak" neo-Taliban now exist because of the US occupation of "Af".

Taking pains to distance his new policy from the Vietnam trauma, Obama stressed, "Unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan." Wrong. If the official narrative of 9/11 holds, the hijackers were trained in Western Europe and perfected their skills in the US.

And even while he still emphasizes the drive to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" al-Qaeda and deny it a "safe haven", Obama is fully contradicting his own national security advisor, General James Jones, who has admitted that there are fewer than 100 al-Qaeda jihadis in Afghanistan.

The myth of al-Qaeda has to be exposed. How could al-Qaeda pull off 9/11 but be incapable of mounting a single significant attack inside Saudi Arabia? That's because al-Qaeda is essentially a thinly disguised brigade of Saudi intelligence. The US wants to win "the war on terror"? Why not send special forces to Saudi Arabia instead of Afghanistan and knock the Wahhabis - the root of it all - out of power?

Obama could at least have noticed what notorious Afghan mujahid, former Saudi protege, former Central Intelligence Agency darling and current American public enemy, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, told al-Jazeera. He stressed, "The Taliban government came to an end in Afghanistan due to the wrong strategy of al-Qaeda."

This is a graphic illustration of the current, total split between al-Qaeda and the Taliban, both "Af" and "Pak". The Afghan Taliban, starting with their historical leader, Mullah Omar, have learned from their big mistake - and are not allowing al-Qaeda Arabs to fester inside Afghanistan. Equally, the rise of neo-Talibanistan on both sides of the border does not necessarily translate into a "safe haven" for al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda jihadis are harbored by a handful of selected, paid-up tribals which the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence, if it really wanted, could pinpoint in a flash.

Obama also bought in the Pentagon premise that America can re-colonize Afghanistan with counter-insurgency.

In General David "I'm always positioning myself to 2012" Petraeus' own counter-insurgency doctrine, the proportion of soldiers to natives must be 20 or 25 per 1,000 Afghans. Petraeus and General Stanley McChrystal have now got 30,000 more. Inevitably the generals - just like in Vietnam, whether Obama likes it or not - will ask for a lot more till they get what they really want; at least 660,000 soldiers, plus all the extras. At present the US has about 70,000 troops in Afghanistan.

That would imply the reinstatement of the draft in the US. And that's trillions of dollars more the US does not have and will have to borrow ... from China.

And what would that buy in the end? The mighty Soviet red army used every single counter-insurgency trick in the book during the 1980s. They killed a million Afghans. They turned five million into refugees. They lost 15,000 soldiers. They virtually bankrupted the Soviet Union. They gave up. And they left.

What about the new great game?

So why is the US still in Afghanistan? Facing the camera, as if addressing "the Afghan people", the president said, "we have no interest in occupying your country". But he could not possibly tell it like it really is to American prime-time TV viewers.

For corporate America, Afghanistan means nothing; it's the fifth-poorest country in the world, tribal and definitely not a consumer society. But for US Big Oil and the Pentagon, Afghanistan has a lot of mojo.

For Big Oil, the holy grail is access to Turkmenistan natural gas from the Caspian Sea - Pipelineistan at the heart of the new great game in Eurasia, avoiding both Russia and Iran. But there's no way to build the hugely strategic TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) pipeline - crossing Helmand province, and then Pakistan's Balochistan province - with Afghanistan mired in chaos, thanks to the pitiful performance of the US/NATO occupation.

There's a hand in surveying/controlling the $4 billion-a-year drug trade, directly and indirectly. Since the beginning of the US/NATO occupation, Afghanistan became a de facto narco-state, producing 92% of the world's heroin under a bunch of transnational narco-terrorist cartels.

And there's the full spectrum dominance Pentagon agenda - Afghanistan as part of the worldwide US empire of bases, monitoring strategic competitors China and Russia at their doorstep.

Obama simply ignored that there is an ultra-high-stakes new great game in Eurasia going on. So because of all that Obama did not say at West Point, Americans are being sold a "war of necessity" draining a trillion dollars that could be used to reduce unemployment and really help the US economy.

We also know how to surge

The Taliban will inevitably come up with their own, finely tuned, counter-surge. Even surge-less, and up against tons of Petraeus' counter-insurgency schemes, they recently captured Nuristan province. And remember Obama's summer surge in Helmand province? Well, Helmand is still the opium capital of the world.

