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A bunch of contradictions we call US Foreign Policy

Letter From Tehran: In Washington's Cross-Hairs
by Norman Solomon
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0613-26.htm
Washington keeps condemning Iran's government and making thinly veiled threats. But in Iran, many people are in the midst of challenging the country's rulers, in the streets and at the ballot box.

The June 17 election for president could be a turning point or a hollow spectacle -- no one knows which -- but the Bush administration is eagerly trashing the whole thing. ''The United States has not waited for the first ballot to be cast before dismissing Iran's presidential election as rigged,'' Agence France Presse reported over the weekend.



But Iran's election is not rigged. There is a fierce electioneering battle underway here, with some significant differences between candidates. Meanwhile, hindered rather than helped by the bellicose statements from Washington, courageous Iranian activists have begun a new wave of actions against the status quo of theocracy.

On June 12, in front of the University of Tehran, nearly a hundred courageous women sat down to demonstrate for human rights in a society where women literally and figuratively are compelled to sit at the back of the bus. ''Stop Bias Against Women,'' said one handheld sign. ''Stop violation,'' said another. And: ''Freedom.''

Across the wide vehicle-choked street, several hundred Iranian men and women of all ages quickly gathered to augment the demonstration, one of the only such public protests in recent years. ''Political prisoners should be free,'' they chanted. A sign declared: ''First Democracy, Then We Will Continue Living.''

Some of the Iranian people who most strongly oppose the government's theocracy are boycotting the election. Others will vote, primarily for Mostafa Moin, the most popular candidate at the reform edge of the spectrum. He's in sync with the current president, Muhammad Khatami, ''termed out'' after eight years in office. Khatami wasn't able to do much to undermine the power of highly conservative clerics. Yet many young people, who have faced extremely puritanical strictures, say that life in Iran has become a bit less stifling in recent years.

The widely respected icon and hack Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, positioned midway on the spectrum of candidates, has been making noises that are not only somewhat conciliatory toward the United States but also indicate that he favors a move away from current restrictive pressures on media and personal freedom. He might just be blowing smoke to appeal to the youth vote, but he clearly realizes that many in the nation's large population of young people are especially eager for such changes.

Several of the eight presidential candidates are hardline theocrats. Whether their outlook will prevail after the ballots are cast June 17 (or in the runoff scheduled for two weeks later if no candidate gets more than 50 percent in the first round) remains to be seen. So does Iran's path after this historic crossroads that could lead to more fundamentalist repression or progress for elements of democracy in Iranian society.

As I've learned more about what's at stake here for Iranian people, I've become more angry at the deceptive rhetoric coming out of Washington. When President Bush and his aides call Iran's presidential election meaningless, it is wishful thinking. Some of the Bush neocons have the delusion that they can overthrow the Iranian regime with plenty of missiles. But the real means for displacing Iran's theocratic rulers with democratic processes are grassroots efforts of the sort taking root in Iran right now.

Evidently, the Bush administration would prefer that Iran's presidential election be won by the most reactionary theocratic forces in the country. Many of Bush's policymakers have a fantasy that involves seeing Iran changed with military force. And a more reasonable Iranian president could make Bush's agenda-setting for warfare more difficult.

We should remember that the Bush team has much nicer things to say about the far-more-repressive government in Saudi Arabia. And a few weeks ago, Laura Bush -- with her husband's endorsement -- proclaimed Egypt's sham election ''reforms'' to be an inspiration. Iran's election process is very flawed, but it includes real aspects of democracy. Compared to the current Saudi or Egyptian electoral setups, Iran is a beacon of hope for the region.

The Washington officials who warn of Iran's nuclear intentions fail to mention that the U.S. government has been encouraging the spread of nuclear power plants for five decades. From an environmental standpoint, Iran (like all nations) is ill-advised to develop nuclear power. But there's no evidence it is anywhere near developing nuclear weapons. And the Bush administration, with a solid track record of winking at Israel's hundreds of atomic bombs and lying about WMDs in Iraq, is in no credible position to lecture about Iranian nuclear activities.

Bombast from the U.S. government helps to strengthen the hand of hardline Iranian ''theologues.'' For them, a missile strike against Iran would be a godsend.

While in Washington there are fervent dreams of a military assault on Iran, many people in Iran have boundless dreams of creating a society that embraces human rights. Americans who want to help them should challenge the dominant rhetoric of American media and politics that is now setting an agenda for war on Iran.

