Courtesy of Strategic Forecasting

Summary

Much like Sudan’s Darfur crisis, Myanmar’s ongoing unrest is serving as ammunition for the "Beijing Genocide Olympics" critics. Though China will become increasingly sensitive to the impact this issue has on its global image as a "responsible international stakeholder," it is not likely to change its current stance on Myanmar for reasons based on energy assets and access, geopolitical buffer zones and domestic political stability.

Analysis

China is coming under increasing international pressure over its support for Myanmar’s military regime. International nongovernmental organizations and center-right and liberal groups in the European Parliament and foreign governments (including the United States) are all calling for Beijing to penalize Myanmar’s regime — either by withdrawing financial assistance or by lifting its objection to the issuance of U.N. sanctions and official condemnations.

Akin to the Darfur crisis in Sudan, Myanmar’s latest unrest serves as ammunition for "Beijing Genocide Olympics" critics. Though Beijing will become more sensitive to how this issue affects its global image as a "responsible international stakeholder," reasons based on energy assets and access, geopolitical buffer zones and domestic political stability likely will keep China from changing its fundamental stance on Myanmar. China remains more concerned about protecting its energy and buffer-zone interests than about international opinion.

Reprinted with permission from Strategic Forecasting.

The six-party talks over North Korea’s nuclear program are ramping up again in Beijing amid seemingly contradictory signals from the United States.

On one hand, North Korea was implicated in nuclear proliferation, through a series of leaks (intentional or otherwise) to U.S. and Israeli press outlets, after a Sept. 6 Israeli airstrike in Syria that was reportedly aimed at a facility hosting North Korean missile or nuclear technology and workers. On the other hand, U.S. representative to the six-party talks Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill is offering an upbeat assessment of progress on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear facilities following a pre-meeting session with North Korean envoy Kim Kye Gwan on the eve of the six-party talks.

Meanwhile, U.S. President George W. Bush used his address at the U.N. General Assembly to label North Korea a "brutal regime," and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice separately suggested that North Korea might be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism even before the question of kidnapped Japanese citizens is resolved.

Israel, Syria and the Glaring Secret
By George Friedman
Courtesy of Strategic Forecasting

What happened in the Middle East on Sept. 6?

The first reports came from the Syrians, who said their air defenses fired at an Israeli warplane that had penetrated Syrian airspace and dropped some ordnance on the country’s North. The plane then fled toward the Mediterranean at supersonic speeds, the Syrians said, noting that sonic booms had been heard.

A Syrian delegation was meeting Turkish officials about the same time, and the Turks announced that two Israeli fuel tanks had been dropped inside of Turkish territory, one in Gaziantep province and the other in Hatay province. That would mean the aircraft did come under some sort of fire and dropped fuel tanks to increase speed and maneuverability. It also would mean the plane was flying close to Turkish territory or over Turkish territory, at the northwestern tip of Syria.

The Israelis said nothing. It appeared at first glance that an Israeli reconnaissance flight had attracted Syrian attention and got out of there fast, though even that was puzzling. The Israelis monitor Syria carefully, but they have close relations with the Turkish military, which also watches Syria carefully. We would assume they have intelligence-sharing programs and that reconnaissance in this area could have been done by the Turks or, more likely, by Israeli reconnaissance satellites. Yet, an Israeli reconnaissance flight seemed like the only coherent explanation.

By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Courtesy of Strategic Forecasting

Two recent incidents have called attention to one of the possible repercussions of military operations waged against large groups of Islamist militants.

The first incident occurred Sept. 2, when the Lebanese army took complete control of the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in Tripoli, overrunning the last remaining Fatah al-Islam militants who had been holed up in the camp since May. Shortly before this final offensive was launched, the Lebanese army allowed the last of the militants’ wives and children to evacuate the camp. The women allegedly were subjected to "gruesome" interrogations by Lebanese intelligence officers who were attempting to gather crucial information on the remaining militants in the camp prior to their assault. The women also were reportedly subjected to invasive searches by female military personnel. Most of the haggard-looking women who left the Nahr el-Bared camp are in their early 20s.

