A Golem Rises From The Dead--Maybe

The Obama administration once more has its panties twisted.  This time it is over the issue of reawakening a corpse from the Great Cold War Graveyard.  The corpse in question is that of surviving a nuclear attack made not by the Soviet Union, which remains safely buried in the GCWG, but by "radical extremists" or, to use a word more common outside the Beltway, terrorists.

The Deep Thinkers of the current administration have become convinced that, horror of horrors!, once again the Bush/Cheney administration had it right.  A series of studies undertaken by the Ever So Smart Boffins at Lawrence-Livermore National Laboratory, using those terribly expensive computers out there, have concluded that an attack by nuclear terrorists would be eminently survivable provided certain elementary measures were undertaken.

The dilemma for the Clueless Guy in the Oval and the rest of the bunch is how to get the necessary information out to city and state authorities and the great unwashed of the citizenry as well without simultaneously scaring the Great American Unwashed to a collective heart attack.  The Geek has to wonder, "Where is the problem?"

Mr Obama may be forgiven due to his youth, but there are a few in his inner circle such as Joe Biden, Hilary Clinton, and Robert Gates who are old enough to recall a basic fact of American life.  That fact is simple: Every American born since 1940 and before 1980 has lived the majority of sentient life under the shadow of nuclear extinction courtesy of the Soviets.

Excepting only the two times--the building of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis--when the buying of fallout shelters swept through the American suburbs, the Americans viewed the potential of nuclear death with a remarkable sangfroid.  Even movies such as On The Beach and Fail Safe did not perturb the equanimity.  The black humor of Dr Strangelove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb which had an approach heavily touched with the laughter of the gallows was shared by millions with delight and not fear.

Perhaps some of the adults surrounding Mr Obama can regale him with tales of school.  Tales of "duck and cover."  Tales of the lovable Bert the Civil Defense Turtle.  If not, perhaps the Obama's can glom onto a copy of Atomic Cafe which contains all the memorable stereotypes of the Days of Civil Defense and Community Fallout Shelters.

The message from history is clear: The American public has a long and not particularly disturbing experience with living in the shadow of the mushroom cloud. The collective We the People can accept the facts, they can take a heavy dose of truth no matter how inconvenient or unpleasant.

The problem comes not with telling We the People the truth about nuclear terror weapons and survival but rather just how accurate is the study done by the Lads and Lassies of L-L?  At the moment this is hard to determine as the essentials necessary to evaluate the study and its very optimistic conclusions were omitted from the several MSM articles covering its release yesterday and L-L has not seen fit to post it online as yet.

The conclusions of the study run somewhat against the grain of earlier efforts.  The guts are quite simple and very sunny.  In the event you see the bright flash, go to a "sturdy" building and stay there until the "authorities" tell you it is safe to leave.  The authors even point out that an automobile can provide a significant measure of protection against the radiation (whether both direct and prompt or delayed as in fallout was unclear.)  Overall the tone of the study seemed to be far lighter than even the much derided effort of the Reagan years which was dubbed by the cynical as "the with enough shovels" report.  At least the Reagan period piece emphasized pre-attack preparations which is an area of consideration minimized in the L-L report.

The methodology employed was adumbrated as computer modeling of a hypothetical attack on New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and several other large and medium cities.  Lacking from the outline were such significant considerations as the height above ground of the nuclear detonation (nudet) the yield of the nudet, the time of day when the nudet occurs, weather conditions, any biases built into the device such as one in favor of radiation at the expense of thermal and blast effects, or the nature of the device, gun type uranium or implosion type plutonium.  All of these considerations, particularly those of height of burst and yield can have a direct and major effect on the nudet's characteristics and thus consequences.

Given some of the report features mentioned in the MSM coverage, such as the effect of the fireball on the vision of drivers, one gains the impression that the study assumed an air burst or, at least, the positioning of the device in the upper portion of the tallest building in town.  This assumption on its own can directly effect the optimistic conclusions.

A ground burst by its very nature lofts a very great deal of highly irradiated and finely divided materials into the atmosphere.  Most will stay in the low to mid-levels and fall out quickly and heavily on the areas immediately downwind of the nudet.  An air burst, even one located in a tall building, will loft less material with the difference being most pronounced in devices of low yield and thus smaller fireball diameter.

As it is unlikely that terrorists will have a high kiloton or megaton range dial-a-yield at their disposal, the most probable yield range will be below fifteen kilotons, a range covered by both old nuclear artillery shells and the man portable atomic demolition munitions as well as some of the elderly air to air and surface to air missiles contained in both the US and Soviet inventories.  As the US has a very good handle on what has been or continues to be in its inventory, a consideration which does not apply to the old Soviet Union and its successor states, the most likely way for an ambitious terrorist with beaucoup bucks to gain access to a big enough bang would be via Red Army Surplus.

The ten to fifteen kiloton range also covers the devices most easily fabricated by countries new to the nuclear weapons game.  Thus the estimated range covers nicely the possibility of terrorists gaining access through the good offices of a friendly regime with a high tolerance for risk.

In either event, the most probable terror weapon will be in the small tactical yield category.  To be most effective such a device is best used as a ground pounder in a city with comparatively few tall or massively constructed buildings which is on flat land preferably surrounded on at least two sides by relatively high hills or mountains.  This would provide for maximum thermal and blast effect (which could be enhanced further by staging the nudet for the peak of summer at midday) while providing maximum local and mid-distance fallout of high radioactivity.

Choosing a mid-size city would also provide more casualties as medical facilities would be more readily overloaded.  Big cities are spread out which means more first responders, more medical facilities, and more infrastructure will survive a small yield nudet.  The smaller target, say one of the 100-500,000 range would give a very dramatic high casualty demonstration.

The news reports did not list all the cities simulated in this study, but if it didn't include places such as Tucson, El Paso, Albuquerque, Midlands-Odessa; it should have.  Cities of this size meet the criteria for the most effective employment of small yield devices.  They also have the advantage of being convenient to the international border.

Even an attack on a small town such as Las Cruces, NM would provide a very convincing demonstration of terror.  In a real sense an attack on a small, inconspicuous place is more dramatic, more frightening, and easier to carry out than one on the usual suspects of NYC, Washington, LA, or the Windy City.  Taking out half or more of the sixty thousand or so folks who live in Cruces would tell every American everywhere, "You ain't safe, bubba."

And that is what terror is all about.

Israel, The Bomb, And South Africa

According to the Guardian, the South African government has declassified documents which purport to prove that Israel offered to sell nuclear weapons to the Whites Only regime of South Africa in 1975. The deal was linked to the South African request that Israel sell Jericho missiles to Pretoria. As the Jericho was capable of delivering conventional, chemical, and nuclear payloads, the Israeli defense minister of the day, Shimon Peres offered the nuclear option.

The lightly redacted documents were released as the result of a request by an American researcher, Sasha Polakow-Suransky. The "incriminating" papers were supposed to be kept in the strictest of confidence by both governments, but the ANC offspring which currently runs the country had no problem taking an action which might discredit both its White dominated predecessor and Israel. This does raise the interesting question of the degree to which successor governments are bound by the commitments of those gone before, a question which has implications far beyond those of political and diplomatic embarrassment.

Not surprisingly the office of Shimon Peres, who is now President of Israel was quick to deny the allegations. What else is to be expected? The Israelis are most unlikely to admit, "Gosh, guys, you caught us. So much for nuclear ambiguity."

There is no shock contained in the offer to sell "all three sizes." Way back in the mid-Seventies, at least in certain circles located in a suburb of Washington, D.C., the buzz regarding nuclear cooperation between the pariah states of Israel and South Africa (on occasion Taiwan was mentioned as well) focused not only on mutual development schemes but the possibility of a direct sale. The buzz was pervasive enough that it was (and is) not credible that the US government at the highest levels was not aware of the the potentials involved.

In the immediate aftermath of the American debacle in Vietnam there was very real anxiety in the US government regarding Soviet "adventurism" in Africa among other areas. The realities of the day favored the Kissinger invention of regional hegemons acting as American proxies-for-stability in threatened areas. To this end the US offered increased assistance to, among others, the Shah of Iran, and countenanced the "two track" strategy and its aftermath in Chile.

Internal political pressures prevented any form of wide open support for the apartheid government of South Africa. Lower visibility efforts were permissible. The range of options would have included an absence of commentary regarding a joint nuclear development effort between Israel and South Africa or even a suitably sub rosa transfer of a limited number of nuclear weapons.

Not to sharpen the point too much, the US under different administrations of both parties had a real affection for the Israeli policy of nuclear ambiguity. It was seen with justice as having a desired inhibitory effect upon surrounding states. (This affection survived even the successful effort in nuclear blackmail practiced by the Israelis during the Yom Kippur War.)

It could be posited more (think Reagan) or less (think Carter) openly that a South African gambit in nuclear ambiguity would serve the same ends of stability enhancement in the south of Africa that it had in the Mideast. Not even the (in)famous "double flash" reports in 1990 served to push the US to a more open opposition of any nascent South African nuclear weapons program.