In his speech, Obama tried by all means to convey the impression that the Afghan war can be controlled from Washington. It simply can't.

For all his pledges of "partnership with Pakistan" (mentioned 21 times in the speech) Obama could not possibly admit his surge-lite will destabilize Pakistan even more. Instead, he could turn over the whole war to Pakistan. Unlike the Obama-approved July 2011 date for the (possible) beginning of a withdrawal, subject to "conditions on the ground", this real exit strategy would have to come up with a fixed timetable for a complete withdrawal attached. That would be the go-ahead for Islamabad to do what neither the Soviets nor the Americans could do - sit down with all the relevant tribal locals and negotiate through a series of jirgas (tribal councils).

Obama bets on what he calls "transition to Afghan responsibility". That's a mirage. The Pakistani intelligence establishment - which still regards Afghanistan as its "strategic depth" in the bigger picture of a conflict with India - will never allow it to happen strictly under Afghan terms. That may not be fair to Afghans, but these are the facts on the ground.

Virtually everyone in rural Afghanistan considers - correctly - that President Hamid Karzai is the occupation president. Karzai, who can barely hold on to his throne in Kabul, was imposed in December 2001 on King Zahir Shah by Bush proconsul Zalmay Khalilzad after a heated argument, and recently ratified in an American-style, blatantly stolen election. The American way is not the Afghan way. The tried-and-tested Afghan way for centuries has been the loya jirga - a grand tribal council where everyone joins, debates and a consensus is finally reached.

So the endgame in Afghanistan cannot be much different from a power-sharing coalition, with the Taliban as the strongest party. Why? One just has to examine the history of guerrilla warfare since the 19th century - or take a look back at Vietnam. The guerrillas who are the fiercest fighters against foreigners always prevail. And even with the Taliban sharing power in Kabul, Afghanistan's powerful neighbors - Pakistan, Iran, China, Russia, India - will make sure there won't be chaos spilling over across their borders. This is an Asian issue that has to be solved by Asians; that's the rationale for a solution to be developed inside the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Meanwhile, there's reality. The full spectrum dominance Pentagon gets what it wanted - for now. Call it the revenge of the generals. Who wins, apart from them? Australian armchair warrior David Kilcullen, an adviser and ghostwriter for Petraeus and McChrystal and who is a demi-god for Washington warmongers. Some light neo-cons - certainly not former vice president Dick Cheney, who's been blasting Obama's "weakness". And overall, all subscribers to the Pentagon concept of the "long war".

Two weeks before going to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama sells his new Vietnam-lite to the world out of a US military academy. George Orwell, we salute you. War is indeed peace.

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2009/12/deadly-liar-and-manipulator.html

"Finish the Job": Obama Reignites “War on Terrorism” With Massive Afghanistan Surge: ... In a speech that echoed, word for word, the now time-honored criminal 9/11/“war on terrorism” and “security” falsehoods of the Bush-Cheney administration, Obama is sending yet another “surge” of 30,000 US troops to the slaughter.

Obama also promised, in the most bellicose fashion, to escalate the endless manufactured war against “violent extremism”, by sending American military-intelligence forces to every corner of the world where terrorists have a “foothold”.

The criminal lie of 9/11, of “America under attack”, is the eternal pretext for imperial force. ...

Clear-eyed observers warned since his ascension to power years ago that Obama has been a lifelong corporate “centrist” and accomodationist who will change nothing except for the style with which destruction is delivered. In fact, the manipulative Obama and his unsavory administration (of unsavory elites) has deepened every crisis, from the world war to the rape of the world economy.

Obama has wholeheartedly presided over the massive global financial destabilization begun during Bush-Cheney, the continued militarization of the US homeland, and new waves of government-sanctioned looting on behalf of elite/Wall Street powers, disguised as health care reform and other false “reforms”.

Obama's War: Why is the largest military machine on the planet unable to defeat the resistance in Afghanistan

Tragically, the major unstated U.S. interest in the region that the President has bought into is the unacceptability of a proposed Iran-Pakistan-India (I-P-I) pipeline at a time when our country is saber-rattling against and threatening Iran with more sanctions. Earlier this year, Iran and Pakistan decided to move forward with their pipeline even if India decides to drop out. Ironically, I-P-I is also known as the “peace pipeline.”

The alternative pipeline route, Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (T-A-P-I), is supported by Washington because it denies an important economic benefit to Iran. Sadly, nowhere in the President’s remarks did he mention the pipeline on which construction is slated to begin in 2010.

