Wednesday, April 15, 2009
China Eyes Iraqi Oil
Royal Dutch Shell is discussing partnerships with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) to develop the Kirkuk oil field in northern Iraq.
Energy-hungry China would like to establish a position in Iraq, which, with proven oil reserves of 115 billion barrels, makes it the world's third largest source of oil after Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Chinese geologists believe that Iraq is also sitting atop huge probable reserves and undiscovered resources.
In other oil news, Reuters reports CNPC is close to closing a $10 billion deal to develop oil fields in Kazakhstan. Click here for the story.
China imported more than 40 million barrels of oil through the Kazakhstan-China oil pipeline in 2008--a 26 percent increase from the previous year.China Expected to Stimulate Consumer Spending
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
'Moderate' Taliban Murder Eloping Couple
Iranian President to Obama: Engage This!
As if to confirm that the Obama administration's appeasement of Iran is making war inevitable--on Iranian terms--the nuclear-arming mullahocracy's maniac-in-chief, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced today that his country will soon send another satellite into space on a rocket with a range of up to 1,500 km (930 miles). Ahmadinejad said the new satellite will be bigger than the Omid satellite that Iran launched on February 3.
Oil-rich Iran, which sent a team of scientists, technicians, and military and intelligence officers to North Korea to aid its illegal ICBM test, has clearly surpassed its Stalinist/Kimist ally in missile technology.
Iran Ahead in Missiles, Behind in Warheads
But impoverished North Korea, which exists outside the global economy, is ahead of Iran in nuclear warhead technology--miniaturization of atom bombs for placement atop ballistic missiles. China Confidential analysts believe the North already possesses viable nuclear warheads.
Both countries use space programs to cover development of ICBMs.
Both countries see the United States as a paper tiger; its new President, weak and foolish.
Unimpressed by Barack Obama's call for international unity and the watered-down United Nations response to its provocative missile test, Pyongyang, as reported earlier, is preparing to restart plutonium production. The rogue proliferator is also planning more missile tests--and a new nuclear weapon test.
Iran will be involved in all the tests. But the Obama administration will downplay the connection--and the tests--and continue to make every effort possible to strike a grand bargain with the Islamist nation at Israel's expense.
Downplaying China's Role
The administration will also downplay China's consistent refusal to restrain its Korean vassal, which depends on China for food, fuel, and arms. Contrary to bipartisan U.S. propaganda--the Bush administration mistakenly bet on Beijing to moderate the North--China's Communist Party/military leadership finds Pyongyang's provocations useful. North Korea is more than a buffer to China, as commonly observed. A cross between a mass-murdering criminal gang and a bloodthirsty totalitarian regime, the secretive Communist state serves as a Chinese lever--actually, a potential weapon--against Washington. North Korea can be used to harass and distract the U.S., to keep it in line in terms of trade and monetary policies, to discourage it from from complaining too loudly about China's opaque military buildup, and to deter the U.S. from even thinking about ever intervening should China one day decide to take Taiwan back by force.
Eventually, China could decide that the risks of its relationship with its adventurous vassal outweighs the potential rewards. Beijing could change the North Korean regime; a Chinese-sponsored military coup that would turn the North into a true puppet state (akin to a modern-day, Chinese version of Manchuko) is possible, maybe even probable.
In the meantime, rising China is pleased to see the U.S. menaced by North Korea and Iran.
Resurgent Russia is also pleased to see the U.S. menaced and harassed; hence, Moscow's cooperation with Beijing in blocking a new U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at punishing Pyongyang for its Taepodong-2 test, which violated a 2006 Security Council resolution that bans the North from participating in ballistic missile activities. The Security Council's condemnation in the form of a declaration is a bad joke--on Japan and South Korea.
EDITOR'S NOTE: China and Russia are enjoying an especially close and productive relationship--ironically, the strongest ties between the two countries since the Soviet monster, Stalin, sided with China's Nationalist regime against domestic Communists in 1927. Stalin's cynical betrayal of the Chinese Communists to Chiang Kai-shek doomed China's first Communist revolution and planted the seeds of the Sino-Soviet split and the long competition between the two Communist nations, after Mao's defeat of the Nationalists in 1949, for control of the world Communist movement.Great Game, Grand Bargain: Iran is In, Israel is Out
In order to win a great game, a nation must be willing to enter into a grand bargain, even if it means bargaining with the devil.
That is the thinking that seems to be guiding the Obama administration's approach to the Middle East, Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan.
Fearing that Pakistan could collapse, the Obama administration is seeking a radically new relationship--a "grand bargain"-- with Iran, according to Washington insiders familiar with the administration's reasoning.
In a sense, the administration is harking back to the 1950s and '60s, when Iran and Turkey, two non-Arab, predominantly Muslim countries, were the pillars of U.S. policy in the Middle East. The idea of Israel as a strategic U.S. partner, which Jerusalem naturally promoted and benefitted from, did not really take hold until the late 1970s and the '80s.
The fact that Iran in the '50s, '60s and '70s was ruled by a pro-American, modernizing monarch--the Shah--who was also a tacit ally of Israel is conveniently overlooked by the Obama administration. Also ignored: six decades of failed attempts to manipulate and manage radical Islam, dating to the Eisenhower administration's covert backing of Muslim Brotherhood extremists in Egypt against the country's popular, pan-Arab leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser.
China Confidential sources assert that the Obama administration sees Iran as a potential counterweight to Pakistan in the event that its government is overthrown by Islamists and its nuclear arsenal falls into the wrong hands--a nightmarish development that previous U.S. administrations had depicted as highly improbable. Should that happen, the U.S. would have to quickly consider launching preemptive military strikes against Pakistan's nuclear sites--a scenario that horrifies the Obama administration.
