WAR 5/15th THEPERFECTSTORM

Housecarl · May 15, 2011

Posted for fair use....
http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/15/china-pakistan-alliance-strengthened-post-bin-laden.html

China-Pakistan alliance strengthened post bin Laden
AFP

BEIJING: Tensions between the US and Pakistan over the killing of Osama bin Laden and a speedier US withdrawal from Afghanistan are likely to reinforce China and Pakistan’s already strong ties, analysts say.

When Chinese leaders welcome Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to Beijing this week, they will likely praise Sino-Pakistani “friendship” over the past 60 years – a stark contrast to recent Western criticism of Islamabad.

Analysts say Gilani’s visit starting Tuesday will help Islamabad deflect mounting pressure from Washington and elsewhere, as Pakistan stands shoulder-to-shoulder with its long-time ally and neighbor.

“China is the only country that has taken a sympathetic stand for Pakistan after the bin Laden operation,” Talat Masood, a political analyst and retired Pakistani general, told AFP.

“This visit is important in the sense that it could counter (US) pressure on Pakistan. It shows Pakistan wants to say we also have some cards to play.” China has shown unswerving support for Pakistan since US special forces killed bin Laden at a compound near the country’s top military academy on May 2, sparking speculation that Islamabad may have known about his whereabouts.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu pointed out a few days after the al Qaeda chief’s killing that Pakistan was nevertheless “at the forefront of the international counter-terrorism effort”.

Beijing’s goodwill has not gone unnoticed.

“At this crucial juncture of history, I cannot say anybody is standing with Pakistan except for China,” Pakistan’s popular opposition leader Nawaz Sharif told reporters.

Many in Pakistan, outraged by the unilateral US raid, are increasingly convinced that their nation’s strategic alliance with the United States since 2001 has been less than positive and has only made the country less stable.

It could therefore be tempting for the nuclear-armed Islamic republic to move away from the United States and get closer to faithful ally Beijing, analysts say.

“If US and Indian pressure continues, Pakistan can say ‘China is behind us. Don’t think we are isolated, we have a potential superpower with us’,” Masood said.

China is the main arms supplier to Pakistan, which sees Beijing as an important counter-balance to India – which has recently tightened its ties with the United States.

Beijing has also agreed to build several nuclear reactors in Pakistan.

Kerry Dumbaugh, an analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, said Pakistan’s pro-China stance on issues such as Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its own territory, is also a key factor in Beijing’s support for Islamabad.

“Pakistan serves as an advocate or a conduit for China in the Islamic world,” Dumbaugh said.

According to other experts, China is convinced that Pakistan will increase its influence in Afghanistan by 2015, taking advantage of the planned withdrawal of US troops.

China also needs Islamabad’s cooperation in stemming potential terrorist threats in its mainly Muslim region of Xinjiang, which borders Pakistan.

Ultimately, China wants calm to reign, particularly in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, through which it plans to transport oil from the Middle East in a pipeline linking Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea.

But experts warn that friendship between China and Pakistan has its limits.

“China is important for Pakistan and will remain so, but when it comes to hi-tech you have to go to the US and the West, also because of their clout in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,” political analyst Hasan Askari said.

Andrew Small, an expert on China-Pakistan relations at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, agreed.

The Chinese “get what they want out of the relationship already – having Pakistan to provide balance in the region to try to keep India tied down in South Asia rather than becoming a broader Asian or global power,” Small said.

“They’re not going to want to be in a position where they end up with Pakistan on their plate to deal with.”

Housecarl · May 15, 2011

Hummm....for links in text please see article source.....HC

Posted for fair use....
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/05/japans_disaster_may_accelerate.html

May 14, 2011
Japan's Disaster May Accelerate Realignment in the East
By Fay Voshell

The coastline of Japan is not the only shift that will have been caused by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11.

As significant as the material damage, which appears to be almost incalculable, and as worthy of attention as the economic damage, also titanic, is a potential shift in the international alliances and strategies in the Far East, particularly among China, Japan and the US and its allies.

The grim truth is that Japan, already beleaguered by a stagnant economy, a pitiless demographic decline, and a fate-filled geographic location, now has been hit with devastation the equivalent of total war, including the continuing threat of nuclear disaster. One look at the satellite photographs reveals devastation that makes Sherman's march on Georgia and the Nazi blitz of London seem restrained.

Japan has been critically wounded, and it will not be long before her ancient enemy China, and possibly China's ally North Korea, along with other opportunistic nations, move in to take advantage of her present weakness, as enemies always do.

For Japan's situation is not like a nation such as France, which is ensconced amid European allies with empathetic governments and favorable economic alliances fostered by the European Union. On the contrary, there has not been any particular inclination by China and North Korea to hammer out mutually agreeable agreements with Japan such as are characteristic of the Western democracies, regardless of their unique national distinctions and rivalries. China and North Korea are not democracies but authoritarian communist governments who see economic strategies in terms of command, not mutually satisfying cooperation.

Japan is flanked on the East by the vast and geographically quixotic Pacific, which can arbitrarily wreak devastation at a moment's notice. To the West, she is bordered by nations with long memories and persistent antipathies. Just as bad, even friendly allies such as the United States and Australia, unless they act swiftly, will be forced to revise their long term Far East and Southeast Asian strategies in light of Japan's new weakness coupled with the increasing strength of China's military coupled with China's already strong economic presence within Japan itself. This is to say nothing of North Korea's steadfast and intractable hatred of her ancient nemesis.

It is sometimes hard for Americans, who are always among the most magnanimous, forgiving and generous of nations, to grasp how ingrained and intractable are hostilities among the Far East nations. It is equally difficult to comprehend how those hostilities continue to play out among ancient rivals. That is because we in America do not have the long, long history of conflict and carnage which has characterized the chief antagonists of Far East. Japan, China and Korea have been entangled in wars and occupations from time immemorial; wars which are not forgotten and in many cases not forgiven because of the immense brutality doled out by Japanese occupying forces.

Japan may generally have escaped the both the odium and the klieg lights which have kept the Nazi atrocities under continual scrutiny, but her behavior as conqueror and occupier of China and Korea was as horrific as the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe and their Barbarossa campaign against Russia. Japanese cruelties such as the "Rape of Nanking," the brutal occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945 , and the Japanese atrocious medical and biological warfare experiments in the infamous Unit 731 and elsewhere are still living memories for the Chinese and Koreans. Despite the attempts of Japan to apologize for past transgressions and despite the fact that both China and Korea also have been guilty of atrocities, neither country would be sorry to see vengeance heaped on their former tormentors. Nor would either of the nations hesitate to take advantage of Japan's present and probably lingering weaknesses. There are old scores to be settled with Japan.

The reaction of China and its quixotic and undependable ally North Korea will probably not yet take the form of overt military action because of the presence of the United States military and America's strong alliance with Japan. However, both will move to strengthen their already growing hegemony in the Far East and beyond, seeing the catastrophe as an opportunity to take portions from Japan's economic pie by moving in to replace Japanese influence, already diminished by its two decades long economic malaise. The accompanying result could be a diminution of US influence in the Southeast Asian region.

While the leaders of North Korea will doubtless continue to hold their cards close to their chests, erupting occasionally with a missile launch and threats of ratcheting up the development of an atomic bomb, what might China do next in view of ancient antipathies she now sees as having the possibility of being rectified? What goals will she seek to achieve in view of Japan's and America's weakened positions in the Asian theatre?

The most likely possibility is that China will attempt to achieve some long term goals more rapidly than previously thought possible.

One accelerated goal will almost certainly be to achieve the quiet and "peaceable" reintegration of Taiwan into the Chinese mainland, absorbing it in much the same way Hong Kong was quietly absorbed in 1997. We may look for one of the many conditions of reunification to include the return of the imperial treasures presently in the Taiwan National Museum, where they were safeguarded from the destruction which befell many historical artifacts in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. One of the memories still very much alive in the minds of China's present day rulers is the fact that when Chiang Kai Shek and his wife retreated to Taiwan, they took with them much of their nation's exquisite and irreplaceable art; art which represented the very soul of China and the essence of its rich artistic heritage. They Mainland China now wants the art back.

The watching world may also expect increasingly strengthened ties between Australia and China with diminishing ties to US and its ally, Japan. That is because regardless of Australia and New Zealand's cultural ties with the Anglo-sphere, they also are isolated and vulnerable islands whose relative proximity to China necessitates realignments not necessarily in favor of its present allies. China's increasing hegemony over the seas surrounding Australia, waters once firmly dominated by Western powers, may be cause for a new pragmatism on the part of bothAustralia and New Zealand.

In fact, Japan's accelerated weaknesses may tempt China to increase its already considerable presence in countries such as Burma, where it seeks easy access to the Indian Ocean; and in Vietnam, which has endured a thousand year-long Chinese cultural hegemony, has sought to retain its influence in the South China Sea, despite the hot breath of the Red Dragon down its long neck. Just recently, Vietnam protested February's Chinese military maneuvers near the disputed Spratly Islands, whose surrounding waters are rich in minerals the Chinese economy demands. The maneuvers will doubtless continue and multiply now that Japan is down and out.

There will also be increased pressure on China's growing rival India. Like Burma, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand and other southeastern nations, India will feel the consequences of the earthquake and tsunami, as minus Japanese strength and the preoccupation of the US with the Middle East, China will seek to strengthen her control over the South Sea, thus diminishing through military threat India's ancient trade routes, routes which are critical to her continuing economic success. India's and the West's hegemony over the South Seas is threatened as China will seek to derail both India's and the USalliances and dominance of the South Sea.

How must the US and her allies react to the Japan's weakness and China's attempts to take advantage of that weakness?

First, the US must, together with its allies in Europe, despite our and their economic troubles, launch a Marshall Plan to help Japan regroup and get back on her feet. Distractions in the Middle East must not prevent concerted attention being devoted to helping Japan. Next, Japan must increase her own military strength in order to balance increasing Chinese belligerence in that region. Further, the US and her allies must immediately form and strengthen a coalition of Eastern nations who will, even if it is only for immediate pragmatic concerns about their survival, be a firewall against increasing Chinese influence and domination of the region's economies and seas.

Next, America must increase its ties with India, whose empathetic government and growth as an economic power are capable of being a counter balance to China's antidemocratic authoritarianism, drive for dominance of the Southeast, and increasing belligerence on the world stage.

Also among the necessary domestic strategies for counterbalancing Japan's current weakness: beefing up rather than cutting the US military, rapidly decreasing debt obligations to China by dealing with runaway government spending, reassessing the US stance concerning trade imbalances, and rectifying the US/Chinese currency difficulties.

If the US and her allies act now, Japan's current weakness will be shored up and the effects of the devastation brought on by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown will be significantly mitigated if not entirely rectified, while Japan's ancient enemy China and her odious ally North Korea are at least contained and prevented from accelerating China's goals in Southeast Asia and beyond.

The US must see its role as more than helping out a stricken ally. It's imperative to develop and implement strategies which will contain the inevitable increase in belligerence from China and North Korea.

10 Comments on "Japan's Disaster May Accelerate Realignment in the East"

The Flying Dutchman · May 16, 2011

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Tanks push deeper into restive Syrian area

By REUTERS
05/16/2011 15:12
http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=220791

AMMAN - At least 15 Syrian tanks pushed overnight into a rural area near the Lebanese border, where security forces have concentrated their latest crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrations, human rights activists said.

The activists, who were in contact with residents, said the tanks deployed around Arida, near the Jisr al-Qomar border crossing point with northern Lebanon. Witnesses on the Lebanese side of the border told Reuters they could hear the sound of gunfire throughout the night.

Activists said Syrian troops and gunmen had entered the border town of Tel Kelakh on Saturday after protests erupted against President Bashar Assad's autocratic rule, prompting dozens of families to flee into Lebanon.

An activists' protest group said at least seven Syrian civilians were killed on Sunday when troops shelled the town and sniper fire killed another civilian on Monday, raising the death toll in the army's assault since Saturday to 12.

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The Flying Dutchman · May 16, 2011

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Israel to file UN complaint over Syrian, Lebanese border breach

16.05.2011 16:02
http://en.trend.az/regions/met/israel/1876847.html

Israel intends to file an official complaint with the UN Security Council (UNSC), over Sunday's mass border infiltrations by hundreds of Palestinian refugees from Lebanon and Syria, local media reported on Monday.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement earlier that he is "deeply concerned that a significant number of people have been killed or injured," when Israeli and Lebanese troops opened fire on the infiltrators, in an effort to halt their unlawful entry into the Israeli-held area, Xinhua reported.

At least four protestors were killed at Maroun a-Ras in Lebanon, and four others along the Druze border village of Majdal Shams. Dozens of others were injured in the riots, including 13 Israeli army officers and soldiers, and three Israeli civilians.

Israel's Kadima Party chief and opposition leader Tzipi Livni on Sunday told Italian President Giorgio Napolitano that "the attempt to infiltrate into Israel is a clear manifestation of the lack of acceptance of Israel's sovereignty as a country."

"Israel must defend its sovereignty," Livni said, adding "this is a significant change in the security situation in the region," according to The Jerusalem Post.

Lebanon on Monday filed its own complaint with the UNSC, over what it called "a hostile act," and Israel's "killing and wounding of civilians rallying in the town of Maroun a-Ras near the Israeli border."

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The Flying Dutchman · May 16, 2011

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Israeli security forces brace for more "Nakba" violence

16.05.2011 16:00
http://en.trend.az/regions/met/israel/1876844.html

The Israeli security forces on Monday remained on heightened alert in the wake of violent clashes that erupted along the country's northern borders with Syria and Lebanon the previous day, Xinhua reported.

Israel's northern frontiers were again calm on Monday after four pro-Palestinian demonstrators were killed while attempting to breach the security fence on the Syrian border as part of events commemorating Nakba, the annual Palestinian "mourning" of the creation of Israel.

Nearly 50 of them managed to break through the border fence and enter Majdal Shams, a Druze village inside Israel.

At least four protestors were killed in another protest rally that took place in Maroun a-Ras, a Lebanese village that borders Israel. It is yet unclear who opened fire on the Lebanese.

A general closure on the West Bank ending on Sunday midnight was extended for 24 hours, according to an army press release.

The large-scale deployment of Israel Defense Forces troops and police in the West Bank, northern Israel and the Gaza Strip border is expected to remain in force in the coming days to deal with further potential demonstrations.

On Sunday night, Israel Police arrested a Syrian national who infiltrated the border fence during a clash earlier in the day and remained inside Israel long hours after the demonstration was quelled.

The infiltrator, 34, was apprehended at a checkpoint set up at the exit to Majdal Shams. A police spokesman said the man did not carry an identity card or passport and boarded a taxi with a plan to reach central Israel, reported local daily The Jerusalem Post.

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The Flying Dutchman · May 16, 2011

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Border infiltrations are just the beginning - Barak

Politics 5/16/2011 12:07:00 PM
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2166934&Language=en

GAZA, May 16 (KUNA) -- Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned in remarks broadcast Monday that Israel will in the future have to deal with similar and perhaps more complex incidents than those which took place Sunday, in reference to the clashes with Palestinian and Arab protesters along the borders with Syria and Lebanon.

The minister was interviewed by Channel 2 and said, Sunday, that Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldiers succeeded in defending Israel's sovereignty when Palestinian refugee demonstrators breached the border with Syria and attempted to cross the border with Lebanon.

IDF forces opened fire on demonstrators on the Syria border, apparently killing several of them. reported Israeli Haaretz daily newspaper on the internet.

In the said interview on Channel 2, Barak responded to the charge that there were not enough IDF forces in place on the northern borders by saying that it was impossible to fully prepare for events like those that occurred on Sunday.

Some reports indicate that during demonstrations marking the Palestinian Nakba, Israelis killed 10 people in the Golan, 10 others in Lebanese Maroun E-Ras, a young man in Gaza, and a lady in the West Bank.

"I expect that investigations will be done so that lessons can be learned," he said. "There were deaths there in several places and we regret the deaths. Those responsible for this are those who attempted to violate Israel's sovereignty and those who sent them, if there are any," Barak said.
He also stressed that "IDF soldiers acted with restraint and discretion and only opened fire at the legs of protesters when other crowd dispersal methods proved insufficient," the Haaretz said.(end)

mzt.wsa KUNA 161207 May 11NNNN

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The Flying Dutchman · May 16, 2011

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Israel fires warning shots at Malaysia aid ship

May 16, 2011 11:41 AM
By Hazel Ward Agence France Press JERUSALEM:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Mi...shots-at-Malaysia-aid-ship.ashx#axzz1MWJNyCGQ

Israeli naval forces fired warning shots at a Malaysian aid ship as it approached the Gaza Strip Monday, forcing the vessel to retreat to Egypt, organizers and the Israeli military said.

“The MV Finch, carrying sewage pipes to Gaza, had warning shots fired at it by Israeli forces in the Palestinian security zone this morning at 6:54 am (0354 GMT),” said Shamsul Azhar from the Perdana Global Peace Foundation.

“The vessel was in the Palestinian security zone, about 400 meters from the Gaza shoreline, when they were intercepted by Israeli naval forces,” he told AFP, adding it was now anchored 30 nautical miles away in Egyptian territory.

An Israeli Army spokeswoman confirmed that the vessel, flying a Moldovan flag, had been intercepted as it sailed from Egypt’s El-Arish port, where it had been docked for several days.

“A navy patrol boat contacted the vessel, which claimed to be heading for the Gaza shores. Once it crossed into Israeli naval territory and didn’t answer calls to turn back, warning shots were fired in the air and it returned to El-Arish,” she said.

The Perdana Foundation is helmed by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, an 85-year-old firebrand who was a strident critic of the West and Israel over the treatment of Palestinians during his two decades in power.

The organization was also involved in the first “Freedom Flotilla,” a 2010 attempt to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza, which ended in disaster when naval commandos raided the aid ships, killing nine Turks on board one of the vessels.

Perdana Foundation officials said the MV Finch left the Port of Piraeus in Greece on May 11 for Gaza, carrying plastic pipes to help restore the “devastated” sewage system in Gaza.

Alang Bendahara, a Malaysian journalist on board, told AFP that Israeli naval ships stopped the vessel with a volley of gunfire as it approached the shore.

“The Israeli naval vessel fired a warning shot at us upon approaching and asked us to leave the waters but the ship’s captain refused and the Israelis fired again, circling the MV Finch before firing twice more,” he said.

“At that point they threatened the ship’s captain that they would board the vessel and we were forced to turn back, it was lucky that no one was injured.

“Two Egyptian naval vessels were monitoring us and they escorted us once we were in Egyptian waters,” said Bendahara.

“They have now boarded our vessel and are inspecting our cargo to make sure there is nothing illegal on board. They will be escorting us to the port of El-Arish because they say they will detain the ship.”

