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Pushing Up – OpEd

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Last weekend, about 100 U.S. Veterans for Peace gathered in Red Wing, Minnesota, for a statewide annual meeting. In my experience, Veterans for Peace chapters hold “no-nonsense” events.  Whether coming together for local, statewide, regional or national work, the Veterans project a strong sense of purpose. They want to dismantle war economies and work to end all wars. The Minnesotans, many of them old friends, convened in the spacious loft of a rural barn. After organizers extended friendly welcomes, participants settled in to tackle this year’s theme: “The War on Our Climate.”

They invited Dr. James Hansen, an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, to speak via Skype about minimizing the impacts of climate change.  Sometimes called the “father of global warming”, Dr. Hansen has sounded alarms for several decades  with accurate predictions about the effects of fossil fuel emissions. He now campaigns for an economically efficient phase out of fossil fuel emissions by imposing carbon fees on emission sources with dividends equitably returned to the public.

Dr. Hansen envisions the creation of serious market incentives for entrepreneurs to develop energy and products that are low-carbon and no-carbon.  “Those who achieve the greatest reductions in carbon use would reap the greatest profit. Projections show that such an approach could reduce U.S. carbon emissions by more than half within 20 years — and create 3 million new jobs in the process.”

Steadily calling on adults to care about young people and future generations, Dr. Hansen chides proponents of what he terms “the fruitless cap-and-trade-with-offsets approach.”  This method fails to make fossil fuels pay their costs to society, “thus allowing fossil fuel addiction to continue and encouraging ‘drill, baby, drill’ policies to extract every fossil fuel that can be found.”

Making fossil fuels “pay their full costs” would mean imposing fees to cover costs that polluters impose on communities through burning of coal, oil and gas.  When local populations are sickened and killed by air pollution, and starved by droughts or battered or drowned by climate-change-driven storms, costs accrue for governments that businesses should repay.

What are the true costs to society of fossil fuels?   According to a recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) study, fossil fuel companies are benefiting from  global subsidies of $5.3tn (£3.4tn) a year, $10 million per minute, every minute, each and every day.

The Guardian reports that the $5.3tn subsidy estimated for 2015 is greater than the total health spending of all the world’s governments.

Dr. Hansen began his presentation by noting that, historically, energy figured importantly in avoiding slave labor.  He believes some energy from nuclear power is now necessary for countries such as China and India to lift masses of their populations out of poverty.  Many critics strenuously object to Dr. Hansen’s call for reliance on nuclear power, citing dangers of radiation, accidents, and problems with storage of nuclear waste, particularly when the radioactive waste is stored in communities where people have little control or influence over elites that decide where to ship the nuclear waste.

Other critics argue that “nuclear power is simply too risky, and more practically speaking, too costly to be considered a significant part of the post-carbon energy portfolio.”

Journalist and activist George Monbiot, author of a book-length climate change proposal, Heat, notes that nuclear power tends to endanger “haves” and “have-nots” equally. Coal power’s   deadliest immediate effects, with historic casualties clearly outpacing those of nuclear, are linked to mining and industrial areas populated by people more likely to be economically disadvantaged or impoverished.

Climate-driven societal collapse may be all the more deadly and final with grid-dependent nuclear plants ready to melt down in lockstep with our economies.  But it’s crucial to remember that our direst weapons – many of them also nuclear – are stockpiled precisely to help elites manage the sort of political unrest into which poverty and desperation drive societies.  Climate change, if we cannot slow it, does not merely promise poverty and despair on  an unprecedented scale, but also war – on a scale, and with weapons, that may be far worse than dangers resulting from our energy choices.  Earth’s military crisis, its climate crisis, and the paralyzing economic inequalities that burden impoverished people are linked.

Dr. Hansen thinks that the Chinese government and Chinese scientists might marshal the resources to develop alternatives to fossil fuels, including nuclear powered energy.  He notes that China faces the dire possibility of losing coastal cities to global warming and accelerated disintegration of ice sheets.

