USRAEL's Sword of Damocles on Iran-A Battle of Nerves
Ever since the George Bush Administration clubbed Iran with Iraq and North Korea as the axis of evil and the 2003 US led illegal invasion of Iraq, Tehran has been in Washington's crosshairs as the next victim, with all options on the table, including use of tactical nuclear bombs ,with neo-cons , Israel and its supporters cheerleading as in the case of the invasion of Iraq. Pyongyang's nukes and missiles deter US and its allies from attacking North Korea, thus sending a clear message to the world –have nukes ; deter invaders ,even USA.
The Gang of Five nuclear armed powers with veto powers to boot in UNSC , have not fulfilled their NPT obligations in spite of a UNGA vote and an advisory from the ICJ and regularly blackmail non- nuclear states, threatening even preventive nuclear strike and forbid others from even enriching Uranium for power generation , which is permitted under the NPT .The five have thus created an apartheid system of nuclear haves and have-nots , the latter at the former's mercy . The white Christian nations, who have colonized and exploited the rest of the world since 18th century and honorary (yellow –almost ) white China want to maintain the hegemony. China shows increasing imperialistic propensities by its claims in South China sea and territories of its neighbours .China's claims that the McMahon line was an imperial creation , as if Tibet and Xinjiang joined the Chinese empire by self-determination. Beijing is already outpacing Washington in hypocrisy and imperialist behavior .
Nuclear Armed Bullies and NPT Review
http://tarafits.blogspot.com/2010/05/nuclear-armed-bullies-and-npt-review.html
The five by making propaganda against Iran and North Korea have diverted attention from their not fulfilling NPT obligations .
But there are signs of revolt against the rule of the five gangsters ( Do we not call blackmailers and extortionists gangsters). The support given to Iran for its rights under NPT by Turkey and Brazil is the first incipient resistance by the have-nots against the rule of gangsters .Ankara which voted against sanctions in UNSC is not abiding by them and tradimg with Tehran , while trying to find a solution with Washington by back channels .Majority of the countries in the world oppose the apartheid system which has evolved since NPT was specially put into place after India breached the nuclear arms monopoly. India was punished and remains under duress and forced to sign an unequal treaty with US to obtain nuclear fuel and open itself to US intervention in India's internal security and strategic matters.
This has been facilitated by Indian pensioners of Washington Consensus organizations like IMF and the World Bank, which protect and promote US interests ,in key decision making positions in New Delhi. Indians can be easily bribed , like many of the politicians. The newly empowered Indian business and industrial community which has profited from pro-corporate policies at the expense of the 'aam aadmi' (common man) , flaunt ,$2 billion mansions , personal aircrafts and yachts acquired in a generation ,are the greedy collaborators .India is lurching towards being a Banana Republic with little rule of law and spreading chaos. Seventy percent of Indians live on half dollar a day and their misery and deprivation exceeds that in sub-Sahara regions . Following USA's now discredited and failing system , the Washcon Syndrome have created unbridgeable inequalities in India.
For corruption in India see Commonwealth Games Unveil India's Culture of Corruption
http://tarafits.blogspot.com/2010/08/commonwealth-games-unveil-indias.html
The resistance by India's tribal population and farmers , whose lands are acquired almost forcibly by the government at throw away prices and handed over to the rich , with profits shared between the politicians, corporate houses , officials and middlemen has given birth to the Maoist led rebellion in Indian states across the mineral rich belt , from where the tribals have been thrown out or deprived of livelihood .One of the reasons for the alienation in Kashmir is Delhi's reliance on 3 or four dynasties in Kashmir , unlike the rest of India ,where Yadavs, Lals or Reddys dynasties have grass roots origins. Recent disclosures unveiled how the J&K ministers spent tens of millions in renovation of their kingly residences .Unlike Dalits and other backward classes ,interests of poor Muslim converts from these castes has not been taken care of .Muslims have become the new Dalits in India .Apart from other reasons Kashmiris people have little faith in the promises made regularly and have little stake in the system.