Sharp Divisions
There are said to be sharp divisions within the administration over Iran's nuclear program. Nobody believes the oil-rich regime's civilian power cover story; but some administration members are apparently receptive to the Brzezinski/Carter concept of "living with" but never "accepting" a nuclear-armed Iran. Other administration members, including, reportedly, the President, believe that Iran can be persuaded to stop short of actually making nuclear weapons in return for U.S. recognition and a firm pledge of permanent non-interference in Iranian domestic affairs.
There is even talk of offering Iran a U.S. security guarantee--the world's greatest democracy would effectively assure the survival of the monstrous mullahocracy.
A New Strategic Asset
Crazy as it seems, the administration is inclined to believe that Islamist Iran could eventually emerge as a U.S. strategic partner, provided it "moderates" its Islamist proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah; manages to influence and ultimately control so-called reconcilable elements of the Islamist Taliban; stops threatening Israel with annihilation; ceases to sponsor any more embarrassing Holocaust denial conferences and cartoon contests; and acquiesces to a Syrian-Israeli peace pact that will return the disputed Golan Heights to Damascus--in the context of squeezing Israel into its pre-June 1967 borders and forcing it to negotiate with Hamas and accept an Islamist-ruled Palestinian state comprised of Gaza, the contested West Bank territories of Judea and Samaria, and East Jerusalem (with a continued Israeli presence in the Old City).
Ahead of striking a grand bargain, the administration is cleverly conditioning U.S. public opinion by deliberately leaking negative news about the deteriorating security situations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. While the information is accurate, maybe even understated, the timing of the articles and interviews is significant.
Odd Man Out
Israel is the odd man out. The Jewish State's strategic importance to the U.S. is being steadily downgraded. Realistically, Israel has no possible role to play in checking Pakistan, except for cooperating militarily with India. But the administration regards Israel's interest in the Indian sub-continent as unhelpful and potentially destabilizing.
A markedly diminished, practically neutralized Jewish state, hemmed into what the late (dovish) Israeli foreign minister, Abba Eban, famously called the "Auschwitz borders," tolerated by Islamist neighbors--allowed to exist, for the time being--that is what is in the cards (or on the chess board).
One Remaining Enemy
As for Al Qaeda, it is still seen as an implacable enemy--the only Islamist group that is beyond the pale of Obama's direct diplomacy. The prevailing administration view is that whereas elements of the Taliban have been American allies in the past, notwithstanding the group's pre- and post-9/11 relationship with Al Qaeda, it should be possible to again "do business" with so-called moderate Taliban.
Apart from Al Qaeda, Islamist groups are to be "engaged," not defeated. An oxymoron--moderate Islam--is to be accepted and respected, even supported and encouraged. Administration advisers see "moderates" ... everywhere.
In short, the Candidate of Change is living up to his advance billing. The real reason for his controversial campaign comments on Pakistan and possible U.S. military action there--seemingly tough talk to camouflage a planned appeasement of Iran--is coming into sharper focus as he goes about dramatically changing U.S. policy.
UPDATE: AP reports the U.S. is rethinking its opposition to Iranian nuclear enrichment.
POSTSCRIPT: The Obama administration's approach to clerical fascist Iran transcends the failed attempts by the European powers to appease Nazi Germany before World War II. Except for some pro-fascist politicians and aristocrats, the Europeans never saw Germany as a potential partner or ally; rather, they mistakenly assumed that Hitler would be satisfied with limited territorial gains and victories. He was not, of course; and appeasement, instead of preserving the peace, made war inevitable--on Hitler's terms.
Obama is apparently making the same mistake with respect to Iran. He and his advisers seem to think that the missile-mad mullahs will be satisfied with dominating the Middle East and that they will in return pacify the region in ways that will serve U.S. interests and allow Israel to live in peace. The administration's misreading of Iranian intentions and attempts to not only appease but actually ally with an Islamist nation bent on overthrowing the status quo are a prescription for catastrophe.North Korea to UN: Drop Dead
Diplomacy with North Korea has come to a dead end.
Responding to the United Nations Security Council condemnation of North Korea's illegal ICBM test, the rogue, Stalinist/Kimist state has announced that it will never again participate in six-party talks aimed at ending its nuclear program. Pyongyang is instead restarting plutonium production--and preparing to test more missiles, according to China Confidential analysts, including long- and medium-range rockets.
Intelligence experts in Japan and South Korea believe the North may also be preparing a new nuclear weapon test.
Iranian experts will be involved in all the new tests, including detonation of an atomic device, if it occurs. UN Security Council 'Condemns' North Korea
As China Confidential predicted, China and Russia have succeeded in blocking a meaningful United Nations response to the illegal North Korean ballistic missile test; and the United States Ambassador to the U.N. is trying to put a positive spin on the watered-down compromise--a Security Council condemnation instead of a new resolution. Clickhere for the story.US May Attend Anti-Israel UN Meeting
Appeasement of Iran, abandonment of Israel ... the beat goes on.
In a gesture to Iran, the United States is rethinking its planned boycott of an Islamist-influenced United Nations conference on racism that will be attended by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and is likely to condemn Israel and Zionism. Click herefor the AP report.
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
China is expected to soon announce a new economic stimulus package aimed at boosting consumer spending. The new measures will come on top of the $585 billion infrastructure spending plan.
The killers are part of the supposedly moderate and "reconcilable" faction of the Taliban. Click here for the sickening story.
North Korea's Nuclear-Arming Ally Announces New Rocket Launch
Watered-Down Reaction to Illegal Missile Test
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