“Sorry” is not in George Bush’s lexicon

After the joint report of US intelligence agencies reported that Iran had stopped its nuclear program in 2003, the most appropriate approach for US President George Bush would have been to say “ Sorry, but we goofed”.

If he wanted to pass the buck, Bush could have of course blamed the 2005 intelligence report that said that Iran’s leaders were working tirelessly to acquire a nuclear bomb.

Instead, the US President on Tuesday warned that Iran was still a threat – referring to Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which the Middle East country claims is for its civilian program. All this is reminiscent of the hysteria the Bush administration successfully whipped up about Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) ahead of the US invasion of Iraq.

This time over it may not be so easy, unless the US totally disregards public opinion both within the country and abroad. There are a number of inconsistencies in Bush’s stand.

Why should the community of nations, led by the US and its allies, impose sanctions on Iran if it is now believed that Iran is enriching uranium for its civilian programs ? How does this approach of the US and its allies sit with its bonhomie with Pakistan’s generals, who have lots of nuclear bombs, which may be used against Pakistan’s enemies like India, and are in far greater risk of falling into terrorist hands ?

This “ my buddy can do no wrong” approach with Pakistan flies in the face of common sense, and only goes to show that the US is harassing Iran, and trying to trigger a war there, because Iran will not toe the US line.

As the US uses this one-sided policy to expand its sphere of influence, and threaten nations that don’t toe its line, countries around the world are unabashedly backing its policies on Iran, as they did earlier in Iraq. Iran is the menace – that is the agreed point of view – though there have only been differences on how to tackle a country that has been prejudged a “menace”.

To be sure, Iran’s human rights record is abominable, but so is the record of many countries the US will not go to war with, and still continues to do business with, like China, like Pakistan. So frankly, what is the justification now to harass Iran with sanctions, and even military action ?

After WMDs, Bush is now talking about WW III

Did Hillary Clinton run Bill's administration ?

"I am happy to compare my experience to hers when it comes to the economy," US Senator and Presidential aspirant Barack Obama said according to this report. "My understanding was she wasn't Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration. I don't know exactly what experience she's claiming."

Obama was responding to the Hillary Clinton campaign’s repeated line that Obama does not measure up to Hillary Clinton in experience. He is right. Clinton can by rights claim no more experience in running government than her predecessor as first lady, Barbara Bush, and her successor, Laura Bush.

By my understanding of US politics, the wife of the President is required to play the role of a very traditional wife – redecorate the White House, host parties, finalize the guest list and the sitting arrangements, and generally look pretty and presentable.

If Hillary wants to suggest that she got experience running the government while she was First Lady, that appears to confirm what a lot of people say about her – that she was poking her nose in affairs of state while husband Bill chased other affairs.

Unless Hillary Clinton wants to suggest that she enjoyed power and profile beyond normally recommended for a President’s spouse, the only superior experience Hillary Clinton can talk about is knowing better stuff like the layout of the White House, which curtains go well with which carpets, and yes how to keep a check on an irrepressibly errant husband.

Perhaps Clinton is not referring to her years at the White House, but as a Senator from New York. One of Clinton’s best known decisions as Senator was to have signed an authorization of war against Iraq, and again signing the dotted line on Iran. If that is experience, Obama is head and shoulders above Hillary Clinton.

Among the Democratic front-runners Obama is campaigning on an anti-Washington anti-Establishment platform, while Clinton is campaigning as the “insider”, the person from within the Establishment, who got her experience as part of the Establishment.

Neither however shows great leadership, neither “ has a dream”, neither inspires confidence. One for being too naïve to want to overthrow the establishment at one go, the other because she is establishment, not by experience, but by affectation, by her belief that she is pre-destined to occupy the White House.

Unfortunately, at a time when Democrats seem to be best poised to win the White House, the party seems to only throw up a modern-day Don Quixote and a Lady Macbeth.

Nicolas Sarkozy’s American love fest could backfire

“But my generation did not love America only because she had defended freedom. We also loved her because for us, she embodied what was most audacious about the human adventure; for us, she embodied the spirit of conquest. We loved America because for us, America was a new frontier that was continuously pushed back--a constantly renewed challenge to the inventiveness of the human spirit.”

That was Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s President buttering up to the United States during a speech to Congress on Wednesday.

Sarkozy, who incidentally comes from a country with a rich tradition in art, literature, and music, says the imaginations of his generation “were fueled by the winning of the West and Hollywood. By Elvis Presley, Duke Ellington, Hemingway. By John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth. And by Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins, fulfilling mankind's oldest dream”.

