3.5.2006, Monday
Israel seeks civilian nuclear power
Mon, 03/05/2007 - 12:48pm.
Back in February, the director-general of the Israel Electric Corporation, Uri Ben-Nun, said that the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission is "mulling the construction of a nuclear power plant in Israel."
It may be surprising that Israel has never built a civilian nuclear power plant, since it has long been assumed to have a sophisticated nuclear weapons program. All other countries with advanced nuclear weapons programs also have substantial civilian nuclear power programs. Add Israel's uniquely pressing need for energy independence and the question becomes even more puzzling: Why hasn't this already happened?
Geopolitics, mostly. According to a report by Stratfor, a private intelligence firm, "Israel has flirted with nuclear power three times, beginning in 1976, but security concerns and the international environment have thus far prevented such a project's completion." For example, nuclear materials have been hard for Israel to acquire (since it has not signed the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) and a hostile neighbor could have attacked the plant.
The international environment has changed, though. Nuclear power is becoming more attractive worldwide because it does not generate greenhouse gases. While some Gulf States had been calling for a "nuclear-free zone" in the region, now Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates have expressed interest in developing nuclear power. And Israel's military preeminence in the region makes an attack on any nuclear power plant much less likely today.
Most important for Israel, though, is the recent U.S.-India deal on nuclear cooperation. India, like Israel, never signed the NPT but has nuclear weapons. They, too, had difficulty buying nuclear fuel abroad, but the new deal will allow the United States to sell nuclear materials to India for its civilian program. This may open the door for Israel in the future.
While Israel won't be building civilian nuclear reactors tomorrow, Stratfor is probably right that these changes "make an Israeli civilian nuclear power program more likely than ever before."
Negotiations With the Taliban in the Works?
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Admitting defeat against the Taliban, it appears the Western alliance in Afghanistan is mulling a deal with the enemy.
Things aren’t getting any better for nato troops in Afghanistan. Since ousting the Taliban from power soon after Sept. 11, 2001, Western troops have battled an increasingly sophisticated and intensified insurgency. The number of attacks in the first two months of this year has been about double that of the first two months last year, and nato is expecting the level of violence to get much greater as the year progresses and the spring thaw makes for better fighting conditions for the Taliban.
Supported by tribes on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and given logistical and technical assistance by foreign terrorists, the Taliban has emerged not only as a more-formidable-than-expected fighting force but also as the strongest political force among the locals in eastern and southern Afghanistan. Stratfor intelligence asserts that a military victory would demand a level of casualties unacceptable to Western forces. As such, it appears the U.S.-led coalition is prepared to use nonmilitary options—that is, negotiations with the terrorists—to compliment its current efforts.
Several developments last week point to this, including comments made by British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett implying that nonmilitary means of dealing with the Taliban should be employed. Beckett also met with Ali Jan Muhammad Orakzai, the governor of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province and the Pakistani president’s point man on the Taliban, who has already cut deals with the Taliban. The Pakistanis are indicating they would be cooperative in such a scenario—under certain conditions favorable to them.
Such a move—dealing politically with the Taliban—would not only be admitting a failure to defeat the Taliban, but would also legitimize the very terrorist enemy the United States and its allies have been fighting.
Such a progression of events should not be surprising. The last time America won a decisive victory in any theater is increasingly becoming a distant memory. Its enemies are growing familiar with a tried and tested war tactic: Make America’s presence as costly as possible (in lives, and politically), and then simply wait it out. In the end, whoever has the most patience and resolve will win. It is not looking good for the United States and its allies.
3.6.2006, Tuesday
3.7.2006, Wednesday
Former Japanese PM advises unpopular Abe to ignore public opinion
By John Chan
7 March 2007
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author
Amid plummetting support in opinion polls for Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi had a word of advice for the incumbent. He told a top-level meeting of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on February 20 that Abe had to defy public opinion and press ahead with the government’s unpopular policies.
Koizumi, who had been invited to offer tips to younger party leaders, told his audience: “You don’t need to pay attention to the ups and downs of Cabinet support ratings every single time. Be less sensitive to the effects of the things just before your eyes. The capacity to be insensitive is important... The most important thing is the prime minister holding onto his faith, and that has to be upheld.”
Koizumi specifically advised the government to ignore public criticisms of the country’s deepening divide between rich and poor. Abe, like Koizumi, is committed to a policy of economic restructuring and privatisation that has produced growing unemployment and social inequality over the past two decades.
