“It would be preferable to solve this diplomatically and through the use of pressure, than to use military force,” Shapiro told representatives of Israel’s Bar Association on Tuesday.

“But that doesn’t mean that option isn’t fully available. Not just available, it’s ready. The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it’s ready,” he said.

The comments come just days before nuclear talks are due to take place in Baghdad between Iran and the so-called P 5+1 countries: the U.S., United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany.

An embassy spokesman in Tel Aviv declined to elaborate on the comments, which aired on Israeli radio and television.

“We believe that there is some time, not an unlimited amount of time — in practice, this is a brief window in which we can still use diplomacy to achieve our goals,” Shapiro also said, according to Makor Rishon newspaper, which published some of Shapiro’s remarks.

“At a certain stage we are going to have to decide whether diplomacy isn’t going to work,” he added. “We want to give it every chance of succeeding.”

Shapiro pointed to President Barack Obama’s increase of troop levels in Afghanistan and his order to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last year as examples of Obama’s readiness to use force.

Israel and the United States agree that Iran is working towards a nuclear bomb but hasn’t yet entered the “breakout” phase of development. Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak often warns of a “zone of immunity” he believes is rapidly approaching, after which Iran could not be prevented from developing a nuclear weapon.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month that Iran is “feverishly working to develop atomic weapons to achieve” the destruction of Israel. He and others in the country’s civilian and military leadership have long warned that Israel would resort to a military strike against Iran if it becomes clear diplomatic pressure and sanctions aren’t working. The result has been harsh international sanctions against Iran’s financial and oil industries that are having a devastating impact on Iran’s economy.

But despite some indications that Iran could make concessions in next week’s talks, there is no evidence that the pressure has had an effect on its nuclear program. Israel says the international talks are evidence of Iran’s stalling tactics and says that that unless Iran stop enriching altogether, ships in enriched uranium out of the country and shuts down its underground enrichment facility near the city of Qom, the diplomatic measures and sanctions have failed.

Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes — that it enriches to 3.5 percent for power and to 20 percent for medical isotopes at the Tehran Research Reactor. But analysts say going from 20 percent to weapons-grade 90 percent enrichment is a relatively simple process.

Israel’s leadership calls Iran an existential threat, but a large majority of Israelis are against a strike if it’s carried out by Israel alone. Most analysts agree that an Israeli strike could not end Iran’s nuclear program, only set it back. And some argue an attack would cement Iran’s determination to develop a nuclear weapon which could start an arms race in the region.

The biggest critic of Israel’s threats of a strike has been Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel’s foreign security service, Mossad. He has argued that Iran is not an existential threat and that its leadership is rational. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Thursday, he and other former international intelligence and military officials argued that more comprehensive “total sanctions” can get Iran to change course.

“It’s common sense that before undertaking military action against a country, we should first try to dissuade it from its current course by applying decisive economic pressure,” they write. “Doing so will show the regime that the world is serious and committed, willing to do whatever it takes to stop Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.”  By Alexander Marquardt, ABC News

The grey hairs would be sprouting, the wrinkles showing. It has been an extraordinarily tumultuous time here.

This country has overcome so much in its long and rich history. But even Greeks are bewildered by what has happened in the last fortnight.

Roll back to 6 May: election day beneath a beautiful early summer sun. As predicted, an austerity-weary nation seized the chance to punish the much-reviled political establishment.

The two main parties that had together previously garnered about 80% of votes, now reduced to barely 30%; a virulently anti-immigrant, neo-Nazi party grabbing 21 seats in parliament for the first time; huge support for parties wanting to tear up Greece’s international bailout.

The election was inconclusive and Greece was left without a government during the worst financial crisis in its modern history. Days of political wrangling began.

Extreme far-right Golden Dawn party’s supporters hold flares during the elections results in the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki, Sunday, May 6, 2012 The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party garnered an unprecedented 21 seats in parliament in May’s election

Three party leaders were successively given the mandate to form a coalition. Three failed. The politicians seemed unable to agree on whether to adhere to – or reject – the bailout and further austerity.

And so Greece’s president had one final try, summoning party leaders to call for an emergency government. A man who had fought the Nazis in the Greek resistance during the Second World War was forced to receive the head of the neo-Nazi party in his presidential office as part of the consultations.

But then, the inevitable: the negotiations collapsed amidst a barrage of acrimony. Fresh elections were announced for 17 June.

Greek tragedy

The country has been left in a perilous power vacuum, a limp caretaker government providing a thin veneer of leadership.

University professors and businessmen are among those in the unconventional cabinet. The foreign ministry has been given to an 83-year-old former diplomat.

The 300 MPs elected on 6 May had just 24 hours to enjoy the trappings of office: sworn in last Thursday, the parliament was dissolved a day later to prepare for the second election. For the new faces in the chamber, it might just be the shortest political career in history.

It could all read like a script from an Aeschylus tragedy – but the drama is real and the consequences potentially severe. For this country’s membership of the euro is at stake.

European leaders maintain that Greece cannot hope to secure its place in the Eurozone unless it sticks to the bailout and cost-cutting.

“Financial recovery and market stability are based on confidence. And there is none of that here for now.”

