Week in Review Part III: Foreign Affairs

Iran: A new clock is ticking…the time from when the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued its long-awaited report on Iran’s suspected nuclear arms program, Nov. 8, and the 2012 presidential election in the United States, next Nov. 6. I have argued for weeks that should the Obama administration feel compelled to take military action against Iran, it will be next spring because the White House cannot afford to have Iran test a nuclear weapon after next Labor Day at the height of the presidential campaign as it would spell the end for the Obama presidency. “This happened under your watch, Mr. President!” the Republican nominee would repeat over and over again during the debates.

Now most experts say that Iran won’t have a nuclear capability until 2013 at the very earliest.  I just argue there isn’t a soul in the Western World (or Israel) who really knows how far advanced Iran is, and my point on fixing the spring as the date for action, assuming any efforts at increased sanctions against the Iranian government go nowhere, is because Obama needs time for damage control, as would probably be inevitable, before Americans went to the polls. Trust me, should the White House act next year it will be as much about our election as anything else. That’s simply the way our corrupt system works.
So what did the IAEA say? The agency found some of Iran’s activities pertained to civilian applications but others were “specific to nuclear weapons development." The IAEA had acquired more than 1,000 pages of documents relating to Iran’s program, sourced from the agency and 10 of its member states, as well as from Iran itself.

“All of this information, taken together, gave rise to concerns about possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program,” the report stated. Other intelligence provided to the agency pointed to Iran’s construction of “a large explosives containment vessel” at a previously little known site called Parchin that could be used for nuclear-related testing.

The report also shows that Iran worked to redesign and miniaturize a Pakistani nuclear-weapon design. “It is a very, very well thought out program and it is clear they are proceeding relentlessly with it,” as a senior research fellow, Ephraim Asculai, of Tel Aviv University put it. But the quarterly report stopped short of claiming that Tehran is determined to acquire atomic weapons.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Mike Rogers, said the findings heightened fears Israel would launch an attack without world action on sanctions, urging President Obama to tighten economic measures, including cutting the supply of refined fuel to Iran and targeting its central bank.

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a simple, yet pointed, statement:

“The significance of the report is that the international community must bring about the cessation of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, which endanger the peace of the world and of the Middle East.”

But while the U.S., France and Britain have called for a new sanctions regime unless Iran comes clean, permanent U.N. Security Council members Russia and China will block such efforts. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Friday, “Dialogue and cooperation is the most effective way to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue. Sanctions and pressure cannot fundamentally solve it.”

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said: “We should exhale, calm down and continue a constructive discussion of all issues on the Middle East agenda, including the Iranian nuclear program,” adding a military strike on Iran could be a “catastrophe.” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin condemned the “arrogant” West’s talk of a strike.

Of course both Russia and China seek to protect their commercial interests in Iran, first and foremost.

As for Iran’s position, President Ahmadinejad said, “Unfortunately, there is someone in charge of the IAEA who not only has no authority but tramples upon the IAEA laws and only echoes U.S. words.”

On Thursday Ayatollah Ali Khamenei weighed in, saying his country was the victim of “Iranophobia” mounted by the West and Israel to justify a possible pre-emptive strike. “If the thought of invasion against the Islamic republic of Iran crosses anybody’s mind he must ready himself to receive a strong slap and iron fist. The enemies, especially the United States and its puppets and the Zionist regime, should know that the Iranian nation will not invade any country or nation, but it will respond to any invasion or threat with full force in a way that it will break up invaders from within,” said the Son of Satan.
France’s Foreign Minister, Alain Juppe, warned: “If Iran refuses to conform to the demands of the international community and refuses any serious cooperation, we stand ready to adopt, with other wiling countries, sanctions on an unprecedented scale.”

At week’s end, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said any military strike on Iran would have a “serious impact” on the region and possibly U.S. forces there, without having any real impact on Iran’s nuclear program. “You’ve got to be careful of unintended consequences here.”

