Monday, October 05, 2009
CHINA CONFIDENTIAL
IMF Fears Global Economic Relapse
On Obama's Decision to Shun the Dalai Lama
Does the Obama administration appreciate the difference between appeasement and statesmanship?
One wonders.
Engaging Islamist Iran and Islamism in general--in the name of engagement--is clearly a case of appeasement. Scrapping a nuclear defense plan for Europe might have made sense, had Russia agreed in return to provide meaningful support for truly tough sanctions against nuclear-arming Iran. Alas, there is no evidence of any such deal or prearrangement.
Similarly, a case could be made for ending support for Tibetan and Uighur separatists seeking to dismember rising China--in the name of supporting democracy and human rights. For better or worse, China and the United States are locked in a symbiotic relationship; and they could--and should--cooperate in forcing North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons, preventing Iran from acquiring them, and defeating radical Islam before it detonates a weapon of mass destruction in a Western city or hopelessly infects China's huge, restive Muslim population.
That kind of cooperation probably won't happen for many reasons, including Barack Obama's determination to effectively divide and lead "the Muslim world," and China's thirst for oil and interest in weakening and harassing (wounding but not killing) the U.S., which Beijing views as a dying but still dangerous hegemon. Again, a case could be made for backing away from the lost cause of Tibetan de facto independence (so-called autonomy). In the context of a grand bargain, Washington could afford to ... avoid ... a summit with the exiled Dalai Lama, who, in his capacity as a kind of god-king, presided over a horrifically cruel serfdom prior to Tibet's liberation by China.
Unfortunately, the Obama administration appears to be tripping over itself in its desire to give in ... everywhere ... and to every U.S. adversary and rival .... from the Middle East to South America ... from the pirates of Somalia to the petro-tyrants of the Persian Gulf ... in order to accomplish ... what? To be liked by implacable enemies? To downgrade U.S. military might, power and prestige--traditionally perceived by left-wing Democrats as inherently evil--in the interest of hastening the advent of a better (nuclear-free) world? To condition world opinion ahead of a future, post-Presidency, Obama campaign--for first American Secretary General of the United Nations?
Regardless of the administration's reasons, dramatic policy shifts and symbolic gestures--e.g. scrapping a planned nuclear shield, pressuring Israel to withdraw to pre-June 1967 borders, bowing to the Saudi King, high-fiving the rabidly anti-American Venezuelan despot--and snubbing the Dalai Lama--are occurring, over and again, with no notion of reciprocity from adversaries and little or no sensitivity to the fears and concerns of allies.
Disasters loom.Report: Secret Scheme to End Dollar Dealings
Welcome to the new world order....
The Independent reports:In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning--along with China, Russia, Japan and France--to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
Continue here.Is Afghanistan Another (French) Vietnam?
As in the case of France's fight with the Communist Viet Minh, there is no clearly defined, decisive, attainable, U.S./NATO objective in Afghanistan. Commanders and politicians are at odds; victory no longer seems possible; the long war, lost or never-ending. Stabilizing the situation to allow for peace talks with so-called reconcilable Taliban appears to be the real U.S. objective--a recipe for defeat and disaster. Russia's Troubling, Mysterious Role in Iran
A TALE OF TWO NUCLEAR NEWS LEAKS
By George Friedman
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following article was provided by Stratfor, the global intelligence news service.
Two major leaks occurred this weekend over the Iran matter.
In the first, The New York Times published an article reporting that staff at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear oversight group, had produced an unreleased report saying that Iran was much more advanced in its nuclear program than the IAEA had thought previously. According to the report, Iran now has all the data needed to design a nuclear weapon. The New York Times article added that U.S. intelligence was re-examining the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of 2007, which had stated that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon.
