US's 'arc of instability' just gets bigger

Pepe Escobar, the author of this article, writes his convictions. Truly his Chinese employers see their agenda served, but in this case, it would appear both Pepe and China have a point. The US has taken on the traditional role of Great Britain. The Brits maintained their dominance of the world by playing divide and conquer. The US is doing the same. Except, it would appear, the availability of information via the internet is undermining the US effectiveness.

Has Obama simply filled Bushes shoes as the world's bully? At this point I'm thinking this is an engine independent of government. Is it a "rogue" CIA operation blacked out to even Obama? Totally blacked out, probably not, but buried in piles and piles of similar operations with few directors and no accountability to maintain plausible denial ability and accessible to the new president only with time and focus. Do you thing Obama has enough on his plate?

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Asia Times Online

The New Great Game is not only focused on the face-off between the United States and strategic competitors Russia and China - with Pipelineistan as a defining element.

The full spectrum dominance doctrine requires the control of the Pentagon-coined "arc of instability" from the Horn of Africa to western China. The cover story is the former "global war on terror", now "overseas contingency operations" under the management of President Barack Obama's administration.

Most of all, the underlying logic remains divide and rule. As for the divide, Beijing would call it, without a trace of irony, "splittist". Split up Iraq - blocking China's access to Iraqi oil. Split up Pakistan - with an independent Balochistan preventing China from

accessing the strategic port of Gwadar there. Split up Afghanistan - with an independent Pashtunistan allowing the building of the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline bypassing Russia. Split up Iran - by financing subversion in Khuzestan and Sistan-Balochistan. And why not split up Bolivia (as was attempted last year) to the benefit of US energy giants. Call it the (splitting) Kosovo model.

Kosovo, incidentally, is known as the Colombia of the Balkans. What Washington calls the "Western hemisphere" is a sub-section of the New Great Game. The linkage between the recent military coup in Honduras, the return of the living dead - that is, the resurrection of the US Navy's Fourth Fleet in July 2008 - and now the turbo-charging of seven US military bases in Colombia is not to be blamed merely on continuity from president George W Bush to Obama. Not really. This is all about the internal logic of Full Spectrum Dominance.

via Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan.

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China May Test North Korea Leverage After Kim's Nuclear Blast

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Bloomberg.com

China has the ability to cripple North Korea by cutting off shipments of food, fuel, and luxury goods that Kim Jong Il doles out to loyalists. Kim's nuclear detonation may put that leverage in play and test its impact on the leadership.
China is increasingly frustrated by North Korea's defiance of United Nations resolutions designed to curb its atomic and missile programs and is worried that a nuclear-armed government in Pyongyang could spark a new arms race in Asia, analysts and a person familiar with the Obama administration's policy said.
Until now, China has rebuffed U.S. and Japanese calls for tougher economic penalties against North Korean leader Kim, agreeing only on narrow UN sanctions aimed at regime-run companies and arms imports.
"China may be reaching a point of understanding that Kim is going too far," said Dennis Wilder, a former Asia director for the White House National Security Council.
Should the Chinese leadership shift against North Korea, it isn't clear what levers would be used or whether economic clout would translate into political influence over a regime in a possible succession battle, according to the person familiar with administration policy and experts on China and North Korea.
By normal measures of economic influence, China has overwhelming and growing power over North Korea. China accounted for 73 percent of North Korea's international trade last year, up from less than a third in 2003, according to the Seoul-based Korea Trade & Investment Promotion Agency.
Oil, Food
China supplies 90 percent of North Korea's oil demand, 80 percent of consumer goods and 45 percent of its food, Dong Yong Seung, a researcher on North Korean issues at the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, said.
China didn't want to use stronger measures in the past out of fear of alienating possible successors to Kim or even sparking the collapse of North Korea, its ally of 60 years, and fomenting a refugee crisis along their 800-mile border.
An April 5 rocket launch, the May 25 nuclear detonation and subsequent short-range missile tests may lead China to work more closely with the U.S., the person familiar with U.S. policy said.
China's foreign ministry said the country "resolutely opposes" North Korea's nuclear test. On May 25 China agreed with the U.S., Japan and Russia to work toward a UN resolution censuring North Korea for its nuclear test and missile launches.
'Strong' Words
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said China's reaction suggests there will be unanimity in the UN Security Council for efforts to punish North Korea. "The Chinese government has been exceptionally strong in their words of condemnation," Gibbs said yesterday.
Possible Chinese actions would include implementing a UN ban on luxury imports such as cognac, caviar and high-end sedans, many of which pass through the Chinese border city of Dandong into North Korea.
"North Korea runs like a Mafia family," Wilder said. "If Kim can't deliver the luxuries to his elite, they might begin to question his loyalties."
China could also curtail access to Chinese banks. In 2005, the U.S. Treasury labeled Banco Delta Asia SARL in Macao a money-laundering "concern," prompting authorities there to freeze North Korean funds. In 2007 North Korea agreed to begin implementing an accord to scrap its nuclear program after the U.S. agreed to release the funds.
And in February 2003, China either threatened or carried out a halt in oil flows to North Korea for a few days. Soon after North Korea agreed to take part in what became the six- party talks on denuclearization, Wilder said.
Famine in 1990s
A reduction in food and fuel subsidies from China and the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s helped bring on a famine that may have killed 2 million people from 1994 to 1998, according to a 1999 study by the Washington-based U.S. Institute of Peace. Reducing subsidies isn't a likely option now, Wilder said.
"If China was really serious it could probably bring the country to its knees," said Richard Bush, an expert on North Korea and China at Washington's Brookings Institution.
So far that economic leverage hasn't been brought to bear, and China has seen its diplomatic efforts to curb Kim's nuclear program repeatedly foiled by North Korea. One reason: North Korea's actions stem in part from an internal struggle to succeed the ailing Kim, according to Wilder and Bush.
The nuclear and missile tests are a show of strength by Kim and a bid to gain the support of the military and aren't driven by international developments, they say.
China may have been trying to get "in good stead" with Kim's likely successors, said Bonnie Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Now the Chinese may be reassessing their stance.
'Macho Acts'
The Chinese may consider "that the cost-benefit analysis of allowing him room to consolidate his succession by macho acts against the U.S., Japan and South Korea is causing too much instability in Northeast Asia," said Wilder, now a visiting fellow at Brookings.
The danger is that a nuclear North Korea could prompt South Korea and Japan to pursue atomic weapons and longer-range missiles, and the spread of nuclear arms across Asia could make China less safe.
For its part, China's government says it isn't leveraging its economic and political power over North Korea.
"The question of influence over another country's policies, internal matters is inappropriate and irrelevant," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ma Zhaoxutold reporters in Beijing on May 26.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Forsythe in Washington at mforsythe@bloomberg.net.