P.S. There is no surprise here. We've done here for a very long time. Perhaps, the most fitting examples of US foreign policy as referred to foreign elections are the fixing the 1947 elections in Italy, removing a democratically elected very left-leaning Guatemalan president, attempts to remove a democratically elected left-leaning president of Venesuela, condemning 1984 elections in Nicaragua as "fixed and undemocratic", even though every election monitoring organization in the world had proclaimed Nicaraguan elections in 1984 as transparent, free, fair, and absolutely democratic.

Fear As Foreign Policy
by John Brown
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/200506 ... policy.php
The Bush administration's confused and confusing foreign policy seems hard to decipher—especially regarding headline-grabbing reports on Abu Ghraib prison and the Guantanamo detainee camp.

Some op-eds on the right argue that abuses did not take place there and that, if they did, they were minor and undertaken by isolated individuals, a few rotten apples. Left-leaning pundits blame what they consider horrors on Mr. Bush and the Pentagon. These interpretations, while on the surface dissimilar, share one central false assumption: that the president and his closest aides are embarrassed by Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo—so embarrassed that they don't want information about it to become public.



The fact of the matter, however, is that the administration, in its usual unsubtle way of dealing with foreigners, does want the outside world to be aware of what happens if you're "against us": you end up in prison or a detainee camp. Gruesome disclosures about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo serve a purpose: to create the kind of visceral fear abroad about the United States that the administration can exploit in its global "war on terror." It is far safer to be feared than loved, wrote Machiavelli, a far cry from the New Testament but what the Bible-reading president—a firm advocate of capital punishment—seems to ardently believe.

To be sure, at home the administration has done its utmost to disassociate itself from the nastier sides of its overseas detention centers. It has condemned independent accounts on the mistreatment of detainees, claiming, for example, that the Amnesty International report comparing Guantanamo to the Gulag was based on information obtained from—in Bush's words—"people who hate America." As for Abu Ghraib, the president and his aides have downplayed the extent of abuse that took place there when propagandizing the American public, saying its high officials shouldn't be held responsible for it. The subliminal message to domestic audiences is endlessly repeated: we, the Bush administration, didn't do anything wrong, because we are Americans, ipso facto good people who can do no wrong.

While the president keeps pounding into Americans about how he and we can do no wrong, his message to overseas audiences is precisely the opposite: that the United States is ready to do anything to prevail in a world it sees as infiltrated by America's mortal enemies. This was the message behind the bloody invasion of Iraq. It's also the signal underlying the threats of military action against Syria, Iran and North Korea. Years after 9/11, the Bush metaphor for his foreign policy—"us" vs. "them"—is still fully operational. America is in an all-out fight to the finish—against whom precisely has never been made clear—in which hazy ends justify brutal means.

All along, an essential tool of Mr. Bush's planetary struggle against a phantom enemy has been instilling fear of the United States among foreign populations—particularly in the Middle East. "Shock and awe," for example, was the kind of crude and inhumane psychological warfare much favored by the current administration. The military action in Fallujah is a more recent example of using fear to terrorize inhabitants. Displaying what it understands by "soft power," the administration supports an Iraqi state channel, Al-Iraqiya, which airs a violent television program, Terrorism in the Grip of Justice, a gory gallery of "insurgents confessing to a variety of alleged crimes and vices, including pornography and booze" (The Guardian, March 28). This macabre reality show, a post-Saddam Fear Factor produced to terrify viewers, was the brainchild of the commander of Iraq's anti-insurgent Wolf Brigade, Abul Waleed, who on television announced that "We will cut off the arms" of enemies (The Washington Post , May 24). The program has been criticized for violating the Geneva Conventions.

The caveman logic behind this widespread use of fear abroad by the administration is clear: since we, the United States of America, are the world's number one power, the biggest boy on the block, we don't intend to change our policies or our national character for the sake of those who question them. Dialogue or negotiations are out of the question. So, to neutralize those who inevitably and unjustifiably hate us for what we do or who we are, we must scare them to death, part of the process of eventually liquidating them.

How accidental is it, therefore, that horrifying pictures of Abu Ghraib were leaked by U.S. military personnel to the press, for "them" (our enemies) throughout the entire world to see? Or that Newsweek , using a Pentagon source, reported that the Koran was flushed down the toilet at Guantanamo? Or that television images of humiliated, roughed-up detainees at "Gitmo," widely displayed throughout the globe thanks to the Pentagon making the facility in part accessible to the world media, remind those who hate us what happens to them if they do?

As to whether the Bush administration's fear-as-foreign-policy has led to a better, safer world—instead of inciting more hate and disdain for the United States—the American soldiers killed in Iraq would give us the obvious answer, if only they were, as we all so dearly wish, still among us.

Is China's Rapid Economic Development Good for U.S.?