The second leak occurred in the British daily The Times, which reported that the purpose of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s highly publicized secret visit to Moscow on Sept. 7 was to provide the Russians with a list of Russian scientists and engineers working on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
The second revelation was directly tied to the first. There were many, including STRATFOR, who felt that Iran did not have the non-nuclear disciplines needed for rapid progress toward a nuclear device. Putting the two pieces together, the presence of Russian personnel in Iran would mean that the Iranians had obtained the needed expertise from the Russians. It would also mean that the Russians were not merely a factor in whether there would be effective sanctions but also in whether and when the Iranians would obtain a nuclear weapon.
We would guess that the leak to The New York Times came from U.S. government sources, because that seems to be a prime vector of leaks from the Obama administration and because the article contained information on the NIE review. Given that National Security Adviser James Jones tended to dismiss the report on Sunday television, we would guess the report leaked from elsewhere in the administration. The Times leak could have come from multiple sources, but we have noted a tendency of the Israelis to leak through the British daily on national security issues. (The article contained substantial details on the visit and appeared written from the Israeli point of view.) Neither leak can be taken at face value, of course. But it is clear that these were deliberate leaks — people rarely risk felony charges leaking such highly classified material — and even if they were not coordinated, they delivered the same message, true or not.
The Iranian Time Frame and the Russian Role
The message was twofold. First, previous assumptions on time frames on Iran are no longer valid, and worst-case assumptions must now be assumed. The Iranians are in fact moving rapidly toward a weapon; have been extremely effective at deceiving U.S. intelligence (read, they deceived the Bush administration, but the Obama administration has figured it out); and therefore, we are moving toward a decisive moment with Iran. Second, this situation is the direct responsibility of Russian nuclear expertise. Whether this expertise came from former employees of the Russian nuclear establishment now looking for work, Russian officials assigned to Iran or unemployed scientists sent to Iran by the Russians is immaterial. The Israelis — and the Obama administration — must hold the Russians responsible for the current state of Iran’s weapons program, and by extension, Moscow bears responsibility for any actions that Israel or the United States might take to solve the problem.
We would suspect that the leaks were coordinated. From the Israeli point of view, having said publicly that they are prepared to follow the American lead and allow this phase of diplomacy to play out, there clearly had to be more going on than just last week’s Geneva talks. From the American point of view, while the Russians have indicated that participating in sanctions on gasoline imports by Iran is not out of the question, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev did not clearly state that Russia would cooperate, nor has anything been heard from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on the subject. The Russian leadership appears to be playing “good cop, bad cop” on the matter, and the credibility of anything they say on Iran has little weight in Washington.
It would seem to us that the United States and Israel decided to up the ante fairly dramatically in the wake of the Oct. 1 meeting with Iran in Geneva. As IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei visits Iran, massive new urgency has now been added to the issue. But we must remember that Iran knows whether it has had help from Russian scientists; that is something that can’t be bluffed. Given that this specific charge has been made — and as of Monday not challenged by Iran or Russia — indicates to us more is going on than an attempt to bluff the Iranians into concessions. Unless the two leaks together are completely bogus, and we doubt that, the United States and Israel are leaking information already well known to the Iranians. They are telling Tehran that its deception campaign has been penetrated, and by extension are telling it that it faces military action — particularly if massive sanctions are impractical because of more Russian obstruction.
If Netanyahu went to Moscow to deliver this intelligence to the Russians, the only surprise would have been the degree to which the Israelis had penetrated the program, not that the Russians were there. The Russian intelligence services are superbly competent, and keep track of stray nuclear scientists carefully. They would not be surprised by the charge, only by Israel’s knowledge of it.
This, of course leaves open an enormous question. Certainly, the Russians appear to have worked with the Iranians on some security issues and have played with the idea of providing the Iranians more substantial military equipment. But deliberately aiding Iran in building a nuclear device seems beyond Russia’s interests in two ways. First, while Russia wants to goad the United States, it does not itself really want a nuclear Iran. Second, in goading the United States, the Russians know not to go too far; helping Iran build a nuclear weapon would clearly cross a redline, triggering reactions.