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Japan warns North Korea against launch - International Herald Tribune

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International Herald Tribune

Japan on Friday condemned North Korea's plan to launch a rocket, warning that it was legally entitled to shoot down any threatening object that falls toward its territory.
North Korea told global agencies this past week that it would put a communications satellite into orbit between April 4 and April 8, using a rocket that will fly over Japan and the Pacific. The announcement unsettled neighboring countries that consider the launching a cover for testing the North's Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile. Washington, Seoul and Secretary General Ban Ki Moon of the United Nations all urged Pyongyang on Thursday to cancel its plans.
On Friday, Prime Minister Taro Aso of Japan said: "They can call it a satellite or whatever, but it would be a violation" of a UN resolution. In 2006, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution banning Pyongyang from nuclear tests and ballistic missile activities after the Communist state detonated its first nuclear device. "Under our law, we can intercept any object if it is falling towards Japan, including any attacks on Japan, for our safety," the Japanese government's chief spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura, said Friday.
If the North Korean rocket launching is successful, it will not fall toward Japan but rather fly over it. North Korea has said that it would consider any attempt to intercept its rocket "an act of war" and that it would attack the interceptors. Kawamura's remarks reflected Japan's growing anxiety over North Korea's missile capabilities. In 1998, North Korea launched its Taepodong-1 missile, which flew over Japan, although North Korea insisted at the time that this was another satellite launching.
This week, North Korea gave map coordinates for two danger zones where its rocket's spent boosters might fall. One lies in waters less than 120 kilometers, or 75 miles, from Japan's northwestern shore. The other lies in the middle of the Pacific between Japan and Hawaii.
It was unclear from Kawamura's comment whether Japan would attempt to shoot down a jettisoned rocket booster if it falls toward its territory. Japan, which has been developing a missile defense system with the United States, has said it is ready to shoot down an incoming missile.
International Herald Tribune Copyright © 2009 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

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Japan warns North Korea against launch - International Herald Tribune

Image via Wikipedia

International Herald Tribune

Japan on Friday condemned North Korea's plan to launch a rocket, warning that it was legally entitled to shoot down any threatening object that falls toward its territory.
North Korea told global agencies this past week that it would put a communications satellite into orbit between April 4 and April 8, using a rocket that will fly over Japan and the Pacific. The announcement unsettled neighboring countries that consider the launching a cover for testing the North's Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile. Washington, Seoul and Secretary General Ban Ki Moon of the United Nations all urged Pyongyang on Thursday to cancel its plans.
On Friday, Prime Minister Taro Aso of Japan said: "They can call it a satellite or whatever, but it would be a violation" of a UN resolution. In 2006, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution banning Pyongyang from nuclear tests and ballistic missile activities after the Communist state detonated its first nuclear device. "Under our law, we can intercept any object if it is falling towards Japan, including any attacks on Japan, for our safety," the Japanese government's chief spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura, said Friday.
If the North Korean rocket launching is successful, it will not fall toward Japan but rather fly over it. North Korea has said that it would consider any attempt to intercept its rocket "an act of war" and that it would attack the interceptors. Kawamura's remarks reflected Japan's growing anxiety over North Korea's missile capabilities. In 1998, North Korea launched its Taepodong-1 missile, which flew over Japan, although North Korea insisted at the time that this was another satellite launching.
This week, North Korea gave map coordinates for two danger zones where its rocket's spent boosters might fall. One lies in waters less than 120 kilometers, or 75 miles, from Japan's northwestern shore. The other lies in the middle of the Pacific between Japan and Hawaii.
It was unclear from Kawamura's comment whether Japan would attempt to shoot down a jettisoned rocket booster if it falls toward its territory. Japan, which has been developing a missile defense system with the United States, has said it is ready to shoot down an incoming missile.
International Herald Tribune Copyright © 2009 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

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Moscow, Tehran force the US's hand

