Don't Worry About Iran Getting The Bomb

The Asia Times offers up one of the best and most interesting pieces I've read about the whole topic of Iran's pursuit of a nuclear bomb.

Sure, we'd all love a world without nukes, but that just ain't gonna happen...and currently the international community is bound up over what to do over Iran's (alleged) development of a nuclear weapon. The Asia Times' Aetius Romulous though makes a fairly compelling case that Iran's getting the bomb would be a good thing. His argument goes that an Iran with the bomb would become a regional power in its own right - preventing them from becoming a client state of Russia, while at the same time reducing Iran's need to try to project influence through the Mid-East by funding terrorist proxy groups like Hezbollah. Iran's rise to regional power status would also secure the oil supplies for two of the world's great rising powers, China and India (currently Iran's two biggest customers), likely reducing future tension between them since a big chunk of their energy supplies would now be secure.

It is an argument that goes against the conventional wisdom of keeping Iran from getting the bomb by any means necessary, thus making well worth your time to read.

Wise Uses of America's Power?

RealClearWorld's Compass Blog offered up this post the other day: "The Use and Abuse of American Power". The post started out talking about the United States' ongoing involvement in Afghanistan, but it went on to cite a quote from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in a 2008 speech when he talked about the use of American military forces during the past 40 years in locales including: "Vietnam, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa, and more."

Writer Greg Scoblete goes on to ask "whether most of these military conflicts were worthwhile endeavors in the first place." I think he makes an excellent point. Was it really in the United States national interest to get involved in Lebanon, Grenada or Panama? Looking back, the logic for American involvement in Vietnam also seems pretty weak - the rationale at the time was expressed as the "Domino Theory": that Communism was like a virus, and if Vietnam was allowed to "go Red" other Asian nations like Japan and South Korea would soon follow. Of course after a decade of war Vietnam did go Communist and Japan and South Korea went on to become Capitalist powerhouses in the 1980s, so go figure...

Scoblete's point is that, militarily speaking, the United States tends to shoot first and try to decide if it was a good idea later. It is an excellent point to keep in mind while we try to figure out what to do next in Afghanistan.

Go, Russia!

In my latest post over at The Mantle I talk about Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's state-of-the-nation address entitled "Go, Russia!" Unfortunately a lack of specifics in Medvedev's roadmap for the future of Russia has left a lot of the comments about the speech to focus on talk of time zones, YouTube clips and the body language of Vladimir Putin. And while in the speech Medvedev makes a point of talking about how he enjoys reading comments made by average Russians on his official blog, I have to wonder if the recent spate of YouTube confessionals by corrupt Russian cops was the kind of social media interaction he had in mind.

Obama's Phantom Town Hall Meeting

I had trouble sleeping last night, so I turned on the TV and was able to catch some of President Obama's townhall meeting in Shanghai with an audience of Chinese university students. Laying in my bed I was able to do something most Chinese were not, to watch Obama engage in a Q&A session with the students.

The townhall was suppose to be one of the key events of Obama's visit to China, a chance for the country to see the new president in action. The original idea was for the event to be broadcast nationwide on China's state-run TV network. But after two weeks of negotiations, the best the White House could get was coverage on the local Shanghai affiliate station and in Hong Kong, as well as on the Internet. But if the Obama Administration was hoping that the Internet would bring the townhall to the masses, they were badly mistaken - access to streaming video via Whitehouse.gov was said to be "unreliable" in Beijing, while Chinese authorities blocked access through Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. Comments critical about the government posted to Chinese news sites were reported by several Chinese bloggers to have been quickly scrubbed by the authorities.

Perhaps all that censorship was unnecessary - the audience in Shanghai was said to have been carefully pre-screened by the local branch of the Communist party and was only about a quarter of the size Obama had hoped for. And to a degree Obama was self-censoring, soft-pedaling the topic of human rights in China. Obama did take a stand against Internet censorship, but only in reply to a question asked not by a student but by the US Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman (from an email, he said, sent to the US Embassy in China). Perhaps the most effective form of censorship really is self-censorship.

News: America Has An Afghan Strategy

In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reveals that the United States actually does have a strategy for Afghanistan.