Dismissing the hardship such policies have created, Koizumi declared: “Why not say clearly that such a gap exists in any era? I said that again and again in budget committee meetings. Do you think that the gap in Japan is bigger than in its neighbouring countries?” He also urged the LDP leadership to suppress criticism from the old party factions, which, he said, would only hamper the pace of the free-market reform.
Poll after poll has shown Abe’s support in free fall. The latest survey conducted by Asahi Shimbun in February reported a further drop from 40 percent to 37 percent, compared to nearly 70 percent when Abe replaced Koizumi as prime minister last September.
These polls underscore the basic dilemma confronting Japanese governments throughout the 1990s: how to establish a social base for policies that are deeply unpopular. Koizumi was preceded by a string of short-lived and highly unstable LDP governments that attempted to press ahead with market reforms and revive Japan as a military power to compete with its great power rivals.
Koizumi was able to press ahead with this agenda in part because he broke the traditional mould. He openly challenged the dominance of the LDP factions and promoted an unconventional “rebellious” persona to attract a layer of alienated, particularly younger voters. Koizumi put an anti-establishment spin on his support for Japanese militarism and socially regressive economic policies.
More fundamentally, Koizumi consolidated the backing of sections of the Japanese ruling elite for his strategy of full support for the Bush administration’s “war on terror” as the means for freeing Japan from the constrictions of its post-war “pacifist” constitution. Koizumi defied a wave of public opposition in order to commit Japanese troops to the US occupation of Iraq and adopted an increasingly belligerent stance in North East Asia, particularly toward China.
Koizumi’s rather superficial popularity was never going to last. But Abe, with his clean-cut image and pedigree as an LDP blueblood, was completely incapable of making the same type of appeal as his predecessor. Moreover, while Abe is committed to Japanese militarism, he has come under pressure from sections of the corporate elite to placate China, where Japanese business has huge investments. He is also under fire for failing to press ahead with economic restructuring.
The political establishment’s internal tensions were evident during US Vice President Dick Cheney’s recent visit to Japan. Cheney refused to meet Defence Minister Fumio Kyuma who in January mildly criticised the US invasion of Iraq as a “mistake”. The criticism reflects growing concerns within ruling circles about the consequences of aligning too closely with the Bush administration’s military adventures.
Abe received something of a slap in the face from Washington when the US pushed ahead with a deal last month over North Korea’s nuclear programs and all but ignored Tokyo’s concerns. Abe came to political prominence in 2002 when he pressured Koizumi to pursue the issue of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents in 1970s and 1980s.
American negotiators, however, relegated the issue to a working party—that is, to the distant future. As one of the parties to multilateral talks, Japan was forced to fall into line and agree to the deal worked out between Washington and China. Abe’s displeasure was evident in Japan’s refusal to help finance aid for North Korea in return for the shutting of its research reactor.
Bush phoned Abe a day after the deal was signed to reassure Japan of US support on the abduction issue. During his visit, Cheney also made a point of meeting with the parents of an adducted Japanese woman, declaring that he understood the issue “means a great deal”. But, as the Asahi Shimbun newspaper noted, these gestures “did little to dissipate concerns that Washington may embark on a new strategy that leaves Japan without strong US backing” in the future.
In a comment on February 21, the US-based think tank Stratfor explained that Washington’s deal over North Korea had undermined Abe’s tactic of using the threat of Pyongyang to overcome opposition to his program of reviving Japanese militarism. To push through his planned constitutional reform, Abe needs a “very clear and present danger”. Stratfor commented: “The danger must be North Korea, as Tokyo needs to show its desire for peaceful coexistence with Beijing. The nuclear deal [between US and North Korea] complicated matters for Tokyo, but has not derailed its overall plans”.
The government has also exploited the North Korean “threat” to divert attention from growing social inequality and falling living standards at home. An article in Time magazine on February 15 observed that Japan’s economic recovery from a decade of stagnation has been at the expense of working people. The previous system of life-long employment has been significantly undermined, leading to a growth in the proportion of low-paid, casual workers from 20 percent of the workforce in 1992 to 33 percent today.
Nearly 68 percent of respondents to a Cabinet Office survey said they felt anxious about the daily lives. Although the country’s official unemployment rate fell from 5.4 percent in 2002 to 4.1 percent last year, real wage levels have been stagnant. According to official figures, the average Japanese wage was $2,881 a month in 2002, compared to $2,749 in 2006. Even Koizumi’s architect of economic reform, Heizo Takenaka, admitted: “The statistics say that the economy is in good shape, but people can’t feel that.”