Image by Army.mil via Flickr

Asia Times Online

It may seem there could be nothing in common between the blowing up of a bridge in the Khyber, the usage of an air base nestling in the foothills of the Pamirs and the launch of a 60-pound (37.2 kilogram) satellite into the night sky that will circle the Earth 14 times a day.
But band them together and they trigger the political and diplomatic equivalent of what is known in the game of chess as zwischenzug, which means an intermediate move that improves a player's position.
Persians, who invented chess, would have mastery over zwischenzug.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said in Tehran on Wednesday, "Iran has no plans to stop its nuclear activity. At its forthcoming meeting, the 'Iran Six' should draw up a logical approach and accept the fact that Iran is a nuclear state."
The Taliban don't play chess
It is unlikely the Taliban factored Iran's imminent zwischenzug when they blew up the 30-meter iron bridge in the Khyber Pass 24 kilometers west of Peshawar in northwest Pakistan on Monday, which halted the supplies for North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops in Afghanistan. But the disruption of traffic once again exposed the vulnerability of the main NATO supply route and focused attention on Tehran.
This is forcing NATO into a major policy shift. NATO's top military commander in Afghanistan, General John Craddock, admitted that the alliance would not oppose individual member nations making deals with Iran to supply their forces in Afghanistan. To quote Craddock, a four-star American general who is also NATO's supreme allied commander, "Those would be national decisions. Nations should act in a manner that is consistent with their national interest and with their ability to resupply their forces. I think it is purely up to them."
Craddock was transferring rapidly to the operational plane what the alliance's secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer had said only a week ago that NATO member countries, including the United States, should engage Iran to combat the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Scheffer wouldn't have spoken without Washington's nod. Craddock underscored it. NATO is keen to use the new highway built by the Indian government from central Afghanistan to the Iranian border at Zaranj, which would allow access to Iran's deep-sea Persian Gulf port at Chabahar. The road is largely unused. The Indians completed work on the highway hardly a fortnight ago.
NATO is scrambling. It must somehow reduce dependence on Pakistani supply routes, which are currently used for ferrying about 80% of supplies. The irony cannot be lost on onlookers. NATO seeks an Iranian route when Tehran is demanding a US troop pullout from Afghanistan.
Last Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki remarked that Iran had paid attention to the plans of US President Barack Obama's administration to withdraw US troops from Iraq and "we believe this should be extended to Afghanistan as well".
The irony deepens insofar as a fortnight ago US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in his first congressional testimony in the new administration leveled allegations about increased Iranian "interference" and doublespeak in Afghanistan, and implied that Tehran was fueling the insurgency.
Russia's zwischenzug
The heart of the matter is that the US's efforts to open supply routes from the north across the Amu Darya have got caught up in the great game in Central Asia. American spokesmen blithely claimed Russia and the Central Asian states were providing supply routes. But the geopolitics do not bear that out.
Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev dropped a bombshell on Tuesday by demanding the closure of the US military base in Manas, which is used for ferrying supplies for Afghanistan. He said this after talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, during which Moscow pledged to Bishkek that it was writing off $180 million debt and would also provide Kyrgyzstan with a $2 billion soft loan and an outright grant of $150 million.
NATO's envoy to Central Asia, Robert Simmons, rushed to Bishkek in a last-ditch attempt to stall the Kyrgyz move, but only to regret the development and admit that NATO's Afghan operations would be adversely affected. Washington still hopes to salvage the situation, but that involves taking Moscow's help.
Moscow is willing, as always - provided the US is prepared to shelve its untimely geopolitical agenda to broaden and deepen its (and NATO's) strategic presence in Central Asia on the pretext of developing new supply routes for Afghanistan. Plainly put, Moscow feels irritated about Washington's abrasive diplomacy in Central Asia in recent weeks.
The US signed an agreement with Kazakhstan, Russia's key ally, offering to procure "a significant part" of its supplies for Afghanistan from that country. and in turn is pressuring it to make troop deployments in Afghanistan. Conceivably, Moscow (and Beijing) view with disquiet the US move to court their key Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) ally into the Western strategic orbit. Conceivably, Moscow's zwischenzug to evict the US military from Kyrgyzstan would enjoy tacit Chinese encouragement as well.
Nyet to selective engagement
Washington prefers "selective engagement" without addressing the underlying factors that caused the chill in relations. The Kremlin remains cautiously optimistic that Obama may address relations from a fresh perspective. The mood is reflected in a pithy comment by former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev that "there are grounds for optimism, so far".
But an underlying sense of exasperation is visible. As a Moscow commentator put it, the George W Bush era may be over, but the "consequences are still there"; Obama might have new ideas, but the "old wire-pullers" are still there in the establishment in key positions; and, therefore, Obama might need "years rather than months to shape a new foreign policy".
So, Moscow resorted to zwischenzug. Last Saturday, the influential Moscow paper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that Russia proposed to reopen the key Soviet air base of Bombora on the Black Sea coast in Abkhazia. On Tuesday, Russia signed an agreement with Belarus setting up an integrated air defense system. On Wednesday, Medvedev used the CSTO forum to reiterate he was open to cooperation with the US in the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan.
Again, in related comments on Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said, "We hope that we and the United States will hold special and professional talks on this issue [of transit routes to Afghanistan] in the near future. We will see how effectively we can cooperate ... The US, Central Asia, China - we are all interested in a successful anti-terrorism operation in Afghanistan."
Karasin assured that the US's eviction from Manas "would not prove an obstruction". He said, "We [Russia] hope that we and the United States will hold special and professional talks on the issue in the near future. We will see how effectively we can cooperate."
In sum, the ball is in Obama's court. The big question is whether he can bulldoze the hardliners and jettison the heavy baggage of geopolitics that his faltering Afghan war is needlessly carrying.
Meanwhile, the shadow of US-Russian relations falls on the Hindu Kush. The Russian media reported that a high-level Afghan military delegation is expected in Moscow in the "near future". With a growing possibility that Obama may withdraw support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Moscow will be weighing its options.
The US is perched on a slippery slope in Afghanistan. The Taliban resurgence continues and the security situation is deteriorating, but NATO is unable to increase its force level or evolve an effective strategy. NATO supply lines have come under threat, but alternate routes are yet to be negotiated. The US's rift with the Karzai regime is widening, but a replacement is never easy to be catapulted into power in Kabul. Again, Washington should pressure Islamabad, but the situation in Pakistan is far too fragile to take any greater pressure.
It is against this complex backdrop that Iran's satellite took off into the star-studded night sky on Monday. Named Hope, its launch has a multiplier effect on geopolitics. Warning bells are ringing in Western capitals that any expectation of Tehran lowering its guard is misplaced. The launch can be seen as a technological feat, which it indeed is, but Hope also gives a hard message about Iran's military capability.
Experts estimate that the two-stage rocket used for its launch could easily carry a small warhead to a target 2,500 kilometers away. It may not be an inter-continental ballistic missile, but southern Europe comes within its range, as indeed the whole of Israel. Simply put, Iran has in hand a credible deterrent against a US-Israeli military attack.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs described the launch as of "acute concern to this administration". German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeir said after his first meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, "We want to be helpful in making sure that the outstretched hand of President Obama is a strong hand." No doubt, these are strong words.
But an unmatchable German word is more to the point - zugzwang. It literally means "compelled to move". That is, a situation develops on the chessboard when any move a player makes can only weaken his position, but he is nonetheless compelled to make his move.
It may be far-fetched to say that Moscow and Tehran coordinated their respective zwischenzug, but certainly both keenly await Washington's zugzwang .
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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Moscow, Tehran force the US's hand