The journalist said there were 12 people on board the vessel – seven Malaysians, two Irish nationals, two Indians and a Canadian – including anti-war activists and journalists.

Israel has maintained a blockade on the Gaza Strip since 2006, after militants there snatched Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who is still being held.

It was tightened a year later when the Islamist Hamas movement seized control of the territory, ousting forces loyal to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.

Israel says the blockade is meant to stop the ruling Hamas movement from gaining access to weapons, money or material that could be used to attack the Jewish state.

But Palestinians say it prevents them from accessing material and goods that are desperately needed to rebuild infrastructure in the impoverished territory.

Israel agreed to relax some of the embargo’s restrictions in July 2010, following a wave of international pressure after the botched raid on the Freedom Flotilla.

The incident sparked heavy criticism of Israel and led to a sharp deterioration in ties between Turkey and the Jewish state.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Mi...shots-at-Malaysia-aid-ship.ashx#ixzz1MWJUtRvs
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

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The Flying Dutchman · May 16, 2011

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Monday 16 May 2011

Mossad carries out daring London raid on Syrian official

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ut-daring-London-raid-on-Syrian-official.html

Undercover agents tracked a Syrian official carrying nuclear secrets to London where they broke into his hotel room and stole the plans as part of a daring operation on foreign soil by Mossad, the Israeli secret service, it has been claimed.

The original plan was apparently to assassinate the official and Israel only averted what would have been a huge diplomatic rift with Britain, when they decided the target was more valuable alive than dead.

The operation involved at least 10 undercover agents on the streets of Britain and led directly to a controversial bombing raid into Syrian territory that destroyed a nuclear reactor that was under construction.

It closely mirrored the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas arms trader, who was killed in his hotel room in Dubai last year using agents disguised as tennis players.

The operation began when Israeli intelligence picked up an online booking for a senior Syrian nuclear official at a hotel in Kensington, west London, in late 2006, according to the Israeli authors of the book Israel vs Iran: the Shadow War.

Mossad then dispatched three undercover teams to Britain including a team of "spotters" who were sent to Heathrow airport to identify the official as he flew in from Damascus under a false name. A second team booked into his hotel, while a third monitored his movements and any visitors.

The agents included members of the Kidon [Spear] division, Mossad's hit squad, and the Neviot [Springs] division, which specialises in breaking into houses, embassies and hotel rooms to install bugging devices.

The first day of the official's trip was apparently devoted to a series of meetings at the Syrian embassy in Belgrave Square but the following day he went shopping before his return to the airport.

The Kidon team followed him closely from shop to shop while the Neviot agents broke into his room and found his laptop. A computer expert took 15 minutes to download the hard drive and install trojan software that allowed Israel to monitor every keystroke he made.

When the computer material was examined at Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv, officials found photographs and blueprints for a plutonium reactor at Al Kibar near Deir el-Zor, a remote desert town 80 miles from Syria's border with Iraq.

According to one source quoted in the book, the discovery saved the life of the official, who would otherwise have been killed in Britain, causing a major diplomatic incident.

"His computer and its contents turned out to be his life insurance. If it weren't for that, he wouldn't have left Europe alive," the security official boasted.

In August 2007 Israel apparently sent a special forces team into Syria to collect soil samples near the reactor, then at around 1am on September 5 2007 Israeli fighter bombers attacked the facility in a raid into Syrian airspace that destroyed the plant.

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The Flying Dutchman · May 16, 2011

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A Third Intifadeh? Deadly Nakba Protests Spark Fears of Israel-Lebanon Border Escalation

By Nicholas Blanford / Maroun er Ras
Lebanon Sunday, May 15, 2011
http://www.time.com/time/world/arti...gn=Feed:+time/world+(TIME:+Top+World+Stories)

South Lebanon Sunday witnessed its deadliest day since the month-long Israel-Hizballah 2006 war when 10 Palestinian demonstrators were reported shot dead and another 112 wounded as Israeli troops opened fire on protests along the border fence. The casualties came as a massive crowd of Palestinians gathered at Maroun er Ras, a small hilltop village overlooking the border with Israel, to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba, or Catastrophe, when the state of Israel was established.

By Sunday night, the militant Lebanese Shi'ite group Hizballah was on alert and United Nations peacekeepers, known as UNIFIL, and Lebanese troops were planning heightened security measures along the border to prevent the retaliatory firing of rockets into Israel and a continuing escalation of cross border violence.

The protests were not an isolated event. Other Nakba demonstrations were held in Jordan, Egypt and Syria, where up to four Palestinians were killed in a rare infiltration of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria. (Israel said that one infiltrator was killed.) Some organizers of the Nakba commemoration had hoped that it would herald the onset of a "third intifadeh" of peaceful mass protests to compel Israel to honor the rights of Palestinians living under occupation or whom were expelled from their homes during the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948.

The biggest of the border protests by far was in Lebanon, where an estimated 50,000 Palestinians were bussed from refugee camps scattered around Lebanon to Maroun er Ras. The huge turnout surprised even organizers. "I was expecting 21,000 at the most. We ran out of buses to carry everyone," said Mahmoud Zeidan, a protest organizer from the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon. "Ain al Hilweh looks deserted. I haven't seen it so empty since the 1982 Israeli invasion when everyone evacuated," he said.

With the narrow winding road leading to Maroun er Ras blocked by parked buses, entire families from toddlers to stooped and wrinkled old men began climbing the steep northern slopes of the hill to reach the village. Across the verdant flower-speckled hillside, thin rivers of humanity defied gravity to steadily flow uphill, red, green and black Palestinian flags fluttering in the balmy spring breeze. Stout grandmothers wearing thick cotton dresses and white headscarves panted and wheezed, red faced, as youngsters scrambled past them. The vast majority of those participating in the event were born after 1948 and have never seen their original homeland, let alone visited their ancestral homes in what is now Israel. On cresting the hill at Maroun er Ras, a vast expanse of western Galilee — forested hills and belts of apple orchards — could be seen stretching away to the south. "I am lost for words," said Tarek, the 28-year-old owner of a laundry business in Beirut.

The atmosphere on the climb up the hill to Maroun er Ras was cheerful and friendly, almost like a picnic outing. But on the southern side of the hill overlooking the border, the situation quickly grew tense. Hundreds of Palestinians scrambled down the rocky slope to reach the frontier fence. A crowd of some 300 to 400 reached the fence and began hurling stones at Israeli soldiers. Lebanese troops moved quickly, recognizing perhaps that a disaster could unfold if the thousands of Palestinians gathering on the hilltop could reach the fence. Troops fanned out along a dirt track about 400 yards from the border fence and forcefully prevented anyone from going further. Short sporadic bursts of machine gun fire echoed across the hillside as Israeli soldiers opened fire on the crowd at the fence. A steady trickle of casualties was ferried by stretcher from the fence to an awaiting fleet of ambulances.

One man writhed in pain on the ground as medics treated him. Another young man was shot in the thigh, blood seeping through the bandages. Another man appeared to have been shot in the stomach as he was helped into an ambulance by several men whose clothes were smeared with the victim's blood.

"Allah u-Akbar" (God is great), intoned a solemn-looking man as he and other wide-eyed onlookers gazed at the casualties being treated on the ground. A forest of raised arms clutching camera-fitted cell phones recorded the scene.

As more were wounded, dozens more ambulances began to arrive on the scene. The silhouettes of Israeli troops could be spotted on the ramparts of a border outpost watching the protest. Inside the outpost, a tank revved its engines and emitted a thick cloud of smoke, partly obscuring the position. Other soldiers hurried along the border patrol road as showers of stones cascaded around them. Some Palestinians hunting for stones began straying perilously close to the minefields that Israel planted along most of the border inside Lebanon more than 30 years ago.

Checked by the thin line of Lebanese soldiers, Palestinian tempers frayed as the young men attempted to push through to reach the border. A group of Islamic Jihad partisans chanted "God is great" and "We will liberate Palestine with the Kalashnikov". Every few minutes, the surging crowd of Palestinians gained sufficient momentum to push past the angry Lebanese soldiers, cheering and whooping as they dashed toward the border fence to join their comrades. The scattered machine gun fire and casualties did little to deter the Palestinian demonstrators. If anything, each fusillade appeared to galvanize them further.

The Israeli army said that the protests in south Lebanon and the Golan Heights bore the fingerprints of Iran and served Syria's interests. However, the Iran-backed Hizballah took a back seat at the Maroun er Ras demonstration, even though the village, scene of a key battle in the 2006 Hizballah-Israel war, staunchly supports the Shi'ite group. Hizballah men helped marshal the busloads of Palestinians, but Palestinian officials from Lebanon were clearly in charge of the event.

Still, agent provocateurs were not required to enflame Palestinian passions at Maroun er Ras. The presence of tens of thousands of dispossessed Palestinians standing on the edge of their former homeland on the emotional anniversary of the Nakba was more than enough to ignite tensions.

Before the 2006 war, Sunday's high casualty count almost certainly would have led to some form of military response by Hizballah. But Hizballah has remained quiet in the past five years, unwilling to goad Israel into another unwanted conflict. Less certain is the response of extremist Palestinian groups suspected of past rocket firings into Israel. UNIFIL and the Lebanese army were expected to expand their "rocket watch" patrols in the coming days to prevent the possibility of the deadly Nakba commemoration sparking a tit-for-tat escalation along the Lebanon-Israel border.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2071599,00.html#ixzz1MWLzzRjj

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Housecarl · May 16, 2011

This if correct is a very big deal...along the lines of 1962 Cuba....

Posted for fair use.....
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=220879

'Die Welt': Iran building rocket bases in Venezuela
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JPOST CORRESPONDENT
05/17/2011 01:41

German paper says Iranians paid cash to build mid-range missile launch pads on Paraguana Peninsula; Iranian engineers visited site in Feb.
Talkbacks (1)

BERLIN – The Iranian government is moving forward with the construction of rocket launch bases in Venezuela, the German daily Die Welt wrote in its Friday edition.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is Teheran’s most important South American ally.

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Iran is building intermediate- range missile launch pads on the Paraguaná Peninsula, and engineers from a construction firm – Khatam al-Anbia – owned by the Revolutionary Guards visited Paraguaná in February. Amir al-Hadschisadeh, the head of the Guard’s Air Force, participated in the visit, according to the report. Die Welt cited information from “Western security insiders.”

The rocket bases are to include measures to prevent air attacks on Venezuela as well as commando and control stations.

The Iranian military involvement in the project extends to bunker, barracks and watch tower construction. Twenty-meter deep rocket silos are planned. The cost of the Venezuelan military project is being paid for with Iranian oil revenue. The Iranians paid in cash for the preliminary phase of the project and, the total cost is expected to amount to “dozens of millions” of dollars, Die Welt wrote.

The Paraguaná Peninsula is on the coast of Venezuela and is roughly 120 kilometers from America’s main South American partner, Columbia.

According to Die Welt, the clandestine agreement between Venezuela and Iran would mean the Chavez government would fire rocket at Iran’s enemies should the Islamic Republic face military strikes.

Meanwhile the German press agency (DPA) reported on Friday that Germany will not contest the placement of the Hamburg- based European- Iranian Trade Bank (EIH) on the EU sanctions list at the end of the month. The US Treasury Department sanctioned the EIH last year, saying it was one of the most important institutions in Europe for financing Iran’s missile and nuclear proliferation programs. Germany was the subject of criticism from American, French, British and Israeli officials because it refused to shut the EIH.

The EIH plays a crucial role in facilitating financial transactions for midsize German firms that are active in Iran. German- Iranian total trade amounted to over 4 billion euros in 2010, making German Iran’s No. 1 EU trade partner.

Housecarl · May 16, 2011

Posted for fair use....
http://www.mexidata.info/id3018.html

Monday, May 9, 2011

Latin American Terrorist Ties with the Middle East
By Vanessa Neumann

In a global triangulation that would excite any conspiracy buff, the globalization of terrorism now links Colombian FARC with Hezbollah, Iran with Russia, elected governments with violent insurgencies, uranium with AK-103s, and cocaine with oil. At the center of it all, is Latin America—especially the countries under the influence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

The most publicized (and publicly contested) connection between Hugo Chávez and the Colombian narcoterrorist organization Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was revealed after the March 2008 Colombian raid on the FARC camp in Devía, inside Ecuador, where a laptop was discovered that apparently belonged to Luis Edgar Devía Silva (aka, “Raúl Reyes”), head of FARC’s International Committee (COMINTER). The Colombian government under then-President Álvaro Uribe announced that Interpol had certified the authenticity of the contents of the computer disks, whose files traced over US$ 200 million funneled to the FARC through the Venezuelan state-owned, and completely Chávez-dominated, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). On May 10th, 2011, the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) will publish one of its strategic dossiers based on a study of the computer disks entitled The FARC Files: Venezuela, Ecuador and the Secret Archives of ‘Raúl Reyes’ that purports to elucidate the organization’s development and internationalization.

According to some already leaked documents, Venezuelan General Hugo Carvajal and other members of the armed forces were in direct contact with and lending financial support to the late FARC leader Antonio Marín, aka “Tirofijo” (“Sure Shot”) and “Manuel Marulanda.” Of the fact that the FARC enjoys at least ideological support from the governments of Ecuador and Venezuela, there can be no doubt: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa have both argued that the FARC should not be considered a terrorist organization.

While support of the insurgents next door is certainly nothing new, Venezuelan military and terror alliances are spanning the globe and expanding at a worrying rate for all, especially US interests in the region.

As I wrote in The Weekly Standard last October[1], Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Russian President Dimitry Medvedev jointly announced that they had reached an agreement for Russia to build two 1200-megawatt nuclear reactors in Venezuela. Also part of the deal was the latest installment of $6.6 billion of conventional weapons purchases since 2005: ninety-two T-72 and T-90 tanks that will replace the aging French MX-30s, ten Ilyushin Il-76MD-90 planes, two Il-78MK refueling aircraft, as well as five S-300 missile systems. Iran had also sought the S-300 but Medvedev banned the sale for fear of violating U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929, concerning sanctions on Iran. The S-300 missiles and their attendant Smerch multiple rocket launchers are considered far more powerful than the Tor M-1 missile systems that both Venezuela and Iran have previously purchased in the past five years. Caracas has also confirmed plans to purchase up to 10 Mi-28NE attack helicopters on top of the 10 Mi-35M helicopters purchased in the past half-decade. That is an awful lot of weaponry for a country that has not fought a war since its independence from Spain in 1821.

While Chávez has said that he is arming his citizen militias, known as Bolivarian Circles, rumor has it that the weapons may also be going to agents and fighters from the Colombian FARC, the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah and Cuban security and intelligence services, whose numbers, according to many think tanks and U.S. security sources, have swelled in Venezuela. Interpol has confirmed evidence that Venezuela has funneled well over $300 million to the FARC and has built an ammunition plant to supply AK-103s, the FARC weapon of choice.

That is only one piece of the puzzle; the other is Iran, where Venezuelan money has also been flowing.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly call each other “brothers” and last year signed 11 memoranda of understanding for, among other initiatives, joint oil and gas exploration, as well as the construction of tanker ships and petrochemical plants. Chávez’s assistance to the Islamic Republic in circumventing U.N. sanctions has got the attention of the new Republican leadership of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Connie Mack (both R-FL) have said they intend to launch a money-laundering investigation into the Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). In July 2010, the EU ordered the seizure of all the assets of the Venezuelan International Development Bank, an affiliate of the Export Development Bank of Iran (EDBI), one of 34 Iranian entities implicated in the development of nuclear or ballistic technology and sanctioned by the Treasury Department. In the meantime, Tehran and Caracas have announced that PDVSA will be investing $780 million in the South Pars gas field in southern Iran.

Uranium, sought by both Iran and Russia, is a key aspect of the two countries’ strategic relationship: Iran is reportedly helping Venezuela find and refine its estimated 50,000 tons of uranium reserves.

So, on one side Venezuela is funding and arming the FARC; on the other it is purchasing nuclear reactors and weapons from the Russians; on yet another, it is sending money to Iran and helping it find and enrich uranium. And then there is Hezbollah, Iran’s Lebanon-based asset.

Reports that Venezuela has provided Hezbollah operatives with Venezuelan national identity cards are so rife, they were raised in the July 27, 2010, Senate hearing for the recently nominated U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, Larry Palmer. When Palmer answered that he believed the reports, Chávez refused to accept him as ambassador in Venezuela. Meanwhile, Iran Air, the self-proclaimed “airline of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” operates a Tehran-Caracas flight commonly referred to as “Aeroterror” by intelligence officials for allegedly facilitating the access of terrorist suspects to South America. The Venezuelan government shields passenger lists from Interpol on that flight.

Iran, meanwhile, has developed significant relationships elsewhere in Latin America – most prominently with Chávez’s allies and fellow Bolivarian Revolutionaries: Bolivian President Evo Morales, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

In December 2008 the EDBI offered to deposit $120 million in the Ecuadorean Central Bank to fund bilateral trade, and Iran and Ecuador have signed a $30 million deal to conduct joint mining projects in Ecuador through the Chemical-Geotechnical-Metallurgical Research Center in Ecuador. Even as that deal carefully avoids mentioning uranium, the IAEA’s March 2009 plans to help Ecuador explore its vast uranium reserves were largely intended to highlight and preclude Iranian involvement. In February 2010 the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, a multilateral organization that combats money laundering and terrorist financing, placed Ecuador on a list of countries that failed to comply with its regulations.

Middle Eastern terrorism, however, is not new to Latin America and has been on the US Army’s radar for many years.[2]

Latin America’s Tri-Border Area (TBA), bounded by Puerto Iguazu, Argentina; Ciudad del Este, Paraguay; and Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, has long been an ideal breeding ground for terrorist groups. The TBA, South America's busiest contraband and smuggling center, is home to a large, active Arab and Muslim community consisting of a Shi'a majority, a Sunni minority, and a small population of Christians who emigrated from Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and the Palestinian territories about 50 years ago. Most of these Arab immigrants are involved in commerce in Ciudad del Este but live in Foz do Iguacu on the Brazilian side of the Iguacu River.

Continued....

Housecarl · May 16, 2011

Continued.....

In 2005, six million Muslims were estimated to inhabit Latin American cities. However, ungoverned areas, primarily in the Amazon regions of Suriname, Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil, present easily exploitable terrain over which to move people and material. The Free Trade Zones of Iquique, Chile; Maicao, Colombia; and Colón, Panama, can generate undetected financial and logistical support for terrorist groups. Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru offer cocaine as a lucrative source of income. In addition, Cuba and Venezuela have cooperative agreements with Syria, Libya, and Iran.

Argentine officials believe Hezbollah is still active in the TBA. They attribute the detonation of a car bomb outside Israel’s embassy in Buenos Aires on 17 March 1992 to Hezbollah extremists. Officials also maintain that with Iran’s assistance, Hezbollah carried out a car-bomb attack on the main building of the Jewish Community Center (AMIA) in Buenos Aires on 18 July 1994 in protest of the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement that year.

