Geopolitics Weekly

Congress should demand answers to questions like: What is the role of cyber war in US military strategy? Is it acceptable to do "preparation of the battlefield" by lacing other countries' networks with "Trojan horses" or "back doors" in peacetime? Would the United States consider a preemptive cyber attack on another nation? If so, under what circumstances? Does US Cyber Command have a plan to seize control and defend private sector networks in a crisis? Do the rules of engagement for cyber war allow for military commanders to engage in "active defense" under some circumstances? Are there types of targets we will not attack, such as banks or hospitals? If so, how can we assure that they are not the victims of collateral damage from US cyber attacks?

Fereidoun Abbasi was targeted in a simultaneous attack. Abbasi, an expert in nuclear isotope separation, noticed the suspicious motorcyclist, however, and he and his wife jumped out of the car. They were both injured in the explosion. After Abbasi recovered, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appointed him as one of Iran's vice presidents as well as head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.

the Clinton administration entered office in 1993 and proceeded to adopt a strategy of "dual containment." Until that moment, the United States had acted as an "offshore balancer" in the Persian Gulf, and we had carefully refrained from deploying large air or ground force units there on a permanent basis. We had backed the Shah of Iran since the 1940s, and then switched sides and tilted toward Iraq during the 1980s. Our goal was to prevent any single power from dominating this oil-rich region, and we cleverly played competing powers off against each other for several decades. With dual containment, however, the United States had committed itself to containing two different countries -- Iran and Iraq -- who hated each other, which in turn forced us to keep lots of airplanes and troops in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. We did this, as both Kenneth Pollack and Trita Parsi have documented, because Israel wanted us to do it, and U.S. officials foolishly believed that doing so would make Israel more compliant during the Oslo peace process. But in addition to costing a lot more money, keeping U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia for the long term also fueled the rise of al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden was deeply offended by the presence of "infidel" troops on Saudi territory, and so the foolish strategy of dual containment played no small role in causing our terrorism problem. It also helped derail several attempts to improve relations between the United States and Iran. Dual containment, in short, was a colossal blunder.

But no strategy is so bad that somebody else can't make it worse. And that is precisely what George W. Bush did after 9/11. Under the influence of neoconservatives who had opposed dual containment because they thought it didn't go far enough, Bush adopted a new strategy of "regional transformation." Instead of preserving a regional balance of power, or containing Iraq and Iran simultaneously, the United States was now going to use its military power to topple regimes across the Middle East and turn those countries into pro-American democracies. This was social engineering on a scale never seen before. The American public and the Congress were unenthusiastic, if not suspicious, about this grand enterprise, which forced the Bush administration to wage a massive deception campaign to get them on board for what was supposed to be the first step in this wildly ambitious scheme. The chicanery worked, and the United States launched its unnecessary war on Iraq in March 2003.

wrecking Iraq -- which is what we did -- destroyed the balance of power in the Gulf and improved Iran's geopolitical position. The invasion of Iraq also diverted resources away from the war in Afghanistan, which allowed the Taliban to re-emerge as a formidable fighting force. Thus, Bush's decision to topple Saddam in 2003 led directly to two losing wars, not just one. And these wars were enormously expensive to boot. Combined with Bush's tax cuts and other fiscal irresponsibilities, this strategic incompetence caused the federal deficit to balloon to dangerous levels and helped bring about the fiscal impasse that we will be dealing with for years to come.

Islamabad makes no secret of its preference for China over the United States as a military patron, calling Beijing an "all-weather" ally in contrast to Washington's supposedly fickle friendship.

China is a major investor in predominantly Muslim Pakistan in areas such as telecommunications, ports and infrastructure. The countries are linked by a Chinese-built road pushed through Pakistan's northern mountains. Trade with Pakistan is worth almost $9 billion a year for Pakistan, and China is its top arms supplier.

China, like the United States, wanted Pakistan to help it control Islamist militancy. But it is frustrated by the chaotic nature of Pakistani governance, and its inability to control militants or militant-friendly elements in its security agencies.

Ali Motahari, a prominent conservative MP who has previously threatened to impeach Ahmadinejad, spoke out against the involvement of the revolutionary guards in Iran's politics."The integration of the guard, as a military force, in political and economic power is not in the interests of the system," Motahari told the parliament. "In neighboring countries, military officials are distancing themselves from politics and power, while it's the opposite in Iran."

The appointment of Ghasemi as Iran's oil minister automatically makes him the head of Opec which has a crucial role in determining oil prices.As its second-largest crude oil exporter, Iran took the presidency of Opec after 36 years last October and Ghasemi's position will give the revolutionary guards a unique opportunity to influence an international organisation.

An American former military contractor who claims he was imprisoned and tortured by the US army in Iraq has been allowed by a judge to sue the former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally for damages.