Image by Army.mil via Flickr

Asia Times Online

It may seem there could be nothing in common between the blowing up of a bridge in the Khyber, the usage of an air base nestling in the foothills of the Pamirs and the launch of a 60-pound (37.2 kilogram) satellite into the night sky that will circle the Earth 14 times a day.
But band them together and they trigger the political and diplomatic equivalent of what is known in the game of chess as zwischenzug, which means an intermediate move that improves a player's position.
Persians, who invented chess, would have mastery over zwischenzug.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said in Tehran on Wednesday, "Iran has no plans to stop its nuclear activity. At its forthcoming meeting, the 'Iran Six' should draw up a logical approach and accept the fact that Iran is a nuclear state."
The Taliban don't play chess
It is unlikely the Taliban factored Iran's imminent zwischenzug when they blew up the 30-meter iron bridge in the Khyber Pass 24 kilometers west of Peshawar in northwest Pakistan on Monday, which halted the supplies for North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops in Afghanistan. But the disruption of traffic once again exposed the vulnerability of the main NATO supply route and focused attention on Tehran.
This is forcing NATO into a major policy shift. NATO's top military commander in Afghanistan, General John Craddock, admitted that the alliance would not oppose individual member nations making deals with Iran to supply their forces in Afghanistan. To quote Craddock, a four-star American general who is also NATO's supreme allied commander, "Those would be national decisions. Nations should act in a manner that is consistent with their national interest and with their ability to resupply their forces. I think it is purely up to them."
Craddock was transferring rapidly to the operational plane what the alliance's secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer had said only a week ago that NATO member countries, including the United States, should engage Iran to combat the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Scheffer wouldn't have spoken without Washington's nod. Craddock underscored it. NATO is keen to use the new highway built by the Indian government from central Afghanistan to the Iranian border at Zaranj, which would allow access to Iran's deep-sea Persian Gulf port at Chabahar. The road is largely unused. The Indians completed work on the highway hardly a fortnight ago.
NATO is scrambling. It must somehow reduce dependence on Pakistani supply routes, which are currently used for ferrying about 80% of supplies. The irony cannot be lost on onlookers. NATO seeks an Iranian route when Tehran is demanding a US troop pullout from Afghanistan.
Last Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki remarked that Iran had paid attention to the plans of US President Barack Obama's administration to withdraw US troops from Iraq and "we believe this should be extended to Afghanistan as well".
The irony deepens insofar as a fortnight ago US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in his first congressional testimony in the new administration leveled allegations about increased Iranian "interference" and doublespeak in Afghanistan, and implied that Tehran was fueling the insurgency.
Russia's zwischenzug
The heart of the matter is that the US's efforts to open supply routes from the north across the Amu Darya have got caught up in the great game in Central Asia. American spokesmen blithely claimed Russia and the Central Asian states were providing supply routes. But the geopolitics do not bear that out.
Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev dropped a bombshell on Tuesday by demanding the closure of the US military base in Manas, which is used for ferrying supplies for Afghanistan. He said this after talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, during which Moscow pledged to Bishkek that it was writing off $180 million debt and would also provide Kyrgyzstan with a $2 billion soft loan and an outright grant of $150 million.
NATO's envoy to Central Asia, Robert Simmons, rushed to Bishkek in a last-ditch attempt to stall the Kyrgyz move, but only to regret the development and admit that NATO's Afghan operations would be adversely affected. Washington still hopes to salvage the situation, but that involves taking Moscow's help.
Moscow is willing, as always - provided the US is prepared to shelve its untimely geopolitical agenda to broaden and deepen its (and NATO's) strategic presence in Central Asia on the pretext of developing new supply routes for Afghanistan. Plainly put, Moscow feels irritated about Washington's abrasive diplomacy in Central Asia in recent weeks.
The US signed an agreement with Kazakhstan, Russia's key ally, offering to procure "a significant part" of its supplies for Afghanistan from that country. and in turn is pressuring it to make troop deployments in Afghanistan. Conceivably, Moscow (and Beijing) view with disquiet the US move to court their key Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) ally into the Western strategic orbit. Conceivably, Moscow's zwischenzug to evict the US military from Kyrgyzstan would enjoy tacit Chinese encouragement as well.
Nyet to selective engagement
Washington prefers "selective engagement" without addressing the underlying factors that caused the chill in relations. The Kremlin remains cautiously optimistic that Obama may address relations from a fresh perspective. The mood is reflected in a pithy comment by former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev that "there are grounds for optimism, so far".
But an underlying sense of exasperation is visible. As a Moscow commentator put it, the George W Bush era may be over, but the "consequences are still there"; Obama might have new ideas, but the "old wire-pullers" are still there in the establishment in key positions; and, therefore, Obama might need "years rather than months to shape a new foreign policy".
So, Moscow resorted to zwischenzug. Last Saturday, the influential Moscow paper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that Russia proposed to reopen the key Soviet air base of Bombora on the Black Sea coast in Abkhazia. On Tuesday, Russia signed an agreement with Belarus setting up an integrated air defense system. On Wednesday, Medvedev used the CSTO forum to reiterate he was open to cooperation with the US in the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan.
Again, in related comments on Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said, "We hope that we and the United States will hold special and professional talks on this issue [of transit routes to Afghanistan] in the near future. We will see how effectively we can cooperate ... The US, Central Asia, China - we are all interested in a successful anti-terrorism operation in Afghanistan."
Karasin assured that the US's eviction from Manas "would not prove an obstruction". He said, "We [Russia] hope that we and the United States will hold special and professional talks on the issue in the near future. We will see how effectively we can cooperate."
In sum, the ball is in Obama's court. The big question is whether he can bulldoze the hardliners and jettison the heavy baggage of geopolitics that his faltering Afghan war is needlessly carrying.
Meanwhile, the shadow of US-Russian relations falls on the Hindu Kush. The Russian media reported that a high-level Afghan military delegation is expected in Moscow in the "near future". With a growing possibility that Obama may withdraw support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Moscow will be weighing its options.
The US is perched on a slippery slope in Afghanistan. The Taliban resurgence continues and the security situation is deteriorating, but NATO is unable to increase its force level or evolve an effective strategy. NATO supply lines have come under threat, but alternate routes are yet to be negotiated. The US's rift with the Karzai regime is widening, but a replacement is never easy to be catapulted into power in Kabul. Again, Washington should pressure Islamabad, but the situation in Pakistan is far too fragile to take any greater pressure.
It is against this complex backdrop that Iran's satellite took off into the star-studded night sky on Monday. Named Hope, its launch has a multiplier effect on geopolitics. Warning bells are ringing in Western capitals that any expectation of Tehran lowering its guard is misplaced. The launch can be seen as a technological feat, which it indeed is, but Hope also gives a hard message about Iran's military capability.
Experts estimate that the two-stage rocket used for its launch could easily carry a small warhead to a target 2,500 kilometers away. It may not be an inter-continental ballistic missile, but southern Europe comes within its range, as indeed the whole of Israel. Simply put, Iran has in hand a credible deterrent against a US-Israeli military attack.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs described the launch as of "acute concern to this administration". German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeir said after his first meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, "We want to be helpful in making sure that the outstretched hand of President Obama is a strong hand." No doubt, these are strong words.
But an unmatchable German word is more to the point - zugzwang. It literally means "compelled to move". That is, a situation develops on the chessboard when any move a player makes can only weaken his position, but he is nonetheless compelled to make his move.
It may be far-fetched to say that Moscow and Tehran coordinated their respective zwischenzug, but certainly both keenly await Washington's zugzwang .
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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• US base closure may alter Afghan plans (guardian.co.uk)
• Kyrgyzstan Says It Will Close U.S. Base (nytimes.com)
• Dispute Mounts Over Kyrgyz Base (nytimes.com)
• Secret Report Urges New Afghanistan Policy (cbsnews.com)
• Islamabad: No deal allowing U.S. Predators into Pakistan (cnn.com)

The great game of hunting pirates

Asia Times Online

Sea piracy off the coast of Somalia is looming large on the radar of world opinion. The recent hijacking of the oil tanker Sirius Star - a supertanker big enough to hold a quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily production (2 million barrels) - has dramatically highlighted the expanding dimensions of the problem. The barely functioning government of Somalia is unable to curb the pirates who sail from its ports and seize cargo ships that ply past.
The pirates on board the Sirius Star have issued a US$25 million ransom demand, and warned of "disastrous" consequences if the money is not paid.
[..]Therefore, there is no question that the problem of piracy is also to be addressed ashore in Somalia. But, problems often enough, lend themselves to solution if only soldiers and geostrategists would step aside for a while. That is, at least, the expert opinion of Katie Stuhldreher. Writing in the Christian Science Monitor recently, she put forth a three-way approach to the Somalia problem. One, the international community should appreciate that the piracy in Somalia has its origin among disgruntled fishermen who had to compete with illegal poaching by foreign commercial vessels in its tuna-rich coastal waters.
This unequal fight created a local impoverished population. Resentment was also caused among the coastal population over the shameless dumping of wastes in Somali waters by foreign ships. The disgruntled local fishermen, who lost out, soon organized to attack foreign fishing vessels and demand compensation. Their campaign succeeded and prompted many young men to "hang up their fishing nets in favor of AK-47s".
Stuhldreher suggested, "Making the coastal areas lucrative for local fishermen again could encourage pirates to return to legitimate livelihoods." Therefore, she wrote, "A fishery protection force will eliminate the pirates' source of legitimacy." This could be done under the auspices of the UN or African Union or a "coalition of the willing".
Most important, "An international force sent to protect local industry will achieve the same goal as warships but in a more acceptable way. The principal reason piracy thrives along Somalia's coast is that there is no coastal authority to protect these waters. Armed foreign ships will still serve to fill that vacuum and deter attacks, but with the explicit mission of serving Somalia's people - the very people who have chalked up enough reasons to dislike foreign military interventions and are likely to view the presence of warships as intimidation."
But, will there be any takers for "nation-building" in Africa among the US, NATO and European member countries, Russia or India? Highly unlikely. Ideally, the international community should also commence a reconciliation process involving the residual elements of the ICU. In retrospect, like in Afghanistan in the case with the Taliban, a proper understanding of Islamism would help appreciate the worth of the ICU in stabilizing Somalia.
On the contrary, under the broad rubric of the fight against sea piracy, what we are witnessing is an entirely different template of maritime activity by the interventionist powers. The US has established a separate Africa Command in the Pentagon. NATO and the EU have stepped out of the European theater and entered the Indian Ocean area. Russia is seeking a reopening of its Soviet-era naval base in Aden. India has sought and obtained berthing facilities for its warships in Oman, which is an unprecedented move to establish a permanent naval presence in the Persian Gulf. The Indian Ocean is becoming a new theater in the Great Game. It seems a matter of time before China appears.
China of course is not a newcomer to the Indian Ocean. In 1405, during the reign of Emperor Yung-lo of the Ming Dynasty, a celebrated Chinese naval commander Ching-Ho visited Ceylon (presently known as Sri Lanka) bearing incense to offer at the renowned shrine of the Buddha in the hill town of Kandy. But he was waylaid by Sinhalese King Wijayo Bahu VI, and he escaped to his ships. To seek revenge, China dispatched Ching-Ho a few years later. He captured the Sinhalese king and his family and took them away as prisoners. But on seeing the prisoners, the Chinese emperor out of compassion ordered them to be sent back on the condition that the "wisest of the family should be chosen king". The new king, Sri Prakrama Bahu, was given a seal of investiture and made a vassal of the Chinese emperor. That was how Ceylon remained until 1448, paying an annual tribute to China.
Admiral Mehta has a worthy example in front of him, provided he can coax his reluctant country to flex its muscles in Africa for the first time in its ancient history. His best argument would be that unless he took an early lead, Ching-Ho might reappear in the Indian Ocean. But then there is an inherent risk insofar as the pirates who disappeared into the mist on Tuesday evening might also return looking for the INS Tabar.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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• India, China jostle for influence in Indian Ocean
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Syria Nuclear Story a Diversion

