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Melkulangara Bhadrakumar

The Dragon Enters NATO's Orchard

Sunday September 29, 2013

FD 2000 Air Defense


What a tumultuous week it has been. It began with United States president Barack Obama’s speech in the UN General Assembly last Monday signaling that the era of American dominance of the Middle East is ending. But the signal is already being acted upon before the week ended.

That is what the stunning announcement in Ankara on Thursday signifies – over the decision by the Turkish government led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to select a Chinese defence firm, China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp [CPMIEC], for a $3 billion contract to co-produce a long-range air and missile defence system for the country… 

From a long term perspective it is a close call to decide which is going to be more fateful – the American-Iranian thaw that Obama visualized in his UN speech and kick-started immediately thereafter, or the appearance of a Chinese company that is allied to the People’s Liberation Army to undertake the highly sensitive task of building a missile defence ensemble for a country on Europe’s doorstep that also happens to be a key member country of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO].
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Obama at the UN: Syrian Blues and a Persian Puzzle

Wednesday September 25, 2013

Obamaun

The general expectation was indeed that the United States President Barack Obama’s annual address at the United Nations General Assembly session on Tuesday would contain some major pronouncements of new American policy direction on the Syrian conflict and over the situation around Iran. 

No doubt, the Middle East dominated his speech and all but edged out other global issues such as climate change or the US’ rebalancing strategy in Asia or global disarmament. This in itself is stunning: America, the lone superpower, in a diminished role as regional power. 

The overpowering impression one gets out of Obama’s speech is that the Middle East remains a major foreign policy preoccupation, perhaps, even the most important preoccupation, for the rest of his presidency. Obama has zeroed in on the Iran question as the one area where he will seek a presidential legacy.
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Syria: The Iron in Obama's Soul

Thursday September 5, 2013

Boehner Cantor

For the first time through the two-year old Syrian conflict, the United States has mentioned the sacred cow – "boots on the ground". The Secretary of State John Kerry has pleaded that the US Congress should approve the use of American ground troops although the Obama administration may not intend to take recourse to such action. 

This is a hugely significant turning point in the fast-developing scenario of US military intervention in Syria. There was added poignancy that Kerry was speaking at a congressional hearing on Tuesday with the Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel and the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey seated beside him listening.


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Obama Nearing Point of No Return

Tuesday September 3, 2013

Obama Joker

President Vladimir Putin’s remarks on the Syrian crisis, while on a visit to Vladivostok over the weekend, were his first ones since the crisis began snowballing over the United States’ moves to launch a militarily attack against the Middle Eastern country.

What is striking from the Kremlin’s transcript is that Putin spoke far more extensively than what the media reports suggested, and, second, he spoke on virtually every aspect of the explosive situation.

The timing is very important, too, as less than a week remains for the major international event G20 summit which is scheduled to be held in St. Petersburg on Thursday, bringing together the world’s top leaders, including President Barack Obama, around a conference table.
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Iran Can Finesse Obama's Legacy

Wednesday August 28, 2013

Obama Peace Prize

President Barack Obama is setting a new precedent in America’s history as an imperialist power. 

He is all but apologizing before he orders a military attack against a sovereign country with which the United States is not war, and which has not offended America’s vital interests and concerns as a sovereign country even remotely. 

The Obama administration is publicizing in advance that it is going to be a "limited" military attack by the US on Syria. It is even willing to give advance notice of when the attack can be expected – most likely on Thursday. Who would say Obama is not a humane and considerate statesman?

By "limited" attack, the Obama administration is indicating it will not directly attack Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles but only their "delivery systems," which means the Syrian air force and the army units that are capable of staging a chemical weapon attack. Indeed, someone is in command of any country’s armed forces and, therefore, the "command-and-control" systems of the Syrian armed forces will also be targeted.
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The West Strikes Back in Syria

Thursday August 22, 2013

Syria Gun Rebels

No sooner than the United Nations chemical weapons inspectors arrived in Damascus – within 72 hours, in fact – the Syrian opposition figures based in Istanbul, Turkey, have claimed that up to 1400 people have been killed in chemical weapons attacks by the government forces on the outskirts of the Syrian capital on Wednesday morning. 

The United States, Britain, France, Germany, the European Union and the Arab League are among those who have demanded for urgent action. 