Today, one of the masterminds of those attacks, the Iranian citizen and Shia Muslim teacher, Mohsen Rabbani, remains not only at large, but extremely active in recruiting young Brazilians, according to reports in the Brazilian magazine Veja[3] (see 3a, 3b and 3c below). “Now based in Iran, he continues to play a significant role in the spread of extremism in Latin America,” prosecutor Alberto Nisman, head of the special unit of the Argentine prosecutors charged with investigating the attacks, said to VEJA. The enticement of Brazilians for courses abroad has been monitored for four years by the Federal Police and the ABIN, the government’s secret service.

One hundred eighty kilometers away from Recife, in rural Pernambuco, the city of Belo Jardim remains the most active center for the recruitment of extremists in Latin America.[4] Along with the recruits in Belo Jardim, youth from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Mexico also travel to Iran for religious instruction under Rabbani.

The Federal Police has information that Rabbani has been to Brazil several times in recent years. In one of those visits, almost three years ago, he boarded the Iran Air flight from Tehran to Caracas, Venezuela and then from there, entered Brazil illegally.

So while ungovernability through either government weakness (or lack of will) to exert controls over immigration and the flows of money, drugs and weapons has always been an issue, it is the new government complicity that makes it all the more dangerous.

Even ahead of the IISS dossier’s publication, the most shocking revelations into the global interconnectedness of Latin American governments and Middle Eastern terrorist groups have come from Walid Makled, Venezuela’s latter-day Pablo Escobar, who was arrested on August 19, 2010 in Cúcuta, a town on the Venezuelan-Colombian border. A Venezuelan of Syrian descent known variously as “El Turco” (“The Turk”) or “El Arabe” (“The Arab”), he is allegedly responsible for smuggling 10 tons of cocaine a month into the US and Europe – a full 10% of the world’s supply and 60% of Europe’s supply. His massive infrastructure and distribution network make this entirely plausible, as well as entirely implausible the Venezuelan government did not know. Makled owned Venezuela’s biggest airline, Aeropostal, huge warehouses in Venezuela’s biggest port, Puerto Cabello, and bought enormous quantities of urea (used in cocaine processing) from a government-owned chemical company.

Indeed since his arrest and incarceration in the Colombian prison La Picota, Makled has given numerous interviews to various media outlets, in which he has claimed that he paid more than a million dollars a month to various high-ranking Venezuelan government officials who were his partners in trafficking FARC cocaine – amongst the named: Venezuelan Minister of the Interior and also Minister of Justice, Tarek El Aissami, the General-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Unified Command, General Henry Rangel Silva, and the Director of Military Intelligence, General Hugo Carvajal.

Although the US had issued an arrest warrant and subjected him to sanctions under the Kingpin Act, Makled is being extradited to Venezuela, not the US. While the US dithered on Colombia’s offer of extradition to the US, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez requested Makled’s extradition to Venezuela, where he is (in the ultimate ironic twist) wanted for cocaine trafficking and at least two murders.

When asked on camera by a Univisión television reporter whether he had any relation to the FARC, he answered: “That is what I would say to the American prosecutor.” Asked directly whether he knew of Hezbollah operations in Venezuela, he answered: "In Venezuela? Of course! That which I understand is that they work in Venezuela. [Hezbollah] make money and all of that money they send to the Middle East."[5]

Makled’s extradition to Venezuela rather than the US is thus a terrible loss for both the United States' Global War on Terror (GWOT) and the world’s intelligence communities: in Venezuela’s heavily politicized judicial system Makled will never receive a fair trial and any testimony he might give will certainly be concealed.

The problem now is that Latin American support for terrorism has growing state support—and this should worry everyone.

Notes

1. [Text] http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/hugo-ch-vezs-military-buildup-and-iranian-ties_511234.html

2. [Text] http://www.army.mil/professionalWriting/volumes/volume3/january_2005/1_05_4.html

3.a. http://veja.abril.com.br/blog/reinaldo/geral/brasil-vigia-suspeitos-de-elo-com-extremistas-no-ira/

3.b. http://veja.abril.com.br/blog/reina...os-terroristas-islamicos-que-atuam-no-brasil/

3.c. http://veja.abril.com.br/blog/reina...brasil-para-fazer-“curso-de-religiao”-no-ira/

4. [Text] http://interamericansecuritywatch.com/2011/04/20/the-terrorist-“professor”/

5. [Text] http://colombiareports.com/colombia...uela-houses-farc-and-hezbollah-drug-lord.html

——————————

Vanessa Neumann is an Associate of the University Seminar on Latin America at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University. A native Venezuelan, Dr. Neumann has worked as a journalist in Caracas, London and the United States. She is Editor-at-Large of Diplomat, a London-based magazine to the diplomatic community and a regular contributor to The Weekly Standard on Latin American politics.

"The Middle Eastern–Latin American Terrorist Connection," by Vanessa Neumann; Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) "E-Notes," May 2011; reprinted with permission.

Housecarl · May 16, 2011

Posted for fair use.....for links in text please see article source.....HC

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/05/...is-building-rocket-launch-bases-in-venezuela/

German paper: Iran is building rocket launch bases in Venezuela
Share posted at 9:43 pm on May 16, 2011 by Allahpundit
Via the Astute Bloggers, by “rockets,” they don’t really mean rockets. They mean rocket-rockets.

Iran is building intermediate-range missile launch pads on the Paraguaná Peninsula, and engineers from a construction firm – Khatam al-Anbia – owned by the Revolutionary Guards visited Paraguaná in February. Amir al-Hadschisadeh, the head of the Guard’s Air Force, participated in the visit, according to the report. Die Welt cited information from “Western security insiders.”
The rocket bases are to include measures to prevent air attacks on Venezuela as well as commando and control stations.
The Iranian military involvement in the project extends to bunker, barracks and watch tower construction. Twenty-meter deep rocket silos are planned…
According to Die Welt, the clandestine agreement between Venezuela and Iran would mean the Chavez government would fire rocket at Iran’s enemies should the Islamic Republic face military strikes.
Iran already has two intermediate-range missiles, the Shahab-3 and Shahab-4, with ranges of roughly 750 and 1,250 miles, respectively. They’ve been rumored for years to be working on the Shahab-5, supposedly based on North Korea’s long-range missile; that one, allegedly, will have a range of 2,500 miles. Just hours ago, a classified report to the UN Security Council claimed that Iran and North Korea are sharing ballistic missile technology. To put all that in perspective, the distance from Venezuela to Florida is not quite 1,500 miles. So, yeah, if this news report is correct, this is a Biden-esque big effing deal. Is it correct, though? “Western security insiders” is about as vague a description as you can get sourcing-wise, but Die Welt is, as far as I know, a credible German paper. Could be that this is just a rumor being spread now to focus public attention on the UNSC report, but there’s nothing unusual about Iran and Venezuela cooperating. Iranian media has been touting deepening ties with Caracas lately, in fact, and Chavez has spent five years burnishing his anti-American credentials via chummy photos ops with Ahmadinejad. That doesn’t mean he’d do something as provocative as hosting Iranian missiles, even if it would place him squarely in the footsteps of his idol Fidel, but it’s … interesting. And in fact, this isn’t the first time Die Welt has reported on this story. Its first article about the alleged missile base appeared in November. Hmmmm.
I don’t think Chavez would ever do something as nutty as fire a missile at the U.S. in retaliation for an attack on Iran. The aftermath would be “Bambi Meets Godzilla II.” But no doubt he’d love to have the missiles regardless, partly as an insurance policy against the U.S. ever taking the Qaddafi approach against him and partly to extort his neighbors in South America, namely Colombia. Meanwhile, for Iran, it’d be a sensational example of defying the White House by daring Obama to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. Both Ahmadinejad and Chavez relish challenging western (read: American) hegemony; the Monroe Doctrine is the ultimate example. Whether Ahmadinejad still matters in Iran or whether he’s, um, “under a spell” right now doesn’t much matter. I’m sure Khamenei’s plenty defiant in his own right.
A little video “atmospherics” for you as you contemplate. Hurry, Lockheed Martin, you’re our only hope!

Housecarl · May 16, 2011

From Die Welt....
Posted for fair use......
http://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/...ketenbasis-in-Venezuela-in-Planungsphase.html

Gefährliche AllianzDrucken Bewerten Autor: Clemens Wergin| 13.05.2011

Iranische Raketenbasis in Venezuela in Planungsphase
Auch Teheran zählt zu den Verbündeten von Hugo Chávez. Der lässt die Mullahs nun sogar Raketensilos in seinem Land bauen.

Housecarl · May 16, 2011

Posted for fair use.....
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archive...oming-soon-to-a-bolivarian-republic-near-you/

Iranian Silo-Based Missiles: Coming soon to a Bolivarian Republic near You
Share posted at 9:56 pm on May 16, 2011 by J.E. Dyer

[ National Defense ] printer-friendly We knew a missile base was on the way; Die Welt reported on Venezuela’s missile deal with Iran back in November, and numerous Western analysts wrote it up.
Die Welt has a new report this month, however, recounting details like the visit of an Iranian engineering team to Venezuela in February, and the prospective site of the missile complex on the Paraguana peninsula off the northwestern coast. (English write-up based on the 13 May Die Welt article here.) I use the expression “missile complex” for a reason. Details in the Die Welt report indicate that what Iran and Venezuela are planning to construct is not just a base for a missile battery; it’s a complex of underground silos for the Shahab-3 medium-range missile.
The report refers to constructing missile silos 20 meters deep, and the need to provide for fueling the missiles underground, and for the release of toxic gases. These factors in combination mean that the plan is to deploy missiles in underground silos, from which they will be launched.
Counter-missile tactics for Venezuela’s potential targets – e.g., Colombia (or the US) – will therefore not be solely a matter of the “Scud-hunting” process readers may automatically think of: reconnaissance aircraft and satellites searching for mobile launchers. (The Shahab-3 is moved on a “TEL” – transporter-erector-launcher – that is more elaborate than a Scud launcher but allows mobility on a similar principle.) Mobile Shahab-3s could well be provided to Venezuela, but there will apparently be an underground launch complex as well. It is likely to be hardened and ingeniously designed.
Iran began using underground silos for the Shahab-3 in 2008, with the first silo complex near the city of Tabriz. That complex is designed quite simply, however. Reporting in 2009 revealed a more elaborately constructed – and hardened – complex at the Imam Ali base near Khorramabad. (The video simulation of the launch silos at Imam Ali is worth checking out.) Presumably the complex in Venezuela will be built based on the design of the one at Khorramabad, with adjustments for local terrain conditions.
When Iran tested an extended-range Shahab-3 in 2009, US and other defense analysts indicated the missile’s range was up to 2000km, an improvement over the 1600km demonstrated by the baseline Shahab-3. The difference that makes to the missile base in Venezuela is that using the Shahab-3 ER would put Miami in the threat envelope.
The base is to be jointly operated, according to the original reporting from Die Welt last year. Iran probably won’t hesitate to deploy newer missiles like the longer-range, solid-fueled Sejjil (in testing since 2008) when they become operational. The 13 May Die Welt article states that the missile-base agreement provides for Iran to be able to attack her enemies from the base – presumably referring to the US.
Meanwhile, Iran and Venezuela will jointly develop a medium-range missile, apparently for Venezuelan production.
Analysts were quick last fall to allude to 1962 and the Cuban missile crisis. But we don’t want President Obama negotiating as JFK did in 1962. JFK was maneuvered into giving up NATO’s new-generation missile deterrent in Turkey as the price of getting Soviet missiles out of Cuba, a reality that was owned up to by mainstream historians only in the 1990s. In the aftermath of the crisis, moreover, the only thing that left Cuba was the land-based missiles. The Soviets used the island as a military base, maintaining a listening post and a secretive ground-forces brigade, and bringing in strategic bombers and missile-equipped submarines, for the next 30 years.
It will not be a good outcome for Iran to acquire a bargaining chip, with a missile base in Venezuela, and use it to extort the US as the price of “removing the missiles” from it. That prospect is preventable now, without quarantines, standoffs, and brinkmanship. It would take some serious regional arm-twisting, but that’s what “smart power” is for.
Once the missiles are in Venezuela, however, the probability is high that we would have no way of verifying compliance with any agreement on their removal – even one disadvantageous to us. This problem, if not headed off at the pass now, will only get bigger.

Missle complex location
J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

Housecarl · May 17, 2011

Iran building Rocket Base in Venezuela
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...e-in-Venezuela&p=4077928&posted=1#post4077928

_______________________

For links in text please see article source.....HC
Posted for fair use......
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/20...ld-war-is-this-the-future-of-the-middle-east/

The Saudi-Iranian Cold War: Is This the Future of the Middle East?
Posted by Ishaan Tharoor Tuesday, May 17, 2011 at 8:39 am

It's easy to overlook the killing of a single person in violence-plagued Pakistan, not least in Karachi, a seaside metropolis ever in danger of boiling over into sectarian bloodshed. But the murder of a Saudi diplomat by unknown assailants ought to raise eyebrows. Saudi Arabia's tangled, pervasive influence in Pakistan has been well documented (including by me), so an attack on one of the kingdom's officials is not just surprising, but a possible harbinger of larger tensions. Before the shooting, bombs had earlier been hurled at the gates of the Saudi consulate (those caused no injury). Declan Walsh, the Guardian's Pakistan correspondent, suggests the attacks may have something to do with a deeper geo-political conflagration:

...decades-old Shia-Sunni tensions in Karachi have been reignited by turmoil across the Arabian sea in Bahrain, where Saudi Arabia deployed troops last March to help quell an uprising by mostly Shia demonstrators.

Shi'ite discontent in Pakistan over the brutal (and increasingly ignored) Bahraini crackdown on dissidents has also been further stoked by the efforts of Bahrain's ruling monarchy to recruit Pakistani Sunnis into the security forces of the island kingdom, whose majority Shi'ite population bristles at the domineering, allegedly discriminatory rule of the country's Sunni royals. Saudi Arabia — the most unabashedly orthodox Sunni state around — has done its best to curb the uprising in Bahrain, fearful in part of the Shi'ites on its own soil following suit. It's a fear ultimately that has less to do with Bahrain (or, for that matter, angry Shi'ites in South Asia) and far more with the specter of Iran, the cradle of political Shi'ism, and a state that seems to provide the greatest existential challenge to the Saudi regime.

The sense of antagonism between the two countries is decades-old at this point, but has been heightened by the upheavals of the Arab Spring, which radically altered the geo-political map of the Middle East, toppling or undermining a host of authoritarian governments in the Arab world that had bought into the tacit U.S.-Saudi-Israeli authored status quo. The Saudis, though, are reeling with revolution and political transformation now the watchwords of the proverbial "Arab street." They are miffed with Washington for not doing enough to protect longstanding allies like Egypt's ousted Hosni Mubarak. Furthermore, they are deeply wary of the Arab Spring playing into Tehran's hands — for its heated anti-imperialist rhetoric and championing of certain Muslim political causes, the Islamic Republic enjoys a modicum of "soft power" in the region. Noted Iran watchers Flynt and Hillary Leverett write:

On the regional front, the Saudis are discombobulated by what they see as a rising tide of Iranian influence across the Middle East. The Islamic Republic's allies have been winning, politically, in key venues—Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine. Historically, the Saudis have never been big fans of pan-Arabism. But, in recent years, senior Saudi princes have, with increasing frequency, denounced what they have come portentously to call Iranian “interference” in “Arab affairs”. Now, with the Arab spring, the Saudis are alarmed that the influence of the Islamic Republic and political forces friendly to it will rise even more dramatically.

Dig through the layers of deep history between now and last November, when the first revelations of the cache of diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks came to light, and remember that most of the early headlines generated by the leaks had to do with the Saudis repeated insistence that the U.S. take strong, even military action against the Iranians. It seems now the Saudis have taken things in their own hands, drawing a line in the sand around the Arabian peninsula and using the region's Gulf Cooperation Council — effectively a rubber stamp for Saudi policy — to protect Bahrain's Sunni monarchy and ensure that whatever political change gets ushered in Yemen arrives on terms the Saudis dictate.

Nawaf Obaid, a strategist on the payroll of the Saudi princes, summed up Riyadh's position in an op-ed in the Washington Post this weekend:

As Riyadh fights a cold war with Tehran, Washington has shown itself in recent months to be an unwilling and unreliable partner against this threat. The emerging political reality is a Saudi-led Arab world facing off against the aggression of Iran and its non-state proxies.

Those proxies supposedly include Hamas and Hizballah and, if we're to believe Obaid, cells of support and radicalism in virtually every Arab state from "Yemen to Morocco." Obaid lays out the oil-rich Saudis' planned response:

To counter the threats posed by Iran and transnational terrorist networks, the Saudi leadership is authorizing more than $100 billion of additional military spending to modernize ground forces, upgrade naval capabilities and more. The kingdom is doubling its number of high-quality combat aircraft and adding 60,000 security personnel to the Interior Ministry forces. Plans are underway to create a “Special Forces Command,” based on the U.S. model, to unify the kingdom's various special forces if needed for rapid deployment abroad.

We're in territory here that's light years away from Tahrir Square, and that's what the Saudis want: to twist the narrative away from the popular regional desire for democracy and change and use the threat of Iranian subversion as justification for the defense of Saudi-friendly regimes in Bahrain, Jordan and elsewhere. Iran, for its part, is happily strolling into the melee, loudly denouncing the Saudi incursions into Bahrain and the desperate plight of the country's repressed Shi'ites; a "solidarity flotilla" set sail from Iran to Bahrain this weekend though it will likely never reach the island kingdom.

The irony here is that, for all their mutual enmity, Tehran and Riyadh are each other's greatest legitimizers. The Saudis need the bogeyman of the Islamic Republic, while discontent with the heavy-handed, archaic, encrusted ancien regimes of the Arab world provides Tehran with much of its revolutionary street cred. It'll be a chill wind for the Arab Spring if either country succeeds in steering the upheaval to its own ends.

Housecarl · May 17, 2011

For links in text please see article sources
Posted for fair use.....

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110516-visegrad-new-european-military-force

http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2011/05/17/visegrad_a_new_european_military_force_99520.html

May 17, 2011
Visegrad: A New European Military Force
By George Friedman

With the Palestinians demonstrating and the International Monetary Fund in turmoil, it would seem odd to focus this week on something called the Visegrad Group. But this is not a frivolous choice. What the Visegrad Group decided to do last week will, I think, resonate for years, long after the alleged attempted rape by Dominique Strauss-Kahn is forgotten and long before the Israeli-Palestinian issue is resolved. The obscurity of the decision to most people outside the region should not be allowed to obscure its importance.