By GREG IP and NEIL KING JR.
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 27, 2005

Chinese oil company Cnooc Ltd.'s takeover bid for Unocal Corp. has brought into sharp relief two opposing American views on China's rapid economic development.

Many in Congress and the Pentagon think it may hasten an inevitable clash between the U.S. and China for economic and political leadership in the world. Many businessmen and academics, however, think China's growing wealth and international economic ties will make it more democratic and a force for global stability. Both have history on their side.

Brad DeLong, an economic historian at the University of California at Berkeley, sees a useful parallel in Britain's policy toward the emerging industrial colossus of the United States in the 19th century.

As late as the 1840s, he notes, the U.S. and Britain -- then the world's sole superpower -- came close to war over territorial disputes in the Pacific Northwest and the lucrative fur trade there. But in subsequent decades Britain chose to accommodate, rather than suppress, the U.S. By 1900, the notion of conflict was widely regarded "as silly, simply because the trade and economic connections were so tight and the political systems so compatible," Mr. DeLong said.

Similarly, he argues the world will be safer if the Chinese in time see the U.S. as having aided, rather than hampered, their economic development.

History, though, also offers counterexamples. Germany was catching up to Britain at the same time as was the U.S. but that relationship ended in war. Similarly, Japan was more open to imports and foreign investment before World War II than after, yet its rapid industrialization, especially later under a nationalist military government, ultimately made it a more formidable adversary of the U.S.

"There is no deterministic relation" between economic advance and war or peace, said Charles Maier, a Harvard University historian. Katherine Barbieri, a political scientist at the University of South Carolina, has found that countries that trade more with each other are actually more likely to fight, in part because deeper relationships generate more things to fight about. "Trade generates wealth but...certain countries may take that wealth and direct it to military purposes," she said. "We're giving China the power to build a very strong military."


China isn't easy to categorize. It has pursued market-based economic liberalization, foreign trade and foreign investment to lift its mostly poor, rural population out of poverty. It has a growing business elite, many with U.S. educations. Yet it remains a one-party state with a host of strategic friction points with the U.S.

Since President Nixon led the U.S. opening to China in the early 1970s, every administration has wavered between seeing Beijing as clear friend or potential foe. Some Asia specialists within the Bush administration now worry that the U.S. trade deficit with China, which topped $160 billion last year, cannot be sustained without political repercussions. There is also growing alarm, even within the more accommodating State Department, that China's pursuit of energy resources is propping up unsavory governments in places like Burma and Venezuela.

Some of the more alarming views of China's intentions will be laid out in a Pentagon assessment of China's military, which is expected to come out next week after a long delay and heated internal debate. Defense officials indicate that the report hasn't been notably toned down through the interagency vetting process, and will still contain a list of potential conflict scenarios that some in the White House and the State Department had hoped to strip out.

The widely differing views of China were vividly evident in 2001 when military and Wall Street officials came together at the World Trade Center in New York to share thoughts on the impact of China's economic and military rise. The organizer, Thomas Barnett, then a teacher at the U.S. Naval War College, hoped to bring the two constituencies closer together. Instead, their opposing views were reinforced.

Mr. Barnett, now a writer and consultant, says the Wall Street participants concluded, "'When I think of the security issues I realize how a strategic partnership with China is all the more imperative,' and the military guys would say, 'Wow, realizing all the economic competition, war with China is that much more inevitable.' "

Americans in general are likewise ambivalent. In an annual exercise, the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations last year conducted a poll asking the public to rate their degree of warmth or chilliness toward several countries on a scale from zero to 100. China earned an average score of 44 degrees, 10 degrees cooler than Mexico but just three degrees cooler than France and seven degrees warmer than Saudi Arabia.

Even "within China, there are people who think of China's expansionist prospects and military modernization, and see the country as being something like Japan or Germany pre-World War II," said Charles Wolf, an Asia scholar at the Rand Corp., a think tank in California. "Then there are others who put huge emphasis on the peaceful rise of China."

Mr. Barnett argues that most of Asia's economic success stories had, in effect, one-party government as China does today: Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan. Today, all are important trading partners and pro-U.S. Meantime, North Korea, which cut itself off from the world, is mired in poverty and one of the U.S.'s chief antagonists.

History suggests that while economic engagement helps prevent conflict between countries, by itself it isn't enough. During the 1920s, Japan had low import tariffs and its democratic, civilian government encouraged domestic alliances with European and American companies to hasten Japan's technological catch-up, said Hideaki Miyajima, a Japanese economic historian at Waseda University in Tokyo and a visiting scholar at Harvard. General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. operated Japan's only major automobile assembly plants. The heads of Japan's "zaibatsu" -- urban industrial conglomerates -- were pro-Western. Many sent their children to U.S. universities.