Unsurprisingly, the Syrian government itself has strongly refuted the allegation calling it a "dirty" media war, which reflected the "hysteria, disorder and breakdown" of the rebels who have suffered a string of devastating military defeats in the recent days and weeks.

What is the game plan? One vital clue lies in the appointment of the Swedish expert Ake Sellstrom as the head of the UN team that landed in Damascus three days ago. Sellstrom served in the select band of UN weapon inspectors in Iraq…
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Egypt's Junta Has Nothing to Lose

Friday August 16, 2013

Egypt Aug14

The appointment of Robert Ford as the new American ambassador to Egypt was indeed an ominous sign that the Obama administration expected civil war conditions to arise in Egypt. Ford’s forte during his hugely successful “diplomatic’ assignment in Baghdad in the middle of the last decade was to organize the notorious death squads, which tore Mesopotamia apart and destroyed Iraq almost irreparably.

Equally, Ford played a seminal role in his subsequent ambassadorial assignment in Damascus in 2011 in successfully triggering the Syrian civil war. Ford is the living embodiment of the stunning reality that between the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, there has been no real shift in the United States’ policies in the Middle East aimed at perpetuating its regional hegemony.
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The Kurdish Spring in Turkey’s Backyard

Monday July 22, 2013

Ocalan
photo: ~ Magne

The blowback of Turkey’s covert operations aimed at destabilizing the Syrian regime has begun surging. The spectre of an independent Kurdish entity on its Syrian border has come to haunt Turkey.

The challenge posed by the “Kurdish Spring” in northern Syria is of an existential character, but, ironically, the powers from far and near who encouraged Turkey to destabilize Syria are nowhere to be seen – incapable or unwilling to get involved in what could turn out to be a regional maelstrom.

An even bigger irony is that Turkey’s best allies in the region in the struggle against Kurdish separatism have traditionally been – and still could be – Iran, Iraq and Syria – but Ankara is no longer on friendly terms with any of them and the prospects of reconciliation seem a remote possibility at the moment.

Meanwhile, the military coup in Egypt has found Turkey badly isolated in its region. The regional axis involving Turkey, Qatar and Egypt has overnight disintegrated and key Arab states view with disfavor the Turkish leadership’s affinities with the Muslim Brotherhood.
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Obama's Wild Neo Con Dream

Saturday June 29, 2013

Syriarebels

It is now clear that the preliminary meeting at Geneva this week of Russia, the United States and the United Nations for setting a date for the Geneva-2 conference on Syria ended inconclusively. The meeting couldn’t agree when the Geneva-2 should be held or who would be invited. A UN statement said that Russian Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and his US counterpart John Kerry will meet next week and further talks are expected to follow.

The United Nations special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi who chaired the meeting urged the US and Russia to "contain this situation that is getting out of hand, not only in Syria but also in the region". But he ruled out the possibility of holding the Geneva – 2 in July. Other diplomatic sources have doubted if the conference could be held "earlier than August or September".

The sticking point is apparently the failure to agree on potential participants at the conference. However, that is only an alibi – although, it is partly true to the extent that there is no unified Syrian opposition despite the robust efforts by the US and its allies to cobble together one and Russia is insisting on Iran’s participation.


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A Tipping Point in Syria Conflict

Wednesday June 19, 2013

Syria Child
photo: FreedomHouse

The Guardian newspaper featured on Friday an infinitely sad picture of a Syrian young boy, hardly nine or ten years old, crossing a street holding an old rifle with bayonet. He apparently belongs to the ‘Martyrs of Maaret al-Nuan’ battalion holding control of the southern town of Maaret al-Numan.

Child soldiers in a cradle of the Islamic culture and civilization and in one of the most modern societies in the Arab world – this would have been unthinkable.

The western powers have succeeded in destroying yet another citadel of the Muslim Middle East, which could be even more tragic than the destruction of Iraq.

The decision by the United States President Barack Obama to provide military support to the Syrian rebels after claiming it believes there is concrete evidence of nerve gas attacks by government forces is simply appalling. The reports quoting US officials mention that the weapons might include small arms, ammunition, assault rifles and a variety of anti-tank weaponry such as shoulder-fired remote-propelled grenades and other missiles. According to the Associated Press, the Central Intelligence Agency is expected to handle the training of the Syrian rebels on using the arms the White House has agreed to supply.


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