They don’t work!  And other observations.  Fidelissimo after all these years, from Terry Glavin:

…we also learn that Fidel doesn’t think the Cuban model even works for Cuba anymore…

Castro also had this very interesting message he wanted Golberg to relay to Iranian crackpot Mahmoud Ahmedinejad: Quit slagging off the Jews…

…We must prepare ourselves for the coming denunciations of Fidel as a splittist and a wrecker, an idler and a lickspittle of the Yanqui-Zionist hegemony…

Ain’t none other in this country writing like that.

Mark
Ottawa

1) AfPak Behind the Lines: Pakistan’s political scene

Earlier:

Poor Pakistanis/’Hindu Zionists and American Think-Tanks’ Update

Bye, bye NWFP [see 3) in post's first link above]

2) India Must Master the Great Game

The smart response to brash diplomatic moves from China is a levelheaded one…

Earlier:

Afstan: Delhi still playing the Great Game…

More Great Gamery:

In scramble for Afghanistan, India looks to Iran

Mark
Ottawa

That would seem to be the view of Mr Siddiqui of the Toronto Star if one transposes his, er, analysis to World War II and its aftermath:

To tackle domestic terrorism, end foreign wars
…
The solution is not to panic or hector the Muslim community to rein in their own — they would if they could — but rather to stop being in denial that there is no connection between the wars we wage and the terrorist mayhem that they trigger, there and here.

…such cases should give us pause — so that we are not herded into blindly backing endless wars and occupations abroad.

Adrian wrote this earlier about the approach of Star’s editorial page editor emeritus:

Terrorist Apologism In The Toronto Star

Much more here from estimable editor. As for the soi-disant “Canada’s National Newspaper“:

“Terrorism”: Globe and Mail reporters still at it…

Now see this incredibly credulous further piece of “reporting”:

Rizgar Alizadeh describes himself as a simple plumber living in a small town on the Iran-Iraq border. He doesn’t own a computer. He’s never travelled outside Iran. And he laughs at the suggestion that he is a member of a terrorist group.

In a lengthy interview with The Globe and Mail Friday, Mr. Alizadeh, who is alleged to belong to a terror cell planning to detonate improvised explosive devices in the Canadian capital and fund insurgent groups in Afghanistan, shot back at the accusations made against him by the Canadian security apparatus.

His older brother, Hiva Alizadeh, is facing the most serious charges of the four people arrested in this week’s anti-terror sweep…

Rizgar Alizadeh said there is no substance to the allegations, and, speaking through a Canadian translator from his home in Iran, sounded remarkably calm about being accused of a serious crime. He said he had been told by his aunt in Canada that his brother was arrested, but didn’t know the arrest was related to terrorism, or that he himself was also allegedly one of the conspirators.

“It was very surprising. All through today I was thinking why have they got him? What has he done?” he said.

Rizgar described the allegations against both him and his brother as “a pack of lies” and said he was neither angry nor fearful because his conscience is clear.

“I don’t get scared at all. Hiva has the same mentality as I do. He’s cool like me” he said…

Mark
Ottawa

Iran:

Germany:

Mark
Ottawa

Earlier:

This Friday: The bombs of August?

Looks like the US is working hard to hold back the Israelis:

U.S. Assures Israel That Iran Threat Is Not Imminent

The Obama administration, citing evidence of continued troubles inside Iran’s nuclear program, has persuaded Israel that it would take roughly a year — and perhaps longer — for Iran to complete what one senior official called a “dash” for a nuclear weapon, according to American officials.

Administration officials said they believe the assessment has dimmed the prospect that Israel would pre-emptively strike against the country’s nuclear facilities within the next year, as Israeli officials have suggested in thinly veiled threats…

Christopher Hitchens, for his part, sees a bigger picture:

The price of not disarming Iran

With Russia’s ever-helpful policy of assisting Iran to accelerate its reactor program, allied to the millimetrical progress of sanctions on the Ahmadinejad regime and the increasingly hopeless state of negotiations with the Palestinians, there is likely to be no let-up in the speculation about an Israeli “first strike” on Iran’s covert but ever-more-flagrant nuclear weapons installations. I have lost count of the number of essays and columns on the subject that were published this month alone. The most significant and detailed such contribution, though, came from my friend and colleague Jeffrey Goldberg in a cover story in the Atlantic. From any close reading of this piece, it was possible to be sure of at least one thing: The government of Benjamin Netanyahu wants it to be understood that, in the absence of an American decision to do so, Israel can and will mount such an attack in the not-too-distant future. The keyword of the current anguished argument — the word existential — is thought by a strategic majority of Israel’s political and military leadership to apply in its fullest meaning. To them, an Iranian bomb is incompatible with the long-term survival of the Israeli state and even of the Jewish people.