U.S. policy is not only guided by pipeline politics. There is also the consideration of chessboard geo-positioning necessary to contain Russia, China, and ensure U.S. empire—for those inclined to traditional Cold Warrior “containment” thinking. Apparently, behind what some are calling a “shadow war in Muslim lands,” are targeted assassination teams that have wreaked tri-border havoc in Iran, Afghanistan,Pakistan, Lebanon and Syria....

Inevitably, regional equations come into the reckoning. India and Pakistan must be firmly dissuaded from turning Afghanistan into an arena of rivalry. But this is easier said than done as Kabul traditionally viewed Delhi as a counterweight to Islamabad; Delhi viewed Afghanistan as a second front against Pakistan; and Pakistan sought strategic depth vis-a-vis India.

The vicious cycle needs to be broken and any effort in this direction must include addressing the root causes of the Afghanistan-Pakistan antipathy. Obama has the moral authority to take such an historic initiative.

This is not a matter of Karzai's political personality or those of the warlords who are his partners. It must be remembered that even the Taliban regime in Kabul failed to recognize the Durand Line that divides Afghanistan and Pakistan, no matter its critical dependence on Pakistani goodwill.

Secondly, the US has de facto become a party to the India-Pakistan relationship, especially during the past decade since its mediation in the brief Kargil war in 1999, which Delhi sought despite its professed aversion towards "third-party mediation" in India-Pakistan disputes.

Without doubt, the dynamics of the US-India strategic partnership will be keenly watched by Islamabad. The Obama administration has done well to "demilitarize" the US-India strategic partnership. That process must not only continue, but should be hastened and India will get used to it.

There is plenty of scope to advance the US-India strategic partnership without causing apprehensions in the Pakistani mind or upsetting the delicate strategic balance in the region. What South Asia needs is not more hubris but less and less of it, and security and stability.

The present log jam in India-Pakistan relations is dangerous. By offering a substantial, long-term partnership to Pakistan, and by offering a more balanced and forward-looking relationship to both India and Pakistan, Obama hopes to alleviate the threat perceptions in the Pakistani mind.

Without doubt, unless Pakistan's threat perceptions of a "hegemonistic" India are squarely addressed, Islamabad will continue to resort to asymmetrical warfare.
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G2 CHINA-USA , disguised as G20 marches on while Europe plays "charade politics"

G2 CHINA-USA , disguised as G20 marches on while Europe plays "charade politics".....or is it that OBOMBA is a good CIA actor...???

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/Article.aspx?id=4834

http://www.stratisc.org/pub_bruno_colson_straeu_7.html#Home

As the new great game in Eurasia rumbles on, Europe in theory now has a unified voice. It's an open question whether this will make any difference to key players such as China, Russia or the energy-rich "stans" in Central Asia.

Europeans were expecting bubbly Veuve Clicquot champagne. Instead, they were handed flat cola. The official European Union (EU) theme should not be Beethoven's Ode to Joy but rather the soundtrack for Claude Lelouch's cheesy 1960s epic Un Homme et une Femme, the immortal "shaba daba da ... shaba daba da ..."

With Belgian Herman van Rompuy now chosen as president of the European Council (along with his sidekick, the quasi-EU foreign affairs minister, British Baroness Catherine Ashton), it's fair to argue most of the world now tends to see him as "President of Europe" - the number one trade and economic power in the world. But ask indigenous people in Bolivia, Laos or Mali and they would rather identify the duo as the white, bisexual, ultra-politically correct face of former colonialists.

The dashing duo was not directly elected by the citizens of the EU; it was chosen after a Byzantine/Machiavellian process carried out by 27 heads of state and slanted by heavyweights France and Germany. Green icon, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, dubbed this masterpiece of opacity "a caricature of democracy". For all the lofty ideals of continental integration, a large contingent of European citizens remains absolutely horrified by the perspective of a European state while those who expect a lot from an unified Europe are usually, cruelly disappointed. Anyway it will be an uphill struggle to convince tens of millions that "The Voice" of unified Europe is now Van Rompuy's when people were expecting nothing short of an European Barack Obama.

Ask the Chinese leadership in Beijing and off the record they might subtly imply that the immortal 1970s Henry Kissinger question still persists: "Which number do I dial when I want to talk to Europe?" US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may still harbor Kissingerian doubts - even after the European Commission (EC) president, Joao Manuel Barroso, unmistakably stated she "should call Cathy Ashton".