The greatest barriers to solution of fossil fuel addiction in most nations are the influence of the fossil fuel industry on politicians and the media and the short-term view of politicians. Thus it is possible that leadership moving the world to sustainable energy policies may arise in China, where the leaders are rich in technical and scientific training and rule a nation that has a history of taking the long view. Although China’s CO emissions have skyrocketed above those of other nations, China has reasons to move off the fossil fuel track as rapidly as practical. China has several hundred million people living within a 25-meter elevation of sea level, and the country stands to suffer grievously from intensification of droughts, floods, and storms that will accompany continued global warming. China also recognizes the merits of avoiding a fossil fuel addiction comparable to that of the United States. Thus China has already become the global leader in development of energy efficiency, renewable energies, and nuclear power.

What’s missing from this picture?  The Veterans for Peace earnestly believe in ending all wars.  Deepening nonviolent resistance to war could radically amend the impact of world militaries, especially the colossal U.S. military, on global climate. In order to protect access to and global control of fossil fuels, the U.S. military burns rivers of oil, wasting the hopes of future generations in the name of  killing and maiming the people of regions the U.S. has plunged into destabilizing wars of choice, ending in chaos.

Corruption of the global environment and compulsively frantic destruction of irreplaceable resources is an equally sure, if more delayed, manner of imposing chaos and death on a mass scale.   The misdirection of economic resources, of preciously needed human productive energy, is yet another.  Researchers at Oil Change International find that “3 trillion of the dollars spent on war against Iraq would cover all global investments in renewable power generation needed between now and 2030 to reverse global warming.”

John Lawrence writes that “the United States contributes more than 30% of global warming gases to the atmosphere, generated by 5% of the world’s population.  At the same time funding for education, energy, environment, social services, housing and new job creation, taken together, is less than the military budget.”  I believe that “low carbon” and “no carbon” energy and energy efficiency should be paid for by abolishing war.  Lawrence is right to insist that the U.S. should view problems and conflicts created by climate change as “opportunities to work together with other nations to mitigate and adapt to its effects.”  But the madness of conquest must end before any such coordinated work will be possible.

Sadly, tragically, many U.S. veterans fully understand the cost of war.  I asked a U.S. Veteran for Peace living in Mankato, MN, about the well being of local Iraq War Veterans. He told me that in April, U.S. veteran student leaders at Minnesota State’s Mankato Campus, spent 22 days gathering daily, rain or shine, to perform  22 push-ups in recognition of the 22 combat veterans a day – nearly one an hour – currently committing suicide in the U.S. They invited the Mankato-area community to come to campus and do pushups along with them.

This is an historic time, posing a perfect storm of challenges to the survival of our species, a storm we can’t weather without “all hands on deck.”  Whoever arrives to work beside us, and however quickly they arrive, we have heavy burdens to share with many others already lifting as much as they can, some taking theirs up by choice, some burdened beyond endurance by greedy masters.  The Veterans for Peace work to save the ship rather than wait for it to sink.

Many of us have not endured the horrors that drive 22 veterans a day, and countless poor in world regions that U.S. empire has touched, to the final act of despair.  I would like to think we can lift hopes and perhaps bring comfort to those around us by radically sharing resources, eschewing dominance, and learning to join courageous others in the work at hand.

This article was first published on Telesur English.

The post Pushing Up – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.


After The Iran Nuclear Deal – OpEd

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By Gwynne Dyer

The thing to bear in mind about Tuesday’s deal between Iran and the P5+1 countries (the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China) is that without it Iran could get nuclear weapons in a year or so whenever it wants.

It has the technologies for enriching uranium, it could make the actual bombs any time it likes (every major country knows how), and the sanctions against Iran could not get much worse than they are now.

If you don’t like the current deal, and you really believe that Iran is hell-bent on getting nuclear weapons, then your only remaining option is massive air strikes on Iran.