Any deviation, say Brussels and Berlin, would lead Greece’s loan to be withheld. That would force the country to default on its debt and probably leave the euro.

On the face of it, the carrot should work. Polls show the vast majority of Greeks want to keep the euro. But it is more complex than that. For most here are also deeply opposed to the austerity measures that have pushed a third of Greeks below the poverty line and led unemployment to record highs of 21% – or 54% among the youth.

And if it came down to a choice between years more punishing austerity or an exit from the euro and a leap into the unknown, it’s still unclear how many would jump.

The leftwing party Syriza came second in the election, pledging to revoke the bailout and reject further spending cuts, despite the threat from Brussels that it could mean Greece kisses the euro goodbye.

Now polls show the party could come first next time: a scenario that sends the fear of God into European leaders.

Hopes fading

Ultimately, both sides will count on brinkmanship. Germany knows that most Greeks like the Euro. Greeks know Germany fears that one country leaving could lead the whole European project to unravel. Which side will blink first?

Not Mrs Merkel, it seems, who – according to the Greek government spokesman – suggested that Greece even hold a referendum on the euro, though her office denies the claim.

A man casts his vote during Greece’s general elections in Athens on May 6, 2012. Weary voters dealt a blow to the two mainstream parties in Greece’s May election

It would be an astonishing suggestion if true – and a high-stakes gamble that she could come to regret.

Amidst it all, any hope remaining that Greece might pull itself out of the quagmire has crumbled. News that hundreds of millions of euros were withdrawn from Greek accounts with the present uncertainty sparked rumours of a bank run.

It is not happening, but if it were to come about, it could send this country under. A Twitter message that Greek banks had limited individual withdrawals to fifty euros prompted yet more panic. Again it was untrue. But financial recovery and market stability are based on confidence. And there is none of that here for now.

And so Greece limps on towards its second election in six weeks.

It will inevitably be framed here as a referendum on euro membership: the message from the pro-bailout parties and Europe’s leaders being that Greece must vote for cost-cutting to keep the currency.

But this is a nation that feels pushed around by Berlin and beaten by austerity. It has battled to stay in the Euro throughout this recession. Maybe it is just too exhausted to keep on fighting. By Mark Lowen, BBC News

From the Atlantic to the Pacific, Argentina to the Philippines, here are the six areas of conflict — all tied to energy supplies — that have made news in just the first few months of 2012:

* A brewing war between Sudan and South Sudan: On April 10th, forces from the newly independent state of South Sudan occupied the oil center of Heglig, a town granted to Sudan as part of a peace settlement that allowed the southerners to secede in 2011.  The northerners, based in Khartoum, then mobilized their own forces and drove the South Sudanese out of Heglig.  Fighting has since erupted all along the contested border between the two countries, accompanied by air strikes on towns in South Sudan.  Although the fighting has not yet reached the level of a full-scale war, international efforts to negotiate a cease-fire and a peaceful resolution to the dispute have yet to meet with success.

This conflict is being fueled by many factors, including economic disparities between the two Sudans and an abiding animosity between the southerners (who are mostly black Africans and Christians or animists) and the northerners (mostly Arabs and Muslims).  But oil — and the revenues produced by oil — remains at the heart of the matter.  When Sudan was divided in 2011, the most prolific oil fields wound up in the south, while the only pipeline capable of transporting the south’s oil to international markets (and thus generating revenue) remained in the hands of the northerners.  They have been demanding exceptionally high “transit fees” — $32-$36 per barrel compared to the common rate of $1 per barrel — for the privilege of bringing the South’s oil to market.  When the southerners refused to accept such rates, the northerners confiscated money they had already collected from the south’s oil exports, its only significant source of funds.  In response, the southerners stopped producing oil altogether and, it appears, launched their military action against the north.  The situation remains explosive.

* Naval clash in the South China Sea: On April 7th, a Philippine naval warship, the 378-foot Gregorio del Pilar, arrived at Scarborough Shoal, a small island in the South China Sea, and detained eight Chinese fishing boats anchored there, accusing them of illegal fishing activities in Filipino sovereign waters.  China promptly sent two naval vessels of its own to the area, claiming that the Gregorio del Pilar was harassing Chinese ships in Chinese, not Filipino waters.  The fishing boats were eventually allowed to depart without further incident and tensions have eased somewhat.  However, neither side has displayed any inclination to surrender its claim to the island, and both sides continue to deploy warships in the contested area.

As in Sudan, multiple factors are driving this clash, but energy is the dominant motive.  The South China Sea is thought to harbor large deposits of oil and natural gas, and all the countries that encircle it, including China and the Philippines, want to exploit these reserves.  Manila claims a 200-nautical mile “exclusive economic zone” stretching into the South China Sea from its western shores, an area it calls the West Philippine Sea; Filipino companies say they have found large natural gas reserves in this area and have announced plans to begin exploiting them.  Claiming the many small islands that dot the South China Sea (including Scarborough Shoal) as its own, Beijing has asserted sovereignty over the entire region, including the waters claimed by Manila; it, too, has announced plans to drill in the area.  Despite years of talks, no solution has yet been found to the dispute and further clashes are likely.