Clinton said that the United States' goal is to "defeat al-Qaeda and its extremist allies." Of course since a number of senior US military leaders have in recent months stated that there are less than 100 al-Qaeda operatives left in Afghanistan, you could make the case that we've already reached that goal. While Der Spiegel didn't ask raise that point, they did ask Sec. Clinton a pointed question in relation to Afghanistan's recent fraudulent elections, namely: "should our troops die for a corrupt government?"

Clinton responded by saying that she didn't "think they are fighting and sacrificing for the Afghan government - they do this for all of us." With that answer Clinton tried to continue the idea that Afghanistan is the central front in a global war on terrorism, despite the mounting evidence from our own military and intelligence services that it is not, nor is it likely to once again become an al-Qaeda safe haven should we leave.

And that is the biggest problem with the current debate on what to do next in Afghanistan - it is all built on faulty information. And it is impossible to make a good decision based on bad information.

Opinion Polls in Russia, Ukraine (and Moscow Rappers)

News now from a couple of opinion polls about the leadership in Russia and the upcoming presidential elections in Ukraine.

In Ukraine, a poll taken last week has former President (and presidential vote-rigger back in 2004) Viktor Yanukovych leading all candidates with 21.4%, current Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko came in second at 18%. A half-dozen other candidates, including current President Viktor Yushchenko, all failed to register above the single digits.

Meanwhile in Russia, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's approval rankings tumbled six points to their lowest level since he took over as PM, coming in at 66%. Now for an elected official 66% is usually regarded as a excellent level of support, but it is quite a decline from Putin's formerly stratospheric numbers up in the 80% range.

The poll numbers came out as Putin was appearing on "Battle for Respect", a hip-hop contest sponsored by Muz TV, a Russian-language rival to MTV. Putin himself didn't rap, but he did address the crowd and received chants of "Respect, Vladimir Vladimirovich!" in reply. Rapper Zhigan, who did win "Battle for Respect", said though that it would be "cool" to record a track with Putin "because he is a legendary man and our idol." I think that Zhigan will have a bright future ahead of him...

Spain Wants To Take Fight To Pirates

Spain is proposing a drastic change to the way the international community is dealing with the piracy problem off the coast of Somalia. Spain's new idea is to blockade the three Somali port cities used by the pirates as bases of operation and as places to store the ships they capture.

In recent weeks the piracy problem has become personal for the Spanish - three dozen Spaniards were captured aboard a fishing trawler, the Somali pirates are refusing to let any of them go until the Spanish government releases two pirates they are currently holding. The Spanish government is of course refusing this demand.

There is some logic to the Spanish blockade approach. In the past month, the pirates have launched a series of attacks hundreds of miles from the Somali coast, in one case they attacked a ship nearly a thousand miles out to sea, meaning piracy is now a threat throughout a good chunk of the Indian Ocean. It is far too much sea for the roughly two dozen international warships participating in anti-piracy efforts to effectively patrol. Two dozen ships though could blockade three port cities.

What the Spanish didn't explain is what they would do if the Somali pirates tried to run the proposed blockade, especially if they tried to bring a captured civilian ship into port, since a military attack would almost certainly kill some or all of the civilian ship's crew. Spain will formally make their proposal at a meeting next week of countries participating in the anti-piracy flotilla.

Looming Hockey Strike in Russian League?

It's not that often that hockey intrudes into the realm of international affairs, though it seems to be happening more and more often with Russia's fledgling Kontinental Hockey League (KHL). The latest story involves the KHL's Lada Togliatti, which is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and whose players are threatening to strike over unpaid wages.

Lada Togliatti is sponsored by Russia's automotive conglomerate AutoVaz, maker of the venerable Lada line of cars. Problem is that few Russians today want to buy Ladas. That has left AutoVaz on the verge of making massive layoffs and that has the city Togliatti in a panic, since the sprawling AutoVaz complex employs about one in seven of Togliatti's residents.