The overarching dictates of the Cold War assured that the US would limit its pressure on the much disliked apartheid regime. We needed not only stability in the region but also the direct assistance of the regime in our efforts to keep the sealanes of the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean unimpeded by any Soviet threat. Down until the collapse of the Soviet empires both outer and inner, the cooperation of South Africa was vital to the protection of our national and strategic interests.

The proximity in time between the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Whites Only government serves to underscore not only the importance of American "understanding" but also the vital nature of South Africa to the prosecution of the Cold War. The turning of a Nelsonian eye to the nuclear ambitions of South Africa by Uncle Sam, which would have included any direct Israel-to-South Africa sale of nukes, was both expectable and justifiable in the dynamics of the day.

The release of the documents by the Zuma government is of use and benefit only to those who currently wish Israel ill. Of course, that crowd is both numerous and diverse, ranging as it does from the politically articulate elites of Europe and the US to the many Islamic governments around the world.

The release does, however, harm the efforts by civilized states to deny nuclear weapons to the mullahs of Iran. The harm may prove in the next few weeks to be of a major sort. This reality and its potential implications are what give the release interest.

In the real world where Iran either will or will not acquire nuclear weapons and all that goes with that, the South African government by this action has joined with the uncivilized states. It has linked with those who are either too naive or too ideologically prejudiced to see just what can result from a failure to ban the bomb for Iran.

South Africa's government does not deserve congratulations for its commitment to honesty and transparency. Rather it deserves rigorous condemnation for hurting the cause of preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.

It is regrettable in the extreme that the Guardian among others so despises Israel that is is eager to celebrate a victory for Iran.

Real Nice--If They Can Be Trusted

On the surface it appears as if the Obama administration has achieved a pair of diplomatic successes. The first is the response made by the Kremlin leadership to Obama's "brave move" (to quote Vladimir Putin) in cancelling the land-based ABM system in Central Europe planned by the Bush/Cheney team. The second is the new receptivity on the part of Kim Jong-il to multilateral efforts to end the Hermit Kingdom of the North's nuclear weapons program.

The Dear Leader has indicated that North Korea will re-enter the Six Power Talks following a chat with Wen Jiabao, the Chinese PM, who also delivered a personal letter from the Chinese president, Hu Jintao. The new Chinese demarche is critical as only the Peoples Republic can put credible pressure on the Hermit Kingdom of the North.

Ever since 6 October 1949 when the Peoples Republic extended diplomatic and fraternal relations to North Korea, it has been the primary supporter of the Hermit Kingdom. Without Chinese assistance the North Korean state would have ceased to exist back in the Fall of 1950. Subsequently, the Chinese have assured that the North Koreans have been fed, given military and economic development aid, and generally been protected against the worst effects of their rambunctious behavior.

When the Hermit Kingdom detonated its second nuclear test shot, it went over the line as far as Beijing was concerned. The Chinese government is (perhaps unrealistically) concerned that a nuclear armed North Korea would trigger an arms race in the region. There is little doubt that both South Korea and Japan could produce nuclear weapons in very short order, and this is an eventuality which Beijing wants to avoid at almost any cost.

At the same time Beijing has been concerned that pushing the Hermits too hard or too fast would result in a destabilization of the country. Any fracturing of the regime in Pyongyang would result in a flood of refugees across the Yalu and Tuman rivers. A flow of refugees would have an echo effect on the stability in northeast China, which has already experienced internal unrest as the aging rust belt industries of the area have been closed.

Apparently, Beijing has concluded that Kim Jong-il is in sufficient command of the situation and further that the succession "crisis" has been averted or sufficiently postponed that it can now put the screws to Dear Leader. As a result, the Chinese leadership has taken advantage of the sixtieth anniversary of the diplomatic relations and fraternal friendship to "suggest" that Pyongyang should return to the Six Power Talks.

If the Hermits follow through on the initial indications and come back to the multi-lateral talks, not only will this be a complete reversal of previous policy, but, more importantly from the perspective of Beijing, it will be a major diplomatic coup for their team. China has more to gain from bringing the long running in fits and starts Six Power talks to a successful conclusion than merely the avoidance of a nuclear arms race in their backyard.

In case no one has noticed, China is in the midst of a major multi-year effort to become a significant international actor not only in economic affairs but in global politics. The Six Power talks have been a prime component of this campaign, so the ultimate success of the talks is a matter of global importance to Beijing. If the talks resume and come to a conclusion agreeable to the US, then China will have established itself as the ultimate regional power and have a good shot at rivaling the US and eclipsing Russia globally.

With a goal of this magnitude in play, the Beijing government has decided it is worth the slight risk of the Hermit Kingdom being either intransigent or tottering toward the abyss of internal rupture. At the very least, the resumption of the Six Power Talks will place the US and the (new) Japanese government in Beijing's debt.

More, a successful resolution of the North Korean nuclear question will make Beijing's light of leadership all the more attractive to the (new) Japanese government in its quest to chart a course more independent of the US. The same light will beckon to the South Koreans, giving their present and future governments an alternative to the US.

While not constituting a shift in the seismic plates of Pacific Rim relations, the Chinese role in a (still hypothetical of course) success in the Six Power Talks will add leverage to the goal of Beijing of reabsorbing Taiwan into the homeland. As the center of diplomatic gravity shifts closer to Beijing and further from Washington, the opposition to the reclamation of Taiwan is automatically attenuated--significantly.

A Chinese guided success in the Six Power Talks will also put Washington somewhat in Beijing's debt with ramifications of importance to other looming problems. Like Iran. The success of the Six Power Talks--or merely their resumption--will assure that Beijing has a greater freedom of action with respect to Iran. That it can ignore calls for enhanced sanctions with impunity--an even greater impunity than currently exists.

The Obama administration and its State Department would be well advised to view the new Chinese efforts with a careful eye--even a jaundiced one. The Boys In Beijing are not running a global eleemosynary institution. Beijing is pursuing self-defined national and strategic interests with a view to enhancing its global authority while necessarily reducing that of the US.

The same degree of skepticism should be employed by the Deep Thinkers of the Obama crew with respect to the impact of the scuttling of the land-based Central European ABM system. To no great surprise the move has been hailed in Moscow. Not only has PM Putin greeted it as a "brave move;" Dmitry Medvedev has promised that American concerns will be listened to "more closely."

WOW! How shocking! So what?

At the same time the Obama reversal has lowered the credibility of the US as the ultimate guarantor of national self-determination and independence of countries uncomfortably close to the Russian frontier. In the estimate of realpolickers in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungry, the Ukraine, Georgia and the Baltic States, the center of diplomatic gravity shifted overnight from the far reaches of the Atlantic Ocean to the walls of the Kremlin. The apparent capitulation of the Obama administration to long standing Russian demands hints (or more) at a lack of political will in Washington and a willingness to sacrifice the countries of Central Europe to the political and historical paranoia of the Russians.

Regardless of the intrinsic merits of the Obama administration's decision (and there are many including a rejection of the insultingly high-handed way in which the Bush/Cheney bunch rammed the ABM policy down the Kremlin's throat), the action was taken without any immediately evident quid pro quo. The absence of a "quo" from Moscow in return for the Obama "quid" in and of itself gives the appearance of surrender, of weakening political will, of a withdrawal from Central Europe.

Quid pro quo is the basic reserve currency of diplomacy. Mood music and honeyed words from Putin, Medvedev, and Company do not constitute a quid pro quo. Perhaps one will be forthcoming. Perhaps Moscow will reverse its course and join in the (proposed) next round of sanctions against Iran following the failure of the upcoming talks in Turkey. Perhaps whales will sprout wings and fly.

The Russians were the first to jump in bed with Ahmedinejad. They have consistently opposed sanctions as an unworkable approach--and continued to do so immediately after the Obama concession on the ABM matter. Moscow wants increased rights in the Caspian. It believes that the road to peace in the North Caucasus runs through Tehran. And, Iran is a good customer for Russia's major industrial exports--arms and nuclear reactors.

In short, what would Russia gain--and lose--if it were to listen more "closely" to US "concerns" regarding Iran? The quick answer is it would gain nothing and lose much.

The Obama administration gave a tasty morsel to the Russian Bear with the cancelling of the ABM project. Now the Bear is smiling. Who wouldn't after a free lunch?

Disengaged "Engagement" With Iran

The Obama administration has been and remains dedicated to a policy of "engagement" with the mullahs of Iran. Yet, given its stance not only on the stolen election of 12 June but its lengthy aftermath of protests, arrests, torture, murder, and, now, a three part series of show trials, one must wonder just what the word "engagement" means around the White House and Foggy Bottom.

As horrifying tales of torture, rape, and murder leak out around the edges of the Koran Curtain surrounding the Islamic Republic of Iran, the silence thunders on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the not-too-distant quarters of Hillary Clinton and the State Department. Even Joe Biden who is normally quick with the lip has been singularly quiet.

Some kind of "engagement," ain't it, bucko?

Oh, there were a few soothing, ambiguous words out of SecState Clinton during her eleven day safari through Africa. But, these amounted to nothing more than boiler plate tropes. There was no bite. No indignation. No condemnation. No "engagement."