But these pro-Western elites were too weak to resist the forces of militarism and imperial expansion. Mr. Miyajima said the Depression fell disproportionately on Japan's large agricultural population, which was the military's power base. It increased economic inequality and fueled resentment of the traditional business elite.

In 1932, military-backed right-wing nationalists assassinated both Japan's prime minister and one of its leading business figures, Takuma Dan, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-educated manager of the Mitsui Group zaibatsu. In 1936-37, the military completed its takeover and began to limit imports and foreign investment in militarily strategic industries, such as steel, automobiles and machinery. GM and Ford were forced to leave; Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. took their place.

Germany's rivalry with Britain is similarly complex. In 1910, Norman Angell, a British economist, wrote in "The Great Illusion" that Europe's great powers had become so economically interdependent that war was unthinkable. Harvard's Mr. Maier says the hypothesis was plausible. Britain's old-line industrial elites saw Germany as a threat, while its emerging financial elites saw it as an opportunity. Within Germany, Ruhr-based heavy industry favored the army buildup and were more willing to risk conflict with Britain, while Hamburg-based trading interests were more pro-British, though supportive of the German fleet buildup.

British-Germany naval rivalry didn't lead to war itself, says Mr. Maier; rather, entangling alliances between Germany and Austria-Hungary on one hand and Britain and Russia on the other, were a more proximate cause.

The Wall Street Journal

A Cartel and Its Snakeoil
The Saudis claim to have huge oil reserves. Do they really?

BY WILLIAM TUCKER
Tuesday, June 28, 2005

In 1956, Shell Oil geologist M. King Hubbert discovered a grand illusion in the American oil industry. For tax purposes, he noted, American oil companies regularly delayed the declaration of new oil reserves by years and even decades. The result was a false impression that new oil was being found all the time. In fact, discoveries had peaked in 1936.

Based on this observation, Mr. Hubbert predicted that American oil production would peak in 1969. He was wrong by one year. We briefly produced 10 million barrels a day in 1970 but have never hit that level since. Even with the addition of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, American production has slipped to eight million barrels a day--which is why we import 60% of our oil.

Across the oil industry, the uneasy feeling is growing that world production may be approaching its own "Hubbert's Peak." The last major field yielding more than a million barrels a day was found in Mexico in 1976. New discoveries peaked in 1960, and production outside the Middle East reached its high point in 1997. Meanwhile world demand continues to accelerate by 3% a year. Indonesia, once a major exporter, now imports its oil.

Before an uneasy feeling grows into full-blown pessimism, however, one must consider the supposedly vast oil resources lying beneath Saudi Arabia. The Saudis possess 25% of the world's proven reserves. They routinely proclaim that, for at least the next 50 years, they could easily double their current output of 10 million barrels a day.


But is this true? Matthew R. Simmons, a Texas investment banker with a Harvard Business School degree and 20 years' experience in oil, has his doubts. In "Twilight in the Desert," Mr. Simmons argues that the Saudis may be deceiving the world and themselves. If only half of his claims prove to be true, we could be in for some nasty surprises.
First, Mr. Simmons notes, all Saudi claims exist behind a veil of secrecy. In 1982, the Saudi government took complete control of Aramco (the Arabian American Oil Co.) after four decades of co-ownership with a consortium of major oil companies. Since then Aramco has never released field-by-field figures for its oil production. In fact, no OPEC member is very forthcoming. The cartel sets production quotas according to a country's reserves, so each member has reason to exaggerate. Meanwhile, OPEC nations are constantly cheating one another by overproducing, so none wants to publish official statistics.

As a result, the world's most reliable source for OPEC production is a little company called Petrologistics, located over a grocery store in Geneva. Conrad Gerber, the principal, claims to have spies in every OPEC port. For all we know, Mr. Gerber is making up his numbers, but everyone--including the Paris-based International Energy Agency--takes him seriously, since OPEC produces nothing better.

The Saudis, for their part, obviously enjoy their role as producer of last resort and feel content to let everyone think that they have things under control. Yet as Mr. Simmons observes: "History has frequently shown that once secrecy envelops the culture of either a company or a country, those most surprised when the truth comes out are often the insiders who created the secrets in the first place."

Mr. Simmons became suspicious of Saudi claims after taking a guided tour of Aramco facilities in 2003. To penetrate the veil, he turned to the electronic library of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, which regularly publishes technical papers by field geologists. After downloading and studying more than 200 reports by Aramco personnel, Mr. Simmons came up with his own portrait of Saudi Arabia's oil resources. It is not a pretty picture.