One cost-cutting measure at AutoVaz apparently has been to stop paying the players on Lada Togliatti, prompting them to threaten a strike. So far the KHL has agreed to pay the players through November, the league is also negotiating with a subsidiary of Russia's state-run weapons manufacturer Rosoboronexport about taking over the sponsorship of the team - now that could make for some interesting give-away nights for the fans...

So Much For "Freedom Of The Press" In Iraq

The British newspaper/webportal The Guardian is furious over a fine levied by an Iraqi court against one of their reporters, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad for his April article that quoted intelligence officials who accused the country's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki of becoming "increasingly authoritarian."

The Guardian published a flood of condemnations from around the world against the Iraqi court decision. Honestly, The Guardian laid it on a bit thick, but the underlying message is a good one: how can we consider the new government in Iraq truly democratic if it is so quick to try and muzzle the press over coverage that is unflattering to its leader? Some of the strongest condemnations came from the Arabic-language newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi, which called the Iraqi tribunal a "kangaroo court" and said: "Despite the fact that the Americans spent $800bn to create a democracy and promote freedom of expression, what we have seen in Iraq is an appalling media where the opposition points of view rarely surface. It is sectarian or factional or financed by the Americans."

Much of the criticism continued in that vein, with words like "mockery" and "affront" thrown around a lot. And this isn't the first time charges like this have been leveled at al-Maliki, back in January the Los Angeles Times did a long piece on the growing authoritarianism of his regime, though the Times was never sued.

Mamoun Fandy from the think-tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies though did see some signs of progress in the slander lawsuit. He said, "it is new that a leader or an intelligence agency in that part of the world takes a journalist in their jurisdiction to court instead of jailing him or ordering him being bumped off."

Russia Rocked By Police Corruption Claims

The idea of police corruption is sadly nothing new in Russia - I've heard from a number of friends stories of having to pay "fines" (small bribes really) for committing non-existent offenses while visiting Russia; I also once heard a well-known journalist explain how during the Beslan elementary school terrorist attack/siege in 2004, it was possible to bribe your way past the security cordon for just a few dollars. But the revelations of Alexei Dymovsky, formerly a Major on the Novorossiisk, Krasnodar police force have become the talk of the nation, perhaps for the way Major Dymovsky told his tale - through a series of online videos on YouTube and his personal website last Thursday.

In the clips, Maj. Dymovsky gave a gripping account of a police department riddled with corruption: from young people taking jobs with the police at just $400 per month, knowing that they could make much more from bribes; to officers being ordered to solve non-existent crimes to boost statistics; to officers being denied sick days and health care access; to his own personal admission that he gained his Major's rank by agreeing to prosecute a man he knew to be innocent. Dymovsky repeated his allegations at press conference in Moscow on Tuesday, which also sadly happened to be National Police Day in Russia.

Dymovsky's allegations have officials scrambling. He was promptly fired by the Novorossiisk Police Dept., who are also threatening to sue him for slander. At his press conference Dymovsky claimed he had to drive the 800 miles to Moscow after he found he couldn't buy an airline ticket because his credit card was frozen and he feared his family was now being followed by the authorities. Officially the Kremlin has not had a response, saying that Dymovsky's claims had to be checked first, even though he addressed his You Tube clip to "Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin]" asking him to conduct "an independent investigation throughout Russia" into police corruption.

This wasn't the first time, according to RussiaToday that Dymovsky tried to enlist Putin in an investigation of the police. In 2006 during a televised nationwide Q&A session with the then president, Dymovsky asked Putin: "when will the police abuses be stopped in Krasnodar region?”, though he says his chiefs then pressured him to say he misspoke.

Some official quarters have responded though, the Russian Interior Ministry announced they would launch an investigation into Dymovsky's charges beginning on Monday. Of course since this is Russia, the conspiracy theories are also flying along with Dymovsky's charges. Those trying to discredit Dymovsky say he being used by "foreign influences" to discredit Russia's police, specifically the United States who are funneling money from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through a Novorossiisk-based human rights organization to Dymovsky; another theory is that Dymovsky is being used as a front by the Kremlin itself to remove some high-ranking police officials under a cloud scandal.

The record number of hits on Dymovsky's website and his YouTube videos though suggest this conspiracy won't go away quietly.