Even Ronald Reagan during his period of "constructive engagement" with South Africa was willing to say negative things about some of the more outrageous actions of the white minority regime. Way back when, long before the Nice Young Man From Chicago was born (or that matter the much older Secretary of State either), Franklin Roosevelt, the paragon of the Democratic Party actually, really, honest-to-gosh, for sure, criticised Soviet dictator Joe Stalin for the purges, death camps, and show trials which decorated his reign. Can you believe it? Engagement--and negative at that.

Dwight Eisenhower went more than a tad negative over the show trials and executions which marked the beginnings of the Castro period in Cuba. JFK did the same. Golly, the historical record is replete with examples of American presidents and secretaries of state staking out firm ethical positions regarding the perceived wrongs committed by governments with which the US stood in opposition.

US presidents and secretaries of state have criticised, even strongly condemned, the actions of governments even as we sought to establish or maintain a diplomatic gavotte with them. No matter how much the US might have needed to do a deal with a country, no president, no secretary of state, no administration before that headed by President Obama has failed to take and maintain a strongly enunciated stance when a government has violated norms and values espoused by the United States.

Admittedly, President Obama has opened a new chapter in American diplomacy with his emphasis upon cringing apologies for presumed wrongs committed in the past. Sometimes, as in his reference to Operation AJAX in the course of his Cairo Address, the cringing is so extreme as to violate historical reality. But, he is evidently not one to allow mere historical (or any other form of) truth to get in the way of servile supplication for forgiveness for wrongs never inflicted in the (vain) hope of gaining cooperation from the unwilling in return.

FDR did not let Krystalnacht go by unmentioned, uncondemned. Nor did Harry Truman allow the Soviet excesses of repression slip by without a word. JFK was not given to ignoring the violations of human rights and democracy pass him by without being acknowledged with pejorative (and occasionally salty) comment. Ike even took allies to task for actions contrary to the norms of civilized behavior as in the Sinai War of 1956.

The list goes on through every president, every secretary of state. Until now. Until the Obama Ascendancy.

Mealy mouthed responses to the actions of the reactionary mullahs and their accomplices in wholesale violations of human rights, democratic processes, and judicial procedures are not only out of keeping with the American tradition. The weak-kneed stance of the Obama administration is not pragmatically sanctioned. If the president and his foreign policy team expects that their disengaged, more-than-merely-arm's-length reaction to the mullahocracy will result in some movement toward a diplomatic resolution of the nuclear weapons contretemps, the whole crew has its collective head in an anatomically improbable location.

Considering that the actions of the reactionary clerics in Tehran have proven so reprehensible as to result in evident seismic splits in the clerical ranks generally, the expectation that a tolerant US position on the election and its aftermaths will result in "let's make a deal" is completely unsupportable by the realities. The totalistic reactionaries from Ayatollah Khamenei to "President" Ahmedinejad do not understand tolerance, acceptance, understanding as anything other than weakness--the weakness of surrender.

There is a time and place for the tough line. There is a time and a place for the firm, consistent stance in support of fundamental principles.

Now is the time. Iran is the place.

While the Bush/Cheney administration might have been terribly ill-advised with the invasion of Iraq, it did scare the dickens out of the mullahs. The so-called "grand bargain" might have been a myth and Iran might plausibly have already solved the problems of the physics package for their nascent nuclear weapons program, but the reality is that the mullahs were frightened enough to make exploitable offers of cooperation to the US.

Fear has a powerful capacity to focus the mind. For a few months following the invasion of Iraq the mullahs were afflicted with sufficient fear to provide an opportunity for American diplomacy. It is to be regretted that the Bush administration did not use the brief window of opportunity. The fine military historian Edward Luttwak pointed out recently in the WSJ that the opportunity was forsaken needlessly and would not come again absent an equal application of fear in Tehran.

To be "engaged" requires an ear willing and able to listen. Right now that ear is absent. It will not return unless and until the Iranian regime is given a good reason to do so.

That means the time is now, right now, to crank up the fear machine. If the Obama administration is serious, if the president is honest about policy, the Iranians must not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons. Given that they are not far from that goal (how far is a matter of debate between people of equally good will) the mullahs must be made to focus their minds. They must be scared again.

This means drop the cringing. Stop the disengaged stance on the vile actions of the mullahs and their ilk. It means stop bemoaning our military weakness, our inability and unwillingness to send more men, more weapons, more ships, more planes, to the far corners of the world in support of policy. It means taking a very strong, very well articulated and quite consistent stance against the current Iranian regime and its actions. It means openly (and covertly) supporting the opposition. It means drawing a firm line in the sand and letting the Iranians know the precise consequences which will result should they cross the line.

It means taking risks. Very real, very large risks. It even means, (say it ain't so) putting the Great Agenda For Transformation at risk.

It means both talking the talk and walking the walk.

It is either that or abject surrender of our core values, principles and, potentially, national and strategic interests to a collection of reactionary True Believers.

That's the choice. It isn't pretty. It isn't nice. It isn't pleasant to contemplate. But, the way in which the choice is made will have massive and continued impact on the future of the US and the world. It is President Obama's call.

The question is simple: Is the Nice Young Man From Chicago both tough enough and smart enough to make it?

One can be forgiven for shuddering over the probable answer.

The World Gets More "Nuclear" By The Day

About two years ago the US intelligence community issued a special national intelligence estimate which asserted the Iranians had stopped their nuclear weapons R&D effort in 2003 due to fear of an American invasion. The Deep Thinkers of Intelland concluded the mullahs would not be able to get their long desired "Mahdi" bomb for a comfortable number of years. Time to stop worrying, folks. Plenty of time for the diplomats to end the nuisance.

There were dissenters. These were lead by Israel. As usual the Israeli views were tossed off by many as the result of the nation's paranoia and an over reliance on force. So, let's give peace a chance.

There was another option for assessing the halt in the warhead development efforts to which the American NIE made reference. It was the road not taken, perhaps because CIA and other components of the intell community had been burned so badly by the WMD contretemps after the invasion of Iraq. It is also a much less pleasant option to contemplate.

The Iranians had stopped warhead, or, more accurately, physics package design because they had mastered both the design and the technology needed to make the design work. This was a viable base of assessment given the assistance the Iranians had received from A.Q Khan and company in Pakistan. To which may be added the possibility of assistance from China.

The second option, the option holding that the Iranians had done all that they could until amassing sufficient weapons grade uranium has come roaring back to life courtesy of the Times of London. The report, which is standard in today's journalistic practice, is meager in original source documentation, holds that Iran could have a deliverable implosion type uranium weapon within a year of Ayatollah Khamenei giving the go-ahead.

The Israelis have publicly added that Iran now has sufficient low enrichment uranium on hand to produce thirty kilograms of weapons grade final product. This is (more than) enough to make one bomb of Hiroshima level yield--particularly if the Iranians have developed a viable implosion detonation system.

It also deserves mention that the Iranians have an immediate fall back position if the implosion method does not work as advertised. Sixty pounds of highly enriched uranium is sufficient to make a very effective albeit less efficient gun-type bomb. This is what the US employed to level Hiroshima. The technology is so simple that no tests were--or are-necessary.

Golly, this just makes the Geek feel all warm, cuddly, and safe. Bet it does you too, Bucko.

Then there is the word from the antipodes (literally.) The Australians have outed the Burmese covert reactor and plutonium separation plant being built in caves not far from their open and, according to its Russian builders, Non-Proliferation Treaty compliant research reactor. The underground plant is being constructed by and with the North Koreans.

The source of the story is Australia's National University strategic expert, Desmond Ball. Professor Ball, whom the Geek has met professionally more than a few times, is a careful and highly methodical investigator. He has extensively interviewed two defectors from Burma with direct, hands-on knowledge of the covert bomb oriented work in progress. At least one of the two defectors has been debriefed by US intelligence.

This is directly confirmed by the Burmese government's touchy reaction to US unmanned aircraft overflying the North Koreans and Burmese army are beavering away. The junta running the show in Burma (OK, for the politically correct, Myanmar) are both notoriously repressive and possessed of a penchant for the sneaky side of life. This makes them ideally suited for a collaborative effort with North Korea.

Not commented upon is China. China is the T. rex at the dinner table in this matter as it is in so many. The relations between North Korea and China are too well known to deserve even minimal adumbration.

However, it deserves mention that China is both a major trading partner with Burma and its primary diplomatic protection service. Without China's complete cooperation there is no practical way of stopping the flow of men and material between North Korea and Burma. Bets. anyone?

The Ball report is preliminary, very preliminary. As the professor candidly states, it is in need of verification. Even more importantly, it is necessary to determine how far advanced the construction work is.

If one is not overly concerned with safety or the potential of worker casualties, building both a nuclear reactor oriented toward plutonium production and an attached chemical separation facility are neither complex nor long duration. It might be recalled that plutonium was being produced at the Hanford works less than eighteen months after the ground was broken for the plant during World War II.