And nobody is exactly sure, in this new round of European integration, what the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty - which comes into effect this Tuesday - did in fact accomplish. For instance, the new appointments are unlikely to reduce by one the number of EU representatives in the United Nations Security Council. Not only France and Britain won't have to be represented by the EU; Germany for its side wants to be part of a revamped, expanded Security Council.

Lady Ashton, I presume?
"Herman who?" cried European and world media in unison last November 19. The multilingual Van Rompuy, 62, is an anti-charisma Flemish Christian Democrat, and has been Belgium's prime minister for only one year. His profile would fit a Vatican insider. He is a lover of haikus (Japanese poetry) and considered a very tough negotiator - but definitely not a visionary.

Ashton, 53, and - how delightful - a Labour Party baroness, is the former EU trade commissioner, discreet and consensus-prone, as the BBC described her. The so-called unified voice of the EU on foreign policy - the EU's Hillary - never held elected office and has no foreign policy experience; until recently she was negotiating trade deals with South Korea. Baroness Ashton said she would pursue a policy of "quiet diplomacy" - which sharp tongues in Brussels already qualify as quiet to the point of irrelevance.

For billions around the world, the EU machine is as enigmatic as quantum physics. Brussels would say a unified presidency guarantees "more stability". The new president could never be too powerful; he cannot play the role of a head of state and cannot be compared to the presidents of the US or China. He is in essence a good coordinator - a super-bureaucrat. As for the baroness, she will be the go-between between the 27 member states and the EU's executive power, the EC. Her main role will be as a sort of coordinator on defense and security policy.

At least the EU managed the feat of getting rid of crusader former British premier Tony Blair - who still justifies the war on Iraq as a matter of "faith in democracy". Ashton was the consolation prize for the Brits for the EU dumping of Blair. Eyebrows remain raised in both Paris and Berlin that Britain - which accepts neither the euro nor the Schengen treaty allowing free circulation of people, and remains to the millimeter aligned with the US - now represents the EU's foreign policy.

Washington of course loved it; Obama stated the duo would strengthen the transatlantic relationship. But Turkey, for instance, was horrified, as Van Rompuy is dead set against Turkey's drive to join the EU as a member state. Anyway, the complex negotiations with Turkey will continue to be led by the commissioner responsible for enlargement, and not Van Rompuy.

I want champagne in my pipeline
Europeans expect that at least their new energy pipelines won't be filled with Canada Dry. It will be very enlightening to see Europe's so-called new voice and "quiet diplomacy" applied to the things in life that really matter, for instance energy security - or Pipelineistan.

Pipelineistan will continue to fall under the EC's trade and energy portfolios. This means that on a commercial level, the people from the EC will continue to be more powerful than Van Rompuy. By the same token, humanitarian aid and development - the EU is the biggest donor in the world - will still fall under EC powers. In short, EC president Joao Manuel Barroso's people remain more powerful in terms of decision-making than the new dashing duo.

The "unified" EU is in deep trouble in Pipelineistan. A key issue is the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany via Finland, Sweden and Denmark - what the Wall Street Journal delightfully called in early November "the Molotov-Ribbentrop pipeline". [1] This Pipelineistan gambit is not about attacking but rather conspicuously bypassing Poland alongside the "new Europe" Baltic states. Washington - still reeling from its insurmountable problems in Central Asia - is furious about it.

Nord Stream - registered in Switzerland and controlled by Russia's Gazprom - means that Germany's energy security has no place for those pesky Eastern Europeans. And this will inevitably translate as less US intrusion in German internal affairs via its "new Europe" American vassals. The balance of power in Europe has changed. Historically, France was always the counterweight to Germany. All over the 20th century the Anglo-US axis played the rivalry to its advantage.

This is over. Germany and Russia, as they have done in the past, are getting closer again. Very few in Europe - and even in Eastern Europe - are keen to send more North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops to wallow in the US quagmire in Afghanistan, or to renounce juicy dividends from Russian Pipelineistan. The bottom line is that the Van Rompuy/Ashton duo will not force Germany to share its power with Eastern Europe. And Germany would never dream of sacrificing its energy security to the mirage of "European solidarity".