It would be a real pity if the argument went on being conducted in these relatively narrow terms…

These, then, are some of the prices to be paid for not disarming Iran. Is it not obvious that the international interest in facing this question squarely, and in considering it as “existential” for civilization, is far stronger than any political calculation to be made in Netanyahu’s office?

Mark
Ottawa

Advocacy indeed. The Washington Times (very conservative):

EDITORIAL: Bombs away in three days
It’s time to strike Iran’s nuclear program

Israel’s long-anticipated attack on Iran’s nuclear program may come as soon as Friday. Yesterday, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said Israel had eight days to strike Iran’s nuclear facility at Bushehr before it would become operational. He revised the timeline to three days after word came that nuclear fuel would begin loading on Friday. We’re now down to two days and counting…

Via Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs.

The bolt from Bolton (very conservative); this Friday would be even before the Israelis get their F-35s: 4), 5) and Upperdate here.  A previous Israeli effort:

The Israeli Strike Against OSIRAQ

Mark
Ottawa

George Will on simple, if inconventient, truths:

When Israel declared independence in 1948, it had to use mostly small arms to repel attacks by six Arab armies. Today, however, Israel feels, and is, more menaced than it was then or has been since. Hence the potentially world-shaking decision that will be made here, probably within two years…

Any Israeli self-defense anywhere is automatically judged “disproportionate.” Israel knows this as it watches Iran. [See the first part of this post by Terry Glavin on "fashionable demonization of Israel".]

Last year was Barack Obama’s wasted year of “engaging” Iran. This led to sanctions that are unlikely to ever become sufficiently potent. With Russia, China and Turkey being uncooperative, Iran is hardly “isolated.” The Iranian democracy movement probably cannot quickly achieve regime change…

…[Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu] says that CIA Director Leon Panetta is “about right” in saying Iran can be a nuclear power in two years. He says that 1948 meant this: “For the first time in 2,000 years, a sovereign Jewish people could defend itself against attack.” And he says: “The tragic history of the powerlessness of our people explains why the Jewish people need a sovereign power of self-defense.” If Israel strikes Iran, the world will not be able to say it was not warned.

Somewhat related:

How the CIA Got It Wrong on Iran’s Nukes
In 2007, U.S. intelligence said Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program. Analyst policy bias and disinformation from Iranian double agents may explain the mistake.

Mark
Ottawa

The capital however is under new management:

India’s Tripartite Plan for Afghanistan
Delhi is drawing closer to Iran and Russia in anticipation of a U.S. troop drawdown.

The American game is being played on a ever-wider field:

As Afghan Allies Reposition, U.S. Role Evolves

Amid the continuing violence in Afghanistan, the shape of the NATO alliance is changing.

At the beginning of August, Dutch troops left the restive province of Uruzgan, and Canadian soldiers appear set to depart next year. At the same time, the U.S. forces surging into Afghanistan are finding new ways to work with their NATO counterparts.

In Kunduz [north of the Hindu Kush], German soldiers are notionally in command of the incoming American surge…

…Speaking informally, U.S. military officers can be harshly critical of many of the NATO partners in Afghanistan — for example, in the north, where the Taliban presence has grown rapidly over the past five years. American soldiers in that area are officially under German command, but the difference in resources is stark — the Americans bring many more helicopters and mine-resistant vehicles to the fight.

Still, the cooperation has its lighter moments. In a recent nighttime engagement in Kunduz, a German officer ordered his cannons to shoot illumination rounds over the heads of American troops to light their way. The Americans joked afterward that it was the first time a German had fired artillery in their direction since World War II.

While Eric Morse ain’t happy about our end game:

We’re dooming our Afghan helpers

…more hypocritical yet: our immigration regulations may thwart sanctuary, but our refugee system welcomes. If those people can find a coastline in land-locked Afghanistan, if they can then find a ship, if the ship does not sink and if they do not starve, they can find refuge in Canada [see here and here] and never mind comparative levels of “extraordinary risk.” What does that say about the whole process? What, in Heaven’s name, does it say about us?

We have created a class of people in Afghanistan to whom we are beholden. Set aside hypocrisy, open the gates and let them come in.

Eric Morse is a former Canadian diplomat and is now vice-chair of the Security Studies Committee at the Royal Canadian Military Institute in Toronto.

More from Milnews.ca:

Weasel Wording = Dooming Afghan Interpreters

Update: Terry Glavin on threatened Afghans, Great Gaming (Team Iran in particular), and Orwell on refugees.

Upperdate: Paul at Celestial Junk (warning: some readers may find language offensive):

…
As if our limp-dish-rag PMO refusing to stand up for our Afghan allies and our troops isn’t insulting enough by its silence, we now have to contend with the fact that our PMO can’t even manage a proper retreat…

Mark
Ottawa

You might well have thought so if you’d read the Globe and Mail piece by Lounge Lizard Larry Martin to which this unpublished letter responded:

Lawrence Martin (On many vital issues, the NDP have been on the mark, Sept. 24 [2009]) highlights President Obama’s decision to kill the American missile defence system that was planned for Poland and the Czech Republic.  He then uses this example to applaud the NDP for their supposedly far-sighted opposition to missile defence in general.

