Iran, Oman-Iran, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia-Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Libya-China
Turkey to USA: This is where you get off….+ RECAP
02 Diplomacy, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Advanced Cyber/IO, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Peace Intelligence, Strategy
Very heavy interview with Turkey's Foreign minister : Beginning at 9:40, the issue of Israeli intransigence on negotiations. No “mainstream” pick-up anywhere I can find.
Turkey's line in the sand. Cannot be walked back. I believe this to be a notice to US in the face of the wikileaks palestinian docs which revealed the US duplicity, in which EVERY nation under the influence of the US vis-a-vis negotiations was made to look like stooges. None, more so than Turkey. I believe that this interview ends that subordination.
As the Middle East undergoes historic transformation and upheaval one country is quietly enjoying levels of prosperity and stability that can only be envied by its neighbours – Turkey. And, in its ninth year of rule by the AK Party, the country is perceived as having successfully combined democracy and Islam.
But under the AKP Turkey has done more than improve its system of governance. It has also reached out to the Middle East in a way that no previous Turkish government has.
But as Western governments can tell you, getting involved in the Middle East is not always easy. One man more than any other is responsible for Turkey's drive to engage: Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister.
He talks to Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught about the recent developments in the Middle East and explains why he is hopeful that change and stability will work together in Egypt and serve as a positive example for other countries in the region.
This episode of Talk to Jazeera aired from Monday, February 14, 2011.
Phi Beta Iota: Turkey and Iran are both inevitable leaders in their region and across their considerable diasphoras. There is NOTHING the US can do about it because the US is financially, morally, and practically bankrupt. It is going to take a quarter century to recover from the craven criminality that has chracterized the two-party tyranny and their Wall Street and corporate masters. The world is not stupid–they understand the inherent goodness of the American people and of America the Beautiful, but they also wonder why a public once famed for its independent intelligence can now be confused with a herd of sheep.
See Also:
Continue reading “Turkey to USA: This is where you get off….+ RECAP”
US Loses Face & Standing with China & Pakistan
02 China, 02 Diplomacy, 05 Iran, 06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Advanced Cyber/IO, Cultural Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Methods & Process, Military, Officers Call, Policy, Strategy, ThreatsNIGHTWATCH Extract China-US: Special comment. International news services broadcast video and translations of Chinese Minister of Defense Liang insulting and hectoring the US, represented by the Secretary of Defense. The Chinese tasked Secretary Gates to defend and to explain to the Chinese why the US sells weapons to Taiwan and conducts naval training in the Yellow Sea. China demanded they stop. Instead of rejecting the Chinese demands and leaving, Gates tried to defend what needs not defense in Asia – US national policy.
A couple of points are worth noting. The tongue lashing Gates endured at a Singapore conference last year by a Chinese general clearly was no accident. That insult focused on the same issues as the latest. Gates should have walked out of the Singapore meeting last year and should have walked out of today's session. It remains unclear what the US hoped to gain that merited humiliation.
China is not ready to be a cooperative partner in international security affairs as some analysts contend; resents and resists the tutelage or guidance that some analysts think the US must offer; and has no intention of becoming more open in response to US requests if only because the US wants it so badly.
Phi Beta Iota: See our Memorandum on Chinese Irregular Warfare. The US Government has hit bottom in terms of lacking legitimacy at home and credibility abroad. Ideology is not a substitute for intelligence, and civility is not a substitute for cultural understanding.
By M K Bhadrakumar Asia Times Online
The unscheduled visit by United States Vice President Joe Biden to Islamabad this week underscores Washington's embarrassment and anxiety that it stands excluded from a regional initiative on Afghan peace process that could be about to take off. The rapid sequence of events over the past fortnight has taken Washington by surprise.
Read entire analysis of role played by Turkey, Russia, and Iran…
DefDog Comment: Most insurgencies last past 10 years it almost always requires a political settlement….thus we are seeing what could have been accomplished at the beginning by understanding the Pashtun and sitting down, Jirga style, and asking for UBL, who was granted sanctuary under the Pasthun Honor Code, Pasthunwali…..no cultural understanding has resulted in a 10 year waste…
Phi Beta Iota: The US Government is suffering from multiple disconnects–from its public, from reality, from strategic analytics, from cultural intelligence–from ANY intelligence relevant to all challenges at all levels–and finally, from integrity. Integrity is what allows well-intentioned people to cope with ambiguity. When they give up their integrity, they yield the field to those with political, ideological, and financial ambitions, and the public interest suffers–as does the welfare of our Armed Forces in harm's way.