Not even the Republican Party stalwarts in the US Congress are up for committing the US Air Force to that folly, and Israel without American support simply couldn’t do it on its own.

Then what’s left? Nothing but the deal. It doesn’t guarantee that Iran can never get nuclear weapons.

It does guarantee that Iran could not break the agreement without giving everybody else at least two years to respond before the weapons are operational. Sanctions would snap back into place automatically, and anybody who thinks air strikes are a cool idea would have plenty of time to carry them out.

So the deal will survive. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can fulminate about how it is a “an historic mistake” that will give Tehran “a sure path to nuclear weapons,” but he cannot stop it.

Netanyahu is obsessive about Iran, but even his own intelligence services do not believe that Tehran has actually been working on nuclear weapons in the past decade. The Israeli prime minister has burned all his bridges with US President Barack Obama, and his allies in the US Congress cannot stop the deal either.

John Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives, said that the deal will “hand a dangerous regime billions of dollars in sanctions relief while paving the way for a nuclear Iran,” and he can probably muster a majority in Congress against it. (Congress, as Washington insiders put it, is “Israeli-occupied territory.”) But he cannot muster the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override Obama’s inevitable veto.

There will be a 60-day delay while Congress debates the issue, but this deal will go through in the end. So far, so good, but this is not happening in a vacuum. What are the broader implications for Middle Eastern politics?

Ever since the victory of the Islamic ‘revolution’ 36 years ago, Iran and the United States have been bitter enemies. They have not suddenly become allies, but they are already on good speaking terms. Since almost all of America’s allies in the Arab world see Iran as a huge strategic threat, they are appalled by the prospect of a US-Iran rapprochement.

That is not a done deal yet. While Iran strongly supports Bashar Assad’s beleaguered regime in Syria, Washington still advocates Assad’s overthrow and arms some of the “moderate” rebels. It supports campaign by Saudi-led coalition against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and backs the Saudi stand that the Houthis are mere pawns who are being armed and incited to revolt by Iran.

But nobody in the White House, the State Department or the Pentagon really believes that the civil war in Yemen is an Iranian plot. Very few believe any longer that Assad can be overthrown in Syria without handing the country over to the fanatics who dominate the insurgency there. And the most powerful force among those fanatics is Daesh, whose troops are already being bombed by the United States in both Syria and Iraq.

The highest US priority in the Middle East now is to prevent Iraq and Syria from falling into the hands of Daesh and its equally extreme rival, the Nusra Front. Iran is giving both the Syrian and the Iraqi governments military support that is essential to their survival, so there is obviously the potential for closer US-Iranian cooperation here.

So yes, a grand realignment of American alliances in the Middle East is theoretically possible now that the long cold war between the US and Iran is over. In practice, however, it is most unlikely to happen.

The long-standing military and economic ties between Washington and its current allies will triumph over cold strategic logic, and American policy in the Middle East will continue to be the usual muddle.

The post After The Iran Nuclear Deal – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Mohammad Nassif: The Shadow Man Of The Syria-Iran Axis – OpEd

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By Mohammad Ataie*

Throughout the Syrian-Iranian partnership, few men had a more important role in the genesis and evolution of the alliance than Major General Mohammed Nassif. Known by his sobriquet, Abu Wael, he was the last of Hafez Asad’s men to remain at the heart of the regime. He died on June 28, 2015 in his 80s. The secretive Major General was central, from the early 1980s, in forging Syrian policy towards Iran and directing their often turbulent cooperation in both Lebanon and Iraq.