Goodbye Jean Paul Satre, Albert Camus, Claude Levi-Strauss, Georges Bizet, Emile Zola and others that have long made France a center, nay a beacon of culture, politics, and ideology. Farewell to France’s own perception of how politics and the economy should be run.

Enter the new France, a pastiche of all things American, of George Bush and Donald Duck, of Britney Spears and Madonna.

To this sad pass has come such a proud nation that once tenaciously clung to its culture, language, and heritage.

Sarkozy seems to have done a perfect job wheedling his way into replacing former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as America’s poodle.

In his speech, he agreed with the US that Iran with nuclear weapons was unacceptable, he reiterated his commitment to French continued engagement in Afghanistan. He gave the US a bonus: he did not refer to the country’s embarrassing debacle in Iraq. That was one issue at least on which Sarkozy could have held his pride, and told America, “we told you so, but you didn’t listen”. He could have used that opportunity to outline a broader view of how the world should move, rather than toeing George Bush’s now jaded and US-centric perception of the world

The members of the US Congress gave him a standing ovation, not once but many times. At a media briefing US President George Bush was seen escorting Sarkozy away with his arm patronizingly around his shoulders.

But Sarkozy carried nothing substantive home, except memories of a transcontinental love affair.

French reaction was fast and bitter. "You cannot be content with looking into each other's eyes and declaring you love one another. You must transform that into a vision and action for the world," former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, a Sarkozy rival, told RTL radio, according to this report by Reuters.

The smitten President also returns home to meet continuing opposition to his bid to Americanize the French economy. Two powerful Paris public transport unions said on Thursday they would join a wider rail strike from the evening of November 13, after rejecting a government offer on reforming their pensions, according to Reuters.

Whoever said the world loves a lover was evidently not French.

Why Turkey should not cross the border into Iraq

Turkey’s proposed invasion of Iraq to flush out terrorists could provide a dangerous precedent for other countries handling separatist terrorist movements.

Just as the US and its allies invaded Afghanistan to flush out the Taliban, who were protecting Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, it would at first blush appear reasonable that the Turkish army crosses the border into Iraq and flushes out terrorists from the Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK) who are using Iraq as a base for terrorist attacks into Turkey.

The Turkish government is under pressure from its citizens to cross the border. The country has a significant Kurdish population, which by some estimates is as high as 20 percent. The PKK aims to establish a separate Kurdish state in a territory (traditionally referred to as Kurdistan) consisting of parts of southeastern Turkey, northeastern Iraq, northeastern Syria and northwestern Iran.

The Turkish people find that the PKK is operating from within the Iraqi border, with neither the self-governing Iraqi Kurds or the government in Baghdad able to, or trying seriously enough, to stop them.

However, once this policy of invasion to settle scores with terrorists is established as acceptable, it could lead to a number of wars around the world, as countries invade other countries to chase terrorists hiding there.

India could, for example, build a case to attack and flush out Kashmir separatist terrorists who take refuge in Pakistan. In fact, India claims that its has evidence that the Pakistani intelligence agencies are involved in training Kashmiri terrorists, and other Islamic fundamentalists, who then cross the border into India to kill and maim.

Kurdish terrorists from Iran have also used Iraq as a base to attack Iranian positions. So Iran may also feel justified to attack Iraq from another frontier.

An attack by Turkey into Iraq, and the consequent political disruption, could also lead to the PKK, and its separatist agenda, winning popular support among Kurds living in various countries. It could disrupt US efforts to bring the Iraqi Kurds into the country’s political mainstream, as a lot of Kurds may now see a separate nationhood as an alternative. The Kurds are already close to it in Iraq, where they already enjoy considerable autonomy.

George Bush to prove he is a leader

“You know Condi, folks question my leadership capabilities these days. Wish it was the World War II, and then like Winston Churchill I could flash a “V” sign that would get famous, and yes maybe I could even start smoking a cigar.”

“ Not to worry Mr. President. As you said the other day, if Iran has a nuclear bomb, we will certainly have World War III”.

“Can you remind me how that was to unfold ? The Iranians would nuke Israel, and then we would nuke Iran. But then Iran would stay nuked. Doubt I can have World War III”

“Or maybe you could nuke the Russians for not being as critical of Iran as we would have liked, and then they will nuke us ---- all the ingredients of WWIII Mr. President.”