* Egypt cuts off the natural gas flow to Israel: On April 22nd, the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation and Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Companyinformed Israeli energy officials that they were “terminating the gas and purchase agreement” under which Egypt had been supplying gas to Israel.  This followed months of demonstrations in Cairo by the youthful protestors who succeeded in deposing autocrat Hosni Mubarak and are now seeking a more independent Egyptian foreign policy — one less beholden to the United States and Israel.  It also followed scores of attacks on the pipelines carrying the gas across the Negev Desert to Israel, which the Egyptian military has seemed powerless to prevent.

Ostensibly, the decision was taken in response to a dispute over Israeli payments for Egyptian gas, but all parties involved have interpreted it as part of a drive by Egypt’s new government to demonstrate greater distance from the ousted Mubarak regime and his (U.S.-encouraged) policy of cooperation with Israel.  The Egyptian-Israeli gas link was one of the most significant outcomes of the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries, and its annulment clearly signals a period of greater discord; it may also cause energy shortages in Israel, especially during peak summer demand periods.  On a larger scale, the cutoff suggests a new inclination to use energy (or its denial) as a form of political warfare and coercion.

* Argentina seizes YPF: On April 16th, Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, announced that her government would seize a majority stake in YPF, the nation’s largest oil company.  Under President Kirchner’s plans, which she detailed on national television, the government would take a 51% controlling stake in YPF, which is now majority-owned by Spain’s largest corporation, the energy firm Repsol YPF.  The seizure of its Argentinean subsidiary is seen in Madrid (and other European capitals) as a major threat that must now be combated.  Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel García Margallo, said that Kirchner’s move “broke the climate of cordiality and friendship that presided over relations between Spain and Argentina.”  Several days later, in what is reported to be only the first of several retaliatory steps, Spain announced that it would stop importing biofuels from Argentina, its principal supplier — a trade worth nearly $1 billion a year to the Argentineans.

As in the other conflicts, this clash is driven by many urges, including a powerful strain of nationalism stretching back to the Peronist era, along with Kirchner’s apparent desire to boost her standing in the polls.  Just as important, however, is Argentina’s urge to derive greater economic and political benefit from its energy reserves, which include the world’s third-largest deposits of shale gas.  While long-term rival Brazil is gaining immense power and prestige from the development of its offshore “pre-salt”petroleum reserves, Argentina has seen its energy production languish.  Repsol may not be to blame for this, but many Argentineans evidently believe that, with YPF under government control, it will now be possible to accelerate development of the country’s energy endowment, possibly in collaboration with a more aggressive foreign partner like BP or ExxonMobil.

* Argentina re-ignites the Falklands crisis: At an April 15th-16th Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia — the one at which U.S. Secret Service agents were caught fraternizing with prostitutes — Argentina sought fresh hemispheric condemnation of Britain’s continued occupation of the Falkland Islands (called Las Malvinas by the Argentineans).  It won strong support from every country present save (predictably) Canada and the United States.  Argentina, which says the islands are part of its sovereign territory, has been raising this issue ever since it lost a war over the Falklands in 1982, but has recently stepped up its campaign on several fronts — denouncing London in numerous international venues and preventing British cruise ships that visit the Falklands from docking in Argentinean harbors.  The British have responded by beefing up their military forces in the region and warning the Argentineans to avoid any rash moves.

When Argentina and the U.K. fought their war over the Falklands, little was at stake save national pride, the stature of the country’s respective leaders (Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher vs. an unpopular military junta), and a few sparsely populated islands.  Since then, the stakes have risen immeasurably as a result of recent seismic surveys of the waters surrounding the islands that indicated the existence of massive deposits of oil and natural gas.  Several UK-based energy firms, including Desire Petroleum and Rockhopper Exploration, have begun off-shore drilling in the area and have reported promising discoveries.  Desperate to duplicate Brazil’s success in the development of offshore oil and gas, Argentina claims the discoveries lie in its sovereign territory and that the drilling there is illegal; the British, of course, insist that it’s their territory.  No one knows how this simmering potential crisis will unfold, but a replay of the 1982 war — this time over energy — is hardly out of the question.

* U.S. forces mobilize for war with Iran: Throughout the winter and early spring, it appeared that an armed clash of some sort pitting Iran against Israel and/or the United States was almost inevitable.  Neither side seemed prepared to back down on key demands, especially on Iran’s nuclear program, and any talk of a compromise solution was deemed unrealistic.  Today, however, the risk of war has diminished somewhat – at least through this election year in the U.S. — as talks have finally gotten under way between the major powers and Iran, and as both have adopted (slightly) more accommodating stances.  In addition, U.S. officials have been tamping down war talk and figures in the Israeli military and intelligence communities have spoken out against rash military actions.  However, the Iranians continue to enrich uranium, and leaders on all sides say they are fully prepared to employ force if the peace talks fail.

For the Iranians, this means blocking the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel through which one-third of the world’s tradable oil passes every day.  The U.S., for its part, has insisted that it will keep the Strait open and, if necessary, eliminate Iranian nuclear capabilities.  Whether to intimidate Iran, prepare for the real thing, or possibly both, the U.S. has been building up its military capabilities in the Persian Gulf area, deploying two aircraft carrier battle groupsin the neighborhood along with an assortment of air and amphibious-assault capabilities.