Tehran's Crime
How dare a third world country people dare oust the Shah of Iran, Washington's gendarme in the Middle East , so Tehran must be taught a lesson .The Khomeini led 1979 Shia revolution , upset Washington's ring of alliances around the Soviet Union and its allies .And the crime of the crimes ,the Iranian revolutionaries then had the temerity of taking over the US embassy and imprisoning US diplomats and staff.
Every six months or so ,Western leaders and its subservient corporate media ratchet lies and cooked up imminent or the so called ' existential' threat to Israel from Iran's nuclear threat –this time frame of Tehran going nuclear remains a constant ( two/three years since 1996) in spite of USA's own intelligence assessment and IAEA 's reports to the contrary. Israel has hundreds of nukes, while Iran has none .The former's defense outlay is US$ 13.4 billion while Tehran's is US$7.4 billion (both 2009 figures).US outlay for the current year is over US$ 700 billion.
Since months serious writers and analysts have been warning of a possible attack by USA and /or Israel ,to warn and deter such stupidity. It includes an old campaigner Scot Ritter ,a former UN arms inspector in Iraq , who disgusted with Washington's duplicity ,exposed US plans to attack Iraq . Noam Chomsky and Fidel Castro among others have expressed their opposition and dismay .Fidel believes that an attack on Iran will lead to great upheaval , even a nuclear war and could initiate WWIII.
The ammunition for the current upsurge for an attack on Iran in media was triggered by Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic Monthly , a journalist influential in U.S. pro-Israeli circles, with access to Israel's corridors of power. He was also one of the leaders of the pack which promoted US led illegal invasion on Iraq in 2003 along with other neo-cons , who still occupy media and think tanks space in USA .This despite their disastrous advice ,plans and implementation of the imperialist and racist sounding -Operation Iraqi freedom ie freedom to destroy Iraq , a state and its people beleaguered since 1980s , based on palpably false and blatant lies uttered by top US and UK leadership and echoed by the corporate media and BBC (this 'pristine' media outlet gave 98% time to warmongers ).The crimes of Western leadership justify a Nuremberg style Tribunal .Many jurists and others are trying them in Brussels ,Spain and Kuala Lumpur. Remember it took time but Gen Pinochet was finally cornered in UK .Times are getting less favourable to get away now.
I had analyzed the situation regarding a possible US/Israel attack on Iran some time ago and come to the conclusion that it was a game of nerves to , a) browbeat Tehran into submission, b) bring about a regime change or finally c) even engage with Tehran. The third possibility is gaining traction now in spite of all the bluster.
Texan Poker Bluff and Persian Chess Moves 21 January, 2007 By K Gajendra Singh , Kuchinck and US party bolgs, ICF,AJInfo,Uruknet, Boloji ,Ziopedia , Chowk ( around hundred websites and blogs) http://tarafits.blogspot.com/2010/08/texan-poker-bluff-and-persian-chess.html
"The arrogance of military power has led to a grave crisis - and to a decline of the United States' role and influence." Mikhail Gorbachev.
"The president is living in a dream world,'' US Sen. Barbara Boxer.
On Iran , US Administration has reached the pre-Iraq invasion rhetoric level of 2003 , when against the UN Charter and world opinion ,President George Bush decided to invade Iraq after having assembled a naval armada and air and land forces in the region ,cheerlead by a subservient US media . Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are accusing Tehran of developing nuclear weapons and exporting terrorism, just as Saddam Hussein was allegedly doing. Iran is also not abiding by U N resolutions on its nuclear weapons program, which, like Iraq then, it denies it has. UN Nuclear Agency in Vienna has found no proof of a weapons program .Neither there was one in Iraq in 2003. Almost all accusations made by US President , his deputy and others , exaggerated by US corporate owned media proved to be false.