Mike Kanovitz, the Chicago lawyer representing the plaintiff, says it appears the military wanted to keep his client behind bars so he would be unable tell anyone about an important contact he made with a leading sheik while helping to collect intelligence in Iraq.The plaintiff says he was the first American to open direct talks with Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, who became an important US ally and later led a revolt of Sunni sheiks against al-Qaida before being killed by a bomb."The US government wasn't ready for the rest of the world to know about it, so they basically put him on ice," Kanovitz said. "If you've got unchecked power over the citizens, why not use it?"

this is the second time a federal judge has allowed a US citizen to sue Rumsfeld personally.

Har Homa is one of the largest and most controversial Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem. It is regarded, under international law, as occupied Palestinian land, but Israel says it is part of its territory.

The expansion of Har Homa, say campaigners, would effectively cut off the Palestinian town of Bethlehem from other Arab areas in East Jerusalem.

Previous announcements about building plans in Har Homa have been criticised by the US, UK and many other foreign governments.

A prominent Israeli politician, Isaac Herzog, has shrewdly suggested that Israel actually offer, with conditions, to vote in favor of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.

Yet the American House of Representatives voted 407 to 6 to call on the Obama administration to use its diplomatic capital to try to block the initiative, while also threatening to cut the Palestinians’ funding if they proceeded to seek statehood.

Similarly, when Israel stormed into Gaza in 2008 to halt rocket attacks, more than 1,300 Gazans were killed, along with 13 Israelis, according to B’Tselem, a respected Israeli human rights group. As Gazan blood flowed, the House, by a vote of 390 to 5, hailed the invasion as “Israel’s right to defend itself.”

A busted bubble led to a massive Keynesian stimulus that averted a much deeper recession, but that also fueled substantial budget deficits. The response – massive spending cuts – ensures that unacceptably high levels of unemployment (a vast waste of resources and an oversupply of suffering) will continue, possibly for years.

even as Europe’s leaders promised that help was on the way, they doubled down on the belief that non-crisis countries must cut spending. The resulting austerity will hinder Europe’s growth, and thus that of its most distressed economies: after all, nothing would help Greece more than robust growth in its trading partners. And low growth will hurt tax revenues, undermining the proclaimed goal of fiscal consolidation.

The ECB argued that taxpayers should pick up the entire tab for Greece’s bad sovereign debt, for fear that any private-sector involvement (PSI) would trigger a “credit event,” which would force large payouts on credit-default swaps (CDSs), possibly fueling further financial turmoil. But, if that is a real fear for the ECB – if it is not merely acting on behalf of private lenders – surely it should have demanded that the banks have more capital.

Turkey’s civilian leadership appointed four new commanders on Thursday, decisively strengthening its control over its armed forces less than a week after the military leadership abruptly resigned in frustration over the continuing prosecution of officers accused of plotting to overthrow the government.

The new appointments of a chief of general staff and commanders of the army, navy and air force reflected the Islamic-leaning civilian government’s increased assertiveness in its struggle with the country’s military establishment, which has orchestrated three coups since 1960 and forced another government from power in 1997.

In prior years, the council funneled military influence into the public sphere. But on Thursday, the meeting was led exclusively by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and a widely circulated photograph of the event seemed to illustrate his success in ensuring civilian supremacy in Turkish politics. The appointees resemble their predecessors in background and experience, but their rise is the start of what many see as a new era of civilian dominance here.

The Arab with a camel, in an Ali Baba dress. They describe them as vile and deviant and criminal, people who don't pay taxes, people who live off the state, people who don't want to develop," she says. "The only representation is as refugees, primitive farmers and terrorists. You never see a Palestinian child or doctor or teacher or engineer or modern farmer."

Peled-Elhanan, a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has studied the content of Israeli school books for the past five years, and her account, Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education, is to be published in the UK this month. She describes what she found as racism– but, more than that, a racism that prepares young Israelis for their compulsory military service.

"One question that bothers many people is how do you explain the cruel behaviour of Israeli soldiers towards Palestinians, an indifference to human suffering, the inflicting of suffering. People ask how can these nice Jewish boys and girls become monsters once they put on a uniform. I think the major reason for that is education. So I wanted to see how school books represent Palestinians."

Jonathan Levy, one of the protest organisers, told the BBC: "All the non-rich people in Israel, no matter if they're secular or religious, old or young, realise that we've abandoned some really important battlefields in this country, that is economy, and we only dealt obsessively with security problems."

Ever a big-picture thinker, the U.S.-educated premier gave a speech this week commending Israel's founding premier David Ben-Gurion for making fateful decisions at a "heavy price," despite protests heard at home and abroad.Commentators, on the alert these days for any clue about a possible strike on Iran, spotted a subtext - that Netanyahu, too, was ready to take lonely action in Israel's interest.He could hope for a repeat of the 1981 attack on Iraq's atomic reactor and a similar sortie against Syria in 2007, when the anger of Washington's initial reactions quickly faded.