“Gee, I just can’t wait for that, but how do we get Iran to make a nuclear bomb ? “

“ Maybe we should provoke them with more sanctions, call them names, blame them for everything that is going wrong for us, say they are supporting terrorists, promoting sodomy, punishing homosexuals etc etc.”

“Ok Condi, go ahead, call the media, and make the announcement. I’ll just pop along and pick up some Havanas. Wasn’t that what Churchill puffed on ?”

" Don’t buy too many. Don't forget we have sanctions on Cuba as well Mr. President."

An hour or so later, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made this statement:

"The Iranian government continues to spurn our offer of open negotiations, instead threatening peace and security by pursuing nuclear technologies that can lead to a nuclear weapon; building dangerous ballistic missiles; supporting Shia militants in Iraq and terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories; and denying the existence of a fellow member of the United Nations, threatening to wipe Israel off the map," according to this report

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Mr. Bush, Cuba’s politics is none of your business !

US President George Bush’s commitment to promoting democracy worldwide has turned out to be no more than an opportunity for petty scoring of points with traditional foes.

Bush, with an eye to the Hispanic population of the US, is planning to issue a stern warning Wednesday that the United States will not accept a political transition in Cuba in which power changes from one Castro brother to another, rather than to the Cuban people, according to a report in the New York Times.

Bush will say that while much of the rest of Latin America has moved from dictatorship to democracy, Cuba continues to use repression and terror to control its people.

It is cynical that Bush is concerned about democracy and change in government in Cuba but not in Saudi Arabia, that he is concerned about suppression of democracy in Iran but not in Pakistan.

This selective concern about democracy makes a mockery of freedom and democracy, and attempts to manipulate it to serve the US’s pet peeves and geopolitical concerns.

It is embarrassing for us in the free world to find that the most vocal and often quoted advocate of democracy is a cheap trickster, who invokes people’s freedom only when it suits him, and his meddling in other affairs.

Bush is also violating principles of national sovereignty. What happens in Cuba is none of his business ! Cuba is a sovereign country, and the new government came to power in a revolution against the brutal dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista supported by the US.

Nor is the US record in promoting democracy in Latin America even-handed. The US used a variety of economic and political levers to replace the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile by that of the military dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Bush should also put his own house in order, before positioning the US as a beacon and advocate of freedom and democracy. The torture of detainees by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), the snooping on calls in the US, the growing impotence of Congress, and the emergence of an imperial presidency, do not speak well for US democracy. Probably the Castros and Bush have a lot in common after all.

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After WMDs , Bush is now talking about WW III

“It is not propaganda’s task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success,” said Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda from 1933 to 1945.

The latest we hear from Washington is that the President of the US, the largest superpower, is running scared that Iran will trigger of World War III.

The plot, as hinted by President George Bush, is that Iran, armed with a nuclear bomb, will attack Israel, which by the official line is unarmed and without nuclear capability. By some strange logic known only to Bush, the attack by Iran will spark off WW III.

The corollary to this twisted logic is that of course the US and/or Israel should preempt Iran by attacking the country, or destroying its nuclear capability.

Bush, at a news conference on Wednesday, said, "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

"The President was not making any war plans, and he wasn't making any declarations," White House Press Secretary Dana Perino quickly clarified Thursday. "He was making a point, and the point is that we do not believe - and neither does the international community believe - that Iran should be allowed to pursue nuclear weapons."

Like in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, when the world was mislead into believing that Saddam Hussein had terrible weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Bush and his coterie now intend to convince Americans and the world at large that the best way to protect the world from WW III is by attacking Iran, because one never knows when they will cross the threshold and make a bomb.

Bush’s theory of a belligerent and nuclear-armed Iran potentially leading to WW III is disingenuous and unintelligent. For one, Iran does not have a nuclear bomb. Also, self preservation would ensure that Iran will not use a bomb against Israel or any other country. The country knows it would be pounded by the nations of the free world, including the conventional and nuclear military power of the US.

Iran it looks like is going to get pounded in any case. The battle plans, it appears, are being drawn, and Bush and co. are just building up the hysteria preparatory to an attack, an attack that would unleash death on a whole lot of people in Iran, and spark off a backlash of Shia terrorism. Like in Iraq, George Bush is opening a Pandora’s box, and the whole world will suffer from it.