But after 4 years of blunders and stupidity, the situation is unlike March, 2003 , with an isolated Bush administration now under siege having become unpopular and discredited at home and with allies abroad .In Iran it faces a people with a long history of survival beginning with Alexander and his uncouth Macedonian hordes , Arabs ,Turks , Mongols and others. And they succeeded in civilizing most of them.
I had gone deep into central Asia history to find a parallel. If like Khwarezmian empire which ignited the anger of the Mongols led by Changez Khan , USrael attacked Iran, Muslims in general and Shias in particular will go after Western interests everywhere . Unlike western propaganda , Arab masses are quite happy to live with a nuclear Iran. Their concern is Israel's hundreds of nukes .
Read on,
War Over Silk Routes and Petro-Bourses: Would History Repeat Itself ? By K Gajendra Singh http://tarafits.blogspot.com/2010/08/war-over-silk-routes-and-petro-bourses.html Al-Jazeerah, http://www.saag.org/%5Cpapers16%5Cpaper1516.html http://www.mwcnews.net/etc
The Khwarezmian Empire, also spelt as Chorasmia , based on the Amu Darya (Oxus) delta, south of the Aral Sea coast, an entrepot for exchange of goods between Slavic lands in the West , Muslim states in South and China in the East , began as a part of the Ghaznavid empire .Its founder, Anushtegin , a slave , was appointed governor of Khwarezm around 1077 by Sultan Malik Shah of the Seljuqs , who had replaced the Ghaznavids as the new warlords in the region. Anushtegin's descendants governed Khwarezm on behalf of the Seljuqs but , the 1141 defeat of Seljuq Sultan Sanjar by Buddhist Karakitai (Qara Khitay) confederation of northern China, forced Anushtegin's grandson Atsiz to acknowledge the overall sovereignty of the Karakitai. ---
Conclusion ; The collapse of the Karakitai in Transoxiana, engineered by Muhammad II, was fraught with dangers of which the latter was probably ignorant. The Persian historian of the Mongols, Juvaini, aided by the perspective of years, put into the mouth of the dying Atsiz the injunction to his sons not to fight the Gur Khan because "he was a great wall behind which were terrible foes." The pre-vision of Atsiz may be doubted, but the prophecy, even if invented post facto, was true enough.
The collapse of secular Saddam regime like the Buddhist Karakitai has been engineered by George W. Bush . His father , President George H.W. Bush whose military chief during the 1990 war on Iraq , Gen Colin Powell demanded that clear objectives be defined ( and left having been lied to by the CIA Chief and made irrelevant by the current US Administration ), was wise enough not to demolish the Saddam Hussein's secular regime and open a Pandora's box .
Let not Ariel Sharon of Israel and George W. Bush behave like Otrar's Governor Inalchik and Mahmood II -- End
Incidentally , Iran , despite plans is yet to begin operating a petro-bourse ie sell its oil denominated in currency than dollars . But many countries are taking steps to trade in currencies other than the US dollar , a reserve currency since 1944 Breton Woods conference .Washington went back on its promise to give an ounce of gold for $35 .US foreign debt amounts to over $ 10 Trillion. In reality US dollar will sooner or later fall.
Many friends and writers on likely hood of attacks on Iran elicited my views from time to time . After the Iraqi quagmire, to escape from which with some dignity ,Washington needs Tehran's cooperation as it would, even in Afghanistan, if Taleban took over as many people believe or at least that is western propaganda .
After the Wikileaks and US double agent Headley,s interrogation, it is clear that Washington knew about 2611 in advance .Who needs enemies with friends like Washington .India should make up with Tehran .India ( and others ) along with Iran might have to revive the northern Alliance .New Delhi also needs Tehran for its energy needs and to reach West/North Afghanistan , Central Asia and even Russia via Iran and the Caspian . But the current Indian government is behaving like a US poodle . Just look at the debates on the Nuclear liability bill just passed .