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the U.S. “has quietly drawn up plans to provide (the United Arab Emirates) with thousands of advanced ‘bunker-buster’ bombs and other munitions, part of a stepped-up U.S. effort to build a regional coalition to counter Iran.” The UAE is seen as the most hawkish against Iran in the region, at least as much so as Saudi Arabia, and its air force could act as an American proxy if called upon. The Pentagon is also arming the Saudis and Oman with advanced fighter jets and munitions.

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“(The IAEA’s) 14-page annex detailing the state of Iran’s weapons work should (keep you up at night). It lays to rest the fantasies that an Iranian bomb is many years off, or that the intelligence is riddled with holes and doubts, or that the regime’s intentions can’t be guessed by their activities.

“So much, then, for the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which asserted ‘with high confidence’ that Iran had abandoned its nuclear-weapons work in 2003 and ended any chance that the Bush administration would take action against Iran. So much, too, for the Obama administration’s attempts to move Iran away from its nuclear course, first with diplomatic offers and then with sanctions and covert operations.

“The serious choice now before the administration is between military strikes and more of the same. As the IAEA report makes painfully clear, more of the same means a nuclear Iran, possibly within a year.

“It’s time, then, to consider carefully what that choice means for the United States. In the run-up to the war in Iraq, we wrote that ‘the law of unintended consequences hasn’t been repealed,’ and that ‘no war ever goes precisely as planned.’ That was obviously true of a boots-on-the-ground invasion, but it would also be true of an aerial campaign to demolish or substantially degrade Iran’s nuclear facilities….

“The question for the world, and especially for the Obama administration, is whether those dire consequences [Ed. including potential nuclear war as an Iranian bomb leads to nuclear proliferation in the region] are worse than the risks of a pre-emptive strike. We think we know what the Israelis will decide, especially if they conclude that President Obama stays on his current course.

“Opponents of a pre-emptive strike say it would do no more than delay Iran’s programs by a few years. But something similar was said after Israel’s strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981, without which the U.S. could never have stood up to Saddam after his invasion of Kuwait. In life as in politics, nothing is forever. But a strike that sets Iran’s nuclear programs back by several years at least offers the opportunity for Iran’s democratic forces to topple the regime without risking a wider conflagration.

“No U.S. president could undertake a strike on Iran except as a last resort, and Mr. Obama can fairly say that he has given every resort short of war an honest try. At the same time, no U.S. president should leave his successor with the catastrophe that would be a nuclear Iran. A nuclear Iran on Mr. Obama’s watch would be fatal to more than his legacy.”

The IAEA’s 35-nation board meets this coming Thursday and Friday to decide whether to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council.

Israel: Talk about a diplomatic disaster, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and President Obama didn’t realize a private conversation at the recent G20 summit in Cannes was overheard by a number of journalists and inadvertently transmitted over a system used for translation. Sarkozy says of Benjamin Netanyahu, “I can’t see him anymore, he’s a liar.” Obama retorted: “You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day.”   While Israeli media played it up, Israeli officials kept their mouths shut.

Syria: I reached out to my friend in Beirut this week, wondering why he hadn’t written anything recently, and in learning he was on vacation I asked him about the border issues between Syria and Lebanon, voicing my own concerns. Michael observed, “Very nasty…and it will get worse, I fear.” Seeing as there is no bigger expert on the region than he, in my humble opinion, this says it all. Lebanon’s president, Michel Sleiman, confirmed this week that Syria was mining the border with Lebanon to prevent arms smuggling to the Syrian opposition, as well as prevent dissidents from fleeing into Lebanon.

And after the Arab League and Syria supposedly reached agreement on ending the violence against protesters, ten days ago, Bashar Assad’s regime continued the killing, another 20+ on Thursday alone (a reported 18 on Friday as I write), as the U.N. estimates the toll at 3,500. [I listed a figure of 4,000 last week, which was from various human rights groups, the same groups the U.N. is relying on.] The epicenter of the violence remains Homs, where fighting between army defectors and soldiers has been intense in pockets, while elsewhere Assad’s goons round up suspects a la Hitler’s SS.