One can debate the extent to which Washington’s long-running feud with Iran is driven by oil, but there is no question that the current crisis bears heavily on global oil supply prospects, both through Iran’s threats to close the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for forthcoming sanctions on Iranian oil exports, and the likelihood that any air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities will lead to the same thing.  Either way, the U.S. military would undoubtedly assume the lead role in destroying Iranian military capabilities and restoring oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. This is the energy-driven crisis that just won’t go away.

How Energy Drives the World

All of these disputes have one thing in common: the conviction of ruling elites around the world that the possession of energy assets — especially oil and gas deposits — is essential to prop up national wealth, power, and prestige.

This is hardly a new phenomenon.  Early in the last century, Winston Churchill was perhaps the first prominent leader to appreciate the strategic importance of oil.  As First Lord of the Admiralty, he converted British warships from coal to oil and then persuaded the cabinet to nationalize the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, the forerunner of British Petroleum (now BP).  The pursuit of energy supplies for both industry and war-fighting played a major role in the diplomacy of the period between the World Wars, as well as in the strategic planning of the Axis powers during World War II.  It also explains America’s long-term drive to remain the dominant power in the Persian Gulf that culminated in the first Gulf War of 1990-91 and its inevitable sequel, the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The years since World War II have seen a variety of changes in the energy industry, including a shift in many areas from private to state ownership of oil and natural gas reserves.  By and large, however, the industry has been able to deliver ever-increasing quantities of fuel to satisfy the ever-growing needs of a globalizing economy and an expanding, rapidly urbanizing world population.  So long as supplies were abundant and prices remained relatively affordable, energy consumers around the world, including most governments, were largely content with the existing system of collaboration among private and state-owned energy leviathans.

But that energy equation is changing ominously as the challenge of fueling the planet grows more difficult.  Many of the giant oil and gas fields that quenched the world’s energy thirst in years past are being depleted at a rapid pace.  The new fields being brought on line to take their place are, on average, smaller and harder to exploit.  Many of the most promising new sources of energy — like Brazil’s “pre-salt” petroleum reserves deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean, Canadian tar sands, and American shale gas – require the utilization of sophisticated and costly technologies.  Though global energy supplies are continuing to grow, they are doing so at a slower pace than in the past and are continually falling short of demand.  All this adds to the upward pressure on prices, causing anxiety among countries lacking adequate domestic reserves (and joy among those with an abundance).

The world has long been bifurcated between energy-surplus and energy-deficit states, with the former deriving enormous political and economic advantages from their privileged condition and the latter struggling mightily to escape their subordinate position.  Now, that bifurcation is looking more like a chasm.  In such a global environment, friction and conflict over oil and gas reserves — leading to energy conflicts of all sorts — is only likely to increase.

Looking, again, at April’s six energy disputes, one can see clear evidence of these underlying forces in every case.  South Sudan is desperate to sell its oil in order to acquire the income needed to kick-start its economy; Sudan, on the other hand, resents the loss of oil revenues it controlled when the nation was still united, and appears no less determined to keep as much of the South’s oil money as it can for itself.  China and the Philippines both want the right to develop oil and gas reserves in the South China Sea, and even if the deposits around Scarborough Shoal prove meager, China is unwilling to back down in any localized dispute that might undermine its claim to sovereignty over the entire region.

Egypt, although not a major energy producer, clearly seeks to employ its oil and gas supplies for maximum political and economic advantage — an approach sure to be copied by other small and mid-sized suppliers.  Israel, heavily dependent on imports for its energy, must now turn elsewhere for vital supplies or accelerate the development of disputed, newly discovered offshore gas fields, a move that could provoke fresh conflict with Lebanon, which says they lie in its own territorial waters.  And Argentina, jealous of Brazil’s growing clout, appears determined to extract greater advantage from its own energy resources, even if this means inflaming tensions with Spain and Great Britain.

And these are just some of the countries involved in significant disputes over energy.  Any clash with Iran — whatever the motivation — is bound to jeopardize the petroleum supply of every oil-importing country, sparking a major international crisis with unforeseeable consequences.  China’s determination to control its offshore hydrocarbon reserves has pushed it into conflict with other countries with offshore claims in the South China Sea, and into a similar dispute with Japan in the East China Sea.  Energy-related disputes of this sort can also be found in the Caspian Sea and in globally warming, increasingly ice-free Arctic regions.

The seeds of energy conflicts and war sprouting in so many places simultaneously suggest that we are entering a new period in which key state actors will be more inclined to employ force — or the threat of force — to gain control over valuable deposits of oil and natural gas.  In other words, we’re now on a planet heading into energy overdrive. By Michael T. Klare, Counterpunch

Although these events occurred in the midst of a China-Russian naval drill, one shouldn’t be too concerned about how the mainstream press is misrepresenting China’s navy. The China-Russian naval drill, including the South China Sea standoff and possible Chinese base in the Gulf of Aden, are all primarily China’s desire to again be acknowledged, especially by Western imperial powers that have maintained dozens of colonies and protectorates throughout the Pacific and sea and military bases. China is also wanting to uphold regional peace alliances and provide stability for its own shipping commerce.