Almost 90% of Saudi production comes from six giant fields, all of them discovered before 1967. The "king" of this grouping--the 2000-square-mile Ghawar field near the Persian Gulf--is the largest oil field in the world. But if Saudi geology follows the pattern found elsewhere, it is unlikely that any new fields lie nearby. Indeed, Aramco has prospected extensively outside the Ghawar region but found nothing of significance. In particular, the Arab D stratum--the source rock of the Ghawar field--has long since eroded in other parts of the Arabian Peninsula. The six major fields, having all produced at or near capacity for almost 40 years, are showing signs of age. All require extensive water injection to maintain their current flow.


Based on these observations, Mr. Simmons doubts that Aramco can increase its output to anywhere near the level it claims. In fact, he believes that Saudi production may have already peaked. Is he right?
Mr. Simmons's critics say that, by relying on technical papers, he has biased his survey, since geologists like to concentrate on problem wells the way that doctors focus on sick patients. Still, the experience in America and the rest of the world shows that oil fields don't last forever. Prudhoe Bay, which was producing 1.2 million barrels a day five years after being brought on line in 1976, is now down to less than 400,000.

The mystery of Saudi oil capacity bears an eerie resemblance to Saddam Hussein's apparent belief that his scientists had developed weapons of mass destruction. Who are the deceivers and who is the deceived? No one yet knows the answers. But at least Matthew Simmons is asking the questions.

The Iran War Buildup
by Michael Klare
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0722-20.htm
There is no evidence that President Bush has already made the decision to attack Iran if Tehran proceeds with uranium-enrichment activities viewed in Washington as precursors to the manufacture of nuclear munitions. Top Administration officials are known to have argued in favor of military action if Tehran goes ahead with these plans--a step considered more likely with the recent election of arch-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran's president--but Bush, so far as is known, has not yet made up his mind in the matter. One thing does appear certain, however: Bush has given the Defense Department approval to develop scenarios for such an attack and to undertake various preliminary actions. As was the case in 2002 regarding Iraq, the building blocks for an attack in Iran are beginning to be put into place.

We may never know exactly when President Bush made up his mind to invade Iraq--some analysts say the die was cast as early as November 2001; others claim it was not until October 2002--but whatever the case, it is beyond dispute that planning for the invasion was well advanced in July 2002, when British intelligence officials visited Washington and issued what has come to be known as the Downing Street memo, informing Prime Minister Tony Blair that war was nearly inevitable.

What these officials undoubtedly discovered--as was being reported in certain newspapers at the time--was that senior officers of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) in Tampa, Florida, had already been developing detailed scenarios for an invasion of Iraq and that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been deeply involved in these preparations. On July 5, 2002, for example, the New York Times revealed that "an American military planning document calls for air, land, and sea-based forces to attack Iraq from three directions--the north, south, and west." Further details of this document and other blueprints for war appeared in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. At the same time, moreover, the Pentagon reportedly stepped up its aerial and electronic surveillance of military forces in Iraq.



This record is worth revisiting because of the many parallels to the current situation. Just as Bush gave ambiguous signals about his intentions regarding Iraq in 2002--denying that a decision had been made to invade but never ruling it out--so, today, he is giving similar signals with respect to Iran. "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous," Bush declared in Belgium on February 22. He then added: "Having said that, all options are on the table." And, just as Bush's 2002 denials of an intent to invade Iraq were accompanied by intense preparations for just such an outcome, so, today, one can detect similar preparations for an attack on Iran.

Just what form such an attack might take has probably not yet been decided. Just as he considered several plans for an invasion of Iraq before settling on the plan described in the Times, Rumsfeld is no doubt considering a variety of options for action against Iran. These could range from a burst of air and missile attacks to a proxy war involving Iranian opposition militias or a full-scale US invasion. All have obvious advantages and disadvantages. An air and missile attack would undoubtedly destroy some key nuclear centers but could leave some hidden facilities intact; it would also leave the hated clerical regime in place. The use of proxy forces could also fail in this regard. An invasion might solve these problems but would place almost intolerable demands on the deeply over-stretched US Army.

It is these considerations, no doubt, that are preoccupying US military planners today. But while a final decision on these options may be put off for a time, the Defense Department cannot wait to make preparations for an assault if it expects to move swiftly once the President gives the go-ahead. Hence, it is taking steps now to prepare for the implementation of any conceivable plan.