Informed Comment

The US and Israel accused Syria on Thursday of building a secret nuclear reactor with North Korean help. There was a lot of innuendo in the press that the reactor was intended for nuclear weapons production. But AFP notes:

'They said US intelligence had "high confidence" that the structure bombed by the Israelis was a nuclear reactor, "medium confidence" that the North Koreans were involved in building it, and "low confidence" that plutonium from it was for nuclear weapons.

[..]The real question is the timing of the announcement, since the bombing happened a long time ago. It is suspicious to me that the announcement was made just after a spy for Israel was arrested in the US who had stolen US nuclear secrets. Is it diversionary?


Syria expert Josh Landis discusses a different theory of diversion, having to do with revelations that Syria and Israel are closer to an agreement on the future of the Golan Heights.


I'd add that former president Jimmy Carter's recent trip to meet with Hamas leaders has put pressure on Israel to come back in a serious way to the negotiating table. Also Hamas's own apparent change in stance on diplomacy, as Helena Cobban discusses.


Bush's own remarks Thursday that he is seeking a viable Palestine that does not look like Swiss cheese revealed some of what the administration must have been pressing the Israelis on in recent months in preparation for Bush's trip in May.


So the timing of the Syria reactor announcement does seem suspicious in Middle East terms. If the US doesn't in fact think there is any evidence that the reactor had weapons implications, then it is really a non story, and releasing it can only be for hoopla reasons.


...Aljazeera's report on the issue, which contains yet another diversionary theory, that the revelations are aimed at pressuring North Korea.

Here is BBCs take on it:
BBC NEWS

The underscoring of an alleged nuclear link between Pyongyang and Damascus certainly harms both governments. For all the talk of renewed conflict between Israel and Syria, there has also been a good deal of talk about a possible deal over the Golan Heights as well. The signals have been complex and contradictory. But highlighting a clandestine Syrian nuclear programme now might serve to reinforce Syria's isolation. Without US brokerage, any talk of a Syria-Israel deal is illusory.


Some analysts believe that the decision to go public on the evidence of the Syrian reactor project may be the culmination of the playing out of competing currents within the Bush Administration. In this scenario it is a victory of the more hawkish voices, who fear that President Bush might be going soft as his term of office draws to a close. In their view, the Americans should not accept any dealings with Syria, nor should it make the concessions required to North Korea to keep alive the deal to roll back its nuclear programme.


Such arguments appear strongest with regard to North Korea. It is clear that conservative voices both inside and outside the Bush administration see the proposed agreement with North Korea as fatally flawed. More liberal arms control experts also hold that view. "It stinks," one told me, "but perhaps the US should hold its nose in the hope of keeping the negotiating track open". So were the intelligence revelations intended to anger Pyongyang to damage any chance of a deal? Or was this a clearing of the air ahead of further progress?

Taiwan accesses damage after US unveils Chinese espionage

In a story right out of the shadow of the new cold wars, four Chinese spies are arrested in the US. Taiwan is accessing the damage.
M&C

Taiwan said Tuesday it is trying to determine exactly what kind of classified information China may have received after four people were charged in espionage cases in the US that involved the passing of military secrets to the Chinese government. 'Regarding the news that the US has cracked a spy ring, we are taking it seriously. We have formed a taskforce to assess damage and to evaluate security control,' Taiwan's Defence Ministry said in a statement.


The suspects arrested in two separate espionage cases Monday included an analyst in the Pentagon's office overseeing foreign military sales, Greg Bergersen, 51, and Dongfan 'Greg' Chung, a 72- year old former Boeing engineer. Bergersen allegedly provided documents detailing planned US military sales to Taiwan to an agent of the Chinese government. He faces 10 years in prison if convicted on charges of providing secret information to someone not permitted to receive it.


'All our arms purchases from the US are conducted directly with the (US) Defense Department. As to if there has been security leaks on the US side, we have expressed concern and have taken counter- measures,' Taiwan's Defence Ministry said.


Bergerson is believed to have provided information to Tai Shen Kuo, 58, a naturalized US citizen and New Orleans resident in the furniture business. A fourth individual, Yu Xin Kang, 33, also of New Orleans, has been charged with serving as the conduit between Kuo and the Chinese. The activities took place between January 2006 and February 2008. Kang and Kuo face life sentences if convicted for passing classified US documents to a foreign government. The United Evening News reported that Kuo may have passed to China vital information about Taiwan-US military contacts, especially Taiwan's purchase of communications and systems integration technology.


Taiwan has budgeted 5.3 million dollars to introduce the command, control, intelligence and surveillance systems. The US is Taiwan's main arms supplier, although Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. The largest US arms sale to Taiwan was the sale of 150 F-16 A/B warplanes, approved by former president George HW Bush. Taiwan is also seeking to buy 12 P3-C anti-submarine aircraft, eight conventional submarines, six PAC-III anti-missile batteries and 60 F-16 D/C jets from the US.

A Shifting Balence of Power in the Asian Pacific

Image via Wikipedia

The Chinese decision to deny US ships access to Hong Kong harbor marks a significant shift in the balence of power in the South China Sea. At the same time, Chinese ships have ported in Tokyo harbor for the first time. While largely symbolic, the meaning of these events should not be underestimated.
PINR

[..]On November 20, two navy minesweepers, the USS Patriot and USS Guardian, were performing routine patrol missions in the South China Sea when a weather storm descended upon them. Both ships were also running low on fuel. They sent an emergency request to Chinese authorities to dock at Hong Kong in order to weather the storm and refuel. The request was denied. The two ships were forced to stay out at sea.