Nassif was known for his political clout and elusive character as a central member of the security apparatus. His star began to rise in the 1970s, when Lebanon’s Shia emerged as an important political force under the leadership of Musa Sadr. Musa Sadr turned to President Asad as an ally when he fell out the Shah of Iran. Asad directed Nassif to take responsibility for Shia affairs in Lebanon and to act as liaison with the clergy there. According to Sadr’s family, Musa Sadr stayed at Nassif’s house when he visited Damascus. Nassif also cultivated friendships with leaders of the Lebanese Amal movement, such as Nabih Berri and Mustafa Chamran, who was an Iranian member of Amal. After 1979, Chamran became minister of defense in Iran. With Sadr’s disappearance, Nassif’s ties remained strong with his family, including Sadr’s nephew, Sadegh Tabatabai. In 1981, Nassif while on an official visit in Tehran, asked Tabatabai to arrange a meeting for him with Ayatollah Khomaini, the leader of the revolution. The meeting did not take place.

With the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980 and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon two years later, Damascus drew closer to Tehran. Nassif’s importance in nurturing the creation of Hizbullah and the emerging “Shiite Crescent” could not have been more important for Iran because Saddam threatened the survival of young Islamic Republic. Claiming to be the shield of the Sunni Arab World, the Iraqi leader dragged his country into its eight-year conflict with Iran. Saudi Arabia and the Sunni monarchs of the Gulf accustomed to Sunni supremacy and Shiite docility believed that Saddam could contain, if not crush the new revolutionary force in Tehran.

Mohammad Nassif sensing that Syria could harness the Shiite awakening to its advantage became infatuated with Ayatolah Khomaini and Shia doctrine. His rapport and common intellectual outlook with Iran’s revolutionary clerics helped make him indispensible in Damascus, where secular Arabism seemed to preclude real sympathy with the Persian upstart. The secretive Major General was one of very few people, according to Patrick Seale, who could telephone Asad at any time of day or night. In the eyes of Iranians, he was not only a key channel to the Syrian President but also a power behind the throne.

In 1980, when Ali Akbar Mohtashami went to Damascus in the hope of exporting the Islamic Revolution, he was sorely disappointed by his cold reception by the secular Baathist leaders of Syria and with a “sluggish bureaucracy” in the Syrian Foreign Ministry. He was unable to get an audience with the President himself or stimulate interest in the president’s office. Mohtashami, the key Iranian in building the eventual Syro-Iranian alliance, was not put off. Undaunted, he cultivated a close relationship with Muhammad Nassif, a winning strategy. If either the Foreign Ministry or the Prime Minister’s Office threw up road-blocks in front of Mohtashami or if conservative Sunnis, such as Abdulhalim Khaddam or Abdul Rauf al-Kasm, looked with distaste at Iranian advances, Nassif could find ways around them; he helped convince Assad that the Iranians offered a stable and strong ally in the dangerous sea of fickle Arabs partners surrounding Syria. For the Iranians, he was the right man in the right place.

When Iran’s revolutionary leaders sought to get to the bottom of the 1978 disappearance in Libya of Musa Sadr, the Iranian-Lebanese divine and Shiite politician, they turned to Mohammad Nassif. To their surprise, Nassif openly accused Colonel Muammar Qaddafi of kidnapping Musa al-Sadr and used the strongest invective in characterizing Libya’s strongman, but despite his belief in Qaddafi’s guilt, Nassif explained to his Iranian counterparts that any investigation into Sadr’s death would be useless. All the same, the Iranians insisted on talking to Hafiz al-Asad. True to Nassif’s warning, the President told the Iranian envoy: “the issue of Mr. Imam Musa Sadr is over. Unfortunately, I must insist that you not follow up Mr. Sadr [‘s case]”. Syrians never publicly accused the Pan-Arab leader of Libya of murdering Musa al-Sadr and, as it turned out, neither did Tehran. They swallowed their anger in recognition that Libya was too important to the unfolding Middle Eastern chess game to be sacrificed in an unconsidered fit of rage. Some insisted that Qaddafi murdered Sadr because the Libyan leader was furious at the mocking tone adopted by the learned Imam as the two leaders debated Sunni-Shiite theological differences. Others claimed that Yasser Arafat had asked Qaddafi to dispatch Sadr, a competitor in Lebanon. Now that Qaddafi has met his grisly death, the real reasons for Sadr’s death may never be known.

