Monday, October 30, 2006

Forgeetaaaboutit - Treat North Korea Like Haiti

Hong Kong: Forget about the stalled six party talks to end North Koreas nuclear program. Forget about sanctions. Forget about bipartisan recriminations before the November U.S. midterm elections. Forget about the blame game ─ especially picking on China and Russia. Forget about a nuclear East Asia.

The universal opposition and condemnation of the October 9th North Korean detonation necessitates an urgent alternative solution to the re-hashed and recycled proposals that have been tossed around since the 1953 Korean ceasefire went into effect ─ one that delays, or preferably avoids a nuclear armed East Asia ─ and Armageddon.

China and Russia, who like America opposed the test, have been humiliated and desperately want a solution they can jointly embrace with America. The self styled Dear Leader’s nuclear bluff has to be called ─ Haitian style.

America, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea must initiate five party talks without pre-conditions or sanctions that only hurt and subject the majority of North Koreans to more misery and suffering because of their self centered sycophant authoritarian military leadership.

The Five Party talks should explore how to best find an honorable face saving exit for Kim Jong-il and Co. ─ a la the numerous Haitian dictators that are living in the exiled lifestyle the self styled Dear Leader enjoys at the expense of his people and the world.

This is a negotiating tactic America has perfected with several Haitian dictators over the years. A policy that China, Russia, Japan and South Korea can piggy back on and benefit along with the rest of the region and the world.

North Korea, unlike Haiti, borders economic powers China, Russia, South Korea ─ and Japan across the Sea of Japan. These four economic super powers can set up Co-Operative Cross Border Economic Zones on their mutual borders, the kind Kim Jong-il visited and admired in China, and is helplessly trying to emulate.

These Economic Zones will transform the central planned Stalinist communist economy into neutral economic buffer zones in the potentially explosive area and stop the accelerating destabilizing effect throughout the region and beyond. It is the only feasible way to bring stability to East Asia.

The progress and direction of the Five Party talks will be amplified to the Dear Leader at bilateral talks between America and North Korea ─ the face saving concession Kim Jong-il has been trying to extract from America since the Six Party talks collapsed.

It is in the world’s long-term strategic interest to neutralize North Korea’s nuclear capability, create a North-South confederation and eventually a unified Korea with prosperous co-operative economic zones with its neighbors.

Economic prosperity will prevent the refugee exodus and crisis that China and Russia are concerned about, especially if American and European corporate citizens embrace the Economic Zones the same way they did in China. This will allow North Korea to finally sign a peace agreement that allows it to be gradually re-united with the South and the cost of re-unification, unlike Germany, is shared by the five parties looking out for what’s best for all humanity.

The proposed Five Party talks will transform the opaque isolated hermit state and its crippled economy to a transparent vital sunlit renaissance model for basket cases like Zimbabwe and other failed states.

Everyone wins. Granted the perks to be given Kim Jong-il, his family and military supporters will be the most difficult negotiating points. No one is more experienced in this type of negotiations than America after its Haiti and Philippines experience.

What is the alternative? More sanctions and political rhetoric that leads to Armageddon? Forgeetaaaboutit.

Peter G. de Krassel is the author of Custom Maid Spin and Custom Maid War

Sunday, October 22, 2006

The Bridge

Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, during a 12 day U.S. visit in the wake of the 2006 Lebanese Military Tsunami that Kofi Annan was inspecting, urged Americans to engage in a “dialogue of civilizations.” Speaking at the Bait ul Ilm Islamic Center in the Chicago suburb of Streamwood, Khatami rallied Muslims to work for peace. “There is a great opportunity of dialogue and co-operation by people of faith,” he said. During a lively question-and answer session at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Khatami reminded us that “Bush and Ahmadinejad are cut from the same cloth.” All the more reason the two can start a direct dialogue. He was in New York to attend a U.N. conference on bridging the gap between the Islamic world and the west.

Khatami told his U.S. audience that the 9/11 attacks were an atrocity and said suicide bombers did Islam an injustice and would not go to heaven. Two crimes were committed on September 11 ─ civilians were killed and it was done in the name of Islam ─ Mr. Khatami told the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a human rights group. “Those who do it in the name of Islam are lying,” Khatami said.

President Bush personally approved the granting of the U.S. visa to Khatami because he was “interested in learning more” about Iran. How come he doesn’t know? What are We the Apathetic Maids paying taxes for?

Mr. Khatami is the most prominent Iranian to visit the U.S. since America and Iran broke off diplomatic relations in 1979, after the seizure of 52 hostages at the U.S. embassy in Teheran and the 444-day crisis that resulted in President Jimmy Carter’s re-election campaign defeat at the crusty hands of Ronald Reagan, who had his own Iran scandal ─ Iran Contra.