A number of possible explanations present themselves. The leak to The Times might be wrong. But The Times is not a careless newspaper: It accepts leaks only from certified sources. The Russian scientists might be private citizens accepting Iranian employment. But while this is possible, Moscow is very careful about what Russian nuclear engineers do with their time. Or the Russians might be providing enough help to goad the United States but not enough to ever complete the job. Whatever the explanation, the leaks paint the Russians as more reckless than they have appeared, assuming the leaks are true.
And whatever their veracity, the leaks — the content of which clearly was discussed in detail among the P-5+1 prior to and during the Geneva meetings, regardless of how long they have been known by Western intelligence — were made for two reasons. The first was to tell the Iranians that the nuclear situation is now about to get out of hand, and that attempting to manage the negotiations through endless delays will fail because the United Nations is aware of just how far Tehran has come with its weapons program. The second was to tell Moscow that the issue is no longer whether the Russians will cooperate on sanctions, but the consequence to Russia’s relations with the United States and at least the United Kingdom, France and, most important, possibly Germany. If these leaks are true, they are game changers.
We have focused on the Iranian situation not because it is significant in itself, but because it touches on a great number of other crucial international issues. It is now entangled in the Iraqi, Afghan, Israeli, Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese issues, all of them high-stakes matters. It is entangled in Russian relations with Europe and the United States. It is entangled in U.S.-European relationships and with relationships within Europe. It touches on the U.S.-Chinese relationship. It even touches on U.S. relations with Venezuela and some other Latin American countries. It is becoming the Gordian knot of international relations.
STRATFOR first focused on the Russian connection with Iran in the wake of the Iranian elections and resulting unrest, when a crowd of Rafsanjani supporters began chanting “Death to Russia,” not one of the top-10 chants in Iran. That caused us to focus on the cooperation between Russia and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on security matters. We were aware of some degree of technical cooperation on military hardware, and of course on Russian involvement in Iran’s civilian nuclear program. We were also of the view that the Iranians were unlikely to progress quickly with their nuclear program. We were not aware that Russian scientists were directly involved in Iran’s military nuclear project, which is not surprising, given that such involvement would be Iran’s single-most important state secret — and Russia’s, too.
A Question of Timing
But there is a mystery here as well. To have any impact, the Russian involvement must have been under way for years. The United States has tried to track rogue nuclear scientists and engineers — anyone who could contribute to nuclear proliferation — since the 1990s. The Israelis must have had their own program on this, too. Both countries, as well as European intelligence services, were focused on Iran’s program and the whereabouts of Russian scientists. It is hard to believe that they only just now found out. If we were to guess, we would say Russian involvement has been under way since just after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, when the Russians decided that the United States was a direct threat to its national security.
Therefore, the decision suddenly to confront the Russians, and suddenly to leak U.N. reports — much more valuable than U.S. reports, which are easier for the Europeans to ignore — cannot simply be because the United States and Israel just obtained this information. The IAEA, hostile to the United States since the invasion of Iraq and very much under the influence of the Europeans, must have decided to shift its evaluation of Iran. But far more significant is the willingness of the Israelis first to confront the Russians and then leak about Russian involvement, something that obviously compromises Israeli sources and methods. And that means the Israelis no longer consider the preservation of their intelligence operation in Iran (or wherever it was carried out) as of the essence.
Two conclusions can be drawn. First, the Israelis no longer need to add to their knowledge of Russian involvement; they know what they need to know. And second, the Israelis do not expect Iranian development to continue much longer; otherwise, maintaining the intelligence capability would take precedence over anything else.
It follows from this that the use of this intelligence in diplomatic confrontations with Russians and in a British newspaper serves a greater purpose than the integrity of the source system. And that means that the Israelis expect a resolution in the very near future — the only reason they would have blown their penetration of the Russian-Iranian system.