Moving in the direction of gaining an atomic weapons capacity moves Burma from being a mere pariah state to that of a rogue. The junta has long entertained visions of regional hegemony or at least domination of Thailand and the Indo-Chinese states. A nuclear capacity, even one which is not acknowledged (the Israel option), would serve this ambition very nicely, thank you.

It appears that the nuclear-free world so delightfully outlined by President Obama not that many weeks ago is being challenged by the cold and brutal realities of a world which is and will continue to be dominated by the nation-state, no matter how much the chattering classes of the Western European and American elites decry and deny that fact. The Obama-Clinton-Biden foreign policy giants have more challenges on their plate.

Central to effectively meeting the threats of nuclear proliferation by Iran and, now, Burma, is the cooperation of Russia and China. Neither country has a dog in the fight, at least not directly. At the same time, China holds our notes and we want to press more into their hands. And, the Russians still believe that the insults hurled by Joe Biden a week back are symbolic of some sort of deep and dark plot under development in the White House and Foggy Bottom.

Now, don't you feel a whole lot more confident about the bright, peaceful, prosperous New World of the Obama Transformational Agenda?

SecState Clinton Shoots Her Mouth Again

Apparently her recent fall caused damage to a critical body part other than her elbow. It seems that Secretary Clinton suffered some sort of traumatic brain injury affecting her speech center. The symptom is running off at the oral orifice without any cognitive connection having been made first.

The other day she infuriated the Pakistani government by mentioning that Osama bin Ladin and others have been hiding in Pakistan. She allowed any who wanted to draw the inference that this state of affairs developed and continues with the knowledge and tacit approval of the Pakistani government or its Inter-Services Intelligence agency. True or not (and it probably is) the accusation coming as it did hot on the heels of the shaky early stages of a semi-detente between Pakistan and India was as helpful as trying to eat soup with a knife.

Now Ms Clinton has done it again. This time the infuriated party is Israel.

On Wednesday Secretary Clinton offered a "defense umbrella" to countries in the Mideast and Persian Gulf regions threatened by the Iranian nuclear weapons development program. While much of the wording was unexceptional in that it focused on such mundane matters as arms sales and more forward deployment of US forces, part of the Secretary's position was a restatement of a previous American demarche.

The US would consider a nuclear attack on an American ally to be the equivalent of an attack upon itself. This is the same posture that the US held with respect to Western Europe during the Cold War.

The earlier commitment of the US to retaliate with nuclear weapons to any Soviet first use in Europe was not inherently credible to some, if not all, European political leaders. Secretary Clinton's reissuance is not credible to the government of Israel.

Israel was quick to respond. Dan Meridor, the minister in charge of Israeli intelligence, denounced the Clinton statement as accepting Iran's status as a nuclear power as an accomplished feat.

When taken in conjunction with the recent "warning" issued by an unnamed senior defense official to the effect that Israel must not seek to abate the Iranian threat with unilateral military operations, the Clinton pronouncement can be taken to mean the US is willing to accommodate itself to the new reality of Iran having the bomb. Mr Meridor and others who see the matter as he does are not being paranoid.

The timing of Ms Clinton's "umbrella" offer gives additional plausibility to the interpretation that the US is willing to accept the new reality. The Iranian vice-president Parviz Davoudi opined at a conference sponsored by the Martyrs' Foundation that any attempt to attack Iran's 12,000 spinning centrifuges would result in widespread destabilization. He is right.

Israel and the US both know that. It is one of the risks that must be assessed before making the "go" decision on the air strike option. But, the lack of time lapse between the widely disseminated Iranian speech and Ms Clinton's opening of the "umbrella" make it appear the US was responding to the Iranian threat.

Undoubtedly the implications of the Clinton statement will be among the subjects discussed in the forthcoming high level talks between US and Israeli intelligence and national security personnel. They will present the latest documentation supporting their view of the threat and its nearness in time. We will play as much soothing mood music as possible--including singing the praises of the deterrent effect of the American nuclear "umbrella."

The invisible figure at the US-Israeli talks will be Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle may be long dead but his trenchant and accurate reading of the weakness of the American deterrent and his country's subsequent policy will be very much alive, well, and relevant not only at this conflab but in the days, weeks, and months to come.

Quite simply, de Gaulle did not believe that should push come to shove the Americans would place New York at risk for Paris or Los Angeles for Dijon. France would need its own independent, sovereign nuclear retaliatory capacity. And, so, at great expense and energy France did and does. It is an independent, fully sovereign actor in pursuit of its own national and strategic interests.

While Iran does not present the level of prompt threat to the continental US that the Soviet Union did since the mullahs will have to depend upon the Postal Service or FedEx to deliver their "Mahdi bomb" to our shores for some years to come, the de Gaulle analysis still has much to recommend it to the decision makers of Israel. Given the current economic realities (including the not very subtle Chinese threat that the US must pursue stable policies to protect the value of the 800 billion dollars in American paper held by Beijing) it is legitimate for the government of Israel to doubt the US political will to use the military option, particularly nuclear retaliation.

It is pushing the envelope of credibility to expect the current administration to place both the economic well-being of the US and its own agenda at risk to protect the interests or even existence of Israel. It is far more prudent for the government of Israel to look to itself and its own mechanisms for protection of its own core interests.

The unwillingness of any Israeli government to lean on the US for existential protection has been and is being enhanced by the obdurate stance of the current administration on such matters as building twenty apartments on the site of an old hotel in East Jerusalem. This policy position when considered in the context of the quite apparent pro-Arab tilt taken by the Obama administration makes any US guarantee against Iranian ambitions a weak reed on which to lean.

It doesn't matter if the Iranian ambitions are pursued by waving a nuclear scimitar or by the more traditional means of sponsoring subversion or terrorism, the end result is the same. Israel and other countries in the region perceive themselves quite correctly to be at great and growing risk. At the same time the statements and policies (such as they are) of the Obama administration when put together with current economic conditions and the strong agenda orientation of the "Progressive Caucus" make any and all US verbal guarantees automatically suspect.

In short, Secretary Clinton in succumbing to her latest round of the Joe Biden Syndrome has not reassured Israel. Neither, in all probability, has she calmed the fears in the Gulf Sheikdoms. She and they as well as the rest of us would be far better off if she used her mouth for eating and not talking.

Two Twitchy Scorpions In A Very Small Bottle

India and Pakistan both have a nuclear capability. India's atomic arsenal is much larger than Pakistan's. The new US-Indian deal on fissionable materials allows India to divert its entire domestic production of uranium to the bomb making assembly lines so its ability to green glass large swaths of Pakistan will grow.

Although well behind India in the numbers and perhaps yields of its weapons, the Pakistanis are currently enlarging their production capacity. Even without an increase, Islamabad has more than enough splittable neutrons to ruin India's (and the world's) whole day.

Making life all the more anxiety producing for those who hope to avoid the planting of mushroom shaped clouds in the sky over the sub-continent, both India and Pakistan have shown a truly awesome capacity to avoid cooperation on key existential issues, reject any sort of roadmap for a final settlement on the disputed lands of the Kashmir and, at least un-officially, wave the nuclear card as if it were actually one which could be played. While India every now and then indicates that the nuclear option is a rational one, the Pakistanis are far more willing to endorse the notion of nuclear war as a viable policy approach.

In the relationship between India and Pakistan it is the latter which is the more distrusting, the more apprehensive, the more willing to reach for a threat, including the nuclear one. But, India, when provoked as it was by the Mumbai Incident, can equal or outdo Pakistan in the dire threats department.

Currently there are two issues which yawn like a World War I trench system with the two combatants glaring at each other through the sights of their guns. One is the matter of Pakistani complicity in the Mumbai Incident. The other is water.

There is little doubt that Islamabad has been sleep-walking through the motions of judicial proceedings against Pakistanis accused of having played a role in the Mumbai Incident. More debatable but far from rebuttable is the contention that the Mumbai Incident involved some level of support from instruments of the Pakistani government, most probably the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI.) The obvious lack of promptness and candor on the part of the government of Pakistan (GOP) in pursuing either allegations or suspicions of its citizens or agents involvement in the Incident have fueled the darkest of dark Indian suspicions.

The shocking (dare the Geek say, "Perry Mason" style) confession of the sole surviving Mumbai terrorist in open court poured napalm by the gallon on the worst Indian conjectures. It seems likely that the Indian government which is not a monument to either stability or cautious reflection before taking action will come under heavy pressure to do something unless the GOP takes effective, public action to act on information contained in the so far secret (or at least gag rule suppressed) confession.

At the very least the confession of Ajmal Kasab has the potential of perturbing, even rupturing, the tentative rapprochement made between India and Pakistan on the sidelines of the recently concluded Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) conference in Sharm al-Sheik, Egypt. The meeting of the minds at Sharm al-Sheik was neither comprehensive nor free of mutual suspicion to the extent that India and Pakistan might well engage in a rush away from it.

(It should be mentioned that SecState Hillary Clinton stepped on her diplomatic tongue with golf shoes when she averred surviving heavyweights of al-Qaeda were still holed up in Pakistan's FATA. The implication was this state of affairs could not exist without the tacit approval of either or both GOP and ISI. While both the sanctuary and the implication might be factual, it is not at all appropriate to say so at this critical juncture in Indo-Pakistan relations. Ms Clinton deserves to be taken to the woodshed.)