Iran is indebted to America for getting rid of its two main political and military threats ─ Saddam Hussein and the Taliban. Iran hoped that the fall of Saddam and the Taliban would be the seeds for détente between the two countries. Iran was then run by reform leaning president Khatami. Instead, Iran was included in the “axis of evil.”

Seventy percent of Iran’s 69 million people are under 30, and so have no memory of the shah, or the taking of the U.S. hostages, and even less interest in the past. Most Iranians are concerned about what effects U.S. economic sanctions might have on the economy that is already badly managed by mullahs and are perplexed and hurt by America’s anti-Iran political rhetoric and “Evil Axis” label.

Islam came late to Persia, a land which boasted a rich and full civilization long before the Arab invaders swept in from the west. While most younger Iranians do admire Islam’s sense of discipline, art and architecture, they have little interest in its rigid dogma and social intolerance. Women in Iran, unlike other Arab Muslim nations such as Saudi Arabia, can work, drive and vote, own property or businesses, run for political office and seek divorce. The majority of Iran’s university graduates are women. “It is the women of Iran who give me hope that this once noble nation will one day return to its gracious roots,” wrote U.S. journalist Steve Knipp on a visit to Iran during the nuclear standoff. “Most of the young people I spoke with insist that change is coming,” Knipp added. “But I was advised that the world must be patient as the mullahs are not keen to give up power, and it will take time to wrest it from them.”

Trying to shove Iran into a nuclear diplomatic corner with sanctions, has brought together in Iran a coalition of theocratic mullahs and vested interests from the 1979 Islamist revolution, within the region ─ and beyond. This at the expense of the reform movement headed by Khatami before U.S. misguided foreign policy got Khatami replaced by Ahmadinejad, and America and Israel cornered. Why try and keep anyone in a corner? Iran is entitled to a deal that will give her security guarantees and recognition as a legitimate regional power.

The U.N. Security Council resolution requiring Iran to suspend all activities related to Uranium enrichment by August 31st 2006, or risk possible sanctions were the direct cause of North Korea launching missiles on July 4th and the 34 day war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Nuclear Standoff

Iran has made it clear that no one can prevent it from having a peaceful nuclear program. The Iran nuclear issue can only be comprehensively addressed through face to face negotiations between Iran, America and Europe. America and Iran have to come out of the diplomatic and economic wilderness they have been in for the last 27 years, establish diplomatic relations and start a direct dialogue on how to resolve the nuclear dispute with a solution that allows Iran to develop nuclear power for peaceful means. Burying the past is the key to better future U.S.-Iran relations. To expect the world’s fourth largest oil exporter to abandon its right to nuclear technology is delusional.

Iran has said it has enriched uranium to 4.8 per cent as of the late summer of 2006, far below the more than 90 percent level needed for a bomb. Iran hopes to reach a level of 20 per cent to fuel a light water reactor it plans to build. Iran is adamant that it is enriching uranium solely to generate electricity. America and Israel are convinced Iran’s nuclear program is a front for building atom bombs. Iran did pursue a clandestine nuclear program for 18 years until it was uncovered by the International Atomic Agency in 2003. All the more reason America and Iran must sit down and talk to each other directly.

To block Bank Saderat, one of Iran’s largest state-owned banks, from being able to use the U.S. financial system, because it had helped transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah and Hamas, something America has known for years, is a short sighted unilateral play that was called. America lost the poker hand, no different than a lot of the great poker champs in sinking Las Vegas.

Iranian financial institutions have not been able to deal directly with the U.S. financial institutions since diplomatic relations were discontinued. They nevertheless continued to do business and have access to the U.S. financial system indirectly by working through foreign banks. These so-called U-turn transactions allow U.S. banks to process payments involving Iran if the money transfer begins and ends with a non-Iranian foreign bank. A sanction that is meaningful politically, but totally impractical.

Iran is entitled to a realistic political, nuclear and economic deal that is as rewarding to Iran as it is to America and the West. Iranians do have the right to technology and deterrence. What sovereign state isn’t? Of course, that doesn’t count the countries that gave up those rights voluntarily, Libya, being one such example. Let’s not forget the damage Libya did before it gave up its pursuit of nuclear technology. We do not want to encourage Iran down the path America sent Libya.

A lasting agreement on the Iran nuclear standoff is imperative to a lasting peace in the Middle East ─ starting with Lebanon. The alternative is ugly.
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