The region is Europe - more precisely, the states that had been dominated by the Soviet Union. The Visegrad Group, or V4, consists of four countries - Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary - and is named after two 14th century meetings held in Visegrad Castle in present-day Hungary of leaders of the medieval kingdoms of Poland, Hungary and Bohemia. The group was reconstituted in 1991 in post-Cold War Europe as the Visegrad Three (at that time, Slovakia and the Czech Republic were one). The goal was to create a regional framework after the fall of Communism. This week the group took an interesting new turn.

On May 12, the Visegrad Group announced the formation of a "battle group" under the command of Poland. The battle group would be in place by 2016 as an independent force and would not be part of NATO command. In addition, starting in 2013, the four countries would begin military exercises together under the auspices of the NATO Response Force.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the primary focus of all of the Visegrad nations had been membership in the European Union and NATO. Their evaluation of their strategic position was threefold. First, they felt that the Russian threat had declined if not dissipated following the fall of the Soviet Union. Second, they felt that their economic future was with the European Union. Third, they believed that membership in NATO, with strong U.S. involvement, would protect their strategic interests. Of late, their analysis has clearly been shifting.

First, Russia has changed dramatically since the Yeltsin years. It has increased its power in the former Soviet sphere of influence substantially, and in 2008 it carried out an effective campaign against Georgia. Since then it has also extended its influence in other former Soviet states. The Visegrad members' underlying fear of Russia, built on powerful historical recollection, has become more intense. They are both the front line to the former Soviet Union and the countries that have the least confidence that the Cold War is simply an old memory.

Second, the infatuation with Europe, while not gone, has frayed. The ongoing economic crisis, now focused again on Greece, has raised two questions: whether Europe as an entity is viable and whether the reforms proposed to stabilize Europe represent a solution for them or primarily for the Germans. It is not, by any means, that they have given up the desire to be Europeans, nor that they have completely lost faith in the European Union as an institution and an idea. Nevertheless, it would be unreasonable to expect that these countries would not be uneasy about the direction that Europe was taking. If one wants evidence, look no further than the unease with which Warsaw and Prague are deflecting questions about the eventual date of their entry into the Eurozone. Both are the strongest economies in Central Europe, and neither is enthusiastic about the euro.

Finally, there are severe questions as to whether NATO provides a genuine umbrella of security to the region and its members. The NATO strategic concept, which was drawn up in November 2010, generated substantial concern on two scores. First, there was the question of the degree of American commitment to the region, considering that the document sought to expand the alliance's role in non-European theaters of operation. For example, the Americans pledged a total of one brigade to the defense of Poland in the event of a conflict, far below what Poland thought necessary to protect the North European Plain. Second, the general weakness of European militaries meant that, willingness aside, the ability of the Europeans to participate in defending the region was questionable. Certainly, events in Libya, where NATO had neither a singular political will nor the military participation of most of its members, had to raise doubts. It was not so much the wisdom of going to war but the inability to create a coherent strategy and deploy adequate resources that raised questions of whether NATO would be any more effective in protecting the Visegrad nations.

There is another consideration. Germany's commitment to both NATO and the EU has been fraying. The Germans and the French split on the Libya question, with Germany finally conceding politically but unwilling to send forces. Libya might well be remembered less for the fate of Moammar Gadhafi than for the fact that this was the first significant strategic break between Germany and France in decades. German national strategy has been to remain closely aligned with France in order to create European solidarity and to avoid Franco-German tensions that had roiled Europe since 1871. This had been a centerpiece of German foreign policy, and it was suspended, at least temporarily.

The Germans obviously are struggling to shore up the European Union and questioning precisely how far they are prepared to go in doing so. There are strong political forces in Germany questioning the value of the EU to Germany, and with every new wave of financial crises requiring German money, that sentiment becomes stronger. In the meantime, German relations with Russia have become more important to Germany. Apart from German dependence on Russian energy, Germany has investment opportunities in Russia. The relationship with Russia is becoming more attractive to Germany at the same time that the relationship to NATO and the EU has become more problematic.

For all of the Visegrad countries, any sense of a growing German alienation from Europe and of a growing German-Russian economic relationship generates warning bells. Before the Belarusian elections there was hope in Poland that pro-Western elements would defeat the least unreformed regime in the former Soviet Union. This didn't happen. Moreover, pro-Western elements have done nothing to solidify in Moldova or break the now pro-Russian government in Ukraine. Uncertainty about European institutions and NATO, coupled with uncertainty about Germany's attention, has caused a strategic reconsideration - not to abandon NATO or the EU, of course, nor to confront the Russians, but to prepare for all eventualities.

It is in this context that the decision to form a Visegradian battle group must be viewed. Such an independent force, a concept generated by the European Union as a European defense plan, has not generated much enthusiasm or been widely implemented. The only truly robust example of an effective battle group is the Nordic Battle Group, but then that is not surprising. The Nordic countries share the same concerns as the Visegrad countries - the future course of Russian power, the cohesiveness of Europe and the commitment of the United States.

In the past, the Visegrad countries would have been loath to undertake anything that felt like a unilateral defense policy. Therefore, the decision to do this is significant in and of itself. It represents a sense of how these countries evaluate the status of NATO, the U.S. attention span, European coherence and Russian power. It is not the battle group itself that is significant but the strategic decision of these powers to form a sub-alliance, if you will, and begin taking responsibility for their own national security. It is not what they expected or wanted to do, but it is significant that they felt compelled to begin moving in this direction.

Just as significant is the willingness of Poland to lead this military formation and to take the lead in the grouping as a whole. Poland is the largest of these countries by far and in the least advantageous geographical position. The Poles are trapped between the Germans and the Russians. Historically, when Germany gets close to Russia, Poland tends to suffer. It is not at that extreme point yet, but the Poles do understand the possibilities. In July, the Poles will be assuming the EU presidency in one of the union's six-month rotations. The Poles have made clear that one of their main priorities will be Europe's military power. Obviously, little can happen in Europe in six months, but this clearly indicates where Poland's focus is.

The militarization of the V4 runs counter to its original intent but is in keeping with the geopolitical trends in the region. Some will say this is over-reading on my part or an overreaction on the part of the V4, but it is neither. For the V4, the battle group is a modest response to emerging patterns in the region, which STRATFOR had outlined in its 2011 Annual Forecast. As for my reading, I regard the new patterns not as a minor diversion from the main pattern but as a definitive break in the patterns of the post-Cold War world. In my view, the post-Cold War world ended in 2008, with the financial crisis and the Russo-Georgian war. We are in a new era, as yet unnamed, and we are seeing the first breaks in the post-Cold War pattern.

I have argued in previous articles and books that there is a divergent interest between the European countries on the periphery of Russia and those farther west, particularly Germany. For the countries on the periphery, there is a perpetual sense of insecurity, generated not only by Russian power compared to their own but also by uncertainty as to whether the rest of Europe would be prepared to defend them in the event of Russian actions. The V4 and the other countries south of them are not as sanguine about Russian intentions as others farther away are. Perhaps they should be, but geopolitical realities drive consciousness and insecurity and distrust defines this region.

I had also argued that an alliance only of the four northernmost countries is insufficient. I used the concept "Intermarium," which had first been raised after World War I by a Polish leader, Joseph Pilsudski, who understood that Germany and the Soviet Union would not be permanently weak and that Poland and the countries liberated from the Hapsburg Empire would have to be able to defend themselves and not have to rely on France or Britain.

Pilsudski proposed an alliance stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and encompassing the countries to the west of the Carpathians - Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. In some formulations, this would include Yugoslavia, Finland and the Baltics. The point was that Poland had to have allies, that no one could predict German and Soviet strength and intentions, and that the French and English were too far away to help. The only help Poland could have would be an alliance of geography - countries with no choice.

It follows from this that the logical evolution here is the extension of the Visegrad coalition. At the May 12 defense ministers' meeting, there was discussion of inviting Ukraine to join in. Twenty or even 10 years ago, that would have been a viable option. Ukraine had room to maneuver. But the very thing that makes the V4 battle group necessary - Russian power - limits what Ukraine can do. The Russians are prepared to give Ukraine substantial freedom to maneuver, but that does not include a military alliance with the Visegrad countries.

An alliance with Ukraine would provide significant strategic depth. It is unlikely to happen. That means that the alliance must stretch south, to include Romania and Bulgaria. The low-level tension between Hungary and Romania over the status of Hungarians in Romania makes that difficult, but if the Hungarians can live with the Slovaks, they can live with the Romanians. Ultimately, the interesting question is whether Turkey can be persuaded to participate in this, but that is a question far removed from Turkish thinking now. History will have to evolve quite a bit for this to take place. For now, the question is Romania and Bulgaria.

But the decision of the V4 to even propose a battle group commanded by Poles is one of those small events that I think will be regarded as a significant turning point. However we might try to trivialize it and place it in a familiar context, it doesn't fit. It represents a new level of concern over an evolving reality - the power of Russia, the weakness of Europe and the fragmentation of NATO. This is the last thing the Visegrad countries wanted to do, but they have now done the last thing they wanted to do. That is what is significant.

Events in the Middle East and Europe's economy are significant and of immediate importance. However, sometimes it is necessary to recognize things that are not significant yet but will be in 10 years. I believe this is one of those events. It is a punctuation mark in European history.

Visegrad: A New European Military Force is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

Housecarl · May 17, 2011

Posted for fair use.....
http://www.thenational.ae/thenation...curity-strategy-but-not-necessarily-a-new-gcc

A new security strategy, but not necessarily a new GCC
Shadi Hamid

May 16, 2011

Summary
There are clear security priorities behind the recent proposal to expand the GCC to include Jordan and Morocco, but that does not mean that the expansion will go ahead.

The Gulf Cooperation Council's invitations to Jordan and Morocco to apply for membership surprised nearly everyone. But perhaps it shouldn't have. Since the Arab revolts began, the Gulf has adopted an aggressive regional posture. The GCC has granted Bahrain and Oman US$20 billion (Dh73.5 billion) in aid, mediated the crisis in Yemen and, perhaps most importantly, dispatched troops into Bahrain to quell the protests there.

In this context, letting Jordan and Morocco join the club makes some degree of sense. The two countries are conservative, pro-western monarchies facing domestic unrest and calls for greater democracy. After the Obama administration acquiesced to the Egyptian regime's collapse, Saudi Arabia, the most powerful Gulf state, began doubting the United States' commitment to regional stability. So it has taken matters into its own hands. In a time of unprecedented upheaval, the Saudis are digging in.

The economic rationale of the move is considerably less compelling. Compared to the Gulf states, Jordan and Morocco are relatively poor, with high levels of economic inequality, structural underemployment, and rampant corruption. Culturally, Jordan and Morocco couldn't be more different than the GCC nations. And then, of course, there is the small matter of them not actually being in the Gulf. All of this suggests the GCC will not become the integrated economic union many hoped it would. Already, the 2010 deadline for establishing a common currency passed rather unceremoniously.

Focused on the threat of Iran from without and burgeoning protest movements from within, the GCC is solidifying into a loose security alliance, dominated by Saudi Arabia. Jordan, in particular, has much to offer in this domain, boasting one of the region's best-trained militaries and intelligence services. As Gulf states face growing discontent, such services may prove particularly helpful. This "new" GCC, if it ever comes to fruition, would bear resemblance to the old alliances of the Cold War, such as the Baghdad Pact, adopted in 1955, which aimed to contain Soviet influence.

In short, while the short-term rationale is evident - security, after all, always takes precedence - adopting Jordan and Morocco as members will dilute the GCC while provoking the non-aligned "pro-democratic" states, such as Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq, Qatar, Lebanon and Turkey, to do their own balancing (to say nothing of Iran). Even within the GCC, enthusiasm for the move seems to be lacking. Reportedly Kuwait, Oman and Qatar expressed reservations, suggesting that a two-tiered membership is a likely scenario. Under such a system, Jordan, Morocco - and anyone else - could aspire to a "privileged partnership" short of full membership.

With the Gulf throwing its weight and Egypt re-asserting itself as a regional force, Jordan and Morocco have been the odd men out. They are also the two countries with a reputation for intermittent attempts at liberalisation, free (if not necessarily fair) elections, and political inclusion of Islamist parties. Instead of crushing recent protests, they have opted for a strategy of selective accommodation, initiating dialogue with the opposition and revising some laws.

While it is unlikely that the monarchies in either country will voluntarily give up power, there is also little to suggest that they will resort to brute force against their own citizens. At least rhetorically, the Jordanian and Moroccan kings have committed themselves to political reform. In a major speech on March 9, King Mohammed of Morocco announced sweeping changes, including constitutional revisions and a shift toward elected, rather than appointed, governments. But in Morocco, the gap between rhetoric and policy has often been considerable. Saudi Arabia's influence and leverage would likely put clear limits on Morocco's democratisation process, just as it did in Bahrain.

The United States, a close ally of all the states in question, has reason to be concerned. Jordan is the second largest per-capita recipient of US assistance. Morocco, meanwhile, has a multi-year $698 million Millennium Challenge Compact agreement with the United States. Saudi Arabia is stepping well beyond its traditional sphere of influence and stepping on US (and European) territory. The Obama administration, for its part, does not want to see Morocco or Jordan dragged back toward a more robust authoritarianism. But the US, tied down by contentious budget debates at home, is unwilling to provide the kind of economic assistance that the Saudis are.

Accordingly, the already public Saudi-US breach may continue to grow. A newly revitalised GCC is shifting its strategies and alliances, testing America's traditional role as the sole guarantor of Gulf stability. Increasingly, the region is facing not just domestic upheaval but a potential "revolution" in its fundamental security architecture. But, as the Saudis themselves would point out, not all revolutions end well.

Shadi Hamid is director of research at the Brookings Doha Center and a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution

Housecarl · May 17, 2011

Posted for fair use.....
http://atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/ME18Ag01.html

May 18, 2011
US flexes muscle in the Black Sea
By M K Bhadrakumar

The Black Sea is about to lose its historical exclusivity as a Russian-Turkish preserve. A visit by the USA-TRANSCOM commander General Duncan McNabb to Bucharest has sealed the fate of the Black Sea as the latest entry into the chronicles of the "new great game".

The US had requested to use Romania's two military infrastructures as transit place for the carriage of troops and military hardware to and from Iraq and Afghanistan to Europe. On May 2, Romania's Supreme Council for National Defense (CSAT) approved the use of the Mihail Kogalniceanu Airport and the Port of Constanta for transit. McNabb swiftly descended on Bucharest on Thursday to seal the deal.

The rapid flow of events in US-Romanian strategic ties needs to be carefully noted. The emerging cooperation goes far beyond logistical support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On May 3, Romania also announced that the two countries agreed to deploy American missile interceptors at Deveselu air base in southern Romania as part of US anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defense shield.

A pattern is emerging - security of US deployments of components of its missile defense systems in Poland and Romania provide the raison d'etre for US military presence on their territories, over and above what is already available to them from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Thus, on May 3 the United States and Romania also inaugurated the deployment location in an official ceremony attended by State Secretary of Romania's Foreign Ministry Bogdan Aurescu and the visiting US Under-Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher. "This choice contributes to the security of Romania, the US and NATO allies, substantiating the strategic partnership between Romania and the US," Aurescu said, adding that it is a very important contribution to strengthening Romania's profile in world security.

Tauscher said Romania is a close friend and a valued NATO ally and Tuesday's ceremony "marks an extremely important moment for Romania, the United States and NATO". She added, "Romania will play a major role in the new NATO missile defense capability."

Russia promptly took exception to the ABM deployment in Romania. In a May 4 statement, the Foreign Ministry said, "Russia is following the development of the situation most closely, taking into account that, according to our estimates, the planned missile defense system may pose risks for Russian strategic nuclear deterrence forces in the future. In this situation the necessity of legal guarantees from the US that its missile defense system will not be aimed against Russia's strategic nuclear forces becomes even more crucial."

Romania welcomes ABM deployment ...
The Barack Obama administration, however, chose to press ahead with the establishment of US military presence in Romania. The costs for deploying the ABM interceptors at Deveselu is estimated at US$400 million plus $20 million each year for maintenance, which Washington will incur as running costs. Additionally, 200 US troops will be stationed at the Deveselu base and the size might increase up to 500, under "special circumstances".

A Romanian Foreign Ministry statement of May 5 announced that the agreement on the deployment of a US missile defense system in Romania had been finalized. The statement highlighted that rapid progress was possible in negotiating the agreement due to "high political will" on the part of the two countries and their "constructive approach ... motivated by awareness of the importance of this strategic project" for Romania, US and NATO. Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi said "the agreement must be validated by policymakers and we hope to sign it this fall."

The all-round expansion of US-Romanian strategic ties is likely to cast a shadow on Washington's reset with the Kremlin. The Russian strategic community is up in arms. Admiral Viktor Kravchenko, former Russian navy chief of staff, estimated that the new US anti-missile defense base in Romania would break the power balance in the Black Sea area and Russia should strengthen the "combat potential" of its Black Sea Fleet.

The ABM deployment in Romania might not pose immediate security threat to Russia. However, Konstantin Sivkov, vice president of Russian Academy of Geopolitical Problems, might have echoed the widely held belief in Moscow that the Romanian anti-missile base targeted at Moscow is of a piece with the US strategy of putting together a string of military bases surrounding Russia. Moscow wears a look of resignation that something is happening on expected lines. Arguably, it could have a Plan B to reduce the risks to its security.

The expert-level negotiations to reach agreement with the United States or to join the European missile defense system isn't progressing well and if the talks break down on issues over Poland and Romania, the United States-Russia reset would suffer a lethal blow. Moscow has threatened to take counter-measures if the talks fail and is reportedly developing a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile to cope with the future global missile defense system.

... and allows US military bases
Meanwhile, the two US bases in Romania will impact on the geopolitics of the Black Sea region The littoral states - Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine - would see them as a "strategic balancer" to Russia. The US bases in Romania may well induce a paradigm shift in Russian-Turkish cooperation in the Black Sea region. Again, the US is setting up shop right on the path of Russia's burgeoning energy ties with Western Europe and the Balkans.

The "transit hubs" in Romania will stimulate the US efforts to build a transit route to Afghanistan via Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, bypassing Russia. Such a route will reduce US dependence on the Northern Distribution Network (which runs through Russian territory). It can also become a new Silk Route connecting Central Asia.

What concerns Moscow most is that the US naval and air presence in the Black Sea region "hems in" the Russian fleet in Sevastpol. With the turmoil in Syria putting question marks on the future of the Russian naval base there, Russia's capacity to influence events in the Middle East is coming under stress. In essence, therefore, what we are witnessing with the "unburdening" of the Iraqi and Afghan wars in sight is the US is returning to global strategies that took a back seat. Russia and China certainly watch the US strategy to dominate the Middle East with disquiet.

Speaking in Almaty last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the West against a Libyan-like intervention in Syria. He challenged the legitimacy of the contact group set up by Western powers to calibrate the intervention in Libya. Equally, Beijing took strong exception to the taunt by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Beijing was "worried" of a Middle-East type upheaval and is "trying to stop history, which is a fool's errand."