In terms of cold hard strategic logic, there is no country on earth so much adversely surrounded by enemies as Iran. The US Imperial Armies are camped out on its Afghanistan and Iraq borders. To the North are oligarchic US allies & to the South are the decadent, dynastic & despotic Arab regimes - all in utter dread of the very notion of the Islamic republic of Iran with nukes .Of course in the region , Israel is a Nuclear Power of the First Order. In this context, one may say that the Iranians will ssoner or later endevour for the "Mutually Assured Destruction" by way of a deterrent - MAD as it is described. It was successful during the Cold War. But despite all threats ,funding of subversive elements against Iran openly , as if it is Washington's birth right, Iranians , a patriotic and proud people have stayed united. Western threats only unite them further.
Stability in Iran is of paramount importance for West , Central and South Asia , including India to counter Taleban and Sunni Pakistan under possibly various kinds of regimes , which might emerge.
See Confusion at the End of Afghanistan Tunnel!
http://tarafits.blogspot.com/2010/07/confusion-at-end-of-afghanistan-tunnel.html
An excellent and sensible article from the mainline US media on the question for Usrael's 'to attack or not to attack Iran' propaganda. It is reassuring .
Deluded About Iraq, Clueless About Iran
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/24/opinion/main6801099.shtml
In this piece an analyses and riposte to the Goldberg article has been provided by Tony Karon a senior editor at TIME.com in TomDispatch .
Tony Karon says that after America's march to a disastrous war in Iraq, a similarly flawed media conversation on Iran is gaining momentum. Last month, TIME's Joe Klein was deep briefed that Obama administration had the bombing Iran's nuclear facilities "back on the table." Former CIA director Admiral Mike Hayden told CNN of an "inexorable" dynamic toward confrontation, claiming that bombing was a more viable option for the Obama administration than for George Bush. 'The pièce de résistance 'in the most recent drum roll of bomb-Iran alerts, however, came from Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic Monthly.' ,who claimed that since sanctions were unlikely to force Iran to back down on its uranium enrichment project, -- there was a more than even chance Israel would launch a military strike on the country by next summer. He gave vivid descriptions of the Israeli battle plan, and painted Iran as a new Auschwitz .But added that many of his top Israeli sources simply didn't believe Iran would ever launch nuclear weapons against Israel, even if it acquired them. "Nonetheless, Goldberg warned, absent an Iranian white flag soon, Israel would indeed launch that war in summer 2011, and it, in turn, was guaranteed to plunge the region into chaos. The message: the Obama administration better do more to confront Iran or Israel will act crazy." ( Asia Times also carried out pieces recently about how the Israeli bombers will escape detection from now not so friendly Turks and even acquiescence from Riyadh .)
Goldberg continued that "such an attack would have limited hope of doing more than briefly setting back the Iranian nuclear program, perhaps at catastrophic cost, and so Israeli leaders would act only because they believe the "goyim" won't stop another Auschwitz. Or as my friend Paul Woodward, editor of the War in Context website, so brilliantly summed up the Israeli message to America: 'You must do what we can't, because if you don't, we will.'" Goldberg pretended that he was merely initiating a debate about how to tackle Iran and that the debate was already underway .
At the same time "the New York Times reported that the Obama administration had convinced Israel that there was no need to rush on the issue. Should Iran decide to build a nuclear weapon (which it has not done), it would, administration officials pointed out, quickly make its intentions clear by expelling the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors who routinely monitor its nuclear work, and breaking out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). After that, it would still need another year or more to assemble its first weapon. " Thus there's no urgency about debating military action against Iran. Perhaps, after all these years of obsessive Iran nuclear mania, what about asking three crucial questions.
1. Does the U.S. have a right to launch wars of aggression without provocation, in defiance of international law and an international consensus, simply on the basis of its own suspicions about another country's future intentions?