Another incident centers around a U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Kitty Hawk. The Kitty Hawk and the five support vessels that travel with her were scheduled to dock in Hong Kong on November 21, one day before Thanksgiving. The arrangements for this port call had been worked out well in advance, and the Chinese authorities had granted approval. As the USS Kitty Hawk approached port, Chinese authorities radioed to indicate that the approval had been revoked. In order to salvage some part of the holiday, the USS Kitty Hawk turned and sailed for Japan, where approval would be certain. Some time later, Chinese authorities radioed again to say that approval had been re-granted. Yet, by this time, the Kitty Hawk was well on her way to Japan and could not afford to turn back.


On the same day, two other events transpired. Chinese authorities sent a communiqué to the U.S. Department of the Navy to inform them that the pending request for the USS Reuben James to dock in Hong Kong on New Year's Day had been denied.


[..]Regarding the balance of power, the events of the last week are a clear indication that a change is occurring in East Asia. Expressed in the simplest terms, the U.S. Navy is losing the ability to dock in Chinese controlled territories while the Chinese navy is gaining the ability to dock in Japanese territories. The frontier of the American sphere of influence is regressing, while the frontier of the Chinese sphere of influence is growing outward.


At a deeper level of analysis the change in the balance of power is even more evident. The USS Kitty Hawk is considered a significant vessel by the Chinese. The ship provided indispensible support to the campaign in Afghanistan, to which China, along with other member states in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, has taken a clear stance of active disapproval. To the Chinese government, the USS Kitty Hawk is symbolic of Washington's role in Afghanistan and presence in Central Asia.


The USS Kitty Hawk is also symbolic of another long standing disagreement. In 1994, the Kitty Hawk was instrumental in putting down tensions between Taiwan and the mainland. Ever since 1998, the Kitty Hawk has been the flagship in U.S. efforts to maintain peace across the straits. As a result, to the Chinese government the USS Kitty Hawk is also symbolic of Washington's extended deterrence for Taiwan.


Given that the Kitty Hawk symbolizes Washington's presence and dominance in China's backyard, the rejection of the Kitty Hawk and concurrent expedition to Japan must be viewed as changes in the balance of power in East Asia. The extent and consequences of these changes are unclear at the present time. However, if these questions are to be understood in the future, the answers will most likely be gleamed from analysis of events in Taiwan, Japan and the Spratley Islands. If the spheres of influence are indeed shifting, any repercussions will be evident in these domains, which are situated at the threshold of the two spheres.

NY Sun: Kim Jong Calls Israel's Attack on Syria "Dangerous"?

And from another neocon mouthpiece: The New York Sun

A rare statement by Kim Jong Il's regime, which denounced Israel's incursion into Syria last week, raised speculations about a possible North Korean role in Middle East tensions. Pyongyang rarely issues public statements about world affairs, but on Tuesday, it became the only non-Muslim country to condemn Israel, calling its alleged air operation in Syria "a very dangerous provocation." The rare statement came just as press reports from Washington said Israel had recently used its air force in an attempt to document alleged transfers of North Korean nuclear technology to Syria.

I have to seriously doubt this information. Why would Kim Jong stupidly expose his secret dealings?

What North Korea Does, Iran Will Do

You can bet that Iran is watching everything that happens between North Korea and the US. It's very likely they believe the only way they can maintain their territorial integrity is to have a nuclear deterrant. If they follow a course of negotiation and stalling, they may well succeed in arming themselves with Nukes and preventing forever an attack by the US or Israel.
There are only two ways to stop Iran from going nuclear. We can nuke them into the ground at the cost of millions of their people, and thus triggering a world wide Jihad of hundreds of millions of Muslims against the US. No one in their right mind can consider a "measured" military response able to do anything but redouble the Iranian commitment to go nuclear.
Do we have the moral imparative to kill millions because of what their leaders might do? Only if we think we are God.
The only other way is to convince the Iranian leadership that they have no reason to arm themselves to protect their country. The only viable option is to offer an olive branch.
AlterNet

Five years and an outlaw nuke test after President Bush blew up the peace process with Pyongyang so he could look tougher than his predecessor, he capitulated completely earlier this month in accepting a negotiating framework that tacitly accepts the huge surge in the communist state's estimated nuclear arsenal. Bush blinked big-time. The carrot replaced the stick, and that is a good thing, carrying the hope that through diplomacy North Korea will end its isolation and follow the modernizing path of communist China. But six years of presidential haranguing about rogue regimes derailed previous efforts at arms control, allowing the dangerously unstable North Korea to join the nuclear club.
In particular, Bush's rejection of the Clinton administration's alleged pandering to North Korea gave that country's erratic rulers a believable rationale to cut the international monitoring seals on their super-dangerous plutonium stores. Now Bush has had to go back, hat and heating oil in hand, to beg for a restart to negotiations with a nuked-up Pyongyang, which now is in an exponentially better bargaining position.
After all, this is an administration that lifted the sanctions on Pakistan the U.S. imposed after that nation developed a nuclear arsenal. Why? Ostensibly because we needed Pakistan's support in "the war on terror" after 9/11. But aid in that war has not been forthcoming, as Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have just conceded in rare condemnations of Pakistan. Taliban supporters are thriving in the Pakistan-Afghan border region that Pakistan's dictator abandoned to local tribal chiefs sympathetic to the militants.
The hardliners insist Pyongyang will never live up to its pledge, made in the September 2005 round of six-party talks, to abandon "all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs." How can they be so sure? In fact, nobody knows (with the possible exception of Kim Jong-il), and the only way for Washington to find out is to proceed, reciprocal step by reciprocal step, in sustained negotiations.
If it were up to the hardliners, Washington would never know how far it can get with Pyongyang. They identified diplomatic give-and-take as rewarding bad behavior. This stance rests on a fiction they propagated that North Korea duped President Clinton in halting its plutonium program while starting a covert uranium enrichment effort. As President Bush put it on March 6, 2003, "My predecessor, in a good-faith effort, entered into a framework agreement. The United States honored its side of the agreement; North Korea didn't. While we felt the agreement was in force, North Korea was enriching uranium."
In fact, it was the United States that first reneged on the 1994 Agreed Framework by failing to reward North Korea's good behavior. Washington got what it most wanted up front -- a freeze of Pyongyang's plutonium program, a program that by now could have generated enough plutonium for at least fifty bombs. Washington did not live up to its end of the bargain, however. When Republicans won control of Congress in elections just days after the October 1994 accord was signed, many of them denounced the deal as appeasement. Unwilling to take on Congress, President Clinton backpedaled on implementation. He did little easing of sanctions until 2000. Washington pledged to provide two nuclear power plants "by a target date of 2003," but concrete for the first foundation was not poured until August 2002. It did deliver heavy fuel oil as promised but seldom on schedule. Above all, it did not live up to its promise in Article II of the Agreed Framework to "move toward full normalization of political and economic relations" -- end enmity and lift sanctions.