Russia plays Iraqi card
Significantly, Lavrov paid a two-day visit to Baghdad last week. At a joint press conference with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari, Lavrov claimed that Russia and Iraq have a "common stand" on the Middle East situation. He elaborated:

It is unacceptable to tackle such disputes by the use of brute force, especially against civilians; it is unacceptable to impose governing or political arrangement recipes on specific countries from outside.

A solution needs to be sought via a responsible dialogue among all political forces in the states by peaceful means and within a legal field through national consensus. Russia has always advocated that the issues facing this region should be tackled by its countries themselves.

Moscow has also challenged US supremacy in Iraqi security by offering Baghdad military cooperation. The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed that "ways to promote military-technical cooperation" between Russia and Iraq as well as "measures to step up cooperation between the concerned security agencies "including the Interior Ministry" were on Lavrov's agenda.

Russia is virtually reviving the Soviet-era "mutually beneficial partnership" with Iraq across the board, "based on decades-old traditions of friendly communications and close cooperation". This has been the first visit by the Russian foreign minister to Iraq ever since the US invasion in 2003.

The timing is significant. Russia is challenging US plans to prolong its military presence in Iraq beyond end-2011 at a time when the US is setting up bases in the Black Sea region and is covertly destabilizing the regime in Syria (where Russia has a Soviet-era naval base).

Lavrov might have intentionally drawn attention to the nature of his mission to Iraq when he joked at the press conference with Zebari that he hoped the letter he delivered to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki from President Dmitry Medvedev wouldn't "find itself at WikiLeaks".

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.

Housecarl · May 17, 2011

Posted for fair use....
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ME18Ak02.html

Middle East
May 18, 2011
Arab spring, Turkish summer?
By Richard Javad Heydarian

Turkey is emerging as an attractive model for the new generation of democrats in the Middle East and North Africa. Turkey, as a bastion of Islamic moderation, economic dynamism, military might and foreign policy creativity, has inspired many who envision a prosperous and free Arab world.

Political freedom, accountability, corruption and economic justice are at the center of democratic protests. Turkey's record on these issues has drawn the notice of many in the Islamic world. But Turkey's experience with electoral politics and market economics is unique, a response to the specifics of Turkish history and culture. The example therefore may not be replicable.

The Turkish model is certainly an inspiration. But can it offer practical lessons for the rest of the Islamic world?

Tumultuous path to democracy
In Turkey, the march toward democracy only began recently, so the contemporary Turkish political model is only in its infancy.

From the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the military has exercised considerable political power that has allowed it to shape, intermittently redesign and decisively determine the very architecture of civilian politics in the country.

Whenever the military felt that the stability of the nation was in question, it launched coups: in 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997. After every coup, the military suppressed the opposition - Islamists and left-leaning parties - in order to ensure that subsequent elections favored secularist political allies.

This pattern of intervention and interference repeatedly aborted the process of democratization in modern-day Turkey. But the country's membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization - and desire to join the European Union - also served as a significant check on the military and helped to create at least the semblance of democratic politics in Turkey.

The military, and its secular allies, focused on controlling religious expression and political Islam. According to Turkish political scientist Hakan Yavuz, many Islamists dealt with constant repression by turning inward and focusing on community-level activities and grassroots movements. The constitution severely narrowed the public space for pluralism and religious freedom.

But on the margin, in rural areas, and in the quiet corners of many individuals' conscience, Islam served as an essential element of Turkish identity.

With the introduction of multiparty politics, however, Islamists seized the opportunity to think bigger. Islam-oriented organizations gained more clout with opposition parties - sometimes even from right-wing republicans - seeking their electoral support. Over the decades, despite repeated military interventions, opposition parties increasingly adopted the language or ideas of Islamism.

The integration of Islamists into the political process culminated with the election of the Islamic Welfare Party under prime minister Necmettin Erbakan in 1996.

In the 1980s, with the economy in tatters - thanks to immense corruption, the bankruptcy of state companies, and increasing military expenditures - the legitimacy of the repressive state came under question. The economic liberalization that followed under the auspices of the IMF and other international financial institutions simply accelerated and even deepened the nature of Turkish economic woes.

By 2001, after a decade of political instability and economic chaos, Turkish society was in a precarious state. The recognition of Turkey as a formal candidate for the European Union in 1999 added to the urgency for economic stabilization and political certainty.

In the post-2001 climate, the new Justice and Development Party (AKP), a moderate and pragmatic successor to earlier Islamist parties, represented Turkey's best chance for long-sought reforms. The AKP not only brought stability to the parliament - by facilitating the creation of a stable two-party system - but it also guided the country through the tough period of economic reform.

In less than a decade, Turkey's economy would grow by a factor of four and soon join the ranks of elite emerging economies, the CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa), as well as the Group of 20 (G-20).

A decisive shift
A combination of luck, political sagacity and boldness transformed the AKP into a dominant force in the country's politics. Its creativity and dynamism in foreign affairs also boosted the AKP leadership's international prestige and influence on the Arab street, impressing both Islamists in Iran as well as democrats in the West.

Political stability - coupled with the country's relatively solid infrastructure, successful bureaucratic reforms, strategic geopolitical position, and skilled labor force - made Turkey one of the world's hotspots for investment and business. With growing confidence at home and deepening interdependence with neighboring countries - from trade to energy transport to investments - the AKP saw fit to overhaul its foreign policy architecture.

In 2003, the AKP turned down Washington's request to use Turkey's territory to invade Iraq. Over succeeding years, Turkey adopted a more independent line on thorny issues such as Israeli-Arab peace and Iran's nuclear program. These bolder stances transformed Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan into the most popular man on the Arab street, the most powerful political leader in Turkey, and one of the world's most influential men.

Since 2008, the AKP has been on the offensive against the military. The 2008 Ergenekon Trial - implicating prominent individuals from the military and other sectors in coup plots - allowed the AKP to crack down on the so-called parallel state, the network of secular-nationalist political forces opposed to Islamist and Kurdish groups.

The 2010 referendum allowed the AKP to introduce sweeping political reforms, which targeted the judiciary as well as the constitutional provisions on political freedom, pluralism, and due process. The passage of the referendum limited the room for military interference in government affairs and its dominance in security-related operations (ie, war against dissidents and separatists). The effect has been the weakening of the parallel state and the gradual banishment of the military from politics.

Viability of the Turkish model
Turkey demonstrates how Islamic movements can evolve into moderate, pragmatic, and successful political parties. But Turkey was not exactly an authoritarian state in the 1980s. In this sense, Turkey does not provide much of a model for many liberal democrats in countries like Egypt and Tunisia who seek to establish a secular-parliamentary political system along European lines. Egypt and Tunisia are looking at a more telescoped transition from considerably more authoritarian states.

Moreover, Turkey's market-oriented economy provides little inspiration for many of the protest movements, which seek to build a more egalitarian and welfare-oriented economic system. The revolutions in North Africa were built on deep popular frustrations with the amoral and distorted market economies established by their autocratic leaders.

Most Arab countries do not enjoy the unique combination of economic assets that Turkey possesses. It is a giant energy transit point and a colossal agricultural power. It has a well-educated population, is close to the European Union, and possesses a vast industrial-scientific base built over a long period of time.

There is also a tendency to overestimate Turkey's success on multiple fronts. For instance, youth unemployment - similar to Arab countries - is in the double-digit territory, and Turkey's per capita income levels are barely above the global average. Despite a decade of relentless growth, Turkey still remains a highly unequal society in terms of income distribution. Moreover, Turkey has a lot to do to bridge the development gap between the Kurdish-dominated southeast and the cosmopolitan areas in the West.

The AKP is also running the risk of creating its own political patronage system as it tries to weaken the military's hold on the state. The party's fierce crackdown on journalists is not a positive sign in this regard and certainly not an example for the Arab world to follow.

In 2010, Turkey ranked below autocratic countries such as Singapore and Egypt in the Press Freedom Index. In 2011, according to an Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe report, Turkey led the world in jailed journalists. According to Akif Hamzacebi, a senior member of the main opposition Republican People's Party, "The detentions of journalists has just one goal: to silence voices of opposition that criticize the government."

Unique Arab path
While Turkey's path to democratization has been built over decades of experimentation with electoral politics, the Arab spring is a byproduct of a spark that started with the self-immolation of a Tunisian vegetable vendor, Mohammad Bouazizi.

According to the eminent historian Perry Anderson, what is happening in the Arab world is similar to the Hispanic American Wars of Liberation that began in 1810 and ended in 1825, the European revolutions of 1848-1849, and the fall of the regimes in the Soviet bloc, 1989-1991.

The Arab spring is simply a region-wide, transnational, and world-historical event, a response to a long period of imperial interventions and predatory autocracies that have haunted the Arab world for almost a century. In certain countries, such as Tunisia and Egypt, it represents a total discrediting of the old order.

Turkey's recent transformation was not so radical. The AKP built a postmodern Turkey on the foundations of a United States client state with formal democracy and a modern society. Islamists and democrats did not seek regime change but instead chose to reform the Turkish state from within.

The Arab protesters are also venting their frustration against a world order that has prioritized corporate interest, economic globalization, and undemocratic stability. Turkey, meanwhile, made the best possible use of its linkages with the global neo-liberal order.

It's no surprise, then, that a great number of Turkish companies register among the fortune 500 companies. The promise of EU membership has served as a springboard for reform in Turkey, but no Arab countries can count on such an external impetus for change.

The Turkish model simply represents a democratizing Eurasian country under the flagship of a moderate Islamic party, while the Arab world seeks wholesale social change that includes an overhaul of bankrupt autocratic systems.

The leaders of the Arab Spring should cast their net widely to learn from the experience of other regions, such as Latin America and Eastern Europe. They should also look at Indonesia, the world's third-largest democracy and a country transitioning from its autocratic past.

Even if the Turkish model is not the right fit for the Arab world, the country has other things to offer. Many Arab Islamist parties and associational bodies, which seek to introduce democratic politics based on principles of Islam, into their respective countries, can look to the AKP for inspiration. The AKP's pragmatism and commitment to play within the confines of the law could indeed serve their counterparts in the Arab world well.

Turkey has also been playing a very prominent role in supporting, at least rhetorically, the demands of the Arab Street for political change. On a logistical level, Prime Minister Erdogan has invited Arab leaders, such as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to come to Turkey and learn from their democratic experience. Rather than projecting itself as the model for the rest of the region, Turkey has volunteered itself as a mediating force. Turkey is playing it safe by encouraging Arab leaders to listen to their people and at the same time exploring channels of communication with opposition forces.

Instead of following the Turkish model, the Arab world should focus on its own unique path to liberal reform and democratic opening. The rich cultural and intellectual history of the Arab world can be traced back to the Middle Ages as well as the Arab renaissance of the 18th-19th century when many Arab scholars proposed a distinct social project based on modernity, freedom, and Islamic identity.

Elements of this intellectual capital could be used as building blocks for a new Arab world. Ultimately, the social project that emerges from the Arab Spring should rest on the Arab world's ethno-linguistic, cultural, and unique geopolitical and economic foundations.

The United States could learn from its relationship with Turkey. Instead of automatically discrediting Islamist movements as extremists and potential threats to its national security, the US should use its dynamic relationship with the AKP as a basis to justify and design a more conciliatory and strategic approach with the more moderate elements among Arab Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

The US should not steer the direction of democratization in the Arab world but instead help to create the conditions for actors in the region to create their own post-autocratic future.

Foreign Policy In Focus contributor Richard Javad Heydarian is an Iranian observer and analyst of developments in the Middle East. He is based in Manila.

(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus)

Housecarl · May 17, 2011

Posted for fair use....
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/ME17Df02.html

South Asia
May 17, 2011
A SCO canopy for South Asia
By M K Bhadrakumar

Grand visions take time to realize but they seldom die. They may languish but they regenerate and take new unexpected forms. The ''Great Central Asia'' strategy envisioned by the George W Bush administration is most certainly one such grand vision.

The complex intellectual construct involved many strokes: The US would expand its influence into Central Asia by rolling back Russia's traditional and China's growing influence there. Washington would encourage New Delhi to work as a partner in Afghanistan and Central Asia, and lay a new Silk Route via South Asia to evacuate the fabulous mineral wealth of the land-locked region, consolidate its presence in Afghanistan on a long-term footing, and establish itself along Xinjiang and Russia's ''soft underbelly''. In so doing, it would create the conditions needed to win the ''new great game'' in Central Asia.

The strategy was unveiled in an article in the summer 2005 edition of Foreign Affairs magazine by Frederick Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the John Hopkins University. Starr proposed a matrix for a "Great Central Asia cooperative partnership for development" with the US taking the lead, the five Central Asian states and Afghanistan entering as the main members, and India and Pakistan participating.

Starr wrote, ''The main idea of the proposal is to take the US control of the situation in Afghanistan as an opportunity, promote optional and flexible cooperation in security, democracy, economy, transport and energy, and, make up a new region by combining Central Asia with South Asia. The United States is to shoulder the role of a midwife to promote the rebirth of the entire region."

A dream come true
The Bush administration lost no time adopting the tantalizing idea and integrating it into the US's regional policies. In the event, however, the Bush era got dissipated in the Iraq quagmire and the idea of ''Great Central Asia'' languished. Hopelessly distracted by the economic crisis and the war in Afghanistan, the Barack Obama administration, too, neglected the brilliant strategy. Meanwhile, Russia and China grasped its potential and wondered if only it could be turned on its head.

Russian and Chinese diplomats duly got to work and are now ready to unveil their new avatar in the forthcoming summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Astana on June 15. To sum up a long story, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made a terse remark on May 15 following a meeting of SCO foreign ministers in Almaty, Kazakhstan, ''A few days ago, Afghanistan submitted a request to grant it observer status. The request will be considered at the upcoming [SCO] summit.''

What he didn't say was that earlier in the week, Afghan Foreign Minister Rasoul paid a four-day visit to Beijing and discussed his country's proposal with the Chinese government. The Afghans, Russians and the Chinese seem to have acted in concert and with a speediness that probably took the Obama administration by surprise. The US has been consistently discouraging Kabul from any dangerous liaison with the SCO.

Kabul's ''defection'' constitutes a setback to the US's diplomacy in the Central Asian region, which Washington has been lately insisting is brimming with renewed energy. It certainly weakens the push by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) push to secure long-term military bases in Afghanistan. Put simply, it reduces Washington's capacity to pressure Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai.

In turn, it secures for Karzai new benefactors for the stabilization of his country, which on the one hand enables him to significantly reduce the level of his current dependence on the US, while on the other hand compelling Washington to be sensitive to his demands as the leader of a sovereign country.

Lavrov further revealed that India and Pakistan had both submitted formal applications for upgrading their observer status to full membership of SCO and he hinted that the Astana summit would grant the membership. Clearly, Moscow and Beijing have simultaneously steered the Indian, Pakistani and Afghan applications.

This suggests a broad conceptualization and understanding of the emergent regional security scenario in South Asia on the part of Moscow and Beijing. Ironically, Afghanistan is all set now to become the ''hub'' that will bring Central Asia and South Asia together - except that the historic process is taking place not under US stewardship, as Starr conceived, Bush probably wanted and Obama failed to follow up, but under Chinese and Russian partnership.

Moscow-Beijing axis
Evidently, Moscow and Beijing have pressed the pedal to give SCO a decisive push and make it a rival to the NATO as a provider of security for the Central Asian states - and for Afghanistan. This is happening when NATO is claiming in the Central Asian capitals that it is revving up ''strategic'' cooperation with the region. In reality, SCO (which has China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in the current line-up) will be poaching into the US and NATO's exclusive Afghan preserves while insisting that it is enamored of cooperation with the Western alliance.

The Russian-Chinese coordination on strategic issues is indeed graduating to a qualitatively new level. Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa are three main arenas where Moscow and Beijing have decided to enter into ''tight cooperation'', to borrow an expression of a Russian news agency.

Moscow and Beijing seem to have arrived at the conclusion that notwithstanding the US's steady decline as a global power, the Obama administration is bent on resuscitating its global strategies as the preponderant world power and that with the winding down of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington is likely preparing to give a jump start to the process.

Russia already senses that the Obama administration is dusting up the plans for deployments of missile defense shields in Poland and Romania and is setting up a new military presence in these two countries, challenging the historical primacy of Russia's Black Sea Fleet. Moscow's repeated urges to have more meaningful discussions regarding Russian participation in the US's and the European Union's missile defense program are also not being heeded. The much-touted ''reset'' is losing steam, too.

For both Russia and China, Western intervention in Libya has come as a wake-up call. The developments over Syria, the West's double standards over Bahrain, the determination of the US to prolong its military presence in Iraq beyond the end-2011 cut-off date - these are being seen as tell-tale signs of an overarching, well-thought-out and US-led Western strategy to outflank Russia and China in the Middle East and perpetuate Western dominance over the region in the post-Cold War era.

A recent commentary in the Chinese state-run People's Daily also articulated specific concerns over the strong likelihood of a ''more forceful'', ''more aggressive'' policy toward China. It said:

Washington intends to broaden and strengthen alliances with Asia-Pacific partners (Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, India, etc.) ... there is no way that Obama will soften his attitude on US-China relations ... Obama believes that the future of the global order will be determined in the Asia Pacific.

If this description of Obama's beliefs is accurate, then one can see his management of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in a slightly different light: he is winding down these wars not only in order to rebuild America's economy and improve its international standing, but also to recalibrate US foreign policy toward an Asia-Pacific future. In a nutshell, the US overall readjustment of its Asia-Pacific policies comes with tremendous force on its surface.''

New power dynamic
Beijing is obviously jettisoning its reservations about India's inclusion in the SCO. The anticipated US-led shifts in Asia-Pacific would give impetus to Beijing to work on its ties with India and the SCO provides a useful framework to cooperate with New Delhi on regional security issues.

From the Indian perspective, too, working with China on shared concerns such as the stabilization of Afghanistan or the struggle against terrorist activities emanating from Pakistani soil are desirable objectives.

Beijing would be gratified to know that New Delhi has an independent regional policy toward Central Asia and has desisted from identifying with the US's ''Great Central Asia'' strategy. Equally, New Delhi remains skeptical about the prospect of a long-term NATO military presence in Afghanistan.

India's approach to engage Pakistan in dialogue, its calibrated approach to military cooperation with the US and indeed the new sense of ''cooling down'' in the Sino-Indian discords on the bilateral political and diplomatic plane following the high-level exchanges on the sidelines of the recent BRICS summit in China - these would encourage Beijing (and Moscow) to project the SCO as a vehicle for regional security in the South Asian region.

From the Pakistani perspective, too, SCO membership comes at a critical time when Islamabad is torn apart by existential angst of a kind it has never known before. Following the Raymond Davis [1] episode, Islamabad measured up the US's extensive intelligence network within Pakistan, including with various militant groups.