Separately, Syria stopped paying for oil produced within the country by Royal Dutch Shell and Total, as reported by the Financial Times, further evidence of the regime’s unease amid the pro-democracy protests and economic sanctions. Oil export earnings, some $3.5 billion a year, have been hit by an embargo imposed by the European Union. The oil companies had continued to pump the crude, despite not being paid, but now the government ordered them to cut output because storage capacity has been met owing to the EU embargo.

The only encouraging item this week was a story in the Jerusalem Post that Assad is being offered asylum by several Arab leaders, this according to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman, formerly an excellent ambassador to Lebanon, as I recall.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is investigating reports that Syrian leaders are moving their cash into Lebanese banks; this as there are increased concerns that Palestinian groups loyal to Damascus are once again taking root in Lebanon, the last thing this Hizbullah-led country needs. One group I never heard of, Saiga, a pro-Syrian Palestinian faction, has “restructured and a younger generation has taken the leadership.” [Daily Star] You read something like this and you understand how the war on terror will never be over in our lifetime…that is if you needed further proof.

Lastly, Lebanese opposition leader Saad Hariri said he would not attempt to topple the Hizbullah government and would wait for 2013 parliamentary elections instead. But Hariri really needs to return to the country, seeing as how he’s been holed up in Paris. I understand the assassination threats, but he’s doing his people zero good in France.

Iraq: I would encourage you to visit my “Hot Spots” link for an analysis of how the United States’ imminent withdrawal “is the mother of all disasters.” Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is a bad guy and he continues a purge of leading Sunni figures, particularly in the security apparatus under the guise of ridding Iraq of Baathists. Remember, Maliki is still acting defense and interior minister, since the elections of 2010! He’s nothing more than Tehran’s puppet. It’s Sunni vs. Shiite all over again, and the U.S. won’t be there to keep the peace, while al Qaeda looks for openings to reignite the civil war. As Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, the top American military spokesman in Iraq, told the New York Times, “I cringe whenever anybody makes a pronouncement that al Qaeda is on its last legs.”

Meanwhile, ExxonMobil became the first major oil company to sign a contract with Kurdistan’s Regional Government to explore for oil and gas. It’s a huge vote of confidence for the semi-autonomous region, but Exxon could face a backlash in Baghdad, which believes the contracts are illegitimate. Under a landmark deal with the central government, Kurdistan receives half of all revenue from the oil it can export.

India / Pakistan: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said this week that the two rivals needed to open a new chapter in their relationship amid signs of a warming in ties between the nuclear armed nations. A week earlier, Pakistan announced it would normalize trade with India. Singh met with Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani and praised him as a man of peace.

This all sounds great, but the terrorists have zero incentive for allowing peace to break out, or as Pakistani Foreign Minister Khar said, “We have many, many long miles to move ahead still.” And the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad on Monday acknowledged the existence of a “potential threat” to Pakistan’s nuclear warheads from local extremists, according to a press report out of India. Also, as reported by the Global Security Newswire, “The Atlantic and National Journal jointly reported that the Pakistani army had taken to transporting nuclear warheads around the country via unmarked civilian-style vans on congested roadways in an attempt to keep their whereabouts away from prying U.S. intelligence efforts.”

Boy, that makes me feel a lot better. Of course it was just a month or so ago that U.S. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton told us all not to worry about the safety of Pakistan’s nukes. I can’t remember if she cackled after saying this.