The first step in such a process is to verify the location of possible targets in Iran and to assess the effectiveness of Iranian defenses. The identification of likely targets apparently began late last year, when the Central Intelligence Agency and US Special Operations Forces (SOF) began flying unmanned "Predator" spy planes over Iran and sending small reconnaissance teams directly into Iranian territory. These actions, first revealed by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker in January, are supposedly intended to pinpoint the location of hidden Iranian weapons facilities for possible attack by US air and ground forces. "The goal," Hersh explained, "is to identify and isolate three dozen, and perhaps more, such targets that could be destroyed by precision [air] strikes and short-term commando raids."

It is also probable, says military analyst William Arkin, that CENTCOM is probing Iran's air and shore defenses by sending electronic surveillance planes and submarines into--or just to the edge of--Iranian coastal areas. "I would be greatly surprised if they're not doing this," he said in an interview. "The intent would be to 'light up' Iranian radars and command/control facilities, so as to pinpoint their location and gauge their effectiveness." It was precisely this sort of aggressive probing that led to the collision between a US EP-3E electronic spy plane and a Chinese fighter over the South China Sea in April 2001.

As this information becomes available, it is no doubt being fed into the various "strategic concepts" and "strike packages" being developed by US strategists for possible action against Iran. That such efforts are indeed under way is confirmed by reports in the international press that Pentagon officials have met with their Israeli counterparts to discuss the possible participation of Israeli aircraft in some of these scenarios. Although no public acknowledgment of such talks has been made, Vice President Dick Cheney declared in January that "the Israelis might well decide to act first" if Iran proceeded with the development of nuclear weapons--obviously hinting that Washington would look with favor upon such a move.

There are also indications that the CIA and SOF officials have met with Iranian opposition forces--in particular, the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK)--to discuss their possible involvement in commando raids inside Iran or a full-scale proxy war. In one such report, Newsweek disclosed in February that the Bush Administration "is seeking to cull useful MEK members as operatives for use against Tehran." (Although the MEK is listed on the State Department's roster of terrorist groups, its forces are "gently treated" by the American troops guarding their compound in eastern Iraq, Newsweek revealed.)

Given the immense stress now being placed on US ground forces in Iraq, it is likely that the Pentagon's favored plan for military action in Iran involves some combination of airstrikes and the use of proxy forces like the MEK. But even a small-scale assault of this sort is likely to provoke retaliatory action by Iran--possibly entailing missile strikes on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf or covert aid to the insurgency in Iraq. This being the case, CENTCOM would also have to develop plans for a wide range of escalatory moves.

Repeating what was said at the outset, there is no evidence that President Bush has already made the decision to attack Iran. But there are many indications that planning for such a move is well under way--and if the record of Iraq (and other wars) teaches us anything, it is that such planning, once commenced, is very hard to turn around. Hence, we should not wait until after relations with Iran have reached the crisis point to advise against US military action. We should begin acting now, before the march to war becomes irreversible.

Mate

I got the message....change your oil softly and drive your vehicle with a gusto:)

Leo

There's more where that came from.

That is pretty sad when the foreign policy is equated to a tank.

Perhaps that just highlights my point.

results are obvious.

Come now Eugene.

I just appreciate a solid piece of engineering!

Good. I suggest starting a Military Pieces thread. It would be more suitable for "solid pieces of engineering". Don't you reckon?

Well, why not show off the instruments of US Foreign Policy on this aptly named thread.




In fact, here is a little special something, a Falcon...in case those Sukhoi's get uppity:





And if that can't do the job, then we have this little baby, a Raptor:



8) 8) 8)

Actually the SU-35 and especially S-37/SU-37 are already considered a superior aircraft to Raptor.

SU-35



S-37/SU-37
wings in forward-swept configuration



wings in backward-swept configuration



According to http://www.airforce-technology.com (http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/su37/:

The aircraft has demonstrated manoeuvres yet to be emulated by any western aircraft.

Eugene

Yes, Soviet/Russian equipment is always comparable on paper...except when it comes to actual fighting in the field.



Sorry, I'll believe it when I see it. I know better than to trust anything the Russians say about their military equipment. By the way, they typically rant and rave about not having their latest generation stuff face against the best of the West.

But...why the hell would anybody then buy from them if you know you're never getting their so called best?

Mate

What, you don't trust the Russian craftsmanship? Shame on you.
For the nation capable of stealing Leica camera from Germany, Concorde jet from France, A-bomb (and thousands upon thousands of book, film, music and software titles) from the United States and expensive ring from American businessman the sky's the limit.

Leo

For the life of me I just can't fathom them producing quality military products in bulk quanitities. You hit the nail on the head in alluding to their poor general development and production across every sector of their economy.