Put plainly, Islamabad suspects US intentions and a transparent working relationship is not going to be easy to put in place. The US Abbottabad operation to kill Osama bin Laden has shaken Pakistan's self-confidence. US-Pakistan intelligence cooperation has ground to a halt.

The impunity with which the US violated Pakistan's territorial integrity, Obama's blunt warning that the US might repeat similar operations, Washington's utter disregard of the groundswell of Pakistani opinion, and Pakistan's own sense of helplessness to safeguard its sovereignty - these will prompt Islamabad to rethink its foreign policy options. China and Russia obviously figure in the Pakistani calculus.

At the same time, India has moved wisely by not only sharing the US's euphoria over the Abbottabad operation. New Delhi also desisted from resorting to rhetoric against Pakistan and lost no time to reiterate that dialogue with Islamabad will continue as earlier planned. There are also nuances in India's Afghan policy with a view to calming Pakistani sensitivities regarding its ties with Kabul.

These overlapping trends have quickened the tempo of regional diplomacy. The same week in which Rasoul proceeded to Beijing also saw Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari visiting Russia and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh undertaking an extraordinary two-day visit to Kabul. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani is also due in Beijing this week.

All these high-level exchanges have essentially sought to break fresh ground in regional alignments. Their leitmotif is the endgame in Afghanistan. Without doubt, regional opinion is vehemently opposed to a long-term US and NATO military presence in Afghanistan.

But the sense in the region is also that Washington will keep pressuring Kabul - just as it is doing in Baghdad - to ram through its geopolitical agenda no matter the regional opposition.

Unsurprisingly, the SCO provides the canopy beneath which regional powers are taking shelter even as the power dynamics are unfolding.

Note
1. Raymond Davis, a contractor with the Central Intelligence Agency, killed two armed men in Lahore in January and although the US said he was protected by diplomatic immunity, he was jailed and charged with murder. He was released in March after the families of the two killed men were paid US$2.4 million in blood money. Judges acquitted him on all charges and Davis immediately departed Pakistan.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.

Housecarl · May 17, 2011

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/us/politics/18prexy.html

May 17, 2011
As Uprisings Transform Mideast, Obama Aims to Reshape the Peace Debate
By MARK LANDLER and HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON — Six months after the Arab world erupted in a political firestorm, President Obama has been searching for ways to link the region’s historic transformation to the long-stymied peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. It is far from clear how he can do that.

Mr. Obama will have a chance to reshape the debate on Thursday, when he delivers a major speech on the region at the State Department. The president plans to argue that the political upheaval raises the prospect for progress on all fronts, and will offer “some specific new ideas about U.S. policy toward the region,” the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, said Tuesday.

Officials said Mr. Obama was weighing whether to formally endorse Israel’s pre-1967 borders as the starting point for negotiations over a Palestinian state — a move that would be less a policy shift than a signal by the United States that it expected Israel to make concessions in pursuit of an agreement.

But several officials said the president did not plan to present an American blueprint for breaking the stalemate between the Israelis and Palestinians. In the absence of that, experts said, there is little he can do to draw the two sides closer, especially since the Arab upheaval has deepened the rift between them.

Mr. Obama has been grappling for a more coherent response to the violent crackdowns in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen and may use the opportunity to increase the pressure on Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said stiffer sanctions against the Assad government could be imposed in the coming days.

Beyond the sanctions, Mr. Obama may personally criticize Mr. Assad in his speech, abandoning his somewhat restrained response to the Syrian government’s repression of protesters. Some administration officials said the American reticence stemmed in part from a hope, clearly unfulfilled, that the tumult could serve as a wedge to peel the Syrian government away from its alliance with Iran.

For Arab allies of the United States, Mr. Obama is offering encouragement to pursue reforms. On Tuesday, he welcomed King Abdullah II of Jordan to the White House and announced more than $400 million in American investments in Jordan, as well as aid in the form of 50,000 tons of wheat, which he said would help Jordanians and allow the government to speed up its overhaul of the economy.

Mr. Obama’s speech comes during a hectic week of Middle East diplomacy. In addition to King Abdullah, the president plans to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Friday. On Sunday, he is to address a major pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. And later next week, Mr. Netanyahu plans to deliver his own speech, before a joint session of Congress.

But the whirl of activity comes against one of the most forbidding backdrops for the peace process in many years. Israeli security forces clashed with thousands of Palestinian protesters who marched into border areas on Sunday. And the Palestinian Fatah party recently signed a unity agreement with the Islamic militant group Hamas, which Mr. Netanyahu condemned as antithetical to a peace deal.

“I’ve never been more concerned about where this is headed than I am now,” said Robert Danin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who used to run the Jerusalem office of the group known as the Middle East quartet. “There seems to be increased momentum towards what could be a real explosion.”

Mr. Obama had considered laying out American parameters for a peace deal, several officials said — a move that Mrs. Clinton favored, but one that would have put him at odds with his national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, and his top Middle East adviser, Dennis Ross.

But the unity accord between Hamas and Fatah, the party of President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, effectively killed the plans to try to push through an American proposal, one administration official said. “It’s hard to imagine how we do that when Hamas hasn’t agreed” to recognize Israel’s right to exist and to forswear violence against Israel, the official said.

On Tuesday, Mr. Obama reaffirmed his commitment to help broker a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians.

“Despite the many changes, or perhaps because of the many changes that are taking place in the region, it’s more vital than ever that both Israelis and Palestinians find a way to get back to the table and begin negotiating a process whereby they can create two states that are living side by side in peace and security,” the president said after his Oval Office meeting with King Abdullah.

Palestinian officials said they were forging ahead with their own plans to pursue United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state when the General Assembly meets in September in New York — a gambit that alarms American officials, who loathe being put in the position of having to vote against Palestinian statehood just as popular democratic movements are taking hold throughout the Middle East.

In an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Tuesday that analysts interpreted as the diplomatic equivalent of a declaration of war on the status quo, Mr. Abbas said flatly that he would request international recognition of the state of Palestine, based on the borders of Israel before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Such a move would most likely get a lopsided majority of votes in the General Assembly, diplomats said, with Latin American, African, Asian and Middle Eastern countries all expected to vote in favor of it.

That, by itself, would be embarrassing to Israel. So Israeli officials are trying to make sure that big European countries, including France, Italy, Britain and Germany, join the United States in either voting against it or abstaining, thus denying the Palestinians’ plan recognition by the major world powers.

For the Palestinians, a formal American endorsement of the 1967 borders as a baseline for negotiations might make them somewhat less suspicious about returning to the table. Israel has historically rejected any preconditions for talks, and analysts said Mr. Netanyahu’s reaction would be critical.

In a speech on Monday to the Israeli Parliament, Mr. Netanyahu ruled out any dealings with Hamas but suggested that Israel would be open to surrendering most of the West Bank in a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

The speech by Mr. Netanyahu “was more forthcoming than I’ve seen him in the past,” said David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It actually gave me some hope for the peace process.”

Housecarl · May 17, 2011

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May 17, 2011
Bibi and Barack
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Reading the headlines from the Middle East these days — Christians and Muslims clashing in Egypt, Syria attempting to crush its democracy rebellion and Palestinians climbing over fences into Israel — you get the sense of a region where the wheels could really start to come off.

In such a moment, President Obama has to show the same decisiveness he showed in tracking down Osama bin Laden. A useful analogy for this moment comes from climate science, where a popular motto says: Given how much climate change is already baked into our future, the best we can do now is manage the unavoidable and avoid the unmanageable.

In Middle East terms, the “unmanageable” we have to avoid is another war between Israel and any of its neighbors. The “unavoidable” we have to manage is dealing with what is certain to be a much more unstable Arab world, sitting atop the world’s largest oil reserves. The strategy we need is a serious peace policy combined with a serious energy policy.

Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel is always wondering why his nation is losing support and what the world expects of a tiny country surrounded by implacable foes. I can’t speak for the world, but I can speak for myself. I have no idea whether Israel has a Palestinian or Syrian partner for a secure peace that Israel can live with. But I know this: With a more democratic and populist Arab world in Israel’s future, and with Israel facing the prospect of having a minority of Jews permanently ruling over a majority of Arabs — between Israel and the West Bank, which could lead to Israel being equated with apartheid South Africa all over the world — Israel needs to use every ounce of its creativity to explore ways to securely cede the West Bank to a Palestinian state.

I repeat: It may not be possible. But Netanyahu has not spent his time in office using Israel’s creativity to find ways to do such a deal. He has spent his time trying to avoid such a deal — and everyone knows it. No one is fooled.

Israel is in a dangerous situation. For the first time in its history, it has bad relations with all three regional superpowers — Turkey, Iran and Egypt — plus rapidly eroding support in Europe. America is Israel’s only friend today. These strains are not all Israel’s fault by any means, especially with Iran, but Israel will never improve ties with Egypt, Turkey and Europe without a more serious effort to safely get out of the West Bank.

The only way for Netanyahu to be taken seriously again is if he risks some political capital and actually surprises people. Bibi keeps hinting that he is ready for painful territorial compromises involving settlements. Fine, put a map on the table. Let’s see what you’re talking about. Or how about removing the illegal West Bank settlements built by renegade settler groups against the will of Israel’s government. Either move would force Israel’s adversaries to take Bibi seriously and would pressure Palestinians to be equally serious.

Absent that, it’s just silly for us to have Netanyahu addressing the U.S. Congress when he needs to be addressing Palestinians down the street. And it is equally silly for the Palestinians to be going to the United Nations for a state when they need to be persuading Israelis why a Hamas-Fatah rapprochement is in their security interest.

As for managing the unavoidable, well, Obama just announced that he was opening up more federal areas for oil exploration, as Republicans have demanded. Great: Let’s make America even more dependent on an energy resource, the price of which is certain to go up as the world’s population increases and the greatest reserves of which lie beneath what is now the world’s most politically unstable region.

Frankly, I have no problem with more oil drilling, as long as it is done under the highest environmental standards. I have no problem with more nuclear power, if you can find a utility ready to put up the money. My problem is with an energy policy that focuses exclusively on oil drilling and nuclear power. That is not an energy policy. That is a policy for campaign donations. It will have no impact at the pump.

A real energy policy is a system. It has to start with a national renewable energy standard that requires every utility to build up their use of renewable energy — wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, bio — to 20 percent of their total output by 2020. This would be accompanied with higher auto mileage standards and higher national appliance and building efficiency standards. All these standards would then be reinforced with a price on carbon. That is how you get higher energy prices but lower energy bills, because efficiency improvements mean everyone uses less.

We are going to have to raise taxes. Why not a carbon tax that also reduces energy consumption, drives innovation, cleans the air and reduces our dependence on the Middle East?

We don’t want the Arab democracy rebellions to stop, but no one can predict how they will end. The smart thing for us and Israel to do is avoid what we can’t manage, and manage what we can’t avoid. Right now we’re doing neither.

Housecarl · May 17, 2011

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UN under-secretary-general says border breachers ‘innocent'
By JORDANA HORN, JPOST CORRESPONDENT
05/17/2011 21:01

Reuben, Ayalon send formal protests after breaches of Israeli borders from Lebanon, Syria; call for int'l community to come to Israel's defense.
Talkbacks (3)

NEW YORK – Ambassador to the UN Meron Reuben and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon both lodged protests in recent days against UN envoys and officials regarding Sunday’s breaches of Israel’s borders.

Reuben sent two letters to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council on Monday, lodging formal complaints regarding the violent intrusions on the Syria and Lebanese borders.

Syrian and Lebanese representatives made their views known as well.

On Tuesday, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon met with UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos, as well as EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response Kristalina Georgieva. During his meeting, Ayalon lodged a protest against Amos, who characterized those who breached Israel’s borders Sunday as “innocent.”

“It is incumbent that a United Nations senior official will denounce the provocative violence against Israel, its citizens and its sovereignty, instead of pointing the finger at a democracy trying to defend itself,” Ayalon said.

“Israel’s territory is not worthless and will not be abandoned. Israel has the right and duty, as does any nation, to defend itself and its borders. It is disappointing that the person in charge of humanitarian affairs at the UN requires explanations on why defensible borders are a fundamental right of Israel’s citizens. Israelis are not second class citizens and they are entailed to all the rights of citizens of other nations.”

Lebanon also filed a complaint with the UN against Israel. Lebanese Ambassador to the UN Nawaf Salam said that IDF troops “opened fire” on unarmed protesters Sunday. He claimed Lebanese troops had taken “tight security measures” to escort the group on the demarcation line between the two countries.

The deaths on Sunday, Salam said, highlight “Israel’s aggressive nature, as it did not hesitate to use excessive force against civilians in blatant contravention of international law and customs.”

Lebanon, which has one of the rotating seats on the 15-nation Security Council, asked the council on Monday to “pressure Israel to renounce its belligerent and provocative policy toward Lebanon and hold it responsible” for the deaths.

UN officials warned on Tuesday that there would be further deaths and instability unless a lasting solution was found to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Housecarl · May 17, 2011

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'Mass grave' found in Daraa, Syrian town at heart of protests against Assad

Agence France-Presse

May 17, 2011

DAMASCUS // Syria's brutal crackdown against pro-democracy protests took a chilling turn yesterday with the discovery of a mass grave in Daraa, the town at the heart of protests that have seen the country in turmoil for two months, an activist said.

"The army today allowed residents to venture outside their homes for two hours daily," said Ammar Qurabi of the National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria.

"They discovered a mass grave in the old part of town but authorities immediately cordoned off the area to prevent residents from recovering the bodies, some of which they promised would be handed over later," he said on the phone from Cairo.

Mr Qurabi said the Syrian regime must bear full responsibility for the crimes committed against "unarmed" citizens and urged the international community and civil society to pressure it to stop the "brutal repression" of its people.

He was unable say how many people were buried in the alleged mass grave.

His account could not be independently verified as Syrian authorities have all but sealed off the country to foreign journalists amid a brutal crackdown against unprecedented protests threatening the regime of President Bashar al Assad.

Mr Qurabi said that 34 people had also been killed in the past five days in the towns of Jassem and Inkhil, near Daraa.

"I fear that dozens more casualties may be lying in nearby wheat fields and orchards because families have not been able to access the region which is encircled by security troops and snipers," he said.

The unrest in Syria first erupted in Damascus on March 15 but was promptly put down and soon spread to Daraa and across the country with protesters emboldened by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.

More than 850 people, including women and children, have been killed and at least 8,000 arrested as security forces crack down on the protest movements, according to rights groups.

The bloodshed spilled into neighbouring Lebanon at the weekend when a Syrian woman, among dozens fleeing the north-western town of Tall Kalakh, was killed and six other people wounded, a Lebanese security official said.

Witnesses contacted by telephone also reported 10 people were killed on Sunday in Tall Kalakh, located near the Lebanese border, as security forces deployed inside the town.

Shelling and shooting was also reported in the nearby town of Arida, an activist said.

Meanwhile hundreds of protesters and rights advocates detained in recent days were released on Sunday after signing pledges not to take part in further protests, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Several of them said they had been tortured," he said, adding that thousands of people remained jailed and more arrests were taking place.

The regime has blamed the deadly violence on "armed terrorist gangs" backed by Islamists and foreign agitators.

Dozens of Syrians who fled the violence in their home towns gathered in north Lebanon yesterday to demand the fall of Mr al Assad's regime.

"The people want the fall of the regime," chanted the group gathered in the village of Al Boqayah, located along the border.

Most of the protesters hailed from the Syrian towns of Tall Kalakh and Arida.

"We don't love you, Bashar," and "Tall Kalakh, have no fear, we are with you," they shouted.

The United Sates and European Union have responded to the unrest in Syria by imposing sanctions on members of Mr al Assad's inner circle but stopped short of targeting him personally.

Rights groups have called for harsher sanctions but there are fears that should Mr al Assad's regime fall, that would have serious ramifications for the region and could lead to civil war.

Human Rights Watch at the weekend accused the regime of pushing forth with its campaign to crush the pro-democracy protests by rounding up activists and holding many of them incommunicado while going after their families.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of the New York-based organisation, said in a statement released on Sunday: "Syria's leaders talk about a war against terrorists, but what we see on the ground is a war against ordinary Syrians - lawyers, human rights activists, and university students - who are calling for democratic changes in their country.

"Syria's emergency law may have been lifted on paper, but repression is still the rule on Syria's streets.

"Behind the empty rhetoric of promises and national dialogue, there is a systematic campaign to rebuild Syria's wall of fear with only one purpose: allowing al Assad and his cronies to maintain their absolute grip on power," she said.

Housecarl · May 17, 2011

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http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0518/1224297220718.html

The Irish Times - Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Clashes in Syrian cities as rallies held in streets
MICHAEL JANSEN

DEMONSTRATIONS REPORTEDLY erupted overnight in the Syrian cities of Homs and Hama and a Damascus suburb. On the campus of Aleppo University, security agents wielding batons were said to have broken up a gathering yesterday of 2,000 students.

Residents fleeing across the border into Lebanon from Tal Kalakh just inside Syria reported shelling of the town, executions, and decomposing bodies in the streets.

Activists have said at least 16 people, eight members of the same family, have been killed recently in Tal Kalakh, a town of 70,000, while the army announced it had captured or killed “armed criminals” at Tal Kalakh and three soldiers had died in action.

Anti-regime Facebook administrators called for a general strike today in Syria. The Sweden-based Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page displayed an image of a child saying, “Father, your participation in the strike is a guarantee of my future.” Although the government has announced the beginning of a “national dialogue”, demonstrators have adopted the slogan, “No dialogue until [President] Bashar al-Assad goes.”

Mustafa Osso – head of the Kurdish Organisation for the Defence of Human Rights and Public Freedoms in Syria – said on Monday about 3,000 rallied in the industrial city of Homs, a hub of unrest. “There were no reports of shooting or tear gas being used,” he stated, indicating that troops had obeyed an order not to shoot issued last week by Dr Assad.

The National Organisation for Human Rights reported that 34 people were killed over five days in villages near Deraa, the southern town where protests began in mid- March. Ammar Qurabi, the organisation’s chairman, said five bodies had been found in the centre of Deraa, boosting the overall death toll to 850.

Residents of Deraa reported a mass grave holding 13 corpses discovered in farmland near the town. The grave was said to include the bodies of a 62-year-old man, Abdel Razaq Abdel Aziz Abazied, four of his sons, a woman and child. But an unidentified official at the interior ministry replied that such reports were “completely baseless” and argued these charges “came in the context of the campaign of provocation, slander and fabrication against Syria”. He said “an armed terrorist group” had fired on a police vehicle near Homs, killing two policemen and wounding an army officer and three others.

The Syrian news agency, Sana, reported Dr Assad held a meeting with a Deraa delegation and discussed the “positive atmosphere” created by “co-operation between the residents and the army”.

