China Confidential
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Chinese Fishing Boats Again Harass US Spy Ship
US Diplomat Lumps Israeli and Indian Nuclear Deterrents in with Proliferating, Menacing Arsenals
U.S. President Barack Obama's call for a nuclear-free world, which ironically coincided with North Korea's defiant and illegal ballistic missile test, was aimed neither at nuclear-armed North Korea nor at its nuclear-arming ally, Iran, but at a courageous, democratically governed, American ally--Israel--whose continued existence may well depend on having both nuclear arms and the political will to use them in order to prevent a second Holocaust.
Obama intends to focus attention on Israel's nuclear deterrent in an attempt to appease Iran while also currying favor with Saudi Arabia, which is competing with Iran for influence over Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization that has become an Iranian proxy and is clearly committed to Israel's destruction. The Saudi King (before whom Obama bowed, deeply and submissively, when the two men met last week at the G20 summit in London) believes that Israel's military power--including its presumed arsenal of nuclear missiles--is the major source of instability in the Middle East.
AFP reports:A top US arms control negotiator at the United Nations has urged presumed atomic powers India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea ... remains a fundamental objective of the United States," said Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller.
In the coming weeks, the U.S. and other countries, including Turkey and China, will increasingly lump Israeli and Indian nuclear deterrents in with the menacing arsenals of proven proliferators North Korea and Pakistan--assuming the latter country does not collapse under Taliban pressure.Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Unanswered Questions About Pakistan's Nukes
As the Taliban/Al Qaeda threat to Pakistan grows almost by the hour, concerned citizens from New Delhi to New York are questioning increasingly incredible assurances that the predominantly Muslim country's nuclear weapons are somehow secure. Inquiring minds want to know....
1. What role did China play in the establishment of Pakistan's nuclear weapons development infrastructure?
2. What nuclear technology did China transfer to Pakistan?
3. What nuclear materials did China supply Pakistan?
4. How many nuclear warheads does Pakistan have? Estimates range from 90 to 250.
5. How are the warheads deployed?
6. What are Pakistan's plutonium production capabilities?
7. What are Pakistan's uranium enrichment capabilities?Is China Confidential Wrong? US Defense Chief Denies Washington Seeks Grand Bargain with Iran
Although he did not specifically refer to China Confidential, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Tuesday that we have the U.S.-Iran engagement story wrong. There is no grand bargain afoot between the United States and the Islamist nation, he told reporters in Cairo Tuesday.
"I think concerns out there of some kind of a grand bargain developed in secret are completely unrealistic," he said.
Click here to read the April 14 China Confidential essay, "Great Game, Grand Bargain: Iran is In, Israel is Out." An excerpt follows: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.
UPDATE: Israel is not the only country concerned that the U.S. may be abandoning friends and allies in order to appease Iran and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, and ally, Syria. Click here for the story.Gates Appealing to Saudis for Help in Pakistan
As if to confirm the China Confidential analysis that nuclear-armed Pakistan is close to collapsing, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is appealing to Saudi Arabia for help. Click here for the report.
Together with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, a family business passing itself off as a country, co-created the Taliban. The dreaded, medieval, Al Qaeda-aligned, Islamist group now threatens to take over Pakistan--and its nuclear arms.
UPDATE: Pakistan's government expects 500,000 to flee the fighting between government troops and the Taliban. Click here for the story.China Building Billion-Dollar 'String of Pearls' Port
Bill Could Criminalize Blogging
One of America's dumbest Democrats, Congresswoman Linda T. Sanchez of California, has proposed a bill that would criminalize free speech. The bill, which could be used to muzzle criticism of Islamists and left-wing radicals, would affect blogs and social media, such as MySpace and Facebook.
Law Professor Eugene Volokh blogs about the idiotic and menacing measure here.
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
Fishing boats have again come "dangerously close" to a U.S. spy ship off China's coast--the fifth such incident in a few months. Click here for the story.
On April 9, China Confidential warned:
China is building a $1 billion port on Sri Lanka's southern coast as part of Beijing's "string of pearls" strategy. Click here for the report, which puts the supposedly civilian project in the context of controversial Chinese arms sales and other moves.
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