In the early 1980s, Syrians were concerned lest Iran embrace Yasser Arafat as an instrument of its broader revolutionary policy in the region. Khomeini seemed to flirt with the idea of forming an alliance with the PLO to harness the passions created by the Arab-Israeli conflict. Mohammed Nassif took a strong anti-Arafat position; he advised Tehran against cooperation with the mercurial Palestinian. In 1981, an Iranian delegation dispatched by Tehran to meet Arafat in Beirut, stopped off in Damascus to see Nassif on their road West. Nassif argued against depending on Arafat who he described as unreliable and two-faced. Instead, Nassif asked the Iranians to side with Nabih Berri, the leader of Amal, Lebanon’s dominant Shiite political movement. Syria’s anti-Arafat stand kept Iran from choosing Arafat, but despite Syria’s advocacy of Berri, Ayatollah Khomaini never agreed to meet Berri and the revolutionary clerics hung back from choosing a Lebanese client until the rise of Hizballah following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Nassif remained a key player in the triangular relations that bound Syria to Iran and Lebanon during the next decades. Following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, he added Baghdad to his brief. In both Lebanon and Iraq, Syria’s two principal arenas of cooperation and competition with Iran, Nassif played a crucial role. A loyal and substantial figure under both Asads, he knew how to remain in the shadows and eschewed self-aggrandizement or promoting family. His death brings to an end the influence of the original architects of the Asad regime.

* Mohammad Ataie is an Iranian journalist and a PhD student in History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The post Mohammad Nassif: The Shadow Man Of The Syria-Iran Axis – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Combating Corruption For Sake Of Economy: The Afflictions Of Oil-Rich Latin America

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By Eliza Davis*

On June 19, leaders of the two largest construction firms in Brazil, Marcelo Odebrecht of Odebrecht SA and Otávio Marquez Azevedo of Andrade Gutierrez, were arrested as part of an extensive corruption probe into the state-owned oil company Petrobras. Petrobras has been accused of various forms of malpractice including bribery and money laundering. While in the past, corruption in oil companies has led to blatant inaction—partly due to highly institutionalized venality—this probe has led to the indictment of over a hundred individuals affiliated with the company and has implicated dozens more. Bribes involving construction firms alone have totaled $2.1 billion USD[1] and the scandal has cost the company over $16 billion USD.[2] Accusations of corruption against Petrobras are emblematic of a larger problem across oil industries in the region, especially in Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela. Each new allegation seems to come with an increasingly dramatic loss of funds. Tackling corruption in an industry that has remained so crucial to the health of the Latin American economy is one method of helping to eliminate institutionalized corruption in other industries equally vital to economic success and to further augment political and economic credibility for the region.

Corruption is not uncommon in Latin America. Global Financial Integrity reported in December of 2014 that the average annual percentage of illicit outflows from Latin America is equivalent to 3.3 percent of Latin America’s GDP. [3] Meanwhile, the Institute for International Finance (IIF) reported in February that annual GDP growth for all of Latin America in 2014 was only 0.4 percent and forecasted that growth for 2015 will only be 0.2 percent.[4] This means that the amount of money spent on corruption is over eight times that of region’s annual growth.

The oil industry holds a particular importance because of its economic influence and utility on a global scale. In Brazil, profits from the state-owned oil company account for 13 percent of the country’s GDP, in Venezuela, 25 percent, and in Mexico, five percent.[5] Furthermore, oil consumption is crucial worldwide. According to the United States Energy Information, the United States alone consumed 6.95 billion barrels in 2014, which amounted to 28 percent of the energy produced by oil and natural gas.[6] Because of endemic corruption throughout the region, a lack of regulatory infrastructure against corruption, and the perpetual international reliance on the resource, corruption is especially ingrained in the oil sector.