Under growing pressure over falling opinion polls, Abe declared at a LDP convention in January that economic growth should be for public interests, not just for business. He called on the powerful business association Keidanren to lift wages. Keidanren leader Fujio Mitarai quickly rebuffed the appeal and demanded that Abe cut corporate taxes and raise the sales tax—in other words, put further burdens on working people.
It is in this context that Koizumi suggested to Abe to ignore public opinion and press ahead with his unpopular policies. In the final analysis, such advice has only one meaning. Whatever the short-term expediency of various political tricks and camouflages, it is only possible to ram through measures that are antithetical to the interests of the majority by resorting to increasingly anti-democratic means.
WSWS reprints:
America Searches for Diplomatic Solutions
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Pressured by Democrats and short of options, the Bush administration is growing more willing to embrace rogue nations with diplomacy. How effective will U.S. diplomatic efforts be?
The Bush administration has long had a tough outlook on wayward, anti-democratic, dangerous nations. President Bush has identified Iran and North Korea as members of an axis of evil; Washington has also labeled Syria a rogue nation. The American government has been staunch in its refusal to entertain such nations with direct diplomatic talks and instead has marginalized the nations and tried to swing global opinion against them.
Recent rumblings in Washington, however, mark a departure from this track record. The Bush administration now appears willing to take a seat at the negotiating table with Iran, Syria and North Korea.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced last week that the United States had agreed to join high-level talks that will include Iran and Syria on the future of Iraq. The first meeting, to be held March 10, was initiated by the Iraqi government and will include the U.S. and Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran and Syria. A follow-up meeting, which will include high-level ministers from Tehran, Damascus and Washington, is due to take place in April, possibly in Turkey.
A similar diplomatic warming is occurring between America and its arch-enemy North Korea. Earlier this week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill met with North Korean Vice Minister Kim Kye Gwan in New York to discuss steps toward normalizing relations between the two nations. Such steps, according to Hill, could include removing North Korea from America’s list of state sponsors of terrorism and opening the way for Pyongyang to have a normal trading relationship with America.
What results can we expect from these diplomatic overtures with these nations?
Diplomacy is a powerful element of national power. Respected international relations expert Hans Morgenthau wrote, “Of all the factors that make for the power of a nation, the most important, however unstable, is the quality of diplomacy” (Politics Among Nations; emphasis ours throughout). High-quality diplomacy is one of the strongest weapons a nation can possess. Weak diplomacy, on the other hand, can thrust a nation into crisis.
What will be the quality of America’s diplomacy with Iran, Syria and North Korea?
Morgenthau explained diplomacy as the “art of bringing the different elements of the national power to bear with maximum effect upon those points in the international situation which concern the national interest most directly.” Effective diplomacy occurs when a government uses the elements of national power at its disposal—its political connections and influence, geographic situation, economic and industrial capacity, military might—to promote its national interests. Intelligent diplomacy, wrote Morgethau, harnesses these qualities and pursues its objective by three means: persuasion, compromise, and threat of force.
Effective diplomacy employs the power of persuasion, compromises at the right time and on the right issues, and—when necessary—uses the threat of military force. It requires the careful, well-timed blending of all three of these components.
“Rarely, if ever,” Morgenthau wrote, “in the conduct of the foreign policy of a great power is there justification for using only one method to the exclusion of the others.” The art of diplomacy consists of placing the right emphasis on each of the three means at its disposal at the right time. “A diplomacy that puts most of its eggs in the basket of compromise when the military might of the nation should be predominantly displayed,” for example, “or stresses military might when the political situation calls for persuasion and compromise, will … fail.”
Effective diplomacy requires that rhetoric be underpinned by military strength. The fact is, history shows that unless a credible military option exists, persuasion and compromise have little effect in dealing with hostile regimes.
This raises the question: Is America prepared to underpin its rhetoric, its persuasion and compromise, with the threat of military action? If it’s not, then we can predict that its diplomatic relations with Iran, Syria and North Korea will crumble, and that violence and conflict will eventually prevail.
Unfortunately, it appears that this is essentially the situation as it stands. Antiwar Democrats and mainstream media are playing a powerful part in undermining any threat of military force. Other nations know America’s government is isolated and would become even more so if it resorted to force against Iran, North Korea or Syria, making the use of force extremely unlikely, hence rendering U.S. diplomacy ineffective. How many of those who espouse diplomatic relations with rogue nations comprehend this fact?