Bush won’t fix the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
July 19, 2007
This is a BS attempt.
AFP:
President Bush announced that Condee Rice will host a peace conference between Israel and the Palestinian Authority this Fall. He’s desperate to get Palestinians behind Fatah.
Both Washington and Europe believe fresh peace talks are the best means to weaken the Islamist movement Hamas, which has seized control of the Gaza Strip, and strengthen moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and his newly named prime minister Salam Fayyad.
The Bush administration has pledged $40 million to the Palestinian government, with more to come if Abbas can control the government. The administration also called on old friend Tony Blair to help the peace process.
Blair will try to repair and develop tattered Palestinian governmental and economic institutions in preparation for eventual negotiations with Israel on the formation of a separate Palestinian state.
The Arab League offered Israel peace in 2002 for pre-1967 borders, and Israel said no. Why will Israelis change their minds now?
The plan, in its broadest terms, offers Israel security and “normal relations” in exchange for a withdrawal from occupied Arab territories, creation of an independent Palestinian state with al-Quds al-Shareef (East Jerusalem) as its capital, and the “return of refugees.”
The world would be very different if Israel had accepted to the agreement…
Republicans can’t agree on a candidate
July 18, 2007
Looks like conservatives don’t have a favorite, and the race is up for grabs. Ron Paul gets my vote. The rest plain suck.
The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that nearly a quarter of Republicans are unwilling to back top-tier hopefuls Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain or Mitt Romney, and no one candidate has emerged as the clear front-runner among Christian evangelicals. Such dissatisfaction underscores the volatility of the 2008 GOP nomination fight.
None of the top candidates has a clear lead among Christian evangelicals, a critical part of the GOP base that has had considerable sway in past Republican primaries. Giuliani, a thrice-married backer of abortion rights and gay rights, had 20 percent support roughly even with Thompson and McCain who have one divorce each in their pasts. Romney, a Mormon who has been married for three decades, was in the single digits.
More Republicans have become apathetic about their top options over the past month. A hefty 23 percent can’t or won’t say which candidate they would back, a jump from the 14 percent who took a pass in June.
Cheney pushing for war with Iran
July 16, 2007
A well-placed source in Washington said: “Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.”
The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.
The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively. They are also reluctant for Israel to carry out any strikes because the US would get the blame in the region anyway.
“The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is adamant it will attack, the US will have to take decisive action,” Mr Cronin said. “The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or do the job yourself.”
No surprise here. It looks like Bush will strike Iran before he leaves office. Check out an earlier post titled: Israel pushing for a military strike on Iran, while Iran shows a willingness to negotiate.
Why Iran needs nuclear power
July 11, 2007
It’s a speech delivered by Professor Pirouz Mojtahedzadeh at a conference in Brussels.
…Iran’s nuclear history pre-dates the current Islamic government. It originated in the mid-1970s, when encouraged by the US, the last Shah of Iran unveiled plans to purchase several nuclear reactors from Germany, France and the United States to generate electricity. The Shah’s government awarded a contract to a subsidiary of the German company Siemens to construct two 1,200-megawatt reactors at Bushehr. This project is supposed to have been completed by Russia after about three decades of exploitation of Iran.
Iran’s present electrical requirements are far larger than had been predicted and Iranian cities suffer from hours of power cut for saving energy.
…Ahmadinejad’s call for partnership with the West, to the extent of involving the United States in Iran’s uranium enrichment process, fell on deaf ears; a prospect that could provide the West with the best opportunity to establish direct control over that process and prevent increase in its enrichment grade and its inappropriate use. Instead, the West preferred to turn Ahmadinejad’s ideologically motivated remarks about: the occupying regime of Jerusalem should cease to exist in the page of time, into a propaganda tool against Iran’s intentions with regard to its nuclear energy program (2).