Possible Outcomes
There are two possible outcomes here. The first is that having revealed the extent of the Iranian program and having revealed the Russian role in a credible British newspaper, the Israelis and the Americans (whose own leak in The New York Times underlined the growing urgency of action) are hoping that the Iranians realize that they are facing war and that the Russians realize that they are facing a massive crisis in their relations with the West. If that happens, then the Russians might pull their scientists and engineers, join in the sanctions and force the Iranians to abandon their program.
The second possibility is that the Russians will continue to play the spoiler on sanctions and will insist that they are not giving support to the Iranians. This leaves the military option, which would mean broad-based action, primarily by the United States, against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Any military operation would involve keeping the Strait of Hormuz clear, meaning naval action, and we now know that there are more nuclear facilities than previously discussed. So while the war for the most part would be confined to the air and sea, it would be extensive nonetheless.
Sanctions or war remain the two options, and which one is chosen depends on Moscow’s actions. The leaks this weekend have made clear that the United States and Israel have positioned themselves such that not much time remains. We have now moved from a view of Iran as a long-term threat to Iran as a much more immediate threat thanks to the Russians.
The least that can be said about this is that the Obama administration and Israel are trying to reshape the negotiations with the Iranians and Russians. The most that can be said is that the Americans and Israelis are preparing the public for war. Polls now indicate that more than 60 percent of the U.S. public now favors military action against Iran. From a political point of view, it has become easier for U.S. President Barack Obama to act than to not act. This, too, is being transmitted to the Iranians and Russians.
It is not clear to us that the Russians or Iranians are getting the message yet. They have convinced themselves that Obama is unlikely to act because he is weak at home and already has too many issues to juggle. This is a case where a reputation for being conciliatory actually increases the chances for war. But the leaks this weekend have strikingly limited the options and timelines of the United States and Israel. They also have put the spotlight on Obama at a time when he already is struggling with health care and Afghanistan. History is rarely considerate of presidential plans, and in this case, the leaks have started to force Obama’s hand.Serious Safety Issues Raised Over US Ground Beef
Incredibly, agribusiness/food giant Cargill, one of the world's largest and most profitable companies, mixed domestic and foreign slaughterhouse-supplied ground meats to make frozen hamburgers, some of which nearly killed people. Click here for the shocking expose.
Next time rising China is hypocritically singled out for food safety criticism, it should point to the article.
Officials in Beijing should also inquire why the U.S. allows animal grease collected from its slaughterhouses to be exported for use as a livestock feed additive when the same suspect waste product (which can serve as a biofuel feedstock) is banned from such an application at home. Apparently, Washington doesn't care if the industrial slaughterhouse garbage, which could contain mad cow disease--hence, the prohibition on its domestic use--ends up in South American and Asian food supplies. Ironically, however, as shown by the Cargill E. Coli story, the banned animal grease could end up back in the U.S.Gold Soars on Weak Dollar
Gold advanced toward $1,020. Click here for the story.
Next stop (though there are likely to be small setbacks on the way up) is $1,400, after which, China Confidential analysts predict, the precious metal will hit $2,000 before the end of next year.UN Human Development Index: China Up, US Down
Jabotinsky on National Health Insurance
As the American debate on health care rages, this reporter believes it is worth noting that the founder of the so-called right wing of the Zionist movement, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, advocated universal healthcare. Though opposed to socialism and the idea of class struggle--which he viewed as inherently menacing to his nationalist ideals--Jabotinsky essentially championed a variation of what came to be known as the Scandinavian welfare model.
"The basic needs of a human being, which today a person must fight for ... comprise in essence five elements: food, housing, clothing, the possibility of educating one`s children and the possibility of receiving medical attention in the event of illness," he wrote decades before the founding of the State of Israel. "In Hebrew, these five elements may be arranged according to initials: Mazon (food), Ma`on(housing), Malbush (clothing), Moreh, (education) andMarpeh (medical care). The five M's.