Unfortunately, what the public of the world think about the current administration’s actions matter little to Bush and coterie. We saw it in the case of Iraq when the US and allies occupied Iraq without a supporting resolution from the UN. This time too it is unlikely the Iran adventure will clear the vetoes of the Russians and the Chinese.

What is more surprising is that the opinion of the country’s people and its Congress seems to matter even less to the US president. As pointed out in my previous posts, by voting on partisan lines, rather than as statesmen and elected representatives of the people, Congress has rendered itself impotent as a countervailing force against a Presidency that seems very much out of control.

In search of an agenda, the Republicans are taking shelter behind Bush’s presidency. The Democrats have stolen the thunder from the Republicans on the Iraq war, on tax policy, and on welfare and other benefits aimed at revitalizing America’s middle class.

If the Republicans in Congress do not distance themselves from Bush now, Iran will be another millstone Bush will have passed on to the Republicans to shoulder.

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Russia reacts to American unilateralism

The end of the Cold War was one of the best things that happened to the US. No longer deterred by a belligerent Soviet Union, the US seized the opportunity to consolidate its position worldwide as a global policeman, deciding which countries should go into an international blacklist, and even occupying Iraq without an UN resolution enabling the attack.

The US is even now reported to be planning an attack on Iran, because Iran is allegedly developing nuclear weapons, and it is supporting rebels within Iraq.

Now Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has come out strongly against the US view of the world. During a visit to Iran, Putin said force should not be used in the Caspian region, which includes Iran, and countries in the region should not be used as a base for attack on another country in the Caspian.

Last week he told reporters, “We have no objective evidence to claim that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, which makes us believe the country has no such plans", thus putting him directly in opposition to the US.

This is not the first time that Russia has indicated it will not go along supinely with the US.

"We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state's legal system," he told a conference in Munich on security policy in February, at which US secretary of defense, Robert Gates was in attendance, according to a report in The Guardian.

The US government has typically reacted to Putin with its sanctimonious holier-than-thou attitude, including castigating Russia for the breakdown of democracy and freedom in Russia.

Which all adds up to US arm-twisting the world to coming around to its view of the world on all issues. Russia has already indicated it will not go along with that.

It is not yet clear what Russia will do if the US does attack Iran.

But recent moves by Putin, including his visit to Iran, suggest that Russian wants to play a bigger role in the world, if only to counter American unilateralism. That will also make Putin very popular in Russia which has historically reacted strongly to political slights.

Putin also recognizes that to have and keep friends around the world it has to deliver on its friendship – stand by them through thick and thin. Else Russia will be reduced to a cipher in global politics.

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Kosovo dispute highlights the issue of nationalities

Serbia warned the UN on Thursday of "unforeseeable consequences" that could destabilize the world if the breakaway province of Kosovo declares independence unilaterally later this year, according to a report by Reuters.

Serbian President Boris Tadic was evidently self-serving when he warned the UN General Assembly of the consequences of the legal precedent of an unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo. But he would have probably struck a sympathetic chord with a number of other countries, including many in Europe, that are fighting their own separatist movements.

Spain has to worry about Basque separatists, Russia about separatists in Chechnya and other rumblings of separation within the Russian federation, and Turkey about an undercurrent for a greater Kurdistan, spanning Kurd dominated areas in Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. Outside Europe, there are the Tamil separatists in Sri Lanka, Kashmiri separatists in India, and a large number of other smaller and maybe lesser known separatist movements which will may get some encouragement from an unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo.

Nations have been built not only on shared ideological principles, shared culture and history, common language, or by a voluntary association of different groups. Some of them have also been built on the basis of shared ethnicity and/or religion. Pakistan, for example, was partitioned from India on religious grounds alone.

If we go by history, and a sense of justice, there should be no objection to an ethnic group declaring independence. This stand unfortunately only looks good in a treatise on nationalities, meant for academic discourse alone.

If we put it into practice, we could see a large part of the world “balkanized” because every ethnic group or group with nationalistic aspirations could demand independence regardless of its political and economic viability as an independent country. Many of them will likely emerge in haste and violence, without the institutions in place required to be nations.

The problem gets more complicated when we consider that every group with nationalistic aspirations is not the sole occupant of the land that it claims for its new nation. In Kosovo, for example, about 120,000 Serbs still live there, roughly half of them in isolated enclaves protected by a NATO peacekeeping force of 16,000, and the rest in a northern triangle that is closely tied to the Serbian hinterland, according to the Reuters report. Kashmir for example has a large number of Hindus who do not go along with the idea of the independence of the land.