"So there's a huge public relations issue here: Can you make a credible case over the head of the administration, and get the American public to buy into the pain that is going to follow -- Americans being killed in terrorism, oil shock, whatever it is."For now, Kurtzer estimated, Obama administration warnings against unilateral Israeli strikes on Iran would account for "5 percent" of Israeli deliberations, with the Netanyahu government's military calculations taking the lion's share.

Its priorities include fending off Iran's promised missile reprisals and containing potential knock-on border wars with the Lebanese and Palestinian guerrillas who are allied to Tehran.

The Sunni-ruled states of the Gulf, particularly Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, say Iran stirs up unrest in their Shi'ite communities, although many Western analysts believe blaming Iran for protests this year in those countries is an overstatement or at least oversimplification.

"U.S. and Western power in the region is weakening, and that is leaving a vacuum - most notably in Iraq - and you can see the main stakeholders in the region reacting to Iran's readiness to fill that vacuum," says Reva Bhalla, head of analysis at US private intelligence company Stratfor.

This year's uprising in Syria - Iran's rare Arab friend - has created a new battlefield. Since the early days of the uprising, U.S. officials repeatedly and pointedly said they believed Assad's government was receiving support from Tehran.Assad has since been rapidly abandoned by the Arab League, in a diplomatic effort led by Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Arab Gulf states. Analysts and officials say that could have as much to do with pushing back against Iran as in reining in killings and rights abuses in Syria itself.

As president, potentially until 2024, Putin has one overriding objective: the creation of a third, post-tsarist, post-Soviet Russian empire.

Elements of Putin's strategy to make Russia great again are slowly coming into focus. Much of the plan is defined by Russia's opposition to the US, the traditional foe. Thus the Kremlin announced last week that it would renounce the strategic arms reduction treaty (known as New Start) agreed with Washington two years ago if the US did not abandon its European missile defence plans.

unveiling of a new Russian missile base in Kaliningrad on Nato's doorstep

Mr Sarkozy said that there is one Europe "which wants more solidarity between its members and regulation, the other [is] attached solely to the logic of the single market".

Meanwhile, French presidential candidate Francois Hollande has said that he would seek to renegotiate the deal on the euro agreed last week. Mr Hollande, who is the Socialist Party's challenger to President Nicolas Sarkozy at next year's elections, said the agreement was not the right solution for the European Union.

He said he wanted greater powers for the European Central Bank (ECB) and for member states to issue joint eurobonds.

"After (Osama) bin Laden's death and the Arab Spring, the name (al Qaeda) seems to have negative connotations and baggage,"

the number of jihadists going to Pakistan since bin Laden died has decreased, but there has been uptick of such travelers to Yemen and “the number of foreign fighters in Yemen now exceeds 1,000.” That would put the number in Yemen at “more than four times the number of al Qaeda members believed to be in the tribal areas of Pakistan,” Fox adds. Somalia is also considered a hotbed with more than 750 foreign fighters now training there.

"The al Qaeda core is no longer beneficial to be associated with ... because their main leader is gone," said Rick "Ozzie" Nelson, director of homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, according to Fox. "One thing about AQAP is it's got remarkable name recognition, which can serve to help recruiting.”

North Korea's official KCNA news agency named Kim's youngest son, Kim Jong-un, as the "Great Successor", lauding him as "the outstanding leader of our party, army and people".But there was uncertainty about how much support he has among the ruling elite, especially in the military, and worry he might try some military provocation to help establish his credentials.

"Kim Jong-un is a pale reflection of his father and grandfather. He has not had the decades of grooming and securing of a power base that Jong-il enjoyed before assuming control from his father," said Bruce Klingner, an Asia policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation in Washington."(He) may feel it necessary in the future to precipitate a crisis to prove his mettle to other senior leaders or deflect attention from the regime's failings."

there will be questions over how much real control the younger Kim has, and whether the military elite accepts him.Zhu Feng, Professor of International Relations at Peking University, said it was clear the mechanism for transition was in place and working."The issue of primary concern now is not whether North Korea will maintain political stability, but what will be the nature of the new political leadership, and what policies will it pursue at home and abroad."In the short-term, there won't be new policies, only a stressing of policy stability and continuity. So soon after Kim Jong-il has died, no leader will dare say that an alternative policy course is needed," Zhu said.

Over the past 18 months, Kim, who in the past rarely travelled abroad, visited China four times and in August made his first trip to Russia in nearly a decade.

Kim's visits were mainly aimed at winning economic support, and raised speculation he may finally be opening one of the world's most closed economies.

For China, its much smaller and poorer neighbor is both a buffer and a burden.China sees North Korea as a strategic barrier against the United States and its regional allies. But that barrier comes with an economic and diplomatic price.

Real power in North Korea now probably belongs to a coterie of advisers following the death of Kim Jong-il, not his youngest son, an untested man in his 20s who has been anointed the "Great Successor."

These advisers will decide whether North Korea launches military action against South Korea to strengthen the succession around Kim Jong-un -- or seeks a peaceful transition.

The most powerful adviser is Jang Song-thaek, 65, brother-in-law of Kim Jong-il.