Their conceptual R&D might be formidable. It is their applied engineering that has always been suspect. Besides, the US puts hundreds of billions dollars a year into defense where they put some $11 - $20, if I remember correctly.

If they want to step it up in a tit for tat arms race, well, we all know how the last one ended.

Mate

Nowadays the only arms race they're engaged in is against their own oligarchs. Unequal battle of course, but highly entertaining, for I have no doubts that Russia will come to rue it. Ruing they're still occasionally capable of, but never learning.

Let them sell all the SUs they currently manufacture to China, they'll come to regret it, the same way they were assisting in Wehrmacht's revival since 1922 onwards and then paying in oceans of blood for it.

In purely military affairs there is only one country we should keep a close watch on - China. Russia's finished. It's still a major nuclear power, but nukes are for deterrent and mutual destruction (blackmail too), they cannot solve regional conflicts (which Russia is so fond of fomenting within its own borders and close proximity) and geopolitical problems. Technologically and logistically speaking Russia's a backwater. Still, we should never be too complacent against Russia or any other potential enemy.

Leo

It is a point of interest that China has to actually go to the Russians for advanced aircraft and things like the anti-ship Sunburn missile. A Chinese colleague told me that it will take 5 - 10 years for them to catch the Russians in overall R&D and quantitative production...but far longer to match the US, assuming we let our lead erode.

Mind you, I can't see China being an aggressor anywhere other than Taiwan. Much of the history of China is characterized by insularity and military restraint externally. Their conflicts in Korea, India, and Vietnam all were all a function of proximity. Militarily, I think we'll see much of the same.

The key will be how China leverages economic and technological power to squeeze others. We'll see, but I wouldn't bet on the so called Dragon morphing into a true super-power in our time.

Interestingly enough, from a strategic perspective...at least when I was involved in intelligence...many senior speakers spoke gravely about a potential Sino-Muslim alliance. East Asian development combined with Arab oil = power.

Mate

Interesting thoughts. And much room for speculation. We'll see. In the meantime, China is already a superpower I think, even without projecting its military power afar.

For better or worse, China's economic prowess is already a factor to reckon with.

I think we still don't know enough about:

a. China's true intentions in particular and Chinese mentality in general

b. True oil reserves in the Gulf

c. Ditto for oil in Siberia.

Mate

Russian equipment in able hands performs well. See Korea War, where Russian-piloted MIGs did a lot of damage to the top American-piloted planes. Sadly, there is no other way to judge the aircraft and other equipment quality but in combat.

Secondly, I specifically made sure of not going to any Russian sites.

Thirdly, I do believe that one piece of equipment, the medium T-34 tank is what turned the whole WWII around.

P.S. It is not know whether Russian Military will ever purchase the S-37/SU-37 due to the lack of funds. However, India and Pakistan have showed some interest (India has put an offer to purchase some 150 of these planes, Pakistan may opt for SU-35). China wants to start building these planes on their own (technology transfer) as well as SU-45/47 and SU-55 variants that are only available in prototypes. All of this this interest would not be reflected in the $11-$20 as the payee would not be the Russian government.

The Bush Administration’s Radical Foreign Policy Now Lies in Ruins
by Anniston Star
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0131-32.htm
The two pillars that support the Bush administration’s foreign policy- the doctrine of pre-emption and democratization by gun- are crumbling.

The invasion of Iraq was supposed to show the strength of these pillars; instead, it has revealed their weakness.

In principle, the doctrine of pre-emption, which President Bush unveiled in a June 2002 speech at West Point, subverted our country’s foreigh-policy traditions and flew in the face of hundreds of years of international law. In practice, it has given us an unprovoked and unnecessary war that has made us significantly less safe.

Pre-emption, as embodied in the Iraq campaign, always had a certain cowboy aspect to it. The idea was that by making an example of Saddam, we would show terrorists and rogue states the dire consequences of so much as casting a dirty look at the United States.

But what’s happened is that the Iraq war has created many more jihadists than we have killed, and it has provided them with the perfect training ground for honing their deadly skills. Meanwhile, those other members of the Axis of Evil, Iran and North Korea, don’t exactly seem to be quaking in their boots as a result of our show of force in Iraq. As a report from Tehran in Sunday’s New York Times explained, the Iraq quagmire has only emboldened Iran’s leaders.

As for the president’s professed zeal for spreading democracy across the globe, who can take issue with it so long as the discussion remains at the level of grandiose rhetoric?

But it bears mentioning that the United States has always touted itself as the champion of democracy, even during the Cold War when it was overthrowing democratically elected governments or blocking free and fair elections from Iran to Guatemala to Vietnam to Chile. What Bush and his neoconservatives advisers brought to the table was a willingness to back up their idealistic talk with cruise missiles and fighter jets.