Although the town remains under firm control, tanks have been withdrawn to the outskirts, landline telephone connections restored and the curfew reduced.

Meanwhile, Washington condemned Damascus for permitting hundreds of Palestinians living in Syria to cross into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights during Naqba Day on Sunday, the anniversary of Israel’s establishment.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said, “It seems apparent to us [the breaching of the ceasefire line] is an effort to distract attention from the legitimate expression of protest by the Syrian people,” indicating the US regards the Palestinian protests to be illegitimate.

Housecarl · May 17, 2011

Posted for fair use.....
http://www.thenational.ae/news/worl...and-son-saif-over-attacks-on-libyan-civilians

War crimes court seeks arrest of Qaddafi and son Saif over attacks on Libyan civilians

Ferry Biedermann

May 17, 2011

THE HAGUE // The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court sought warrants yesterday for the arrest of the Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, his son and his brother-in-law for the brutal suppression of the uprising against his rule.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked the ICC's judges to approve arrest warrants for Col Qaddafi, Saif al Islam and the military intelligence chief Abdullah al Sanussi for crimes against humanity.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo said there was "so much strong evidence" against the Libyan leader, who "had total control" and "used the entire Libyan system to commit the crimes".

In a thinly veiled warning to countries such as Syria and Yemen, where anti-government protests have led to bloodshed, he said the move stood as an example to "other leaders who are thinking of using violence to gain or retain power". Without a UN Security Council resolution like the one covering Libya, however, the ICC has no authority to investigate those countries.

The prosecutor said: "The evidence shows that Muammar Qaddafi, personally, ordered attacks on unarmed Libyan civilians. His forces attacked Libyan civilians in their homes and in the public space, shot demonstrators with live ammunition, used heavy weaponry against participants in funeral processions and placed snipers to kill those leaving mosques after prayers."

He described Col Qaddafi's son Saif al Islam as the country's de facto prime minister and said that Mr Senussi was the leader's "right-hand man, the executioner". He also said the crimes were continuing and the investigation may lead to charges of war crimes.

Libya's deputy foreign minister, Khalid Kaim, said earlier in the day that his country would "not show any attention to the decision".

There was some hope internationally that the additional pressure on Col Qaddafi could further undermine his rule. Franco Frattini, the foreign minister of Italy, said before the announcement that "the hours of the Libyan regime are numbered".

Messages from the inner circle of Col Qaddafi's regime suggest that many of his former supporters are looking for a way out for their leader, he said.

Italy is part of the Nato-led coalition that is involved militarily in Libya.

Other European countries used the ICC's move to send a message to Col Qaddafi's remaining followers. "The request for these warrants is a reminder to all in Qaddafi's regime that crimes will not go unpunished and the reach of international justice will be long," said William Hague, the British foreign secretary.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo said it was the duty of the Libyan authorities to implement the arrest warrants when they are issued, and speculated: "I think they will do it."

The request for an arrest warrant against Col Qaddafi comes on the heels of a new truce offer from his camp. In talks with the UN envoy Abdulilah al Khattib, the regime said it would call a ceasefire with rebel forces if Nato first stopped its bombing campaign.

The government has announced ceasefires in the past, but none has materialised. At least one opposition leader rejected the latest offer.

The case against the Libyan leader had gained momentum in recent days, prosecutors said earlier. "During the past week the Office of the Prosecutor received several calls from high-level officials in Qaddafi's regime willing to provide information," the office announced last week.

Investigators visited 11 countries, interviewed more than 50 witnesses and examined 1,200 documents, prosecutors said, but they did not visit Libya itself.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo paid special tribute to the people of the region for their help with the investigations. "Arab people in different parts of the world are playing a key role in exposing the crimes. The fear is not paralysing them," he said.

A panel of pretrial judges may take weeks or months to decide whether to issue the arrest warrants. It may also request more information from the prosecutor before it issues its ruling.

It is only the second time in the international court's nine-year history that the prosecutor has sought the arrest of a ruling head of state. ICC judges issued the first warrant in 2009, against Omar al Bashir of Sudan over violence in Darfur. The court has so far been unable to effect his arrest.

steve graham · May 17, 2011

Housecarl, thank you so much for your continuing coverage.....you're the best!

Wow....I've never seen anyone so "on top" of a situation.....I have no idea how you do this, but I thank you....fantastic news gathering!

The Flying Dutchman · May 18, 2011

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Syrian leader to face EU sanctions as death toll climbs

ANDREW RETTMAN
Today @ 13:09 CET
http://euobserver.com/9/32354

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU countries have agreed to impose a visa ban and asset freeze on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, accused by dissidents of killing more than 1,000 people in recent weeks.

All 27 EU ambassadors in the Political and Security Committee (PSC) - a high-level EU forum for dealing with international crises - on Tuesday (17 May) evening endorsed a list of 10 more names, including the president himself, to be added to a previous sanctions register of 13 regime members.

The PSC also agreed a statement to be rubber-stamped by EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday threatening future financial sanctions.

"The EU is determined to take further measures without delay should the Syrian leadership choose not to swiftly change its current path," the draft communique says. The text mentions a block on new European Investment Bank lending to Syria, currently worth €1.3 billion. But the bank is legally obliged to honour existing contracts.

The measures have been tabled as an "a-point" in the Foreign Affairs Council, an agenda item normally agreed automatically at the start of the meeting.

But in an unusual move, the Syria a-point is to be held back until ministers have had a chance to speak out, creating the possibility of a last-minute u-turn.

"It leaves things open for a member state to row back on the PSC agreement," an EU diplomat said. The contact added that the same countries which earlier opposed sanctions on the president - Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Spain - continued to voice doubts on Tuesday.

"Usually when PSC ambassadors say 'Yes' that means 'Yes.' It happens very rarely that countries say they can't agree to an a-point," another EU diplomatic source noted.

Speaking from Damascus on Wednesday morning, Haytham al-Maleh, an 80-year old Syrian lawyer and human rights activist, told this website that the death toll is far higher than the 700-or-so figure quoted in most reports.

Al-Maleh is in hiding and has been unable to go home for the past four weeks for fear of being arrested.

"Al-Assad has already killed more than 1,000 people - this is what all my contacts tell me. I am collecting information by phone from all over the country," he said.

When informed about the latest EU decision, he added: "It helps us. We need more pressure from the UN, from the EU on the regime ... this is the only way, he [al-Assad] has to go."

For his part, al-Assad's cousin and regime financier Rami Makhlouf in a New York Times interview last week threatened regional "chaos" if al-Assad is pushed too far.

"What I'm saying is don't let us suffer, don't put a lot of pressure on the president, don't push Syria to do anything it is not happy to do ... We will sit here. We call it a fight until the end," he said, in words echoing the rhetoric of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya.

Syria has the capacity to cause instability in neigbouring Lebanon and to draw Iran and Israel into a wider conflict, taking the region back into the bloody days of the Lebanese civil war in the 1980s.

US and French diplomats have in off-the-record briefings in Brussels explained that Libya-type intervention in Syria is not an option due to strategic considerations.

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The Flying Dutchman · May 18, 2011

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Syrian president: Security forces made mistakes

18 May 2011, Wednesday / AP, BEIRUT
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-244319-syrian-president-security-forces-made-mistakes.html

Syria's president says the country's security forces have made mistakes during the uprising against his regime and that thousands of police officers are receiving new training.

Assad's comments were carried by the private Al-Watan daily on Wednesday. They came as a human rights activist said Syrian troops have used heavy machine-guns to bomb a neighborhood in the central city of Homs.

Mustafa Osso said the bombing of Bab Amr district took place early Wednesday.

Syria's top rights organization has said that the crackdown by Assad has killed more than 850 people since the protests erupted in mid-March.

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The Flying Dutchman · May 18, 2011

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Tunisia demands Libya stop cross-border shelling

May 18, 2011 01:49 PM (Last updated: May 18, 2011 01:49 PM) Reuters
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TUNIS/TRIPOLI: Tunisia threatened to report Libya to the U.N. Security Council if it fired into Tunisian territory again, after Libya's three-month-old conflict spilled beyond its borders.

Libyan rebels and a Tunisian security source said the head of Libya's National Oil Corporation had defected and fled to Tunisia, an act that if confirmed would be a major blow to Muammar Gaddafi's efforts to cling to power.

In the besieged city of Misrata, fighting flared up again after a lull, with a doctor saying that seven people had been wounded, most of them rebel fighters, in clashes on Tuesday with government forces.

Tunisia's state-run TAP news agency said the government would threaten Libya with diplomatic action over the "continuing firing of rockets by Libyan forces towards Tunisian territory."

"The Tunisian government views those acts as belligerent behaviour from the Libyan side who had pledged more than once to prevent its forces from firing in the direction of Tunisia and has failed to respect its undertakings," TAP quoted a foreign ministry source as saying.

On Tuesday at least four Russian-made Grad rockets fired from Libya landed inside Tunisia, according to a Reuters reporter at the scene.

Rocket attacks by government troops forced Libyan rebels to pull back briefly from the Dehiba-Wazin border crossing, but they ended the day in control of it despite a sustained bombardment that killed three rebels and wounded several.

Border Reopens

A Reuters reporter at the crossing on Wednesday morning said the shelling had stopped and the border had reopened, allowing a steady flow of traffic through.

Farmers were crossing over from Libya to take livestock to a market on the Tunisian side of the border, while a Tunisian military helicopter was making passes around the border area.

The border crossing is a lifeline for rebels on the western front of Libya's conflict, allowing food, medicine and fuel to reach rebel-held towns on the mountain plateau, and ambulances to take casualties to hospital in Tunisia.

In eastern Libya, rebels hold Benghazi and a swathe of oil-producing territory, helped by a NATO bombing campaign authorised at the United Nations to protect civilians opposed to Gaddafi.

But a military victory for the rebels seems a distant prospect and many pin their hopes on a collapse of central power in Tripoli driven by disaffection and defections.

National oil chief Shokri Ghanem, 68, is an internationally respected technocrat who is credited with liberalising Libya's economy and energy sector. He is also a former prime minister.

A Libyan government official said there was no sign he had defected, but a Tunisian security source told Reuters on Tuesday "he is in a hotel with a group of other Libyan officials" in southern Tunisia.

Rebel finance and oil minister Ali Tarhouni told Reuters on a visit to Qatar that he understood Ghanem had left his post.

If he has left the country, it could worsen fuel shortages which have been causing long queues at petrol stations and anger among ordinary people.

Ghanem was heavily involved in efforts to relieve the shortages by bringing in gasoline in ways that circumvented sanctions, and by increasing domestic refining.

Canada, whose warplanes are taking part in NATO's air strikes in Libya, said on Tuesday it had expelled five diplomats from Libya's embassy in the capital, Ottawa, for what it said were "inappropriate" activities.

It did not give details on what the diplomats had been doing, and said it was not severing diplomatic relations.

In Misrata, the only rebel-held city in western Libya, a hospital doctor said seven people were killed in fighting between rebels and besieging government forces. Most of the dead were rebels killed on the eastern and western edges of the city.

Libyan state television said its forces had hit a NATO warship that was shelling targets in western Misrata, but a NATO official denied the report as "a totally fabricated allegation".

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Mi...stop-cross-border-shelling.ashx#ixzz1MiNYtCOv
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

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The Flying Dutchman · May 18, 2011

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russia: Nuclear muscle flexed on Victory Day

http://www.mmorning.com/ArticleC.asp?Article=9196&CategoryID=7

President Dimitri Medvedev (left) and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and war veterans watching the parade in Moscow on May 9 to celebrate Victory Day in commemoration of the end of World War II

Some 20,000 soldiers and Russias most advanced missiles rumbled across Red Square on Monday, May 9 in a parade marking victory in World War II and reinforcing the countrys belief in its Soviet-era might.

But the lustre of the annual show of force was somewhat dimmed by renewed doubts about the wisdom of staging the costly exhibition and reports that Islamists were planning to undermine the celebration by staging new attacks.

A well-rehearsed 1,500-piece orchestra set the tone to the procession by booming out festive marches as President Dimitir Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin watched from a podium in front of Lenin’s mausoleum.

“The further these years are removed, the deeper our understanding of the heroic exploits of our military generation — its bravery, willpower and self-sacrifice,” Medvedev said in remarks broadcast live across the nation.

“You decided the fate of World War II,” he told the small group of veterans in attendance. “Today we mark the holiest of our holidays and thank you for our freedom.”

Medvedev and Putin — both being watched under a political microscope with presidential elections less than a year away — sat side by side and exchanged a few comments and soldiers goose-stepped across the polished cobblestone.

Putin did not address the gathering while Medvedev ended the hour-long ceremony by spending a few minutes shaking hands with some of Russia’s most elite troops.

The 66th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany began with jets seeding the clouds around Moscow to stave off any rain and culminated in a display of the latest line of Topol-M missiles — the pride of Russia’s nuclear defences.

The Kremlin resumed the tradition of rolling out its most feared weapons for the annual event in 2008 at a time of renewed confidence that coincided with a booming economy and a sense of Russia having recaptured its global prestige.

Those parades continued through the subsequent global financial crisis and Russia’s cautious recovery from it has left some wondering whether the scale of the festivities was still worth the price.

Medvedev brushed aside those sceptics as he downed an obligatory shot of vodka and shared a simple meal of buckwheat with a small group of World War II veterans on the eve of the parade.

“Parades play an enormous instructional role in our country,” the Russian president noted.

Medvedev has burnished a reformist image but has had more trouble winning the trust of Russia’s more nationalist forces as he ponders whether to seek re-election in polls scheduled for March.

His term has been hurt by periodic attacks from Islamists and persistent rumours that his predecessor and mentor Putin not only wielded the real power but also harboured plans of returning to the Kremlin next year.

Security issues returned to the forefront in January when a suicide bomber killed 37 people at a Moscow airport. The warlord who claimed responsibility has vowed to carry out fresh strikes in the weeks and months to come.

Police said they may have foiled one such attack over the <au 7-8 weekend when they staged a security sweep in the previously peaceful southern city of Astrakhan. One suspected militant was killed and dozens more were arrested.

News reports said several policemen came under fire in the Caspian Sea city after the suspects’ arrest. But a security source told RIA Novosti that the incident was being treated as a case of “hooliganism”.

At least five people — including two policemen — were also reported killed in North Caucasus violence that erupted in the hours preceding the parade.

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The Flying Dutchman · May 18, 2011

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mexico: Thousands march in silence to protest against violence

http://www.mmorning.com/ArticleC.asp?Article=9197&CategoryID=7

Thousands marching in Mexico City during the last stage of a four-day silent protest at drug-related violence that has left thousands dead

Thousands of people marched in silence through central Mexico City on May 8 to protest against drug violence that has left tens of thousands dead, and the military strategy that has failed to stop it.

Poet and journalist Javier Sicilia organized the march “for peace, security and justice” following the brutal death of his son in March.
Organizers said ahead of the event they expected more than 50,000 people around the capital’s main Zocalo Square, while police counted around 24,000 protesters at midday.

Participants expressed frustration with growing violence between warring drug gangs and security forces that left more than 34,600 dead between December 2006 and December 2010 alone, according to official figures. Several thousand more have died since then, according to the media.
They also called for the government of President Felipe Calderon to withdraw some 50,000 troops deployed across the country under a crackdown on the cartels since 2006.

“We want to give the faces, names, dates and stories of each of the 40,000 victims that this mortifying strategy has left behind,” Sicilia said at the start of the march.

“We need to sit around a table and think of a new strategy because it has been a failure up to now.”

Sicilia called the protest after his son and six others were found killed and tortured near the city of Cuernavaca, some 90 kilometers from the capital. The government blamed the killings on drug gang members.

The poet started marching to Mexico City with several hundred people from Cuernavaca on May 5, while many other Mexican cities also planned to hold protests on May 8.

Protesters included crime victims, many families as well as illegal immigrants who are often the targets of kidnappings and killings by criminal gangs.

The protest movement, which does not seek political support, plans to organize an anti-violence pact to be signed in June in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s most deadly city, located on the US border, where more than 3,000 were killed in 2010.

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The Flying Dutchman · May 18, 2011

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01:05 17.05.11

Lebanon is sitting on a Hezbollah powder keg

The Lebanese missile crisis, with missiles continually increasing in number and quality, has developed gradually and has been repeatedly ignored by Israel's leaders.

By Moshe Arens
http://www.haaretz.com/print-editio...h-powder-keg-1.362216?localLinksEnabled=false

The riots in Syria have focused attention in Israel on our neighbors to the north - Syria and Lebanon - and especially on Hezbollah, which has deployed around 50,000 rockets in Lebanon that can reach every corner of Israel and threaten its entire civilian population. If these rockets are launched they could cause incalculable damage.

This constant threat hanging over Israel's civilian population decisively affects Israel's strategic position; it's a tiebreaker. For many years, a fundamental element of Israel's defense doctrine was that the civilian population's safety would be assured in time of war. With the deployment of these rockets in Lebanon, this has ceased to be the case.

Hezbollah guerrillas preparing Katyusha rockets at their base near the Lebanese-Israeli border in south Lebanon, May 22, 2001.

U.S. President John F. Kennedy faced a similar situation in September 1962, when American U-2 reconnaissance planes discovered that Soviet ballistic missiles had been deployed in Cuba. It was clear to Kennedy that the strategic balance between the United States and Soviet Union would be substantially altered if Soviet missiles were pointed at the United States from Cuba. In what has come to be known as the Cuban missile crisis, U.S. threats to act forcefully resolved the crisis, and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev ordered the missiles shipped back to the Soviet Union.

The Lebanese missile crisis, with missiles continually increasing in number and quality, has developed gradually and has been repeatedly ignored by Israel's leaders. But now this intolerable situation must be faced. It's a threat that will have to be removed. The threat to Israel's civilian population has grown, and the missiles are an escalation of the terror war against Israel. There is a great danger to Israel.

This situation should also be of concern to the Lebanese people. Israeli military action to destroy Hezbollah's missiles - something that seems bound to happen sooner or later - would bring considerable destruction to Lebanon. In other words, as long as these rockets are in Hezbollah's hands, all Lebanon is sitting on a powder keg. Hezbollah, while posing as Lebanon's defender, is actually creating a grave danger for that country and its people.

Saad Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister who was recently deposed by Hezbollah's political maneuvers, said last week in Beirut that "Hezbollah's weapons have become a national problem that needs a national solution."

Obviously, he was voicing the concern that Hezbollah is using its weapons to bolster its political position in Lebanon and to murder its political opponents. In this way it is subverting the Lebanese political system.

But he should realize that the danger of these weapons goes far beyond that. Since the rockets are a danger to Israel's civilian population and must be removed, they create a physical danger for Lebanon and the Lebanese people. It is important that the people of Lebanon understand this and bring about the removal of the rockets deployed by Hezbollah all over Lebanon.