Politicians in Washington have made no secret of the fact that they prosecuted the issue of Iran’s nuclear energy program to a large extent as an excuse to implement their well publicized strategy of “regime change” against the two regimes of Islamic Republic in Iran and Baath regime in Iraq…
President Bush is trying hard to justify an attack on Iran, but he ignores the fact that Iran really does need to solve its energy problems. Diplomacy is key, and Iran is willing to negotiate. Give them incentives as IAEA chief El Baradei suggests, and help them build a civil nuclear program. But, why would President Bush want to do that? Israel certainly doesn’t want Iran to have ANY nuclear capabilities, and it will continue to press Washington to strike Iran.
Israel pushing for a military strike on Iran, while Iran shows a willingness to negotiate
July 11, 2007
The Israeli ambassador-elect to Britain, Ron Prosor, said Tuesday that the Jews around the world and the global community should do more to focus attention on Iran and its nuclear aspirations.
“We don’t see enough done [by] the international community or in the Jewish world to put this issue as number one on the agenda,” Prosor told members of the Israel, Britain and the Commonwealth Association (IBCA) at a Tel Aviv luncheon.
Prosor said that embargos imposed on the Islamic republic had the potential to yield results, and cited as an example the gasoline shortages in Tehran, which came despite Iran’s position as one of the top oil producers in the world.
Jerusalem Post:
The Bush administration’s indecision about what it wants to see in Iran – regime change or behavior change – is hurting its ability to plan effective military steps or engage in persuasive diplomacy, according to a top Iran expert.
Ilan Berman, speaking at the conservative Hudson Institute on Tuesday, said that the US hasn’t made that choice because it “hasn’t yet grasped the fundamental threat to American interests” posed by Iran.
And a rare public opinion poll of Iranians conducted recently showed that far fewer Iranians said it was as important to develop nuclear arms as a long-term goal as it was to strengthen the economy and normalize diplomatic and trade relations with the West.
Berman compared the situation in Iran to that of the Eastern bloc at the end of the Cold War, with frequent protests and many disgruntled minorities, suggesting the fragility of the regime.
Yet he said that Cold War weapons – like Voice of America radio – need to be refurbished to be used effectively in the current standoff.
Similarly, Berman argued, the threat of military force needs to be harnessed by exploring how specifically it could be used, though he called military action “very, very problematic.” But, he said, for any US strategy to be effective, the administration needs to be able to say: “We know what you’re doing and this is going to be our response.”
Funny, while Israelis keep pushing for military action, Iran has shown a willingness to negotiate.
Newsday:VIENNA, Austria – Iran has scaled back its uranium enrichment program, the head of the UN atomic agency said yesterday, suggesting a new willingness from the government to resolve the international standoff over the nation’s nuclear defiance.Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, spoke at the end of a special meeting of the agency’s 35-nation board that approved sending a team to North Korea, a decision that began the process meant to dismantle that country’s nuclear program.While expressing hope that Iran might go as far as totally freezing enrichment – an action demanded by the UN Security Council – ElBaradei told reporters that there had been a “marked slowdown” in centrifuges on line and in using them to turn out enriched uranium.ElBaradei repeated a call for the United States to speak directly to Iran over the nuclear standoff.
Turkey gathering troops near Iraq border
July 10, 2007
BBC:
Iraq says Turkey has 140,000 soldiers along its border, prompting fears of an incursion against Kurdish guerrillas.
Turkey has not commented on the figure of 140,000 quoted by Mr Zebari. If the figure is accurate, Turkey would have nearly as many soldiers along its border with Iraq as the 155,000 troops which the US has in the country.
There has been an upsurge in fighting in recent months, with the Turkish army claiming it has killed 110 rebels since the start of the year and losing in turn 67 soldiers in clashes with the PKK.
BBC regional analyst Stephanie Irvine says the current build-up of troops at the border may herald action or may be designed merely to show Washington and Baghdad that Ankara is running out of patience with their failure to deal with the Turkish separatist rebels in northern Iraq.