Pakistan needs to feel free to turn its back on India as it gets on with its fight against Taliban. More specifically Pakistan needs assurances, credible, verifiable assurances that India is not seeking a strategic advantage by its presence in Afghanistan. Only the US can serve as an honest broker in this matter and SecState Clinton's ill-advised imitation of Joe (I'll-Say-Anything-That-Crosses-My-Tongue-Without-Involving-My-Brain) Biden will do nothing to enhance the American role in this matter.

Our Secretary of State is correct when she pats Pakistan on the back for its "serious" efforts to defeat Taliban. The military portion of the anti-Taliban campaign is continuing with continued superficial indications of success. More important than the body count touted is the underlying fact that the majority of the ground fighting is still being carried out by the second string units of the paramilitary Frontier Corps and not the regular Pakistani army.

This means simply that GOP has not felt free to redeploy substantial numbers of their regular forces from the Indian border. Continued reliance upon the Frontier Corps, which is, relatively, less well trained, equipped, and officered than the Regulars will assure the campaign moves slowly, perhaps too slowly to continue effective public support and political will. The faltering of support and will has been the ruination of previous anti-Taliban efforts. The same dynamic is not far from the surface today.

The second issue--water--has emerged in the past few weeks to complicate the relation between Pakistan and India. Water, and the potential for hostilities over it, has been highlighted recently by assorted Pakistani media and political figures. This means there is less inducement for India to take confidence building measures such as thinning out its forces on the common border which would allow Pakistan to concentrate its army on the abatement of the Taliban.

Water has been an issue between India and Pakistan since Partition. A series of agreements on the use and division of rivers serving the two countries, particularly those running through the disputed territories of Jammu and Kashmir, have been signed. In general these agreements have been observed to the satisfaction of both governments.

The Indus River Treaty of 1960 which was facilitated by the World Bank is the most important of these agreements. It has become a source of strain between the two countries in the past year or so. Covering the six river systems shared by the two nations, the Indus River Treaty is seen to be threatened by the Indian government's ambitious sixty-seven project program for dams, hydroelectric power production, and irrigation covering the Indian administered portion of Kashmir state.

From the perspective of Pakistani nationalists, the Indian development program whose centerpiece, Baglihir dam, went on line last year is an attempt to create an absolute and irrefutable fact on the ground in Kashmir and Jammu. In the view of these irredentist folks the Indian government is seeking to fully integrate the Muslim majority population of Indian controlled Kashmir and Jammu to the ultimate disadvantage of both Islam and Pakistan.

The Indian government says it is simply discharging its responsibility to the population of the two provinces while fostering both agricultural and economic development such as to benefit the locals and the nation equally. There is nothing outre nor exceptional in this position. It is what governments everywhere are supposed to do--and, at least on occasion, do actually do.

Not so fast, counter the irredentists of Pakistan. The massive project carries the potential of threatening the Pakistani agricultural use of the water to our collective loss. This argument carries a lot of freight with Pakistanis.

The consensus is Pakistan faces a water crisis in the near future. The country has been experiencing a decrement in water flow for the past several decades and may face genuine emergency conditions in the next five years. Compounding the problem is Pakistan has failed to build its own dams, resevoirs, and irrigation systems such that most of the water flowing through the rivers is lost to the sea without having been put to beneficial use along the way.

As Pakistan's population is expected to hit 250 million in the not too distant future, the impact of water shortages particularly when taken in conjunction with shortfalls in basic commodities would be severely dislocative. Even though the GOP is in large measure responsible for the looming water crisis, it is far more convenient and in keeping with historical experience to pin the tail of blame on the Indian donkey.

Various and sundry retired generals including a former head of ISI and the one time boss of the national water authority along with assorted nationalist politicians are now raising the accusation that India is using the water as a weapon. This crew loudly, repeatedly, and in a high visibility way has charged that the new dam and its associated projects are actually offensive weapons more deadly than atomic bombs aimed at the hearts of Pakistan and Islam.

Now, the charges have reached the point that purportedly responsible Pakistanis are contending that resorting to nuclear war in response to this Indian hydraulic assault is appropriate. What a concept! You have to admit it would work. After a brief exchange the resulting population reduction of several million would diminish the need for water--assuming any which did not glow in the dark could be found.

While there is no real (immediate) probability of the two countries going to nuclear war over water or any thing else, the mere fact of this irredentist thinking (to use the term generically only) is indicative of the underlying distrust, suspicion, and flat out fear which provides the context for all Indo-Pakistani affairs. It is emblematic of the gap which the US must help bridge in our own interest.

Secretary of State Clinton will have to be far more careful in both the wording and timing of her public remarks than she evidenced in the wake of the NAM if she is going to play the constructive role in nudging the governments of Pakistan and India toward a working relationship which will meet Pakistan's needs as it takes on Taliban. Unless and until both the government and politically articulate elite of Pakistan can grow beyond their reflexive and unreasoning fear of India, the task of squashing Taliban and akin Islamist threats will stay incomplete.

Unless and until Pakistan devotes its full energies and forces to abating the Islamists in its midst, the American effort in Afghanistan is probably doomed to fail. Time is against both the US government and GOP.

The reason time is on the side of the Islamists is the same in both Pakistan and the US. Sacrifice without evident success saps political will. SecDef Gates has warned that We the People will turn our backs on the Afghanistan war without real, observable success in the next twelve to eighteen months. The time frame in Pakistan is shorter, perhaps much shorter.

Ms Clinton and the rest of the Obama foreign policy team have their work cut out for them. The question is simply--Are they up to the task?

It's The Economy, Stupid! (Or Is It?)

Recycling the old Clinton campaign adage is appropriate in part, but only in part for the looming Iranian presidential election. While we in the West are most hung up on Ahmedinejad's oratory on subjects ranging from the mullahocracy's pursuit of nuclear weapons to the necessity of expunging the "Zionist entity" to the strident proclamations regarding the non-existence of the Holocaust, none of these matter to the Iranian street. To the Iranians generally the name of the game is the economy.

To err on the side of accuracy, the real deal is the nearly prostrate condition of the economy as well as Ahmedinejad's propensity for prevarication on that reality. When Ahmedinejad won his unexpectedly convincing victory a while back, it was with the promise that Iran's oil riches would find their way to the dinner plates of the Iranian versions of Joe and Jane Sixpack. To say that the promise remains unfulfilled is to engage in world class understatement.

While the collapse of last year's record setting oil prices played a role in the meltdown of the Iranian economy, that was the lesser contributor to the current situation of high inflation and very high unemployment. The greater causes can be laid directly to the policies of Ahmedinejad and his clerical masters.

The mullahs and their mouthpiece have tossed oodles and gobs of the long green at military targets. The spinning centrifuges and the new generation of solid fuel boosters did not come cheap. Even without the sanctions which have caused an unspecifiable but far from negligible increase in costs, these projects and systems are big, very big ticket items.

Below the glitz of the centrifuges and missiles, the Iranians have spent an ever increasing percentage of their diminishing GDP on conventional weapons for their air, ground and naval forces. The overall size of the military, including its paramilitary components, have been increased--in part to offset the thirty plus percent unemployment among young men.

In addition, the Iranian government has continued to funnel large sums into their client groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Largess has also been spread among troublemaking groups from Afghanistan and Iraq to such far away places as the Philippines and Latin America. Quite simply, keeping and expanding the terrorist networks established as far back as the early Eighties is an expensive proposition, the costs of which are only partially offset by an increasing involvement in the fabrication, transportation and distribution of drugs.

Along with the guns, Ahmedinejad--with the necessary support of the senior clerics--has tossed money in the direction of "butter." The base of Ahmedinejad's support was and is the poor, the marginal and the most devout. Make work and relief projects as well as subsidies both open and disguised have been necessary to keep the support of these segments of the population. Holding the poorest from harm has been critical in Ahmedinejad's political future.

Mir Hossein Moussavi draws his support from the young, the "middle class," the less devout. His rivers of green draw from the waters of those who do not get the subsidies, the relief, the people who must work forty-eight hours a day to begin to make ends meet. The "Greenies" also include those who are nationalistic in what might be termed a "Persian" sense rather than one which rests on Islamism. These are the more educated, the more plugged into the world, who have been feeling an increased sense of embarrassment from Ahmedinejad's flights of oratorical excess around the world.

In addition the Moussavi supporters include those who rightly worry about the probable consequences of a continuation of intransigence on the nuclear issue. These Iranians have a sufficient grip on reality to recognise what will happen if Israel decides that the emerging Iranian nuclear threat must be removed regardless of costs.

The mullahocracy's policy of intransigence, more intransigence and even more intransigence has served the regime's interests well for thirty years now. Breaking the norms and customs of international relations has worked well--misleadingly well. The direct and proxy employment of terror, assassination and the other ploys of the twilight sort of war has also worked well--again misleadingly well.

Quite simply, all trains eventually reach the end of the line. The same may be coming true with respect to the thirty years of defiance, obstinacy, and lethal operations. Among the supporters of Moussavi this is a factor which equals or perhaps surpasses the economy.

