Dissent Mag

By failing to disarm and breaking the rules when it suits, nuclear states are driving proliferation as much as Ahmadinejad

By George Monbiot

02/08/08 “The Guardian” — - 29/07/08 — What is the Iranian government up to? For once the imperial coalition, overstretched in Iraq and unpopular at home, is proposing jaw, not war. The UN security council’s offer was a good one: if Iran suspended its uranium enrichment programme, it would be entitled to legally guaranteed supplies of fuel for nuclear power, assistance in building a light water reactor, foreign aid, technology transfer and the beginning of the end of economic sanctions. The US seems prepared, for the first time since the revolution, to open a diplomatic office in Tehran. But in Geneva, 10 days ago, the Iranians filibustered until the negotiations ended. On Saturday President Ahmadinejad announced that Iran has now doubled the number of centrifuges it uses to enrich uranium. A fourth round of sanctions looks inevitable.

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By Michael McCarthy

26 July,2008
The Independent

The future of the Arctic will be less white wilderness, more black gold, a new report on oil reserves in the High North has signalled this week. The first-comprehensive assessment of oil and gas resources north of the Arctic Circle, carried out by American geologists, reveals that underneath the ice, the region may contain as much as a fifth of the world’s undiscovered yet recoverable oil and natural gas reserves.

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Honorable Exit From Empire

by Patrick J. Buchanan

As any military historian will testify, among the most difficult of maneuvers is the strategic retreat. Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, Lee’s retreat to Appomattox and MacArthur’s retreat from the Yalu come to mind. The British Empire abandoned India in 1947 – and a Muslim-Hindu bloodbath ensued.

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by Eric Walberg / July 23rd, 2008

As the United States election race enters the final stretch, Barack Obama as the candidate promising change is revealing his true colors, much to the despair of anyone actually expecting any change. His recent call to declare Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel, his denial of Palestinians’’ right of return, and his support for a Bantustan Palestinian “state” which poses no threat to Israel show how completely he has caved in to the Zionist establishment on that issue.

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“John Kennedy, Barack Obama and the ‘Triple Evils That Are Interrelated’

by Paul Street

Barack Obama fans are quick to compare their candidate to President John F. Kennedy. In fact, the two are much alike: pro-business, imperial-minded politicians who are undeservedly tagged as progressives by folks who should know better. “JFK inhabited much the same power-serving faux-progressive ideological space in his time as Obama does today.” On foreign policy, Obama supports increased military spending, as did Kennedy. And “just like JFK, Obama has falsely sold this conservative economic agenda as a form of neutral ‘get things done’ pragmatism emphasizing ‘technical expertise’ over and beyond mere ‘ideology.’”

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Agence France-Presse

Published: Tuesday July 22, 2008

Russia may start regular flights by long-range bombers to Cuba in response to US plans to build missile defence sites in Eastern Europe, the newspaper Izvestia reported Monday, quoting an official.

“Such discussions exist,” the unidentified senior Russian air force official was quoted as saying, adding that the measure would be a response to the United States “deploying missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.”

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Russia’s “New Order” of security relations incorporating the US, Russia and the European Union
The Medvedev proposal

by F. William Engdahl

Global Research, July 22, 2008

Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the current US Presidential campaign, aside from the studied avoidance of any serious proposals to address the worst economic depression since the 1930’s, is the fact that both major party candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, have to date been stone silent on the most pressing issue of future war or peace, namely the steps taken by the Bush-Cheney Administration to encircle Russia with a new Iron Curtain of NATO member states, including strenuous efforts to push Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, and to establish an advanced nuclear missile defense system which, from a standpoint of military strategy, far from defense, puts the world on a hair-trigger to nuclear holocaust in the few years ahead.

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By M K Bhadrakumar

Global Research, July 18, 2008
Asian Times

Last week, the gloves finally came off the Dmitry Medvedev presidency in Russia. It had to happen sooner or later, but few would have expected this soon. It was crystal clear US President George W Bush administered a diplomatic snub to Medvedev on the sidelines of the G8 summit meeting at Hokkaido, Japan.

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