The new great game in Eurasia never sleeps. Apart from Nord Stream, there's also what the EC calls its "strategic priority" - the Southern Corridor, of which the superstar is the perennially troubled Nabucco pipeline. Still no one knows all across Europe whether Nabucco is feasible.

While Europe dithers the Caucasus and Central Asia are advancing bold Pipelineistan moves. Caspian states Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are now committed to building the Baku-Black Sea pipeline. Oil from Kazakhstan will thus get to tankers in the Black Sea, reaching Romania and then the planned Pan-European Pipeline from Constanta to Trieste. This means in effect that Kazakhstan is about to set up its own, non-Russian-dependent energy corridor to South-Central Europe.

In the gas front things are much more complicated. It all depends on what inscrutable Turkmenistan will be up to. Will it be able to commit enough of its gas - currently exported via Russia - as to prompt a Western consortium to finally build the holy grail, a Trans-Caspian gas pipeline from Turkmenbashi to Baku with a connection to Nabucco?

In Turkmenistan, the EU is in direct competition with none other than China. Beijing, at its usual, no nonsense breakneck pace, has practically finished a China-Turkmenistan pipeline. And Russia will be back to importing Turkmen gas by early 2010, most of which will be resold to Europe at an enormously inflated price. This spells Russia in control, not Turkmenistan.

In sum, Kazakhstan will soon be heavily exporting oil to Europe. Azerbaijan is now positioned as both a key producer and transit country between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. Turkey is definitely positioned as the top energy hub in the world - conduit for Russia's South Stream and probable conduit if ever Nabucco gets built. Turkmenistan is already selling to Iran and wants to reach South Asia by all Pipelineistan nodes necessary, even the fabled Trans-Afghan pipeline. Russia and China are key Pipelineistan actors - as top producer and top consumer. In the New Great Game in Eurasia - the Pipelineistan chapter - the EU keeps playing in the junior league as neither Brussels nor an array of European capitals seem to be able to coordinate what they pompously call their energy security.

Mr Wen, care for some cheap euros?
As for the Kissinger question, it simply won't go away. In sum, President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao will still be playing bilateral politics - and calling French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel or British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, not Van Rompuy.

And whatever shaba daba da changes come into effect, any weak yuan discussions will continue to fall under the EC's Economic and Monetary Affairs commissioner. The spectacle of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China complaining about Chinese industrial overcapacity or about the weak yuan (because it hurts pricey European exports) - as they have done in a meeting this weekend in Nanjing - is also bound to continue.

It would be risible to expect the governor of the Chinese Central Bank, Zhou Xiaochuan - the de facto second-most powerful man in the country - to roll over to the EU's wishes. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao put things in perspective as he insisted on a stable yuan as "crucial to Chinese economic stability".

And as the EU rotating presidency is still in effect it was up to the Swedes, via Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, to come to Nanjing and deploy to the Chinese the usual menu. Please soften up North Korea and Myanmar. And please talk not sense but sanctions to the Iranian leadership - even while China keeps stressing its absolute non-interference in other countries' internal matters. On Iran, few in "unified" Brussels seem to have listened to the Chinese ambassador to the EU, Song Zhe, when he said last week, "We must be very cautious to conclude that peaceful nuclear technology will be used for military ends." Iran is absolutely essential for Chinese energy security.

Watching all this, one would be excused for wondering if, as the dashing duo of Van Rompuy and Ashton prepares its shaba daba da routine, the silky Chinese caravan will steadily be marching on towards unforetold, ever more auspicious, riches....

As Barack Obama arrives in Sweden to collect his ill-deserved Nobel Prize, the celebrations expose an awful truth: Europe’s admiration for its ideal of an American president is not reciprocated. Obama seems to bear Europeans no ill will. But he has quickly learned to view them with the attitude that they find hardest to endure – indifference.

We are entering a post-American world – the world beyond America’s brief moment of global domination. Obama’s administration understands this, and has responded with what it calls a “multi-partner strategy.” Whether it is the Chinese for the global economy, or Russia for nuclear disarmament, the United States will now work with whomever can help it get the results it wants – thus ensuring that it remains the “indispensable nation.”

No rejection or exclusion of Europeans is intended. Americans understand that Europe, as the other major repository of democratic legitimacy, wealth, and military power, has great potential as a partner. Obama spelled this out during his first trip to Europe as president, at the NATO summit in April. But if Europe fails to respond, Obama will look elsewhere for the partners he needs, unconstrained by anxious European invocations of “special relationships” or “the Atlantic community of values.”