The PKK has killed over 30,000 Turks since 1984, and the toll rises weekly. Every Western government in the world, including the U.S., considers the PKK a terrorist group. The Kurdish north harbors PKK terrorists with the help of the Kurdish government. Is the U.S. government willing to risk a friendship with Turkey, who has NATO’s second largest army behind the U.S., so the Kurds don’t get pissed? I doubt Turkey will invade northern Iraq, but Washington will have to act soon to make certain that doesn’t happen. I thought this was the war on terror.
They need to agree on something important, to get things going. Sadly, they can’t.
Iraq’s acting parliamentary speaker urged political blocs on Thursday to end their boycott of the legislature to help push through vital laws that would help ease sectarian tension between Shi’ite and Sunni Arabs.
“They should end their pointless boycott and voice their opinion here loudly to relay us the voice of their constituents,” Khaled al-Attiya told lawmakers in an appeal to the main Sunni Arab bloc and a Shi’ite political party.
Washington, facing domestic unease over the war in Iraq, is pressing Iraqi leaders to pass a key oil law and other political benchmarks that it hopes will help reconcile majority Shi’ite and minority Sunni Arabs and Kurds. Iraq’s oil lies mainly in the Kurdish north and Shi’ite south. Sunnis, who live mainly in the centre the country around Baghdad, fear missing out on any windfalls.
The Sunni Accordance Front, with 44 seats in the 275-seat chamber, suspended its participation after their speaker was ousted last month.
The Shi’a have had no power in the Middle East. Ever. The Iraqi Sunnis will view the current government as illegitimate and fight it.
Another interesting issue:
Politicians loyal to radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, representing a bloc of 30 seats, pulled out in protest against the bombing of a Shi’ite shrine’s minarets in the Sunni city of Samarra on June 13.
This is pure bullshit. He’ll be back. They’ll tell his simple-minded ass that the government is here to stay, so he has no choice but to cooperate. Or, he could choose to lose his political power and remain purely a religious leader like Ayatollah al-Sistani. Ya know, the way Shi’a theology intended. But, why would he want to do that?
Here are two different perspectives:
The Economist: The release of a reporter boosts Hamas
New York Times: No Fast Gains for Hamas after Release of Journalist
Fatah will gain from this incident, but will Hamas? Probably, but how much? Which deserves the credit and praise from the West anyway? Fatah is corrupt and Hamas is too violent to lead a government (yes, you could make the argument for all governments). Westerners constantly criticize Hamas for its violent tactics, and Palestinians for voting them into power, but look at the alternative. Fatah has stolen hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars from the Palestinian Authority. Both plain suck.
Here are a couple links describing Fatah’s corruption, which opened the door for Hamas to win big in the Palestinian elections held in early 2006.
“A vast army of contractors — up to 126,000 Americans, Iraqis and other foreigners — is working for the United States government in Iraq. Many work side-by-side with soldiers and are exposed to the same dangers, but mostly they must fend for themselves in navigating the civilian health system when they come back to the United States.”
“With no widespread screening, many workers are not identified as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or other problems, mental health experts and contractors say. And, they add, the quality of treatment for other problems can vary widely because of limited civilian expertise in combat-related disorders.”
U.S. too busy to deal with Kurdish Terrorists
July 4, 2007
AP via International Herald Tribune :
“The United States needs to step up efforts to prevent Kurdish separatists from operating cross-border attacks on Turkey from Iraq, U.S. and Turkish officials said.”
“The United States classifies the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, as a terrorist organization, and has been working with Turkey to combat the threat, U.S. officials said. But they had few examples of success over the PKK to point to.”
“Meanwhile, Turkey, a key NATO ally, continues to provide vital support to U.S. operations in Afghanistan and Iraq through Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey, one of the most important U.S. military assets in the region.”
“One senior U.S. diplomatic official said the likelihood of Turkey invading northern Iraq before the July 22 election was very high.”
The U.S. is risking a friendship with Turkey, the second largest army in NATO, over the Kurds. It needs to act fast before the Turks take action. The U.S. will be forced to deal with the issue one way or another, and it’d be better for them to do it now before they risk a military confrontation with such an important ally.