North Korea: This little hellhole is not going away in terms of its potential to ruin our day and roil global markets further. This week a senior South Korean officials said North Korea’s uranium enrichment program at Yongbyon was now a “small industry,” capable of generating nuclear weapons. It was one year ago Pyongyang revealed its uranium work. U.S. specialists at that time were allowed to tour a plant that contained 2,000 centrifuges. The official asserted the North could make one to two bombs a year just from this ‘known’ operation on top of the existing stockpile, estimated last I saw at 8 to 12 weapons.
China:  Speaking of nukes, according to a report from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, China appears to be fielding four new nuclear-ready ballistic missiles (someone tell Herman Cain) and is spending an increasing amount on developing bombs for use on longer-range missiles.

Authors Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris estimate that China now possesses 240 nuclear weapons as well as some 140 ballistic missiles fielded on land; 72 missiles with ranges that can hit U.S. targets and 40 capable of striking the U.S. mainland.

But China has had trouble, according to Kristensen and Norris, in developing a sea-based platform for its nuclear warheads. They add:

“China’s main concern is the survivability of its minimum nuclear deterrent, and it spends considerable resources on dispersing and hiding its land-based missiles….

“The U.S. government has complained for years that China is too opaque regarding its military forces and budgets and that it needs to be more open.” [Global Security Newswire]

Meanwhile, the chiefs of China’s leading information technology companies said they would cooperate with the government’s efforts to more strictly police the Internet and online media. The CEOs of 39 internet, telecom and computer groups reached a “consensus” that internet companies “must strengthen self-control, self-restraint and strict self-discipline,” as reported by official news agency Xinhua and the Financial Times’ Kathrin Hille. [Love the spelling of ‘Kathrin,’ I have to add.]

Now we wait to see how this is implemented and the reaction among China’s 500 million Internet users.

Finally, last week I mentioned dissident Ai Weiwei and his $2 million+ tax bill, but since the government said it was hitting him up for this, which he vehemently disputes, over $800,000 has come flooding in from supporters (a figure as of Tuesday so easily higher now). A government mouthpiece, The Global Times, said the donations may violate the law. “Since he’s borrowing from the public, it at least looks like illegal fund-raising.”

Ai is uncertain as to what to do with the money because to hand it to the government is an admission of guilt. [I haven’t had a chance this morning to read a report that says he’s thinking of paying off half of the bill with the proceeds.]

Nigeria: Last weekend was a horrible one here as the Islamic militant group Boko Haram launched a wave of coordinated attacks, killing more than 150 in a single day. The group is bent on the imposition of Sharia throughout Nigeria and took responsibility for the suicide bombers. A spokesman said, “We will continue attacking federal government formations until security forces stop persecuting our members and vulnerable civilians.” Aside from military barracks, six churches were blown up in one Christian neighborhood. [Initially, the death toll was said to be in the 60s, but then a Red Cross official went into the morgue and counted at least 150 bodies personally.]

Australia: President Obama will be here next week and he’ll announce at that time that the United States will begin rotating troops through an Australian base in Darwin, intensifying the alliance as the China threat grows. 2/3s of all Marines are based in the Pacific, with large concentrations on Guam and Okinawa, where new Chinese long-range missiles make the forces there highly vulnerable, thus the thought of repositioning some of them. Both Obama and Aussie Prime Minister Gillard will argue China has nothing to do with the decision…cough cough.

Some Aussie analysts say this is a highly risky move for Australia and its own relations with China, a critical trading partner.

Nicaragua and Guatemala: I have to admit I didn’t realize President Daniel Ortega “eviscerated” the constitution [Los Angeles Times] to become eligible for a third term in Nicaragua as he was reelected in last weekend’s vote, while in Guatemala, a true narco-state controlled by Mexican drug cartels these days, a retired army general, Otto Perez Molina, appears to have won the race there though he’s helpless to stop the violence.

Remember when Latin America was democratizing across the continent? That is hardly the case today.

Mexico: In a huge blow to President Calderon’s efforts to combat the drug cartels, his top cabinet secretary in the effort, Jose Francisco Blake Mora, was killed in a helicopter crash on Friday that claimed seven other lives, including government officials. Bad weather appears to be the initial cause.