To this end, Lebanon needs international political support. One might expect the UN Security Council to pass the necessary resolution to achieve this. But Lebanon, controlled by Hezbollah, is now a member of the Security Council. Hopefully, U.S. President Barack Obama is giving thought to this explosive situation.

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The Flying Dutchman · May 18, 2011

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Jonathan Cook: Is Israel at a Strategic Dead End as Palestinian “Arab Spring” Arrives?
May 19, 2011

The Palestinian “Arab Spring” is arriving and Israel has no political strategy to deal with it.
Instead, Israel used the only weapon in its current arsenal—brute force.

By Jonathan Cook
By arrangement with Alternet.Org.
http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2701/jonathan_cook_is_israel_at_a_s/

They are extraordinary scenes. Film shot on mobile phones captured the moment on Sunday when at least 1,000 Palestinian refugees marched across no-man’s land to one of the most heavily protected borders in the world, the one separating Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Waving Palestinian flags, the marchers braved a minefield, then tore down a series of fences, allowing more than 100 to run into Israeli-controlled territory. As they embraced Druze villagers on the other side, voices could be heard saying: “This is what liberation looks like.”

The scenes of Palestinian defiance on Israel’s borders will fuel the imaginations of Palestinians everywhere to start thinking the impossible—just as the Tahrir Square protests galvanised Egyptians into believing they could remove their dictator.
Unlike previous years, this Nakba Day was not simply a commemoration of the catastrophe that befell the Palestinians in 1948, when their homeland was forcibly reinvented as the Jewish state. It briefly reminded Palestinians that, despite their long-enforced dispersion, they still have the potential to forge a common struggle against Israel.

As Israel violently cracked down on Sunday’s protests on many fronts—in the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem and on the borders with Syria and Lebanon—it looked less like a military superpower and more like the proverbial boy with his finger in the dam.

The Palestinian “Arab Spring” is arriving and Israel has no diplomatic or political strategy to deal with it. Instead on Sunday, Israel used the only weapon in its current arsenal—brute force—against unarmed demonstrators.

Along the northern borders, at least 14 protesters were killed and dozens wounded, both at Majdal Shams in the Golan and near Maroun al-Ras in Lebanon.

In Gaza, a teenager was shot dead and more than 100 other demonstrators wounded as they massed at crossing points. At Qalandiya, the main checkpoint Israel created to bar West Bank Palestinians from reaching Jerusalem, at least 40 protesters were badly injured. There were clashes in major West Bank towns too.

And inside Israel, the country’s Palestinian minority took their own Nakba march for the first time into the heart of Israel, waving Palestinian flags in Jaffa, the once-famous Palestinian city that has been transformed since 1948 into a minor suburb of Tel Aviv.

With characteristic obtuseness, Israel’s leaders identified Iranian “fingerprints” on the day’s events—as though Palestinians lacked enough grievances of their own to initiate protests.

But, in truth, Israeli intelligence has warned for months that mass demonstrations of this kind were inevitable, stoked by the intransigence of Israel’s right-wing government in the face of both Washington’s renewed interest in creating a Palestinian state and of the Arab Spring’s mood of “change is possible”.

Following in the footsteps of Egyptian and Tunisian demonstrators, ordinary Palestinians used the new social media to organize and coordinate their defiance—in their case challenging the walls, fences and checkpoints Israel has erected everywhere to separate them. Twitter, not Tehran, was the guiding hand behind these demonstrations.

Although the protests are not yet a third intifada, they hint at what may be coming. Or, as one senior Israeli commander warned, they looked ominously like a “warm-up” for September, when the newly unified Palestinian leadership is threatening to defy Israel and the United States and seek recognition at the United Nations of Palestinian statehood inside the 1967 borders.

Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, alluded to similar concerns when he cautioned: “We are just at the start of this matter and it could be that we’ll face far more complex challenges.”

There are several lessons, none of them comfortable, for Israel to draw from the weekend’s clashes.

The first is that the Arab Spring cannot be dealt with simply by battening down the hatches. The upheavals facing Israel’s Arab neighbors mean these regimes no longer have the legitimacy to decide their own Palestinian populations’ fates according to narrow self-interest.

Just as the post-Mubarak government in Egypt is now easing rather than enforcing the blockade on Gaza, the Syrian regime’s precarious position makes it far less able or willing to restrain, let alone shoot at, Palestinian demonstrators massing on Israel’s borders.

The second is that Palestinians have absorbed the meaning of the recent reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. In establishing a unity government, the two rival factions have belatedly realized that they cannot make headway against Israel as long as they are politically and geographically divided.

Ordinary Palestinians are drawing the same conclusion: in the face of tanks and fighter jets, Palestinian strength lies in a unified national liberation movement that refuses to be defined by Israel’s policies of fragmentation.

The third lesson is that Israel has relied on relative quiet on its borders to enforce the occupations of the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza. The peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, in particular, have allowed the Israeli army to divert its energies into controlling the Palestinians under its rule.

But the question is whether Israel has the manpower to deal with coordinated and sustained Palestinian revolts on multiple fronts. Can it withstand such pressure without the resort to mass slaughter of unarmed Palestinian protesters?

The fourth is that the Palestinian refugees are not likely to remain quiet if their interests are sidelined by Israel or by a Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations in September that fails to address their concerns.

The protesters in Syria and Lebanon showed that they will not be pushed to the margins of the Palestinian Arab Spring. That message will not be lost on either Hamas or Fatah as they begin negotiations to develop a shared strategy over the next few months.

And the fifth lesson is that the scenes of Palestinian defiance on Israel’s borders will fuel the imaginations of Palestinians everywhere to start thinking the impossible—just as the Tahrir Square protests galvanised Egyptians into believing they could remove their dictator.

Israel is in a diplomatic and strategic dead end. This weekend it may have got its first taste of the likely future.

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The Flying Dutchman · May 18, 2011

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In Coming Years Israel Could Face Problems Threatening its Existence

Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Marvin Olasky, Editor in Chief, WORLD Magazine
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/israe...-face-problems-threatening-its-existence.html

(WNS) -- The situation of Israel is once again heading toward extreme peril. In 1967 Israel took on the forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria and routed all three. Since then suicide bombers and harassing endeavors from Hamas and Hezbollah have taken their toll physically and psychologically, but Israel’s existence has not been threatened. Now, the past 44 years are starting to seem downright peaceful in comparison with what likely lies ahead.

On May 15 Israel Defense Forces generally shot at the legs of hundreds of invading protesters at the country’s borders with Syria and Lebanon. Many of the demonstrators were wounded and some died. IDF gunfire killed at least one Syrian. Along the Lebanon border somewhere between three and 10 people died at the hands of either the IDF or the Lebanese Armed Forces. (Reports conflict.)

The Jerusalem Post worried that “As demonstrations like these gain momentum ahead of the planned declaration of statehood by the Palestinians in September, this type of protest could become a common occurrence along Israel’s various borders.” The Associated Press reported that Palestinian activists are calling the incursions on Sunday “a preview of new tactics to pressureIsrael and win world support for statehood: Masses of marchers, galvanized by the Arab Spring and brought together by Facebook.”

But that’s the least of Israel’s problems. It now appears that the greatest beneficiaries of the Cairo demonstrations that brought down an authoritarian dictator may be the totalitarian dictators of the Muslim Brotherhood. They are strongly anti-Israel and, if Israel takes action against Gaza terrorists, will pressure a reluctant army to come to the support of Hamas. The Syrian government is also likely to intensify anti-Israel words and deeds as a way to shift attention from its own failings.

And the biggest problem for Israel, of course, may be The Bomb: Iran may not be able to go as fast as it hoped and some expected, but whether Tehran’s fanatics have its nuclear weapons in one year or five, the danger will be extreme, barring regime change or some military action. The United States lived through four decades of nuclear-tipped Cold War with the Soviet Union because Russian leaders, without the expectation of an afterlife, did not want to kill Americans and die. Some Muslim leaders may embrace killing Israel and dying.

What to look for in the next few months? Austin, Texas-based Stratfor—”the private CIA”—says we should watch the reconciliation process between Hamas and Fatah, watch the reaction of Hezbollah, and watch the actions of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. I’d add, “watch and pray.”

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The Flying Dutchman · May 18, 2011

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Peace prospects bleak for Netanyahu's U.S. visit

By Jeffrey Heller Jeffrey Heller – 1 hr 26 mins ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110518/ts_nm/us_palestinians_israel_usa

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes to Washington on Friday to rally opposition to a Palestinian bid for U.N. recognition of statehood.

There is little indication the right-wing leader will, or can, offer new peacemaking ideas to persuade Palestinians not to take a detour at the U.N. General Assembly in September around the brick wall that the U.S. peace efforts have run into.

A unity deal between Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement and the Islamist group Hamas has further dampened chances of a breakthrough. The accord signed this month, dealt a "tremendous blow" to peace, Netanyahu said.

In the run-up to the five-day visit, which begins with talks with President Barack Obama on Friday, Netanyahu made clear he would not negotiate with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas, whose founding charter calls for Israel's destruction.

Adding to a cloudy outlook, aides to Obama, who have watched an "Arab spring" blossom and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations freeze soon after they resumed eight months ago, said the president had no plans to roll out a new initiative.

The U.S. capital will be Netanyahu's latest stop, after visits to Germany, France, Britain and the Czech Republic, in a diplomatic push against unilateral Palestinian steps to establish a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

He will meet Obama, who opposes the Palestinians' U.N. move, on the morning after the president delivers a speech on the Middle East that is widely expected to focus on the political upheaval sweeping the Arab world.

Speaking on Tuesday, Obama said "despite the many changes -- or perhaps because of the many changes that are taking place in the region -- it's more vital than ever that both Israelis and Palestinians find a way to get back to the table."

Netanyahu has voiced concern over the Arab unrest, saying it could bolster Iran's influence in the region as it pursues a nuclear program that Israel calls a threat to its existence.

Iran denies Western accusations it seeks nuclear weapons and says its program has only peaceful civilian aims.

POLITICAL RISK

Putting pressure on Netanyahu, who will address the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC on Monday and a joint meeting of Congress on Tuesday at the invitation of his Republican supporters, could be politically risky for Obama as he seeks reelection in 2012.

Obama has already had strained relations with Netanyahu over Israeli settlement building, cited by Palestinians as the reason they abandoned the peace talks. He will make his own speech on Sunday to AIPAC's annual assembly, a forum where U.S. politicians usually voice strong support for Israel.

"(Netanyahu) will tell the world, 'why are you rushing (to recognize a Palestinian state) in September, when you won't know until January what (Palestinian) government will be elected,'" Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, a member of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, said on Wednesday.

Israel says its critics have an "automatic majority" in the General Assembly and a statehood vote would pass easily, though it is trying to persuade key players to oppose the move.

While Israeli military occupation of the West Bank would continue after the vote, Abbas said this week that U.N. recognition would pave the way for Palestinians to pursue claims against Israel at the United Nations and the World Court.

In a speech to parliament on Monday widely seen as a dress rehearsal for his Congressional address, Netanyahu hinted at flexibility on territorial issues should the Palestinians drop their rejection to his opening demands -- primarily a call to recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.

He spoke of "painful concessions" involving "tracts of our homeland," a reference to the occupied West Bank to which many settlers stake a Biblical right.

Angering Likud legislators and settler leaders, Netanyahu also said Israel would retain settlement blocs in any future peace deal -- seeming to signal he was prepared for smaller, isolated settlements to go.

Some political commentators were skeptical, saying the comments, which Netanyahu said reflected a broad, national consensus, were a tactical move to avoid any accusations of intransigence as he prepared for his high-profile U.S. visit.

"No European or American leader would swoon with excitement on hearing Netanyahu's willingness to give up isolated settlements. They probably wouldn't even believe him," columnist Yossi Verter wrote in the left-wing Haaretz newspaper.

A game-changer could be any acceptance by Netanyahu of the concept of a Palestinian state based on the frontiers that existed before Israel captured the West Bank in a 1967 war.

His predecessor, Ehud Olmert, unsuccessfully negotiated with Abbas along those lines, envisaging an Israeli pullout from almost all of the West Bank and swapping territory in Israel for settlement blocs.

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The Flying Dutchman · May 18, 2011

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Israel warned: 'Blast Hezbollah missiles'

Published: May 18, 2011 at 10:33 AM
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special...-Blast-Hezbollah-missiles/UPI-72041305729229/

TEL AVIV, Israel, May 18 (UPI) -- Former Defense Minister Moshe Arens has warned that Israel's civilian population is a sitting duck in the face of the growing threat of massive missile attacks by Hezbollah, a menace he says "will have to be removed."

He charged that this missile crisis "has been repeatedly ignored by Israel's leaders" but, with Hezbollah currently deploying an estimated 50,000 missiles and rockets -- by Israeli count -- in Lebanon, "this intolerable situation must be faced.

"It's a threat that will have to be removed," Arens, a right-wing hawk, declared in a commentary published Tuesday by the liberal daily Haaretz.

In what appeared to be a call for pre-emptive strikes against Hezbollah's missiles, which he said "can reach every corner of Israel and threaten its entire civilian population, Arens said, "If these rockets are launched they could cause incalculable damage."

His allegation that recent governments had failed to take action echoed charges made by military analysts and commentators in recent months as it became clear the Jewish state remains highly vulnerable to missile attack despite a five-year drive to develop effective defensive systems.

The military has sought to calm these growing fears of an unprecedented and probably sustained bombardment of the Israeli home front if the Jewish state goes to war against Hezbollah once more following an inconclusive conflict in 2006.

The air force has allowed the media for the first time into the command center for its Arrow-2 long-range, high-altitude missile interceptor designed to shoot down Iran's ballistic Shehab-3b weapons to show off its capabilities.

But the danger Israel faces from Hezbollah comes from short-range systems and here Israel remains seriously exposed despite the recent deployment of the first Iron Dome batteries designed to counter such weapons.

Much was made of Iron Dome downing eight out of nine Grad-type rockets fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip in March. But the military admits that it may not be able to cope effectively with mass salvoes of rockets.

On top of that, the Home Front Command admitted April 26 that because of a lack of state funding it has only been able to supply gas masks to 31 percent of the population of 7 million.

It was the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 that gave Israelis an idea of what is now confronting them. Hezbollah unleashed nearly 4,000 missiles and rockets -- around 120 a day -- into northern Israel. It was the worst bombardment Israel has suffered since the state was proclaimed in 1948.

Arens, three times defense minister between 1983 and 1999, likened Israel's current situation with the 1962 Cuban missile crisis that faced President John F. Kennedy.

"This constant threat hanging over Israel's civil population decisively affects Israel's strategic position," Arens wrote.

"For many years, a fundamental element of Israel's defense doctrine was that the civilian population's safety would be assured in time of war. With the deployment of these rockets in Lebanon, this has ceased to be the case."

Arens didn't specify how Israel should eliminate these weapons, which analysts say could allow Hezbollah to hammer the country for up to two months firing more than 200 a day.

But Israel has threatened to launch pre-emptive air strikes against Iran, which arms and funds Hezbollah, to knock out key installations in its nuclear program.

Airstrikes of the magnitude required to hit so many Hezbollah launch sites and depots with precision-guided weapons would be immeasurably easier than complex, long-range operations against Iran.

But the danger of hitting Hezbollah in such a manner is that the Shiite guerrillas would respond by firing their missiles, no doubt inflicting heavy casualties, and that could ultimately involve the Iranians as well.

Arens indicated that Lebanon, which has no state control over Hezbollah, would suffer heavily if Israel took pre-emptive action.

"This situation should also be of concern to the Lebanese people," he said.

"Israeli military action to destroy Hezbollah's missiles -- something that seems bound to happen sooner or later – would bring considerable destruction to Lebanon.

"In other words, as long as these rockets are in Hezbollah's hands, all Lebanon is sitting on a powder keg. Hezbollah, while posing as Lebanon's defender, is actually creating a grave danger for that country and its people."

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special...ah-missiles/UPI-72041305729229/#ixzz1MiWGHJS6

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The Flying Dutchman · May 18, 2011

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Syria denies discovery of mass grave in Daraa

May 18, 2011
http://www.newkerala.com/news/world/fullnews-211922.html

DAMASCUS, SYRIA : The Syrian government on Tuesday denied as "completely baseless" the reports of the discovery of a mass grave in Daraa, the state-run Sana news agency reported.

The Interior Ministry said that the false information was the product of the incitement campaign launched against Syria in a continuing attempt to undermine its stability and security.

According to witnesses, villagers near Daraa reportedly unearthed 13 bodies from a mass grave including those of children and a woman. The government denied the information and remarked that order has been gradually restored in the city.

As reports of unrest continue, the Syrian government launched on Tuesday a national campaign for supporting the families of those who were injured during the latest series of anti-government demonstrations.

The campaign will last all year and will cover all Syrian provinces where peaceful protests continue despite government efforts to disrupt them. Last week, Human Rights Watch joined the calls on Syria to end its violent crackdown on protesters.

According to Human Rights Watch, Syria's security forces have killed some 700 people since demonstrations began on March 16. More than 100 protesters were killed on April 22 and 23 alone, and at least several thousand detained.

On Monday, the European Council adopted a regulation that provides for an embargo on exports to Syria of arms and equipment that could be used for internal repression, as well as a visa ban and an assets freeze for 13 persons responsible for the violent repression.

Protesters have been demanding the ouster of President al-Assad, who took over the post from his father Hafez al-Assad in 2000, and calling for greater freedoms. The country has been ruled by the Baath Party since 1963.

--BNO News

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The Flying Dutchman · May 18, 2011

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Calls for Strikes in Syria Largely Ignored, Crackdown Continues

VOA News May 18, 2011
http://www.voanews.com/english/news...ly-Ignored-Crackdown-Continues-122147019.html

Calls for strikes in Syria were largely ignored Wednesday for fear of government retaliation, as Syria's deadly crackdown on the opposition intensified across the country.

Syrian activists called for a nationwide general strike in hopes of putting more pressure on the government of President Bashar al-Assad. But schools, shops and other businesses stayed open in the capital, Damascus, and other cities.

Residents in Homs and Damascus told reporters they would not strike and risk harsh government punishment.

Meanwhile, witnesses say government troops continued with house-to-house raids and shelling in the Damascus suburb of Douma, to Nawa in the south and Talkalakh in the west.

Talkalakh has faced a brutal crackdown during the last few days, and activists say security forces there have killed 27 people since last week.

Activists say more than 850 civilians have been killed across the country since mid-March when protesters began calling for Assad's resignation. Authorities have arrested at least 7,000 people as part of the crackdown.

The Obama administration and the European Union Tuesday vowed to take more steps in the coming days to pressure Syria to halt its crackdown. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton discussed the situation in Washington.

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WAR 5/15th ***THE***PERFECT***STORM***

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WAR 5/15th THEPERFECTSTORM