But there’s a problem with this line of reasoning.  The president didn’t actually kill American plans for missile defence involving Europe.  He simply abandoned one system and intends to replace it with another using different types of missiles, initially sea-based but subsequently to be land-based in Europe itself.  So missile defence itself is still alive and well.

It’s also worth noting something about which most Canadians, including Mr. Martin, seem unaware.  NATO itself is fully committed to creating various missile defence systems, one planned to be operational by 2010.  It’s only in Canada that there appears to be a practically fetishistic opposition to the concept.

Mark Collins
…
References:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20gates.html
http://www.nato.int/issues/missile_defence/index.html

Now a Washington Post story; I don’t think these facts will get much coverage up here:

U.S. nears key step in European defense shield against Iranian missiles
…
The concept of a missile shield began with former president Ronald Reagan, who first described his vision of a defense against a Soviet nuclear attack in his “Star Wars” speech in 1983. Its development accelerated during the George W. Bush administration, which saw missile defense as a way to deter emerging nuclear powers in Iran and North Korea.

It has expanded further under President Obama, despite the skepticism he expressed during the 2008 campaign about the feasibility and affordability of Bush’s plan for a shield in Europe.

In September, Obama announced that he was changing Bush’s approach. Instead of abandoning the idea, he directed the Pentagon to construct a far more extensive and flexible missile defense system in Europe that will be built in phases between now and 2020…

The Bush plan would have consisted of only 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland and a large radar installation in the Czech Republic. It was designed to shoot down long-range or even intercontinental ballistic missiles fired by Iran against Europe or the United States…

…

Obama announced in September that the Pentagon would scrap Bush’s system for Europe and replace it with what he called a “phased, adaptive approach.” The first phase officially becomes operational next year. Aegis ships, armed with dozens of SM-3 missile interceptors, will patrol the Mediterranean and Black seas and link up with the high-power radar planned for southern Europe.

In 2015, the next phase will begin. Romania has agreed to host a land-based Aegis combat system on its territory.

In 2018, the system will expand further with another land-based Aegis system in Poland, as well as a new generation of SM-3 interceptors and additional sensors. The shield is scheduled to become complete by 2020, with the addition of even more advanced SM-3s…

NATO allies…may eventually plug their own, more limited missile defense systems into the overall shield [Canada excepted from all forms of that horrid idea, of course]…

Mark
Ottawa

Don’t get your nukes in knot, says Robert Kagan in the Washington Post:

New START: Too modest to merit partisan bickering

It’s hard to believe that ratification of the New START treaty is turning into a pitched battle between some Republicans and the White House. It’s even harder to believe that advocates for and against the treaty are trying to turn it into a stand-in for some imagined ideological contest over arms control and nonproliferation. It’s not. This treaty is simply too unexceptional to carry such heavy freight.

The proposed cuts in nuclear arsenals are modest. The START I agreement cut deployed strategic nuclear weapons on both sides roughly 50 percent, from between 10,000 and 12,000 down to 6,000. The never-ratified (but generally abided-by) START II Treaty cut forces by another 50 percent, down to between 3,000 and 3,500. The 2002 Moscow Treaty made further deep cuts, bringing each side down to between 1,700 and 2,200. And New START? It would bring the number on both sides down to 1,550.

This is hardly the revolution that either side claims. Take the favorite argument of many New START proponents. They insist the treaty represents a critical commitment by the nuclear superpowers to abide by the grand bargain of the Non-Proliferation Treaty: The nuclear states move toward zero in exchange for the non-nuclear states forgoing the weapons altogether. Ratification is essential, they claim, to gaining greater worldwide support for nuclear nonproliferation efforts.

Really? If this causal logic existed, why wasn’t this the happy result of the massive cuts in superpower arsenals from 1989 to 2002? Instead, throughout those years, Iran and North Korea, as well as Iraq, worked determinedly to build nuclear weapons, and neither India nor Pakistan felt constrained from testing their nuclear devices. It’s hard to see why the smaller cuts proposed in New START should suddenly produce a global commitment to nonproliferation.

But it’s equally hard for the treaty’s critics to argue that these cuts represent a great leap toward zero and the end of the American nuclear deterrent. The three previous arms control treaties, all negotiated by Republican presidents, and two of which were ratified with full Republican Party support, cut deployed nuclear weapons from near 12,000 down to around 2,000 — about 80 percent. If anyone deserves credit, or blame, for moving the United States in the direction of zero, the two Bushes deserve a lot more than President Obama…

Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes a monthly column for The Post.

Somewhat related:

How the CIA Got It Wrong on Iran’s Nukes
In 2007, U.S. intelligence said Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program. Analyst policy bias and disinformation from Iranian double agents may explain the mistake.

Mark
Ottawa