President Obama does not want to see the military instrument employed in order to bring about a final solution to the Iranian conundrum. No American president has sought out war--not even Theodore Roosevelt despite rumors to the contrary. FDR didn't send the American navy against Japan on 6 December 1941. Harry Truman did not order an invasion of North Korea in 1950. The much maligned LBJ did not eagerly ship ground combat forces to South Vietnam in 1965.

Even George W. Bush didn't stare at a globe hoping to find a country to invade before 9/11.

The Obama version of "give peace a chance" is not new, not unprecedented. But, like the other peace oriented presidents before him, there well may come the day when war seems to be the least-worst option. That day may be upon him long before he or the rest of us expects or desires.

Undoubtedly there are Iranians who recognise this. There may even be members of the clerical elite, the powers in the back room of Iranian politics, who realise it as well.

Ultimately, it is the latter rather than the former who will make the crucial decision to drop the thirty year long policy and embark on a new course. No matter how the election turns out, the mullahs of Ayatollah Khamenei's inner circle make the decisions and enforce them.

The race in Iran is tighter now than any observer might have thought even two weeks ago. It is still unlikely that Moussavi will win. However, a strong showing by the challenger is enough.

Enough to fire warning shots across the bows of the mullahs and frontman Ahedinejad alike. There will be two rounds in particular in this electoral barrage.

The first is it's-the-economy,-stupid! The second is the limits of defiance.

The mullahs will have good reason to re-evaluate the commitment of vast amounts of the country's limited resources to military uses. They will have good reason to ask if they have pushed the forbearance of the West too far. They might wonder if they are perilously close to the line, the limits of tolerance.

The mullahs might even be so un-Islamist as to take a look at history. If they were to make such a bold move, they would discover that American presidents of the Democratic Party are the most likely to take the most robust military action when pushed over the line. Consider Woodrow Wilson, a peace loving man of almost True Believer status. Pushed beyond his limits, the Marines landed in Mexico and elsewhere, and the US went to war only six months after Wilson had won re-election as the man who "kept us out of war."

Or, they might consider Harry Truman's response to the North Korean invasion. Truman not only invoked the UN successfully as diplomatic cover for our military response, he signed off on NSC 68 which put us firmly on the road to the hydrogen bomb, long range missiles, the arms race with the Soviet Union and the doctrine of mutually assured destruction.

Or, they might reflect on JFK. The Kennedy White House following the president's humiliation at the Vienna summit went full tilt in a campaign against Castro, sent special forces to Laos and ramped up our ability to counter presumed Soviet sponsored insurgencies throughout the world. Among other consequences were the Vietnam War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the last nanometer of the brink of nuclear war.

Even Jimmy Carter, the most un-warlike man to sit in the Oval since Rutherford B. Hayes, would have sent the troops to Iran in 1979--had he not already dismantled our special operations capacity and rapid response interventionary potential.

Barack Obama does not have the kind of mentality to accept diplomatic kicks to the groin while keeping his famed smile intact. President Obama (and the Democratic Congressional leadership) likes to see himself as a progressive, a globalist, even a post-nationalist. But, as the historical record demonstrates clearly, people of a similar self-characterisation have gone to war with a rush and a fury which almost surpasses understanding.

The Iranian regime has lied, assassinated, terrorised and generally behaved as global Bad Actor without real hindrance for thirty years. Along the way the mullahs have repressed and impoverished their own people to say nothing of dragging the long generations of proud Persian nationalism through the mire of Islamism. Now, with a little bit of luck, the elections will produce results which include the clerics re-evaluating their relations with both the Persian people and the governments of the world.

However, if the Supreme Ayatollah and his ilk insist with continuing more of the same old, same old, they and the rest of the world are in for a stretch of very bad road. All that can be hoped for realistically is that Moussavi will do well enough to force the assorted ayatollahs, imams and other bearers of clerical authority to discover that Allah wills, "Cowboy, mend your ways--now!"

Let George Do It

No. Not George W. Bush. The "George" here refers to an old idiom which was common in the US until about a half century ago. The phrase, "Let George do it," meant quite simply, let someone else do the job; it's not our department.

In this case the "George" in question is the Peoples Republic of China. And, the "it" in question is North Korea. More specifically, the "it" means dealing with the twin conundrums: one serious, the other quite trivial (except for those directly involved in the fate of the two American women journalists facing twelve years as prisoners in the Hermit Kingdom of the North's hellish prisons).

To put it bluntly: The US does not have, never has had, and will not suddenly gain, the leverage necessary to either force or induce the Pyongyang politburo to comply with our policy requirements. The US never, repeat, never, should have invested the high-profile, high-visibility diplomatic prestige in the North Korean drive to become a semi-hemi-demi nuclear power.

Nearly fifteen years ago when the Clinton administration made the grave error of wading in to the North Korean swamp, the Geek forecast that by so doing the US would only invite both failure and a repeated requirement to, as SecDef Gates put it the other day, "Buy the same horse twice." The noisy, prolonged and ultimately failed Clinton push to preclude the Hermit Kingdom from pursuing a rudimentary nuclear capacity was one more example of the worst features (and the most common characteristics) of American foreign policy: ad hoc reaction to a perceived threat and the intermixing of domestic political imperatives with the needs of diplomacy.

As anyone and everyone familiar with the history of North Korean diplomatic methods must have known, the Clinton era efforts came to nothing. The same was expected and occurred when the neocons of the George W. Bush White House went after the same goal a decade or so later. The muscular fellows of the W. Bush years no more had the leverage either positive or negative to gain Hermit Kingdom compliance with American objectives than had the more touchy-feely types of the Clinton crew.

Not only were bilateral efforts doomed to fail, so also was the collective approach of the Six Power Talks. Effective sanctions were bootless right out of the box due to the fundamental disagreement between at least one of the powers and the rest.

China had a completely different take on the potential threat posed by North Korean ambitions from that informing the policy stance of the US, South Korea and Japan. China had as well a view of its own interests which did not mesh well with the policy requirements of the US.

Quite frankly, the Beijing government did not and does not see North Korea as a threat in either the near or the far-term. Knees did not knock in the Forbidden City as they apparently did in Washington over the prospect of the Hermit Kingdom developing some pretense of a nuclear capability. This despite the fact that China is far, far closer to North Korea than the US or Japan.

China was (and is) comfortable with the capacity it possesses to abate any North Korean menace with purely conventional means should such prove necessary. (It helps that the formidable North Korean defenses face south.) Beyond that, China has abundant non-military means to either force or cozen Pyongyang's agreement to Beijing's "guidance."

Ignoring the geopolitical realities, both the Clinton and W. Bush administrations plunged ahead with a reckless abandon and a sense of certainty totally devoid of a real world basis. We tried--ultimately without success--to get the Chinese to sing from our sheet of music.

Instead both the Clinton and W. Bush crews should have been quietly asking Beijing just what tune should be sung to gain the most satisfactory outcome.

Now the Obama collective seems hell bent on following the same course to failure blazoned by the two previous administrations. The rhetoric has become ever more heated. The threats of "consequences" ever more brazen. The visibility of the American total commitment to a single outcome ever more visible. Prestige on the international scene ever more invested.

Stop! Time out! A whistle on the play.

The US must dial down the volume. It must sidle up to the Chinese. Quietly, very quietly so as to save some measure of face for Uncle Sam, we must turn the problem over to them. Let George do it.

This means recognising a pair of realpolitik realities. The first is that China is the operative regional hegemonic power in this case. The second is acknowledging that Beijing has operated a conservative and highly effective diplomacy since the Communist victory in 1949.

China has a long and close relationship with North Korea. The Chinese government has a far better understanding of the internal dynamics of the Hermit Kingdom than does the US. The specialists in North Korean affairs in Beijing know the strengths and weaknesses of the Pyongyang regime. They know the personalities. The inner rivalries and alliances. In short, they know the levers to pull and buttons to push in order to gain compliance.

Beijing has a clear interest in a stable North Korea. It has an equal interest in assuring that the Hermit Kingdom not only continues to exist but that it does nothing so rash as to result in a regionally destabilizing consequence. It has no desire to deal with hordes of North Korean refugees flooding across the Tuman and Yalu rivers bringing with them the attention of the human rights and humanitarian crisis oriented entities whether from the UN or the legion of NGOs.

China, in short, has much at stake in North Korea. It has a set of major imperatives in play which dictate constructive effort to protect stability and good order in the Korean peninsula.

The Obama administration and particularly its minions in Foggy Bottom would be well advised to take a dekko at the historical record of Chinese diplomacy and the foreign policy it supports. If they were to do so they might be surprised with what they find.

Regardless of the internal idiocies committed by Mao and his successors ranging from the Great Leap Forward with its attendant multi-million deaths-through-starvation to the Cultural Revolution to the bloody suppression of the pro-democracy movement twenty years ago, the foreign policy of the country has been conservative and careful in its execution. Even the seemingly rash action of entering the Korean War was cautious in its execution. Warnings were given, a demonstration attack was made. Only when both words and bullets were ignored by the US did the full-fledged intervention unfold.