AlterNet

Hardliners like former U.N. envoy John Bolton and former Under Secretary of State Robert Joseph immediately pounced on the deal, saying it did nothing to stop the North's uranium enrichment program, dismantle its plutonium facilities, or capture the seven to nine bombs worth of plutonium that the North is believed to have. Yet they themselves had long fought to deny negotiator Hill the bargaining chips he needed to negotiate even this first-stage deal, never mind achieving further disarming. Delaying a freeze to seek a more far-reaching deal would give the North time to generate more plutonium, fabricate bombs, and increase its bargaining leverage.
When Washington was slow to fulfill the terms of the accord, Pyongyang threatened in 1997 to break it. Its acquisition of gas centrifuges to enrich uranium from Pakistan began soon thereafter -- in 1998, according to Secretary of State Colin Powell. That was barely enough for a pilot program, not the operational capability U.S. intelligence says it moved to acquire in 2001 after the Bush administration refused talks and instead disclosed that the North was a target for nuclear attack. The administration retaliated in November 2002 by halting shipment of heavy fuel oil promised under the Agreed Framework. North Korea, in turn, restarted its plutonium program.
Pyongyang's tactics convinced many in Washington it was determined to arm and should be punished for brazenly breaking its commitments. It convinced others it was trying to extort economic aid without giving up anything in return. It was doing neither. It was playing tit for tat -- cooperating whenever Washington cooperated and retaliating when Washington reneged, in an effort to end enmity. It still is.

North Korea Gets Its Nukes and An Agreement

In an agreement the Bush Administration is sure to tout as a "success", North Korea will keep it's bombs and seal it's production facility while negotiations continue. In exchange, North Korean gets fuel aid.
Bush "got tough" with North Korea, they built a bomb, and the US settled for essentially Clinton's deal. Bush is a paper tiger and an idiot.
washingtonpost.com

In a landmark international accord, North Korea promised Tuesday to close down and seal its lone nuclear reactor within 60 days in return for 50,000 tons of fuel oil as a first step in abandoning all nuclear weapons and research programs.


North Korea also reaffirmed a commitment to disable the reactor in an undefined next phase of denuclearization and to discuss with the United States and other nations its plutonium fuel reserves and other nuclear programs that "would be abandoned" as part of the process. In return for taking those further steps, the accord said, North Korea would receive additional "economic, energy and humanitarian assistance up to the equivalent of 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil."


[..]The accord, described as "initial actions," left for further negotiations the question of what to do with North Korea's declared nuclear weapons, estimated at a half-dozen bombs, and a stockpile of perhaps 50 kilograms of plutonium. In addition, it postponed discussions on a separate highly enriched uranium program that the Bush administration contends -- but North Korea denies -- was undertaken in secret as a second source of nuclear weapons fuel.


As a result, the agreement seemed likely to face opposition in Washington by conservatives who remain unconvinced that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, ever intends to relinquish his nuclear weapons. Similarly, the Bush administration faces criticism from Democrats who charge that the administration, after breaking away from the Agreed Framework in 2002, ended up five years later with a roughly similar accord.

North Korea Changes the Nuclear Rules

North Korea on Tuesday said the UN sponsored sanctions against North Korea were a "declaration of war".washingtonpost.com

[...]that the nation wouldn't cave in to such pressure now that it's a nuclear weapons power.
The bellicose remarks -- the central government's first response to the U.N. measures imposed last weekend -- came as China warned the North against stoking tensions and the American nuclear envoy arrived in South Korea for talks.

Then there are indications from South Korean and Japanese officials that North Korea may be preparing for a second nuclear test.
Here is an excerpt from an indepth analysis by Newsweek.

The human costs of North Korea's nuclear ambitions on the nation's best and brightest were terrible. Few paid a higher price than Kimchaek University's class of '62, according to a grad who defected from North Korea several years ago and told NEWSWEEK his story. As graduation at the elite college neared more than 40 years ago, the buzz on campus was that Kim Il Sung had ordered construction of an advanced research facility to study atomic energy, and that patriotic young scientists soon would be mobilized to work there. "Our professors really pushed the need for nuclear development," he recalls. "The rumor circulating among students was that those of us sent there wouldn't have long to live."


The defector, spared the fate of those assigned to nuclear labs, spent his adult life watching unlucky classmates grow sick, weak and despondent. On leave, one confided a Confucian desperation to marry and sire children before radiation rendered him sterile. "It was exactly what we feared," the defector says, still saddened by their sacrifice. "These guys went bald. Many of them lost their eyebrows. Some of them had constant nosebleeds. They looked so weak it was hard to even face them. The thinking was, 'If one scientist falls there will always be others to take his place'." That logic not only ravaged a generation of scientists sent like worker bees into toxic nuclear labs. It cost billions in hard currency that might have fed starving people and hobbled the national economy by imposing perpetual austerity under slogans like "Military first."


[...]Indeed, the history of North Korea's program is evidence that "any country on the map with a population of 20 to 25 million will have the core group of people who can [go nuclear] if they squeeze their economy hard enough," says Daniel Pinkston, a nonproliferation expert at the Monterey Institute for International Studies. And North Korea has long been, to say the least, quite open to squeezing people in pursuit of power—including many along the Potomac River half a world away.


[...]Oct. 17, 2000, was a beautiful moonlit night in Washington. Marshal Cho Myong Rok, second only to Kim in North Korea, stood sipping drinks with Madeleine Albright on the terrace of the State Department's opulent Benjamin Franklin Room. In a meeting earlier that day with President Clinton, Cho had declared that Pyongyang had renounced terrorism, and he delivered Kim Jong Il's personal invitation to the president to visit Pyongyang.


The two sides were tantalizingly near a deal to stop all North Korean missile exports and cease development, testing and deployment of anything other than short-range Scuds. At least so the Clinton team believed. In exchange, the North would get full diplomatic recognition, the promise of billions in aid from Washington and Tokyo, and the stamp of legitimacy and guarantee of security that a Clinton visit would bring, says Albright's former senior aide, Wendy Sherman. According to Yang Sungchul, the South Korean ambassador to Washington who was there that night, Albright and Marshal Cho conversed in one corner, she looking comfortable and the general bolt-upright as if standing at attention. "I'm sure he was overwhelmed" by the culture shock, says Yang: here was Cho, the leading general of a country whose capital features a U.S. war-crimes museum, surrounded by the enemy.


A week later Albright was in Pyongyang, meeting with what she described as a well-informed and charming Kim, who gave a sophisticated rundown of his security situation and graciously directed his waiters not to give her too much alcohol during toasts. At one point, recalls Sherman, Kim even called for U.S. troops to remain on the Korean Peninsula (to guard against China). Albright was also treated to a show involving tens of thousands of acrobats and dancers at a stadium, intended to impress her with the glorious feats of the North Korean revolution. During the spectacle, a mass of performers flipped colored placards that together depicted Kim's Taepodong I missile taking off for its first test in 1998. Kim turned to Albright at that moment and said, "That was the first launch of that missile, and it will be the last."

China Agrees to Limited Sanctions For North Korea

China seems to be willing to consider sanctions against it's ally for it's nuclear test. However there is less than agreement among Security Council members on the type of sanctions. Japan is calling for a virtual blockade of North Korean exports. The US seems to be talking seriously about stopping and boarding all ships leaving North Korea to search for nuclear contraband. It seems unlikely China would agree to this. However it is quite significant that other influential leaders in China are allowed press access to criticize official government policy. There appears to be a power struggle going on within China's leadership.
washingtonpost.com

China on Tuesday expressed a rare willingness to support U.N. sanctions against its ally North Korea, but it said any punitive action would have to be narrowly targeted at the country's ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.


