Can Iran be trusted to give up nuclear weapons ambitions?,

Current affairs

Can Iran be trusted to give up nuclear weapons ambitions?

Don't Bet On Trust

13 October 2009

One week Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is wagging his finger at the world from the podium at the UN stating that Iran will never relinquish the right to

Pursue a nuclear programme. The next week, as if all the previous Iranian proclamations on the subject for many years had been mere posturing, the Iranian team in Geneva suddenly says Iran is willing to send the majority of its known enriched uranium stockpile to Russia for future reprocessing.

Which Iran is the world supposed to believe? The Iran that could for the first time be taking a step back from the precipice, or the Iran that has consistently been intransigent on the question of adherence to nuclear safeguards and lied to the International Atomic Energy Agency? Can anyone really believe that, after decades in pursuit of a nuclear weapon and now being within a hair's breath of achieving that objective, the Iranians are now willing to give it all up to break bread with Satan? In all likelihood, the offer to ship up to 75 per cent of Iran's known uranium stockpile to Russia is merely a ploy to buy Iran more time to complete the final stage of achieving nuclear weapons capability. Iran no doubt has a substantial amount of undeclared enriched uranium that it will continue to refine into weapons grade uranium.

http://newageislam.com/can-iran-be-trusted-to-give-up-nuclear-weapons-ambitions?/current-affairs/d/1995

Why Pakistan is poised for collapse, explains David Kilcullen, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

Why Pakistan is poised for collapse, explains David Kilcullen

A Conversation With David Kilcullen

Interview by Carlos Lozada

Sunday, March 22, 2009; Washington Post, Page B02

Why is an Aussie anthropologist coaching American generals on how to win wars? David Kilcullen, an Australian army reservist and top adviser to Gen. David H. Petraeus during the troop surge in Iraq, has spent years studying insurgencies in countries from Indonesia to Afghanistan, distinguishing hard-core terrorists from "accidental guerrillas" -- and his theories are revolutionizing military thinking throughout the West. Kilcullen spoke with Outlook's Carlos Lozada on why Pakistan is poised for collapse, whether catching Osama bin Laden is really a good idea and how the Enlightenment and Lawrence of Arabia helped Washington shift course in Iraq. Excerpts:

What is the real central front in the war on terror?

Pakistan. Hands down. No doubt.

Why?

Pakistan is 173 million people, 100 nuclear weapons, an army bigger than the U.S. Army, and al-Qaeda headquarters sitting right there in the two-thirds of the country that the government doesn't control. The Pakistani military and police and intelligence service don't follow the civilian government; they are essentially a rogue state within a state. We're now reaching the point where within one to six months we could see the collapse of the Pakistani state, also because of the global financial crisis, which just exacerbates all these problems. . . . The collapse of Pakistan, al-Qaeda acquiring nuclear weapons, an extremist takeover -- that would dwarf everything we've seen in the war on terror today.

How important is it to kill or capture Osama bin laden?

Not very. It depends on who does it. Let me give you two possible scenarios. Scenario one is, American commandos shoot their way into some valley in Pakistan and kill bin Laden. That doesn't end the war on terror; it makes bin Laden a martyr. But here's scenario two: Imagine that a tribal raiding party captures bin Laden, puts him on television and says, "You are a traitor to Islam and you have killed more Muslims than you have killed infidels, and we're now going to deal with you." They could either then try and execute the guy in accordance with their own laws or hand him over to the International Criminal Court. If that happened, that would be the end of the al-Qaeda myth.

http://newageislam.com/why-pakistan-is-poised-for-collapse,-explains-david-kilcullen--/war-on-terror/d/1508

Unusually large US weapons shipment to Israel: Are the US and Israel planning a broader Middle East war?

Unusually large US weapons shipment to Israel: Are the US and Israel planning a broader Middle East war?

By Michel Chossudovsky

18 Jan 2009

A "hazardous material" designation on the manifest mentions explosive substances and detonators, but no other details were given (Ibid). It is worth noting that a similar unusually large shipment of US ordinance to Israel was scheduled in early December: "Tender documents indicate that the German ship hired by the US in early December also carried a massive cargo of weapons that weighed over 2.6 million kg [2600 tons] and filled up to 989 standard 20-foot containers to Ashdod from North Carolina" (Press TV, 10 Jan 2009)

http://www.newageislam.com/unusually-large-us-weapons-shipment-to-israel--are-the-us-and-israel-planning-a-broader-middle-east-war?---------/islam-and-the-west/d/1131