Throughout the past sixty years Beijing has repeatedly shown itself to be a mature practitioner of the Great Game of Nations. In a way this is surprising given all the centuries during which the Center Kingdom simply ignored the lesser breeds of barbarian who lived beyond the pale of the Empire. Surprising or not, the fine record of Chinese diplomacy is there for any with the wit to read and heed.

Turning the North Korean portfolio over to the "Georges" of Beijing would be a tad humiliating to the diplomats and politicians who have invested ego in the failed policies of recent years, but it would be in the best interests of the US. On several levels.

The most obvious is it would both relieve the US of a responsibility it cannot discharge--getting the Hermit Kingdom to forsake the bomb. What should be equally obvious but seems not to be is that making this move would greatly enhance the bilateral relations between the US and China. Any improvement such as would result by the candid admission that China is both a regional hegemon and a global Great Power would benefit our need for Beijing's cooperation on other, more important vexing matters including Iran, the global economy and the achievement of an acceptable agreement on global climate change.

There are many in the US who would find this explicit recognition of American limits galling. These folks can take some measure of comfort in the reality that China has become the Great Power it is today in large measure because we made it so. Our (arguably) misguided emphasis on "globalization" during the Clinton years, which brought with it the trade liberalisation, served to make China rich. The riches sucked from the pockets of American consumers have provided Beijing with the means necessary to produce its current formidable military force and buy American treasury notes in multiples of billions.

Without Bill Clinton and the neocons who succeeded him as well as Walmart, China would not be the world class Great Power it is now. So, asking "George" to carry the water regarding North Korea is simply to accept the "success" of our foreign economic policies.

The fate of the two young ladies from Al Gore's "Current TV" operation can be best addressed by the Chinese. The two women in question would not be in a Hermit Kingdom slammer today had it not been for the sincere conviction in Pyongyang based upon their reading of history that the US can be extorted most efficiently by the taking of hostages--particularly female hostages.

Of course a realpolitik based diplomacy would simply write off the two journalists. The coldly realistic view of foreign policy rejects the notion that policy should be bent to protect the futures of two individuals who were so ill-advised as to prance about a poorly defined international frontier where agents of a despotic regime hostile to the US might seize their bodies under any or no pretext with a view toward extortion.

The idea that a country should, let alone must, act to save two awesomely stupid people from the easily foreseeable results of their stupidity runs against all dictates of realpolitik. However the demands of domestic politics insist that the US make every effort to gain the quick release of the two women.

And, so we must. But we have no leverage beyond giving into whatever requirements the hostage takers care to make. Unless---

That's right, unless we "let George do it." The Boys From Beijing know who to talk to and what to say. The road to freedom for these two unfortunate young women in the employ of Al Gore runs through Beijing. Not Washington. Not the UN. Beijing.

Bombs or hostage release--Let George Do It.

Benign Neglect--Why Not Try It?

The Hermit Kingdom of North Korea did the totally expected. Dear Leader and Company went ahead with the well-known and well-publicised plan to let go with another underground nuke test. As an added attraction for the world, the Merry Makers of Pyongyang fired off a set of short range surface to surface and surface to air missiles.

This temper tantrum from the Terrible Twos of the Hermit Kingdom was in no way shocking. It in no way caught any government--including that of the US--off guard. Unless no one bothered to read the news over the past month.

Now people all over the globe are tossing hissy-fits like confetti at New Year's Eve. Investors and speculators are shaking in their portfolios. Take a look at this alarm bell for market wallahs. Even the Mexican peso took it on the chin from the Great Nuke of the North surpassing the impact of the drug slaughter down south. In the US, market prices fell at first, but the Gnomes of Wall Street took comfort from consumer confidence and decided the world was not going to end in the near future just because the Hermits blasted a big hole in the mountains of their northeast.

Then, of course, there are the diplomats. The UN Security Council was in a tizzy. So also is the Obama administration. Susan Rice melded the two with her threat that the Hermit Kingdom of the North would "pay a price." Ms Rice's rhetoric almost matched the frothings of Senator Kerry speaking in China yesterday.

Heck, even Iran got in the act with a mild denunciation of the North Korean test. This remark should be considered along with the strong probability that the Tehran regime had observers present as they did during last month's ICBM test firing.

Underneath all the posturing, threatening noises and stock market pants wetting, there is a real dilemma. The best way to put it is in the words of a famous treatise by Lenin: "What Is To Be Done?"

To make a long and rather boring story short, there is not much that can be done. The Chinese are quite unlikely to support any more sanctions than those already in place. There is a good reason for this.

The Men of the Forbidden City do not want to deal with the consequences of more impoverishment, more hunger, more disease in North Korea. Quite simply Beijing does not want to face the flood of refugees which would pour across the porous border particularly along the shallow, slow moving Tuman river. The last thing the Chinese government needs considering the effects of the global economic slowdown is the expense and attendant dislocation imposed by hordes of North Koreans seeking a partially filled rice bowl. (Neither do they want the ministrations of those NGOs which leap into action at the first scent of a humanitarian crisis.)

Any other gambit, including some sort of promise of inducements would be counterproductive. One of the main reasons, if not the primary one, for the nuke test and surrounding missile shoots was that the Hermits in Pyongyang suffer from a form of Attention Deficit Disorder. As Dick Morris once wrote of the Clintons, when deprived of attention, Dear Leader and Company suffer from a disorder.

The real deal at work has nothing to do with the Six Power Talks or bluffing South Korea into returning to the Pyongyang loving days of deceased Prime Minister Roh. No. The North Korean regime wants to be bribed. The sort of attention Pyongyang desires, demands, is expressed in dollars and yen.

As the Geek has argued in previous posts, North Korea is a master at the fine art of extortion. They have taken extortion to the level of major economic input. Along with the export of weapons and weapons related knowledge, extortion is the only source of hard currency available to Pyongyang.

The money-for-cooperation gambit has been attempted. It failed. It failed as it must before the ever-escalating demands of the extorter.

A far better approach is that of benign neglect. It doesn't really matter if the Hermit Kingdom has a small--make that very small--nuclear arsenal. This reality, unpleasant as it might be in principle, in no way perturbs the balance of power in the region, let alone the world.

The North Koreans have never demonstrated that rare degree of insanity which would couple the assured destruction of the country and the regime with victory. Pyongyang is not about to go on a nuclear tipped rampage against the South. It is not going to send its low yield devices off on a one way trip to Tokyo. Or Beijing.

A North Korean nuclear capacity will not alter the realities of the region or the world in the slightest. The nuclear djinn is not going to leave North Korea quickly or easily. Not only does the Hermit Kingdom have such a small stockpile of plutonium that it must horde its widow's mite tightly even in the face of ready buyers with gobs of cash, the means to track and interdict shipments of fissile materials exist. While not absolutely leakproof, this capacity is sufficient to minimise the probability that North Korea will be the source of nuclear materials for al-Qaeda or Taliban or some other Islamist jihadist entity.

But wouldn't North Korea getting away with becoming a nuclear power make it all the harder to keep Iran from reaching the same goal?

Perhaps. However, is that consideration relevant? The Iranians have plugged on with their quest for the "Mahdi Bomb" regardless of sanctions and diplomatic disapproval. As the recent indictment sought by New York federal prosecutor Robart Morgenthau demonstrates, the Iranians have become very accomplished at sanctions busting using Chinese and British fronts. Beyond that approach, both Venezuela and Bolivia allegedly have been selling uranium to Iran regardless of any UN or US disapproval.

Ahmedinejad has been making points both at home and with anti-American, anti-West governments and entities abroad with his full-court defiance of the P5+1 and the Obama administration. If, as all indications point to, Ahmedinejad is re-elected next month, there is no reason to believe he is suddenly going to drop the highly successful hardline he has been following for years now.

In short, events on the small appendage on the far east edge of the Asian landmass are of no moment to Tehran. The mullahocracy is going to get the "Mahdi Bomb" unless stopped by force.

But, Geek, won't a failure to curb North Korea make the task of making the Earth a "nuclear free zone" as President Obama has said he wants even less possible? Won't a North Korean success make nuclear proliferation more likely?

The short answers? Yes. And, yes.

President Obama, progressive ideologue, is meeting realpolitik once again. While it is certainly undesirable that Pyongyang or Tehran possess a nuclear capacity, this eventuality does not bring the end of the world as we know it measurably closer. Dear Leader and those military commanders on whose support the regime depends for survival are not a collection of suicide inclined folks for whom death before dishonor is a watchword. While some of the clerics who are the power behind the Iranian government as well as Ahmedinejad may be of an eschatological bent, there is no plausible indication that the Apocalypse announcing the coming of the Mahdi is either a goal or a tool of state.

The record of the Tehran regime over the past thirty years points to the contrary. The gambits played by the mullahs and their front men have been conservative. They have taken no action which places Iran at risk of destruction. Just because the lot of them are Islamists, jihadists even, does not imply they are a passel of suicide bombers hoping to push the clicker on the nation which they rule.