Obama’s approach is self-avowedly pragmatic. His observation that the US-China relationship will shape the twenty-first century was not a statement of preference, but an acknowledgement of reality.

All this is a rude shock for Europe. The late twentieth century worked so well for Europeans. In exchange for political solidarity, the US protected them and gave them the role of junior associates in running the world.

Attitudes formed in such congenial circumstances die hard. Thus, 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia spends only half what Europeans do on defense – yet Europe still clings to the notion that its security depends on American protection. In the same spirit, Europeans resolutely refuse to accept that the US might legitimately have different geopolitical interests – so that when US policies diverge from their own, Europeans assume that the Americans simply got it wrong, and that they clearly need Europe’s wise advice to set them straight.

Such a mindset naturally puts a huge premium on close and harmonious transatlantic relations, to the point that, for Europeans, closeness and harmony become the objective itself, without reference to what ends they might serve. Europeans, in short, fetishize the transatlantic relationship.

In relation to Russia and China, the European Union’s member states generally recognize that a more united European stance, however difficult to achieve in practice, would be desirable. But there is no such recognition in relation to the US. On the contrary, European elites seem to feel that “ganging up” on the US would be improper.

So, for most European states, transatlantic relations are primarily about NATO and their bilateral links with the US. After all, it is not just the British who believe themselves to have a “special relationship”; most of the EU’s member states like to believe that they have a particular “in” with America which gives them a special influence. Accordingly, national rather than collective approaches to the US predominate, based largely on strategies of ingratiation – each European state tries to present itself as more useful, or at least more sympathetic, than its European competitors.

From America’s perspective, this can often be advantageous. If Europeans want to be divided and ruled, the US is happy to oblige. America can take its time deciding on a new strategy in Afghanistan without considering European views, despite the presence of more than 30,000 European troops in the country. Similarly, it suits the US that Europe should remain on the sidelines of the Israel-Palestine conflict while paying €1 billion a year to finance the stalemate.

Yet, despite these advantages, America is irked by the constant European clamor for access and attention. Such neediness would be easier to bear if it were accompanied by a greater readiness to take real action. All these different Europeans are able to talk a good game, but few are ready to get their hands dirty. Seen from Washington, Europe’s attention-seeking and responsibility-shirking behavior appears infantile.

If only, then, Europeans could learn to address America with one voice. There is no shortage of ideas about how to encourage this through new processes and forums for US-EU strategic dialogue. But the problem is one of political psychology, not institutional arrangements. It can be addressed only when Europeans take stock of the way the world is changing, decide that allowing others to determine the future world order is less than optimal, and develop the attitudes and behaviors of a post-American Europe.

This requires a Europe that knows its own mind, so that it can approach the US – and the rest of the world – with a clearer eye and a harder head. The EU’s member states will have to learn to discuss the big geopolitical issues – starting with their own security – as Europeans, within the EU. They will not always agree among themselves. When they do, they will stand a better chance of asserting their own interests – and of acting as a more committed and influential partner for the US on the many international issues where European and American interests coincide.

The US would, in fact, prefer such a Europe. But so low are American expectations that they scarcely care. Post-American Europeans need to shake off their habitual deference and complacency towards the US – or reconcile themselves to deserved American indifference.

Note
1. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and signed in Moscow on August 24, 1939. It was a non-aggression pact between the two countries and pledged neutrality by either party if the other were attacked by a third party. Each signatory promised not to join any grouping of powers that was "directly or indirectly aimed at the other party". It remained in effect until June 22, 1941, when Germany implemented Operation Barbarossa, invading the Soviet Union.

.Over the past decade, there has been much talk about a new world order, in which American "unipolarity" would be superseded by more equal arrangements between the great powers. One such idea is a return to the Russia-China-US triangle. In truth, however, the time for such geopolitical schemes has long passed. The contemporary international system is too complex and interdependent to be reduced to crude strategic balancing-a reality underlined by the global financial crisis. The most likely successor to US global leadership is not a "multipolar world order" dominated by the great powers, but a rough Sino-American bipolarity. This would bear little resemblance to the stark model of the cold war era, but instead foreshadow a new, post-modern triangle. The "third side" would not be Russia, but a mass of formal and informal networks involving nation-states, multilateral institutions, and non-state actors.

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