In the second incident, which occurred Sept. 13, a suicide bomber detonated in the mess hall of a military facility belonging to the Pakistani army’s elite Special Services Group in the town of Tarbela Ghazi, Pakistan, killing 20 people and injuring 42. The attack was the latest in a wave of suicide bombings that have wracked Pakistan since the Pakistani army’s assault in July 2006 against militants barricaded inside the Red Mosque — an assault led by commandos of the Special Services Group. A report in the Indian media suggests the suicide bomber was a Pakistani military officer who had lost his younger sister in the Red Mosque operation. This report likely is not true, but nevertheless it raises the issue of the hundreds of women who were involved with the militants in the Red Mosque, many of whom were young students at Jamia Hafsa, the female madrassah affiliated with the Red Mosque.

By George Friedman
Courtesy of Strategic Forecasting

The course of the war in Iraq appears to be set for the next year. Of the four options we laid out a few weeks ago, the Bush administration essentially has selected a course between the first and second options — maintaining the current mission and force level or retaining the mission but gradually reducing the force. The mission — creating a stable, pro-American government in Baghdad that can assume the role of ensuring security — remains intact. The strategy is to use the maximum available force to provide security until the Iraqis can assume the burden. The force will be reduced by the 30,000 troops who were surged into Iraq, though because that level of force will be unavailable by spring, the reduction is not really a matter of choice. The remaining force is the maximum available, and it will be reduced as circumstances permit.

Top U.S. commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus and others have made two broad arguments. First, while prior strategy indeed failed to make progress, a new strategy that combines aggressive security operations with recruiting political leaders on the subnational level — the Sunni sheikhs in Anbar province, for example — has had a positive impact, and could achieve the mission, given more time. Therefore, having spent treasure and blood to this point, it would be foolish for the United States not to pursue it for another year or two.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry suspended the operating license of private U.S. security contractor Blackwater on Sept. 17, citing a shootout between a Blackwater security team and insurgents a day earlier that resulted in the death of a least eight Iraqi civilians. The ministry also threatened to prosecute anyone deemed to have used excessive force in the shooting.

Removing Blackwater from Iraq’s security equation opens the door to other contractors — though filling the void left by Blackwater could come at a much higher price. The suspension also could result in more attacks against security contractors by insurgents aiming to increase tensions, further destabilize the security environment in Baghdad and complicate the political process.

The insurgent attack began about midday Sept. 16 as a six-vehicle U.S. State Department convoy returned to the fortified Green Zone through central Baghdad’s predominantly Sunni Mansour district. According to reports, an improvised explosive device detonated as the convoy passed through Nisoor Square. The insurgents then attacked the convoy with small arms, sparking a 20-minute firefight with the convoy’s Blackwater escorts. Helicopters owned by Blackwater fired into the street in an attempt to provide cover to the security team on the ground, though at least one vehicle in the convoy was disabled during the attack.

Is the voting public this dumb or what?

Okay, I didn’t ask that question since the answer is so obviously in the positive.

Scenario:  Peace breaks out all over in Iraq.  Sunni and Shiite hold picnics together, and lambs and wolves celebrate mutual admiration, to say nothing of the fact that U.S. soldiers are brought home from Iraq in 24 hours and Iran is stopped in its tracks.  Seeing the light, Hamas and Hezbollah lay down their arms and invite Israelis to dinner.

Demofiend response:  "Too little, too late."

Is this really a reason for voting for these idiots, people?  They don’t believe in anything except their own lust for power.  Isn’t that painfully obvious?

To wit, Demofiends don’t want to appear soft on terrorism or anti-military, both of which they are in spades, so they try the culpability, incompetence and too-little-too-late blame games.

Is this really a reason to give Demofiends a right to our pocketbooks, our health care and our national defense?

If your answer is yes, then poor you and poor us if there are a lot of you.