The pride of China’s maritime trade and exchanges actually started centuries before Western kingdoms sought to explore and exploit the world. Still, the rise of Westernized war ships and sea power was made possible only because of Chinese navigational innovations. As early as the 1st century, Chinese ships were making a long coastwise journey with luxury items, like silk and spices and gems, around Siam and India and Arabia, through the African-Mediterranean region, to Rome. The sea routes were much cheaper and faster and safer than overland routes.(1)

These maritime ventures were symbolic of China’s trade and commerce and helped develop navigational equipment that benefited much of the world. By the early 15th century, Emperor Zhu Di had employed Zheng He to command China’s treasure fleets. Zheng He was born to a Muslim family and became one of the greatest skilled navigators in the history of sea travel. Seven major voyages were undertaken with hundreds of ships, some three-to four-hundred-foot-long. They were multiple nail-bound with watertight hull compartments, up to nine masts, and with dozens of spacious cabins.

Chinese treasure ships also had sophisticated stern-post rudders of a type that would not be seen in Europe until the early modern period.(2) The maritime ventures stabilized the critical Strait of Malacca, ruled by renegade pirates, and increased trade and commerce. They also spread new ideas and innovations. China shared the magnetic compass and introduced improved navigational techniques to Arab and European kingdoms, like fore-and-aft rigging that sailed into the wind, paddle wheels, and the sleek caravels.(3)

But foremost in China’s Eastern philosophies, its rich cultural heritages, and its technological inventions, was the need to be acknowledged and to be recognized by other countries, specifically of its importance and place in the “Western Ocean.”(4) This was the real purpose for large-scale maritime and diplomatic-motivated explorations. (According to some naval historians, one expedition, a detachment from Zheng He’s sixth expedition, visited America in 1421, along with Australia, New Zealand, the Atlantic coast of Brazil, and the Cape Verde Islands. Such a voyage would be seventy-five years before that of Christopher Columbus.)(5)

As the U.S. and other Western nations, including the Philippines and Japan, appear overly fearful of China’s naval activities, they may instead want to learn several valuable lessons from China’s maritime history. Emperor Zheng earned little economic reward from his massive treasure trips, but they did consume much of the nation’s timber and other valuable resources for shipbuilding.(6) And within a few generations, reactionary and fearful Chinese isolationists allowed their merchant fleets to wither.

As a new dynasty, the Ming Dynasty, retreated from maritime trade and commerce, Japanese wako marauders so terrorized China’s coastline that to this day women in Fuian province hide their faces with blue scarves originally designed to shield the wearer from the lecherous gaze of foreign bandits.(7) Britain and France would later force the Qing Dynasty to trade in opium currency, which devastated China. Other imperial powers, like the U.S., Japan, and Russia, militarily carved China into economic spheres, resulting in numerous Chinese rebellions and resistance movements.

Neither has China forgotten World War I and World War II, both of which were considered European Civil Wars by Chinese officials, and both of which forced China to take sides. A U.S.-led war against communist forces, the Japanese invasion of China and War of Resistance, and numerous Western military engagements and preemptive wars with China’s neighbors, have adversely impacted China. Perhaps it is time to allow China to pursue a kind of self-strengthening movement, so as to equalize the balance of power in the Pacific region, helping to bring stability and innovations once again to the world. Dallas Darling

Bill W. Wang, a former president of CNA and Middle East correspondent, said China and Russia, two veto-wielding members in the U.N. Security Council, voted Feb. 4 against the draft resolution aimed at ending the Syrian uprising, accusing council members backing the proposal of destroying the chance to solve the crisis through political negotiations, putting lopsided blame on President Bashar al-Assad’s administration, and forcing a change of government.

The reasons cited by Russia and China for vetoing the resolution were not valid, Wang went on, adding that blocking the proposal is tantamount to acquiescing to the administration’s brutal crackdown on protesters and giving Assad’s dictatorial administration a mandate to continue to rule, which will only bring disaster to its people.

Assad, who inherited Syria’s harsh dictatorship from his father, Hafez al-Assad, has adopted brutal measures to crush the revolt against his rule since it began last March, including sending tanks into restive cities and ordering security forces to open fire on demonstrators.

According to Wang, Assad’s repeated failure to deliver on his promises of political reform while escalating his crackdown on the people, and his refusal to cooperate with the Arab League’s mediation efforts only show that Assad is unwilling to end the turmoil through political negotiations.

The Arab League, which suspended Syria’s membership last November, proposed a plan Jan. 22 calling for Assad to hand over power to his vice president and allow the creation of a unity government.

China and Russia are also wrong in saying that the Security Council puts all the blame on Assad’s administration, Wang said.

While the Security Council has condemned the administration’s brutal handling of its people, it has also condemned the armed protesters for using violence and has demanded an end to all violent and retaliatory acts on their part.

In regard to claims that the Security Council is forcing a change of government, Wang said that it has neither hinted at a military operation targeting Syria nor has it directly demanded that Assad step down.

It has only indirectly said that the council supports a decision made by the League of Arab States last month to seek a Syrian-led political transition to a democratic, plural political system, Wang continued.

After the resolution was blocked, Syrian troops only intensified their bombardment of civilians, further increasing the death toll, Wang noted.