Does the U.S. have the right to attack Iran and to take such a catastrophic step based on the fevered imaginations of Biblically inspired Israeli extremists -- Goldberg has previously suggested that Prime Minister Netanyahu believes Iran to be the reincarnation of the Biblical Amalekites, mortal enemies the ancient Hebrews were to smite -- or simply to preserve an Israeli monopoly on nuclear force in the Middle East is as bizarre as it is reckless. Even debating the possibility of launching a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities as a matter of rational policy, absent any Iranian aggression or even solid evidence that the Iranian leadership intends to wage its own version of aggressive war, gives an undeserved respectability to what would otherwise be considered steps beyond the bounds of rational foreign policy discussion.
" in Goldberg's world, Arabs and Iranians never get to speak. The Arabs, we are told, secretly want Israel or the U.S. to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities out of fear that the acquisition of nuclear weapons would embolden their Persian rivals. They are, so the story goes, just not able to say so in public. Of course, when Arab leaders do publicly express their opposition to the idea of another war being launched in the Middle East, they are ignored in the Goldberg-led debate.
"Similarly, their rejection of Washington's long-held premise that Israel's special security must be exempted from any discussion of the creation of a nuclear-free Middle East remains outside the bounds of the Iran-debate story. " And no mention of the authoritative University of Maryland annual survey of Arab public opinion which recently reported that, contrary to claims of an Arab world cowering under the threat of Iranian nukes, 57% of the Arab public actually believe a nuclear-armed Iran would be good for the Middle East! "
"The idea that Iran's regime might exist for any purpose other than to destroy Israel is largely ignored as well. -- So, too, is every indication Iran's leaders have given that they have no intention of attacking Israel or any other country."
2. Even if Iran were to acquire the means to build a nuclear weapon, would that be a legitimate or prudent reason for launching a war?
"If Iran is actually pursuing the capability to build nuclear weapons, its leaders would be doing so in response to a strategic environment in which two of its key adversaries, the U.S. and Israel, and two of its sometime friends/sometime adversaries, Russia and Pakistan, have substantial nuclear arsenals. By all sober accounts, Iran's security posture is primarily focused on the survival of its regime. Some Israeli military and intelligence officials have been quoted in Israel's media as saying that Iran's motivation in seeking a nuclear weapon would be primarily to head off a threat of U.S. intervention aimed at regime change.
"Most states do not pursue weapons systems as ends in themselves, -- to protect, enhance, or advance their own strategic position, or up the odds against more powerful rivals. In other words, the conflicts that fuel the drive for nuclear weapons are more dangerous than the weapons themselves, and the problem of those weapons can't be addressed separately from those conflicts.
"An Iran that had been bombed to destroy its nuclear power program would likely emerge from the experience far more dangerous to the U.S. and its allies over the decades to come than an Iran that had nuclear weapons within reach. The only way to diminish the danger of an escalating confrontation with Iran is to address the conflict between Tehran and its rivals directly, and seek a modus vivendi that would manage their conflicting interests.
"Unfortunately, such a dialogue between Washington and Tehran has scarcely begun, even as, amid alarmist warnings, Goldberg and others insist it must be curtailed so as to avoid the Iranians "playing for time."
3. Is Iran actually developing nuclear weapons?
"No, it is not. That's the conclusion of the CIA, the IAEA, whose inspectors are inside Iran's nuclear facilities, and most of the world's intelligence agencies, including the Israelis. U.S. intelligence believes that Iran is using a civilian nuclear energy program to assemble much of the infrastructure that could, in the future, be used to build a bomb, and that Iran may also be continuing theoretical work on designing such a weapon.
"Washington's spooks and its defense establishment do not, however, believe Iran is currently developing nuclear weapons, nor that its leadership has made the ultimate decision to do so. In fact, the consensus appears to be that Iran will not weaponize nuclear material, but will stop short at "breakout capacity" -- the ability, also available, for instance, to Japan, to move relatively quickly to build such a weapon. Currently, as the New York Times reported, the time frame for "breakout," if all went well (and it might not), would be about a year, after which Iran would have enough fissile material for one bomb. (The Israelis, by comparison, are believed to have 200 to 400 nuclear weapons in their undeclared program, the Pakistanis between 70 and 90, and the United States more than 5,000.) In addition, a credible nuclear deterrent would require the production of not one or two bombs, but a number of them, which would allow for testing.