To put it bluntly there is no reason to eschew a policy of benign neglect toward North Korea. There is no reason not to pat the Terrible Twos of the Hermit Kingdom on the head and say, "That's nice. You have a bomb all of your own. Join the club and pray for peace. Oh, by the way, how many people up there can eat your atoms?"

The Israeli Bomb--And Iran's

Of late the Obama administration has started putting pressure on Israel to come clean on its nuclear arsenal, sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and, implicitly at least, follow the lead of South Africa and abandon its nuclear capacity. There has been more than a little bloviation about a link between the Israeli bomb and the inability of the US and its partners to convince the mullahs of Tehran to give up their quest for a "Mahdi Bomb."

There has even been some degree of quacking over the High Minded concept of a regional pact making the Mideast an area free of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons. This notion, which is much more a product of Fantasyland than an emigrant from the shores of Utopia, is of a piece with the Obama vision of a world without any nuclear weapons anywhere.

There is not much to say in favor of nuclear weapons. Except one small, but very relevant fact. They, and the much maligned doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction, have made the world safe for war.

That's right. The shadow of the mushroom cloud hovering over the chancelries of the globe have made the place safe for the waging of controlled, more or less purposeful war.

One can never say that the Big Bomb has kept the peace per se, not in the face of the historical record covering the past sixty-four years. But, the wars have not involved widespread, high intensity operations of the massively destructive scale of, say, the two World Wars. And, that is no small accomplishment given the international dynamics of the period.

Without the Israeli nuclear capacity the wars of the Mideast, including that of 1967, would have been far greater, far more bloody and not necessarily any more decisive in outcome than the low scale conflict which has occurred during this period of "Nuclear Ambiguity." The unchallenged possession of the "Samson Option" by Israel, not the diplomatic support of the US nor the nanny like nattering of the UN has limited and prevented regional hectatombs from happening.

The documentary hints which have leaked out around the Great Wall of Secrecy make it clear that the US government has been fully aware not only of Israel's ultimately successful efforts to develop and refine its nuclear weapons capabilities but the existence and size of the resultant stockpile. There is also no doubt of our complicity in maintaining the thin and porous scrim of secrecy behind which lurk the missiles and bombs of Israel.

The policy of nuclear ambiguity was dictated to Israel by the forces of reality.

The first was particularly important early in the Israeli development and procurement effort: The ambiguous threat is always perceived as being larger than any reality would dictate. Ambiguity encourages the enemy to contemplate the worst conceivable case, not the worst realistic one.

The second justification--no, requirement--for the ambiguity policy is the US Congress. In one of its fits of High Mindedness, Congress legislated that no country which possesses either nuclear weapons or an active research and development program in that area can receive US military assistance including monetary aid. Israel may no longer be dependent upon US money for its defense needs, but what rational government is going to chuck gigabucks without a very, very good reason?

Even the achievement of that long sought, but always elusive Holy Grail of a comprehensive Mideast peace agreement in no way nullifies the cruciality of Israel's nuclear deterrent. The German diplomatic maestro, Bismarck was reputed to have said regarding treaties--they are "mere scraps of paper." So also might any emergent Mideast leader.

Given the record of diplomatic agreement longevity in the Mideast, any dropping of defenses and deterrents in the warm glow of the post-signing celebrations would be the height of folly. It would be folly as well for Israel to rely upon some external protecting power rather than itself when faced by an existential threat.

Offers to extend the American nuclear umbrella over Israel are well-intentioned, but ultimately meaningless gestures. Forty-five years ago the abrasive but quite insightful French president, Charles de Gaulle, made that point in a characteristically blunt fashion when he questioned the willingness of the US to expose New York to the possibility of nuclear obliteration in order to protect Paris.

His point was very well taken. Other European leaders whispered what De Gaulle shouted. It was only the presence of American troops in the potential killing fields of Europe which gave any credibility to the nuclear umbrella concept. Except for the anglophobic French president, most Europeans were willing to concede that the US would go nuclear if and when their troops were on the receiving end of a Soviet strike.

Even the political power of AIPAC and other components of the Israel Lobby lacks the potency necessary to turn any American nuclear pledge from the dross of rhetoric to the gold of action in a time of dire need. Would We the People really, truly, undoubtedly continence the placing of New York or any other city at risk in order to protect Tel Aviv?

The second guess doesn't count.

Absent the Israeli nuclear deterrent, even though the shield of ambiguity has been holed, most notably by Robert Gates during his confirmation hearings as Secretary of Defense, there is no means of inhibiting a Mideast leader, Islamist most likely, from abandoning any then extant treaty or agreement to mount total jihad against the "Zionist Entity." There would be nothing to inhibit the manufacture and use of chemical, biological or radiological munitions against Israel with results which would lethal on a grand scale.

Nuclear weapons may be icky-poo in the extreme. Their use may be revolting to civilized sensitivities. They do have one redeeming factor in comparison to their equally nasty relatives in the clan of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Compared to chemical, biological and radiological munitions, nuclear weapons are both expensive and difficult to produce and stockpile. Chemical munitions can be manufactured quickly, easily and cheaply from widely available industrial precursors. Biological threats can be conjured up in a modestly equipped laboratory from progenitors which are available globally. Radiological weapons require nothing more than access to high level radwaste, a little bit of explosives and operators who are willing to die.

None of the "Smaller Three" demand major investment in infrastructure facilities which are as visible as they are expensive. None require highly trained and skilled technicians in brigade lots. None require equipment which is readily identifiable as to purpose and thus easily interdicted before or during shipment.

While the "Small Three" of the WMD clan lack the diplomatic prestige of the nuclear option, they make up for this deficiency by their ease and invisibility of manufacture. They are also more suited to ambiguous signature operations, which is an advantage if the author has reason to apprehend a military response to an attack.

And, as the recent "swine flu" imbroglio amply demonstrated, biological munitions have a potential for terror effects far outweighing any actual damage inflicted. Fear without any concurrent high body count is the terrorist's ideal. It represents maximum damage with both limited investment and very low potential of a military response by the victim country(ies.)

Without its nuclear deterrent Israel would be wide open to chemical, biological or radiological attack. Only the deterrent and uncertainty as to the threshold level which would trigger an Israeli atomic reaction has any genuine likelihood of keeping the "Small Three" threat remote in probability.

The government of Israel has taken a dim view of the NPT's inherent efficacy. While Brazil and South Africa abandoned their pursuit of a nuclear capacity it is doubtful that the NPT had any role in the decision. Brazil, by its own admission, had no reason to acquire the bomb. It had nothing to gain and much to lose by going ahead with its program. South Africa made its move as part of the groundswell of internal governmental change. Again, any linkage with the NPT owes more to High Minded wishful thinking than political reality.

Adherence to the NPT did not inhibit North Korea. The NPT is, after all, another of those "mere scraps of paper" to be abandoned when reasons of state demand. The Hermit Kingdom of the North ditched the NPT officially three years before its first test.

Not too much should be made of Japan or South Korea not pursuing a nuclear procurement effort. Each has the base for very rapid breakout. It would take either country only months, not years, to put a deliverable weapon on the shelves. Each could (and would) resign from the NPT if it saw more to gain by the action than would hypothetically be lost.

Like all treaties the NPT is no stronger, no more effective than the political will and self-perceived, subjectively defined national interests of the states which are signatory to it. The Great Menace of that chimera, global public opinion, in a manner akin to the sanctions of the UN Security Council, are toothless in comparison with a reason of existential nature compelling abandonment of the NPT.

Even when no official abandonment of the NPT has happened, as in the case of Iran, reasons of state will both allow and compel the "illegal" pursuit of nuclear weapons. As the Iranians have shown to date, the risks of doing so are acceptably slight. The differences between the Permanent Members of the Security Council as well as the needs of important constituencies within industrialised countries assure that economic and diplomatic sanctions are less effective than would be a black powder muzzle loader on a modern battlefield.

The Australians estimated in a recent White Paper that as many as twenty countries will have joined the Nuclear Club within the next decade or two. This conclusion does not seem to be unwarrantably pessimistic. Nuclear technology is ever more broadly disseminated around the world as is the supporting hardware. The proliferation of "civilian" reactors both research and power producing will drag the potential of increased distribution of nuclear weapons in its wake. There is no way around that reality. Knowledge plus hardware plus fissile material equals a bomb--actual or potential.

The lesson is simple. And, to many, unpleasant. The NPT is a thin, greasy, slippery rope on which to take a grip. It is more delusion than reality. It will let us down, hard, unless we put it in the same category as the halcyon hallucination of a "nuclear free world."

Getting a grip on the alternative of a world in which more countries have nuclear weapons or the rapid capacity to acquire these weapons is hard. Not impossible. Only hard. Deterrence, particularly that which resides in the hands of a responsible country such as the US (or, history shows, Israel) has protected us from worst case wars for over a half century. There is no reason to anticipate any change in the future.

A world without nuclear weapons is pleasant to contemplate. A continuation, even an expansion of mutually assured destruction is not.

Now ask yourself, would a world without nuclear deterrence in which the threat of the "Small Three" reigned supreme, its use not susceptible to effective retaliation be any better? Perhaps, it would be even worse?