Wang made his comments in an article that appeared on the CNA web site on Feb. 9.

Beginning as peaceful protests last March, the anti-government movement in Syria has spiraled into bloodshed that has left more than 5,000 dead. By Lucas Wang and Scully Hsiao, Focus Taiwan

The adjectives (or perhaps they were epithets) used to describe it were vociferous and blunt, rarely used in diplomatic parlance: the Syrian regime was identified as barbaric, criminal, tyrannical, savage, murderous and the rest of it, all intended to point to a whole gamut of villany committed by a government that, for the last 11 months, has slaughtered, incarcerated and tortured its own people.

Yet irrespective of the emotive language resorted to by various diplomats at the UN, it was clear from the outset that the resolution that came up for a vote at the Security Council last week, based on an Arab League plan intended to halt the bloodbath in Syria, would be still-born, blocked as had been anticipated by the double veto from Russia and China. The act soon had grotesque consequences. Bashar Al Assad’s regime took the veto as a green light to crush the protesters.

Thus in the deadly assault on Homs, regime forces have bombarded the city indiscriminately, killing hundreds of men, women and children. To date, close to 6,000 have been killed across the country, with countless others imprisoned, tortured and disappeared.

Given the horror, it is not surprising then that the Security Council resolution received a resounding ‘yes’ vote from nations in locales as disparate as Western Europe and North America, the African continent and the Arab world, Latin America and South Asia. Thirteen in all, with no abstentions. It is even less surprising that by casting a veto, in effect becoming complicit in the carnage inflicted on the Arab people of Syria by a regime inexorably headed to the dust-bin of history, Russia and China have lost a lot of friends in the Arab world and beyond. Arabs, let’s face it, will not forget who stood by them as they struggled for freedom in the Arab Spring and who opted to be on the wrong side of history, backing two-bit dictators, autocrats and lunatics. Meanwhile, Al Assad, along with his cohorts, continue to live in a world of fantasy, probably convinced that he could duplicate what his late father, Hafez Al Assad, had done in Hama exactly 30 years ago this month. The equally brutal Al Assad Sr had at the time ordered his army and security forces to conduct a scorched earth operation in the city in order to quell a revolt by the Sunni community there. As many as 20,000, civilians were annihilated in a matter of days. According to Robert Fisk, the legendary British journalist, who reported extensively on the massacre while it was ongoing, and then wrote about it in more harrowing detail in his book Pity the Nation (1990), what happened in Hama in the second week of February 1982 was “the single deadliest act by an Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East”. And it appears that Al Assad Jr plans to outdo his dad in perfidy.

At the Library of Congress in Washington, old issues of Tishreen, the Syrian state-owned newspaper, are readily available to researchers prepared to take the trouble of hopping on a subway to Capitol Hill station where this splendid institution is located. In one issue of Tishreen at the time of the massacre, an editorialist glibly explained away the dreadful events in Hama by writing that the rebels were “armed gangs and terrorists” (sound familiar?) who “pounced on our citizens while sleeping in their homes and killed whomever they could kill of women and children … driven like mad dogs by their black hatred”. (If this is responsible journalism, I’m holding on to my day job.)

Hysteria and despair

Three decades later, another state-run newspaper ominously vowed last Sunday (this from a secondary source in the Washington Post, Feb 6) that “Damascus will press its crackdown until stability is restored”. And sure enough, by mid-week, relentless rocket and mortar attacks pounded Homs, creating, in the words of a BBC correspondent on the scene, “an atmosphere of hysteria and despair” among the population.

What have Moscow and Beijing wrought, entering the history books as enablers of a regime that wantonly bombards its own cities on its own citizens’ heads? Search me. What is clear is that Russia and China, by their double veto, have chosen to back a regime that is already wet spaghetti, inevitably doomed to a fate similar to those sputtering, bombastic regimes that had been given the boot by their people in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen in recent months. By choosing to do that they have chosen an avoidance of moral commitment, a crass abdication from the claims and realities of history.

Then, as if to rub salt into the wound — mere days after his government vetoed a resolution that would have blocked the regime in Damascus from continuing to wage a full-scale war against its citizens — Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, visited the Syrian capital and declared with a straight face that the Syrian government was “completely committed to the task of stopping the violence”. Say what now, Comrade Sergei!  By Fawaz Turki, Gulf News

The Anglo-American aggression addicts haven’t kicked the habit. The team that brought you shock and awe and Operation Infinite Justice is gearing up for yet another crack at winning a senseless war in the Middle East.

This time the target is Iran, the pretence the regime’s imminent possession of nuclear weapons. But some things will remain the same – it will lead to slaughter and end in disaster.

A brief recap of the Anglo-American “war on terror” in the Middle East, 2001 to date: Afghanistan was occupied to “eliminate terrorism” but, many thousands of dead later, terror has spread to Pakistan and beyond, leaving Kabul with the most corrupt government on earth.

Iraq was invaded to disarm Saddam of weapons he didn’t have. US troops have finally withdrawn, leaving millions dead or displaced and the country broken in dysfunctional sectarian misery.

Libya, far from being the war that went well, was bombed to “protect civilians” with the result that 30,000 died and thousands more remain in prison reportedly being tortured by the regime Nato installed.