Without the consent of these minority groups, many a newly independent nation will hence be born in bitterness, civil war, ethnic cleansing, and instability, apart from the hostility of the country they have broken from.

If Kosovo declares unilateral independence from Serbia, as it threatens, it could be the first of a large number of new flashpoints around the world.

There is also the danger that once a precedent is established, ethnic groups may consciously choose to populate an area, establish themselves as the majority population there, and then declare unilateral independence. That could mean, say 50 years from now, a slew of new nations that currently don’t exist.

The upshot is that a negotiated settlement between Serbia and Kosovo would in the best long-term interest of the world. Better perhaps that Kosovo gets autonomy with almost all powers over the territory transferred to it.

A solution in Kosovo, that avoids an unilateral declaration of independence, will not change the demands of the Tamils in Sri Lanka or the Basques in Spain. But the UN will avoid opening a Pandora’s box, that it is right now not equipped to handle.

Where are your manners Mr. Lee C. Bollinger ?

Columbia University’s President Lee C. Bollinger today told President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, “You exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator”, before turning over the lectern to him to deliver a speech.

Bollinger’s description of the Iranian President may well be correct. Different people and different countries have different views of political leaders. If US President George Bush were to go to Iran or Iraq, a speaker there may well have told him, “ You exhibit all the signs of an interfering and petty war monger”, and they may have been right too.

But were your remarks to Ahmadinejad in good taste, Mr. Bollinger ? Were they civil ?

Ahmadinejad was invited to speak at Columbia University, and as a guest speaker at the university, your remarks to him were uncivil.

If you thought that the Iranian President was a petty and cruel dictator, you were entirely within your rights not to invite him to speak to your students, which is precisely what demonstrators outside had all along been demanding.

But once you had invited the man, don’t insult him. That reflects on you and the university, in fact on the US.

You also gave Ahmadinejad the opportunity to score points that a number of Muslims may be able to relate to - the President of a Muslim state was insulted at an American university.

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Iran President says no need for nuclear bomb

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran, Iran told CBS in an interview, ahead of his visit to the United Nations in New York, that Iran does not need a nuclear bomb.

“Any party who uses national revenues to make a bomb, a nuclear bomb, will make a mistake. Because in political relations right now, the nuclear bomb is of no use,” Ahmadinejad said talking to 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley, through an interpreter in Teheran. “If it was useful, it would have prevented the downfall of the Soviet Union. If it was useful, it would have resolved the problems the Americans have in Iraq,” the Iranian President added.

The US and its allies have maintained that Iran is planning a nuclear bomb, and have even hinted at a pre-emptive strike at the country’s nuclear facilities.

Evidently trying to make a case for US hypocrisy in its position on Iran’s nuclear bombs, Ahmadinejad said, “So can you please tell me why the U.S. government is fabricating these bombs? Do you want to provide a more welfare, happiness to the people through the bomb? Are you going to deal with global poverty? Or do you want to kill people?”.

Neither confirming nor denying that Iran is supplying arms to insurgents in Iraq, a claim made by the US, Ahmadinejad said Iran is worried about “insecurity” inside Iraq, as that could pose a threat to Iran. “We are not interfering in Iraq. The Iraqi people are our friends. And the president, the prime minister, the speaker of the parliament are our friends. We don't need to interfere in Iraq,” the Iranian President said.

Ahmadinejad said the US should pull troops out of Iraq because the people there were opposed to the occupation. “First, they said that they want to topple the dictator and find WMDs [weapons of mass destruction]. They didn't find WMDs and there's no dictator there anymore. So the question is: What are American troops doing right now in Iraq?,” he asked.

The Los Angeles Times meanwhile reports that Ahmadinejad has emerged as a hero for Arabs, and has won admiration even among Sunni nations, for making it a point to defy the US and Israel. Iran is predominantly Shia, and is often accused of undercutting Sunnis in Iraq.

On Israel, Ahmadinejad told CBS that the decision for a two-state solution rests with the Palestinians. “We are saying that you should allow the Palestinian people to participate in a fair and free election and determine their own fate. Whatever decision they take, everyone should go with that,” he added.

The President did not however clarify on the contentious issue of whether Palestinian refugees, that were pushed out when Israel was formed, should also be allowed to vote in the election. The Iranian President has called for "wiping out" Israel, and described the Holocaust - the genocide of Jews during World War II - as a myth.

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