"With regard to all these elements, there exists in every country and in every period a certain conception of the required minimum. And the duty of the state, in my conception, must be to provide these to any citizen who declares that he is in need of them. This is the first of my `laws.` From this, it must be ensured that the state possesses the possibility to provide these `five M`s` to all those citizens in need of them. How will the state acquire this? The answer to this is my second `law.` The state will acquire this possibility by obligation from the nation, as today it imposes other taxes and requires that young people serve in the military."
Jabotinsky drew his inspiration from the Hebrew Bible. He explained that his economic plan for a future Jewish state was "clearly based on the conviction that free economic competition is one of the most powerful motivations in life. Let people struggle, lose and win. It is only necessary to cushion the arena with soft grass, so that whoever falls will not be too painfully injured.
"This cushion is the Sabbath, the gleanings, the tithe, all the various means by which the State takes pains to prevent use from turning into exploitation, and poverty from becoming destitution. And once in a while the referee's whistle is heard in the arena: winners and losers return to their starting positions, and line up shoulder to shoulder. Precisely because the game must go on."
Reading Jabotinsky--an anti-socialist--it is easy to see why Israelis and Europeans alike are appalled that universal health coverage is not viewed by Americans as a fundamental right of all citizens.Former Interpol Chief on Trial in South Africa
Scandal: India's Infant Mortality Crisis
AFP reports:More than 400,000 Indian babies die every year from preventable causes within 24 hours of their birth, despite the country's recent rapid economic development, a report said Monday.
India accounts for a fifth of all newborn deaths worldwide, according to the major report published by charity Save the Children to launch a global campaign to reduce infant mortality.
Click here to continue reading the story, and here to help save the children.
EDITOR'S NOTE: In spite of all the hype about India's ascent, the country remains mired in ignorance and superstition, plagued by poverty and injustice. Corruption is a way of life; law enforcement, a cruel joke, as police routinely murder and torture innocent victims, especially the poor. No wonder a decades-old Maoist insurrection still threatens large areas, challenging, even, traditional Marxists.China Vows Support for North Korea
China will not go along with meaningful sanctions on North Korea. On the contrary, the two countries are still as close as lips and teeth. Reuters reports:China pledged to strengthen bonds with isolated North Korea on Monday, calling their relationship a boon to peace, while reports of swoops on North Korean ships underscored strains behind a recent easing of tension.
The renewed courting between the two communist neighbors came in messages between Chinese President Hu Jintao and North Korea's top leader, Kim Jong-il, who on Sunday greeted Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the start of a visit intended to bolster bilateral relations.
The messages marked 60 years since the countries established formal ties on October 6, 1949, and made no mention of the North's nuclear weapons program, stressing instead their focus on shoring up sometimes tense ties.
Continue here.
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
The IMF and World Bank warn nearly 100 million people in developing nations could be pauperized--pushed into extreme poverty--by the end of 2010. And the crisis in the developed world is far from over, experts say. A second crash, or double dip, could be on the way. Click here for the story.
One, two, three many DBPs (Dien Bien Phus) could be the rallying cry for Islamists--Taliban and Al Qaeda--trying to retake Afghanistan. Tragically, the war there is beginning to resemble another Vietnam-style conflict, alright, but not the way the mainstream media would have you think. The First Indochina War--also known as the Dirty War--which the French fought and lost at great cost (75,000 dead on the French side), is the emerging model. The battle of Dien Bien Phu--57 days of hell--became a symbol of Western defeat and declining power. Recent events in Afghanistan indicate the Islamist enemy may be planning a series of mini-DBPs to force the United States and its NATO allies to quit the war and leave the country.
Norway tops the best-places list; Niger is at the bottom. Click here for the story.
The long-awaited corruption trial of South Africa's controversial former police chief--and ex-head of Interpol--began today. Click here for the story.
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