Of course, Bush and the neocon architects of the Iraq invasion were not all that idealistic in practice. Their initial idea of democracy in Iraq was to install slimy exile Ahmed Chalabi as leader of the country. The administration also dragged its feet on holding direct elections, but Iraqi Shiite powerbroker Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani forced Bush’s hand.

Still, some creative interpretation of the events of the past couple of years has enabled the president’s supporters to credit his policies for the spate of elections in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. Now that we’ve learned that honest elections do not guarantee desirable outcomes, it will be interesting to see how the pro-Bush historical revisionists explain recent developments in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere.

President Bush took office as a man who knew little about the world, and seemed to care about it even less. He was a nearly empty vessel into which radical neoconservatives could pour their half-baked ideas. We now have had nearly three years to see the catastrophic results of their ideas put into action.

The country still has three more years of this presidency, but it cannot waste another day in charting a new course for the nation’s foreign policy. That project must begin by renouncing unprovoked wars and by acknowledging that democratization must be an organic, homegrown affair, not something outsiders impose with guns and bombs and exiled con men.

Is Iran War Rhetoric A Bluff? - Military strike on nuclear sites a dangerous idea
by Jay Bookman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Four years ago this spring, rumblings could be heard out of Washington suggesting that the Bush administration might be planning to invade Iraq. At the time, most Americans — and most American news media — failed to pay those reports much heed, which was a mistake.

Today, similar rumblings are again being heard, this time regarding military action against Iran. And once again, the war signals are being dismissed as mere posturing, a negotiating ploy by an administration trying hard to pressure Iran into abandoning its nuclear-weapons ambitions.

So is it all for show this time? We better hope so.



Let's set aside the legal and political questions of whether such action could be justified, or what a second unprovoked attack on another country would do to America's reputation. If we take a hardheaded look at the risks and benefits — the kind of analysis we failed to perform before invading Iraq — the arguments against military action become overwhelming.

First off, the obvious: Given our commitments elsewhere, we aren't capable of mounting an invasion of Iran, so air strikes are our only option. And while bombs and missiles might cripple Iran's nuclear infrastructure, the effect would be only temporary. Air power could not destroy what really matters, which is the expertise in bombmaking acquired by Iran's nuclear scientists.

In return for setting back Iran's nuclear program for several years, what do we risk with military action?

Well, we need to understand that there would be no such thing as a limited strike. By taking such a step, we would risk touching off a broader Mideast war that could quickly spiral out of control, because the Iranians would almost certainly find a way to retaliate.

They could do so either through terrorism or through attacks on Persian Gulf oil shipments, and they have the capability to do both. For example, Iran could quickly shut down shipping lanes in the narrow Strait of Hormuz, which carries 25 percent to 40 percent of the world's petroleum to market, a move that would cripple the world economy and probably force the United States to escalate the war still further.

In addition, the conservative Islamic regime that we are trying to replace in Iran might even welcome a U.S. attack on its nuclear facilities. Such a move would rally Iranian public opinion to their government's side just as quickly and dramatically as the attacks of Sept. 11 boosted American political support for President Bush, delaying for years any real hope of regime change.

And then there's Iraq.

Part of the Bush administration's rationale for invading Iraq was to put military pressure on neighboring Iran. Trigger-happy neoconservatives were even bragging that while everybody wanted to invade Baghdad, real men wanted to keep going all the way to Tehran. At the very least, the idea was that with tens of thousands of U.S. troops stationed right next door, the mullahs in Iran would start to feel vulnerable and thus moderate their actions.

Like so much else about our Iraq policy, that has backfired. By putting more than 100,000 American troops into Iraq surrounded by millions of Iran's fellow Shiites, the invasion has made the United States much more vulnerable to Iran, instead of the other way around.

It would be nice to believe that the Bush administration understands all that; it would be nice to believe so many things. Unfortunately, the White House showed no ability or willingness to think through the invasion of Iraq to its all-too-predictable outcome, and there's little reason to believe that has changed much. The only core figure of the first Bush administration to leave office was Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had been one of its cooler heads.

No one is expecting Bush to publicly take the military option off the table. That threat not only encourages the Iranians to negotiate more seriously, it spurs third parties such as China, Russia and the European Union to cooperate with us in trying to head off war.

China and Russia in particular are reluctant to take a hard line against Iran's nuclear weapons program, but they are motivated to find a peaceful solution out of fear that those crazy Americans might try to solve the problem through brute military force.

In other words, it can sometimes be useful to have other people think you're crazy.

But it is never useful to actually BE crazy.