"For ex-CIA Director Hayden, such a breakout capacity would be "as destabilizing as their actually having a weapon." His is a logical leap that's hard to sustain, unless you believe that it's worth launching a war to prevent Iran from, at worst, acquiring a defensive trump card that might prevent it from being attacked.
"Iran's enrichment activities are, of course, a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions backed by sanctions. Those were imposed to demand that Iran suspend its enrichment program until it satisfied concerns raised by IAEA inspectors over its compliance with the disclosure and transparency requirements of the NPT -- especially when it came to aspects of its program which have been developed in secret, raising suspicions over their future use.
Unlike North Korea which when in a position to test a nuclear weapon, withdrew from the NPT and kicked out IAEA inspectors. "Iran remains within the treaty. Even as the standoff over its nuclear program continues, renewed efforts are underway to broker a confidence-building deal to exchange Iranian enriched uranium for fuel rods produced outside the country to power a Tehran reactor that produces medical isotopes.( brokered by Turkey and Brazil)
" Washington wants Iran to forego its treaty-guaranteed right to enrich its own uranium because that also gives it the potential means to produce bomb materiel; Iran has no intention of foregoing that right. Such longstanding pillars of foreign policy sobriety as Senator John Kerry and Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State, have publicly deemed the U.S. position untenable.
"The premises of the debate just initiated by Goldberg's piece are palpably false. -- Goldberg is just the present vehicle for an American conversation initiated by others, among them those known in the Bush years as neo-cons, who have long been dreaming of war with Iran and are already, as Juan Cole recently indicated, planning for such a war under a future Republican administration, if not sooner.
" Prime Minister Netanyahu believes that Americans are politically feeble-minded; he said as much to a group of Israeli settlers in a video that surfaced recently: "I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in [our] way." Through Goldberg, the Israeli leader and his aides are seeking to "move America in the right direction" with dark tales of Auschwitz and Amalekites—Many , including Netanyahu, don't believe Iran would attack Israel. Instead, they warn that an Iranian nuclear weapon would embolden Hamas and Hizballah, although the logic there is flimsy indeed. After all, if Iran would not attack Israel on its own with a nuclear weapon, why would it do so to defend its insurgent allies?
"Despite Goldberg's panic-inducing prediction, there are plenty of reasons to believe that, for all its bluster and threat, Israel won't, in fact, bomb Iran next year -- or any time soon. But would the Israelis like to see the United States take on their prime regional enemy? You bet they would. Indeed, Netanyahu continually insists that the U.S. has an obligation to take the lead in confronting Iran. It's patently clear in Goldberg's piece that the Israelis are trying to create a climate in which the U.S. is pressed onto the path of escalation, adding more and more sanctions, and keeping "all options on the table" in case those don't work.
"David Kay -- the American who served as an UNSCOM arms inspector in search of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the U.S. invasion -- suggests that:
"Israel is engaged in psychological warfare with the Obama administration -- and it only partly concerns Iran… [B]eyond Iran, of probably greater importance to the current Israeli government is avoiding the Obama administration pushing it into a choice between settlements and territorial arrangements with the Palestinians that it is unwilling to make and permanent damage to its relationship with the U.S. Hyping the Iranian nuclear program and the need for early military action is a nice bargaining counter... if the U.S. wants to avoid an imminent Israeli strike, it must make concessions to Israel on the Palestinian issues."
"Creating a sense of crisis on the Iran front, narrowing U.S. options in the public mind, and precluding a real discussion of U.S. policy towards Iran may serve multiple purposes for various interested groups. Taken together, however, they reduce all discussion to one issue: when to exercise that military option kept "on the table," given the unlikeliness of an Iranian surrender. "
Below is an evaluation by JJ Steinberg, a US expert on scientific, economic and strategic affairs , based on his discussions with very senior intelligence officials in Washington. The core of the U.S. national security consensus is:
"1. Iran is still well-over a year away from any substantial progress towards weaponization. There are serious glitches in the Iran program and there is effective and coordinated sabotage and disruption involving the United States, Russia, Germany and others. There is no imminent deadline for military action, and the Israelis perfectly well know this, too.