See Also:
Journal: Politics & Intelligence–Partners Only When Integrity is Central to Both
NIGHTWATCH Extracts: Koreas, Iran, Sudan
05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, IO Sense-Making, Peace IntelligenceSouth Korea: For the first time in seven years, South Korea has lit a 100-foot tower in the shape of a Christmas triee with 100,000 Christmas lights and topped it with a cross, along the Demilitarized Zone. A choir sang Christmas carols. The tower and carols could be seen and heard in North Korea.
. . . . . . .
Afghanistan-Iran: Iran is blocking almost 2,000 fuel tankers from crossing the border into Afghanistan, saying the trucks would supply U.S.-led coalition troops, according to Afghan officials. The unannounced blockade is in its third week, and Afghan officials do not know when fuel imports will resume, Afghan Deputy Minister of Commerce Sharif Shairifi said.
. . . . . . .
Sudan: Update. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz held talks with Sudanese President Omar al Bashir and Southern Sudanese leader Salva Kiir in Khartoum on 21 December in anticipation of the coming referendum on Southern Sudanese independence.
Phi Beta Iota: All three pieces with the commentary are worth reading. Even when wrong, the intellectual process and insights of the NIGHTWATCH leader are authentic, deep, and a real pleasure to consider.
1. Wrong. South Korea should not be provoking the North, and the US is long overdue from pulling out of South Korea. This is a regional matter and like Germany, reunification is inevitable. Meanwhile, the US military and the US taxpayer should not be burdened.
2. Right. Iran is Persia, and complicated. The US supply lines to Afghanistan, and US cultural and doctrinal inadequacies in Afghanistan, combined with the FACT that it is costing the US taxpayer $50 million per Taliban body, the US is PAYING for the Taliban drug crop, and the US is blindly accepting of Karzai's deep deep corruption, all argue for a redirection of attention away from Afghanistan and toward respectful engagement with the Iran-Turkey axis of sensibility.
3. Wrong. Sudan is a bomb waiting to explode. They may go through the motion of a vote, but the raw fact that the south has the wealth and the north has nothing means that strategic instability is inevitable. Absent a regional plan to achieve tolerable prosperity for all, this is theater. The US and the Arabs are settling for theater over thinking.
NIGHTWATCH Extract: Iran-Pakistan, Iran-Turkey-India, Israel
05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Peace IntelligenceIran-Pakistan: Iranian officials on 16 December accused Pakistan of being linked to a 15 December suicide bombing in southeastern Iran. Iran's deputy minister and chief of security at the Interior Ministry, Ali Abdollahi, said Pakistani officials had ignored Iranian warnings about bases in Pakistan for anti-Iranian elements and had allowed the terrorists to cross into Iran.
Iranian lawmaker Kazem Jalali said initial reports and confessions from arrested Jundallah leader Abdolmalek Rigi showed that the bombers had been trained in Pakistan. Pakistan must clarify its position on the terrorists and on the Iranian government, Jalali said.
NIGHTWATCH Comment: On the 15th two bombers detonated themselves at a mosque in Chabahar, killing 41 people and injuring at least 50 on the eve of the Shiite holy day Ashura, which honors the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Mohammed.
The results of Iran's custodial interrogation and Iranian accusations against Pakistan are virtually identical in substance to Indian interrogation of the surviving Mumbai terrorist and Indian accusations about Pakistan and terrorists.
NIGHTWATCH KGS Home
Phi Beta Iota: Iran, Turkey, and India are now seeing common cause with respect to the threat from both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. We anticipate new forms of multinational information-sharing and sense-making emerging in the region.
Reference: America’s War on Islam by Patrick Seale
04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Analysis, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Officers Call, Policy, Strategy
Reference: General David Petraeus–An Examination
04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Iran, 10 Security, 11 Society, Cultural Intelligence, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
David Petraeus — Hero Celebrity
By Michael Brenner (Senior Fellow, the Center for Transatlantic Relations) – Huffington Post – December 2, 2010
There is one celebrity with the makings of a national hero, someone who has the qualities that might carry him right into the White House. It is David Petraeus. He is almost universally credited with the brilliant achievement of saving American honor and gaining an approximation of ‘victory' in Iraq. President Obama himself is in awe of this warrior-intellectual to whom he defers on all matters in the Greater Middle East. Petraeus' mythic standing is a perfect example of how the compelling demand for a hero creates the illusion that indeed a savior has arrived.