The United States and Japan continued to press the U.N. Security Council to support far stronger economic and trade measures that would permit international inspections of all North Korean cargo to search for weapons and to strangle Pyongyang's ability to finance its nuclear program.


Varied responses to the nuclear test that North Korea apparently conducted early Monday emerged as the Bush administration sought to assuage fresh worries by its foreign counterparts that the tough strategy may cause hardship for the country's impoverished population or topple the government. France, for instance, voiced concern that a Japanese proposal to ban all North Korean exports could fuel a humanitarian crisis.


John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, insisted that the U.S. sanctions plan calls for the exemption of food, medicine and other humanitarian goods for civilians. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, meanwhile, specifically ruled out any attempt at regime change. "We have made it very clear that the United States has no intention to attack North Korea. That element of our policy still stands," he told reporters. "What we have sought is a change in the behavior of the North Korean regime."


China's tougher stance against North Korea came as officials in Beijing faced criticism at home over their diplomatic strategy, which relies primarily on the now-stalled six-nation talks to contain North Korea's nuclear program.


The talks have been "a total failure," said Zhang Liankui, a professor at the influential Central Party School's Institute for International Strategic Studies. "North Korea's reaction is a challenge to the whole world. Every country should have a clear and definite attitude, including China.


"If peaceful means can't stop North Korea from conducting a nuclear test, then there should be other means," Zhang added. "The appeasement policy was very popular in the international community, and I think that's very dangerous. Within 10 years, people will suffer from this attitude."


Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao acknowledged that North Korea's action "will undoubtedly exert negative impact" on the two countries' relations. But he said the six-party talks remain "the best and practical way and effective way to resolve this issue, so I don't think it's a failure of China's diplomacy."


Still, Wang Guangya, China's U.N. ambassador, conceded that the council would have to impose "some punitive actions" on Pyongyang to persuade it to heed international demands. He added, however, that "these actions have to be appropriate" and "more specifically targeted toward the nuclear- and missile-related areas."

Questions About North Korean Nuke; Sanctions Proposed

While there continues to be no confirmation of the composition of the North Korean explosion, the inside word is that the test could not have been a chemical weapon because nothing was seen to support that from satelites. But there is disagreement about the actual strength of the tested weapon. Estimates vary from as much as 15 kilotons from the Russians to less than a kiloton from unnamed US sources. The Chinese reported that they expected a 4 kiloton blast.
If so, the test may have been a partial success or failure. There is wide agreement that North Korean is a long way from have an weaponized system much less a delivery means.
New York Times

The North Korean test appears to have been a nuclear detonation but was fairly small by traditional standards, and possibly a failure or a partial success, federal and private analysts said yesterday. Throughout history, the first detonations of aspiring nuclear powers have tended to pack the destructive power of 10,000 to 60,000 tons — 10 to 60 kilotons — of conventional high explosives.


But the strength of the North Korean test appears to have been a small fraction of that: around a kiloton or less, according to scientists monitoring the global arrays of seismometers that detect faint trembles in the earth from distant blasts.


“It’s pretty remarkable that such a small explosion was promptly apparent on seismometers all over the world,” said Paul Richards, a seismologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y. “The detection of this was really good. You can’t hide these kinds of things, even very small tests.”


A senior Bush administration official said he had learned through Asian contacts that the North Koreans had expected the detonation to have a force of about four kilotons. Because classified information was involved and there was lingering uncertainty, he would not let his name be used.


Philip E. Coyle III, a former director of weapons testing at the Pentagon and former director of nuclear testing for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a weapons design center in California, said the small size of the test signaled the possibility of what might be described as a partial success or a partial failure. “As first tests go, this is smaller and less successful than those of the other nuclear powers,” he said. Perhaps the North Koreans wanted to keep it small, he added. “But if it turns out to be a kiloton or less,” Dr. Coyle said, “that would suggest that they hoped for more than that and didn’t get it.”


The United States Geological Survey said it had detected a tremor on the Korean Peninsula of 4.2 magnitude, which translates into an explosive force of roughly 1,000 tons. The agency listed 20 seismic stations as having initially picked up the blast’s shockwave, including nearby ones in China, Japan and South Korea as well as distant ones in Ukraine, Australia, Nevada and Wyoming.


The Russian defense minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, told the Itar-Tass news agency that the Russian government believed the strength of the blast to have been 5 to 15 kilotons. The basis for his claim was not immediately clear.


In Washington, intelligence officials said they were still in the early stages of evaluating the North Korean blast. But one said analysts had estimated its force at less than a kiloton. “We have assessed that the explosion in North Korea was a sub-kiloton explosion,” said the intelligence official, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing classified information.

With elections looming, Bush is talking tough in hopes of capturing the security vote. But the US is nearly impotent with regard to North Korea. They are already sanctioned by most means available. Bush talks about a virtual blockade of North Korean ports. It would seem to be a futiile effort given the option of importing everything through China. The real question is what will China and Russians do with this. My guess is very little.
New York Times

At an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, the United States pressed for international inspections of all cargo moving into and out of North Korea to detect weapons-related material, and a ban on all trading in military goods and services with the country.


At the White House, President Bush called the North Korean test “a threat to international peace and security” and condemned it as a “provocative act.”


But Russia and China, which have veto power and have consistently opposed tough sanctions, did not signal that they were ready to go along with the American proposal. Britain, France and Japan said they were also pressing for strong sanctions, which the Council is expected to debate in the coming days.
Coming just a month before the November elections, North Korea’s reported test on Monday morning had immediate political ramifications. Democrats were already using their campaigns to argue that the Iraq war had made the United States less secure by diverting attention away from threats like North Korea; now they are using the North’s claim to hammer away at their theme.

More On Bush and North Korea

A GREAT post at AlterNet about Bush and North Korea:

Second point. You know the drill. Focusing on Iraq, which had no weapons, or operational weapons program, Bush allowed North Korea to develop these nukes. And they did so with the help of Bush's ally, Pakistan. Via former 60 Minutes producer, Barry Lando:

That tunnel vision persisted even after June 2002, when, according to Seymour Hersh, the CIA revealed to President Bush and his key advisors that, since 1997, Pakistan had been "sharing sophisticated technology, warhead design information, and weapons-testing data with North Korea, including how to conceal their nuclear research from the U.S. and South Korea." The Bush administration sat on the CIA report; the White House didn’t want to divert the focus from Saddam Hussein, and Pakistan had become a vital ally in President Bush’s war on terrorism.

Even more damning to the man and the party whose supposed strength is national security, it looks like Bush didn't even attempt to make a nuclear program a no go. Via the WaPo:

Unlike the Clinton administration -- which suggested to North Korea that it would attack if Pyongyang moved to reprocess the plutonium -- the Bush administration never set out "red lines" that North Korea must not cross. Bush administration officials argued that doing so would only tempt North Korea to cross those lines.

[...]from Woodward's State of Denial, via RoxPopuli:


George W. pulled Bandar aside.


"Bandar, I guess you're the best a__hole who knows about the world. Explain to me one thing."


"Governor, what is it?"


"Why should I care about North Korea?"