2. The U.S. is resolved to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. So, while there is time for diplomacy, there is a deadline, and the military option is truly on the table. Just not during 2010. Revisit the question after March 2011.
3. Unlike the Bush Administration, the policy of the national security team under Obama is NOT to attempt regime change. Let the volatile internal dynamics play out, with only very clandestine support for opposition reform factions. The view is that any factional realignment further postpones the Iranian nuclear weaponization program.
4. U.S. has congratulated Russia (Hillary to Lavrov) for starting up Bushehr. This is an important milestone event. Even Iran is given blessings for moving forward with civilian nuclear power--under international proper supervision.
5. Israel and American neocons are pushing the button vis. attacking Iran for broader geopolitical reasons. If Iran gets the bomb, this fundamentally changes the political alignment in the region, and neutralizes Israel's nuclear capability. Israel's overkill nuclear weapons arsenal was part of the NATO second strike capability versus the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War. Why else would Israel have such a vast arsenal? Needless for deterrent or even offensive use against Arab countries. As a deterrent, it has been pretty successful. No Middle East war against Israel since 1973--the point that Israel verifiably had a deliverable nuclear weapons capability. Now Israel is a liability for the U.S. in the eyes of a growing number of American strategists. Even Gen. Petraeus testified at the U.S. Senate that Israel's behavior is making life more difficult for U.S. military forces in the Arab and Muslim world. The game is changing, gradually, and the power of the Israeli Lobby is diminishing.
6. War, therefore, is neither imminent nor unthinkable. 2011 is the crucial time frame, and in the interim, there is an enormous amount of wiggle-room for negotiations. Iran is a potential vital ally for U.S. safe and credible withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. But diplomacy is a two-way street, and the frustration with Iran's diplomatic zig-zags is deep, in Washington AND Moscow. Beijing is also coming to see the difficulties in relying on Iran keeping their word, or responding to pressure from true allies.
If it does come down to a war, there will be plenty of blame to go around. War can and must be avoided, and that will take competent, sustained, patient diplomacy over the next nine months."
Reasons for the Media debate
The media controversy on Iran keeps up tensions like the various wars on terror and exaggeration of Al Qaeda threat , to keep the military-industry complex booming , making huge profits and being subsidized by the US taxpayer , who with onrushing recession is groaning . Who cares for the common man in America .It is an oligopoly , where the corporate interests auction the post of he President .Barack Obama was given about $ 600 million for elections , mostly by the banksters who have brought ruin to US economy , recession which could morph into a depression and further misery for the common man.
Recent Strategic Changes in Eurasia increase Israel's Value for the West
After Ukraine's going back to Russia earlier this year , bashing of Usrael ally Georgia by Moscow (sending a clear message to the countries in the region , specially Azerbaijan ) and an ambiguous US status on the use of Manas airbase in Kyrgyzstan , Israel has become more important for US led West , a position it acquired in 1979 ,after the downfall of Shah's regime in Iran , the US gendarme in the region .It lost that position after the fall of the Berlin Wall and Western ingress into Russian strategic space , even into China's across in Xinjiang .
Moscow is playing the game both ways , siding with the Gang to keep nuclear upstarts out and doling out bits and pieces to Iran (There will always be trust deficit between the two). Iran 's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr built with Russian help was activated on Aug. 21.This date was foolishly suggested by warmongering media in the West to attack the power unit with Russians working there , who will continue to remain there .Moscow has also kept on hold supply of S-300 missiles , which it had promised Tehran many years ago ,thus squeezing out concessions from Israel and USA.
29 August, 2010.K.Gajendra Singh Mayur Vihar ,Delhi
K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Copy right with the author