“They couldn’t be so crazy” is therefore not an unreasonable response to the speculation about yet another Middle East war. But here we go again.

The US national intelligence director James Clapper’s unsubstantiated claim that Iran is preparing attacks in the US itself – without even a 45-minute warning, apparently – is one sign among many that the familiar spook-media propaganda coalition is in overdrive again, selling another cock-eyed conflict.

An attack against Iran will not stop the regime acquiring nuclear weapons if it wishes to do so. It can only make it more likely that it will decide to acquire them, and will eventually surely succeed.

Along the way thousands more will die, conflict will extend across the region, oil supplies will be disrupted and the Iranian regime will be strengthened domestically.

Iran is not a liberal democracy. That is an issue which, as the Arab spring shows, is more likely to be addressed by the Iranian people themselves than by a foreign attack sponsored by Saudi Arabia, most recently the butchers of Bahraini democracy.

The central case for attacking Iran is animated by the determination that Washington and its allies have the right to dominate the Middle East come what may.

That is the argument offered by Matthew Kroenig, until six months ago the Pentagon’s special adviser on Iran, in an article in Foreign Affairs baldly titled Time to Attack Iran: “A nuclear-armed Iran would immediately limit US freedom of action in the Middle East … Iran could threaten any US political or military initiative in the Middle East with nuclear war, forcing Washington to think twice before acting in the region.”

The pragmatic case against war is overwhelming. But the principled case is even stronger. Britain and the US have launched a series of wars across the Middle East for no better purpose than maintaining their control over a region whose peoples they dare not allow to be self-governing and independent.

Can an attack be stopped? If Britain can be detached that would help derail the war drive. Five British warships sail alongside the US navy in the Gulf, and we can be sure that Diego Garcia will be a base for the bombing onslaught – it was ethnically cleansed by the Wilson government for precisely this sort of purpose.

William Hague has made plain government support for US policy so far. The delight of the Commons exchanges on the issue was Jack Straw, whose only contribution to diplomacy was marketing the novel concept of the “unreasonable UN veto” at the time of the Iraq aggression, insisting that Britain should not act without clear UN authority now.

Millions of British people peacefully and democratically opposed the Iraq war and were ignored by Tony Blair. He got his war but lost his political momentum, reputation and job, in that order, as a result.

Today’s anti-war campaign must learn from the Occupy movement and UK Uncut, as well as breaking that bipartisan parliamentary consensus for war which proved so calamitous in 2003, if the cycle of war is to end. A nationwide day of action on Saturday 11 February against attacking Iran is the start. By  Andrew Murray, The Guardian

A month before the Russian Prime Minister stands for re-election as president to the Kremlin, the first major rally since the New Year showed that the anti-government protests which began after parliamentary elections in early December are not just going to go away.

After the march yesterday, a number of opposition leaders addressed the crowds from the stage. One ripped up a portrait of Mr Putin to loud cheers, while others demanded new, free elections. “Russia without Putin,” the crowd chanted repeatedly. The organisers claimed 120,000 people had attended.

Across Moscow, another rally was held in support of Mr Putin. Police said more than 50,000 people turned up, but eyewitnesses put it much lower. There were widespread reports that civil servants and those working for state-affiliated companies had been told to attend, and that flags and placards were distributed among them.

The atmosphere at the anti-Putin rally was more spontaneous, and many of the protesters had designed their own banners and slogans. One of the more creative was an eight-metre condom, with “protection from Putin” written on it. Mr Putin, in a December televised phone-in, claimed he had mistaken the white ribbons that the protesters wear for used condoms. He also said that the protests were organised from abroad, and that people were paid to attend.

Mr Putin’s current approval ratings have slipped to between 40 and 50 per cent. He does not face any serious challengers in the 4 March ballot, but will need to get at least 50 per cent of the vote to avoid a second-round runoff. The Independent

Iran has threatened to close the narrow and strategic waterway — a chokepoint for one fifth of the world’s traded oil — in the event of a military strike or the severe tightening of international sanctions.

The New York Times, citing unnamed US officials, said late Thursday that the White House has communicated to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that closing the strait would be a “red line” and provoke a response.

The officials did not provide further details about the covert communication channel, except to say that it was separate from the Swiss government, through which the United States occasionally relays messages to Iran’s leaders.

The United States and its allies have stepped up increasingly harsh sanctions on Iran over its nuclear enrichment program, which they have charged is part of a secret drive to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran has insisted its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and vowed to retaliate against any strike on its facilities.

Tensions have flared in recent days following the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist in a bombing Tehran has blamed on US and Israeli intelligence services. US officials have denied any involvement in the attack.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have announced new naval maneuvers in the Strait of Hormuz within the next few weeks, underlining Tehran’s threat to close the narrow channel between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea.

Washington has meanwhile sent a second aircraft carrier to waters just outside the Gulf, and a third is on its way. The Times of India

The demonstration, bigger and better organized than a similar one two weeks ago, and smaller rallies across the country encouraged opposition leaders hoping to sustain a protest movement ignited by a fraud-tainted parliamentary election on Dec. 4.

The enthusiasm also cheered Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader who closed down the Soviet Union on Dec. 25, 1991.

“I’m happy that I have lived to see the people waking up. This raises big hopes,” the 80-year-old Gorbachev said on Ekho Moskvy radio.

He urged Putin to follow his example and give up power peacefully, saying Putin would be remembered for the positive things he did if he stepped down now. The former Soviet leader, who has grown increasingly critical of Putin, has little influence in Russia today.

But the protesters have no central leader and no candidate capable of posing a serious challenge to Putin, who intends to return to the presidency in a March vote.

Even at Saturday’s rally, some of the speakers were jeered by the crowd. The various liberal, nationalist and leftist groups that took part appear united only by their desire to see “Russia without Putin,” a popular chant.

Putin, who gave no public response to the protest Saturday, initially derided the demonstrators as paid agents of the West. He also said sarcastically that he thought the white ribbons they wore as an emblem were condoms. Putin has since come to take their protests more seriously, and in an effort to stem the anger he has offered a set of reforms to allow more political competition in future elections.

Kremlin-controlled television covered Saturday’s rally, but gave no air time to Putin’s harshest critics.

Estimates of the number of demonstrators ranged from the police figure of 30,000 to 120,000 offered by the organizers. Demonstrators packed much of a broad avenue, which has room for nearly 100,000 people, about 2.5 kilometers (some 1.5 miles) from the Kremlin, as the temperature dipped well below freezing.

A stage at the end of the avenue featured banners reading “Russia will be free” and “This election Is a farce.” Heavy police cordons encircled the participants, who stood within metal barriers, and a police helicopter hovered overhead.

Alexei Navalny, a corruption-fighting lawyer and popular blogger, electrified the crowd when he took the stage. He soon had the protesters chanting “We are the power!”

Navalny spent 15 days in jail for leading a protest on Dec. 5 that unexpectedly drew more than 5,000 people and set off the chain of demonstrations.

Putin’s United Russia party lost 25 percent of its seats in the election, but hung onto a majority in parliament through what independent observers said was widespread fraud. United Russia, seen as representing a corrupt bureaucracy, has become known as the party of crooks and thieves, a phrase coined by Navalny.

“We have enough people here to take the Kremlin,” Navalny shouted to the crowd. “But we are peaceful people and we won’t do that — yet. But if these crooks and thieves keep cheating us, we will take what is ours.”

Protest leaders expressed skepticism about Putin’s promised political reforms.

“We don’t trust him,” opposition leader Boris Nemtsov told the rally, urging protesters to gather again after the long New Year’s holidays to make sure the proposed changes are put into law.

He and other speakers called on the demonstrators to go to the polls in March to unseat Putin. “A thief must not sit in the Kremlin,” Nemtsov said.

The protest leaders said they would keep up their push for a rerun of the parliamentary vote and punishment for election officials accused of fraud, while stressing the need to prevent fraud in the March presidential election.

Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov was among those who sought to give the protesters a sense of empowerment.

“There are so many of us here, and they (the government) are few,” Kasparov said from the stage. “They are huddled up in fear behind police cordons.”

The crowd was largely young, but included a sizable number of middle-aged and elderly people, some of whom limped slowly to the site on walkers and canes.

“We want to back those who are fighting for our rights,” said 16-year-old Darya Andryukhina, who said she had also attended the previous rally.

“People have come here because they want respect,” said Tamara Voronina, 54, who said she was proud that her three sons also had joined the protest.

Putin’s comment about protesters wearing condoms only further infuriated them and inspired some creative responses. One protester Saturday held a picture montage of Putin with his head wrapped in a condom like a grandmother’s headscarf. Many inflated condoms along with balloons.

The protests reflect a growing weariness with Putin, who was first elected president in 2000 and remained in charge after moving into the prime minister’s seat in 2008. Brazen fraud in the parliamentary vote unexpectedly energized the middle class, which for years had been politically apathetic.

“No one has done more to bring so many people here than Putin, who managed to insult the whole country,” said Viktor Shenderovich, a columnist and satirical writer.

Two rallies in St. Petersburg on Saturday drew a total of 4,000 people.

“I’m here because I’m tired of the government’s lies,” said Dmitry Dervenev, 47, a designer. “The prime minister insulted me personally when he said that people came to the rallies because they were paid by the U.S. State Department. I’m here because I’m a citizen of my country.”

Putin accused the United States of encouraging and funding the protests to weaken Russia.

Putin’s former finance minister surprised the protesters by saying the current parliament should approve the proposed electoral changes and then step down to allow new parliamentary elections to be held. Alexei Kudrin, who remains close to Putin, warned that the wave of protests could lead to violence and called for establishing a dialogue between the opposition and the government.

“Otherwise we will lose the chance for peaceful transformation,” Kudrin said.

Kudrin also joined calls for the ouster of Central Election Commission chief Vladimir Churov.

Putin has promised to liberalize registration rules for opposition parties and restore the direct election of governors he abolished in 2004. Putin’s stand-in as president, Dmitry Medvedev, spelled out those and other proposed changes in Thursday’s state-of-the nation address.

Gorbachev, however, said the government appears confused.

“They don’t know what to do,” he said. “They are making attempts to get out of the trap they drove themselves into.” North Jersey