Recent Accusations

Tensions have risen as the Petrobras corruption probe implicates more individuals. Paulo Roberto Costa, former head of Petrobras, was one of the first to be arrested in 2013. Since then, he has become a witness to the state, supplying valuable information about corruption schemes and accusing many politicians of involvement.[7] On March 6, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice called for the investigation of 34 sitting politicians suspected of involvement in the Petrobras corruption. Although most are members of President Dilma Rousseff’s coalition, and she herself was the chair of Petrobras while most of the corruption was occurring, she has not been included in the investigation and denies any knowledge of the questionable activities.[8] Nonetheless, President Rousseff’s approval ratings have plummeted in response to the scandal. The Wall Street Journal reported on June 21 that 65 percent of respondents surveyed deemed her administration “bad or terrible.”[9] The ratings have not been that low since 1992, shortly before the impeachment of President Fernando Collor de Mello.[10] While the Petrobras scandal is not the only reason for President Rousseff’s current unpopularity, it has certainly put a dent in her reputation.

On June 22, Brazilian federal police went so far as to call on US crime forces to help find another employee of Odebracht, Bernardo Freiburghaus.[11] A police officer said the operation had a “clear message:” that no one would be able to avoid investigation and punishment.[12] A company like Petrobras, with its extensive influence over the economy, has ties with most businessmen in the country, a number of whom should be concerned for their reputation.

Corruption in Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Pemex, has not led to the same legal action that corruption in Petrobras has. In 2011, Pemex paid $9 million USD to tow an oil rig from the United Arab Emirates to the Gulf of Mexico. It was later discovered, however, that the rig was already in the Gulf of Mexico and didn’t need to be moved at all suggesting that the money spent “moving” the rig may have gone directly into the pocket of officials from Pemex and the towing company. [13] Despite suggestions by government auditors that those involved in the contract be investigated, Pemex looked the other way. Other accusations have led to similar reactions by Pemex and government officials. In spring of 2014 Banamex, Citigroup’s Mexican branch, accused Pemex of fraud. Banamex accused Oceonagrafía—a company that supplies services to Pemex—of falsifying invoices so that Banamex was cheated out of $400 million USD.[14] Citigroup claimed that Pemex was to blame for the loss of money due to its culture of corruption. While Citigroup claims to have fired numerous employees as a result of the scandal, Pemex has been faulted for its lack of action.[15] Although allegations against Pemex have not reached the same heights as those against Petrobras, Pemex and the Mexican government are facing the same issues. While the Brazilian government looked the other way for years, it has started to make headway through its corruption probe. Mexico must do likewise.

Venezuela’s state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A (PVDSA), has been accused of a number corruption scandals as well. In March, the United States Treasury Department accused PVDSA of siphoning off $2 billion USD.[16] Even so, the government’s response to corruption has been more aggressive than that of Mexico. In February, two officials, José Luis Parada, the production manager for PVDSA and Nubia Parada, the oil ministry official, were arrested on suspicion of corruption.[17] The government in Venezuela relies on the oil industry for 45 percent of its revenue, far more than in either Brazil or Mexico.[18] Now that falling oil prices are causing economic difficulties for Venezuela, ongoing anti-corruption efforts are even more important.

Defining Oil and Gas Industry Corruption

These three examples suggest that corruption in the oil and gas industry in Latin America has become commonplace. Although the same could be said of many large industries in Latin America, the oil and gas industries are different in a few key ways.

The World Bank defines corruption generally as “the abuse of public office for private gain.”[19] However, Farouk Al-Kasim, Tina Soreide, and Aled Williams from the Anti-Corruption Resource Centre at the Chr. Michaelson Institute define corruption in the oil industry more specifically: “the manipulation of framework conditions to attain exclusive benefits to individuals or groups at the cost of social benefits.”[20] This definition helps to show the inter-connectedness between politics and the oil industry and alludes to one of the costs of corruption when industry is intertwined with government: less money for social spending. Because oil companies in Mexico, Brazil, and Venezuela are state-owned, the government and individual companies are inextricably linked. In the case of Brazil, President Roussef faces significant challenges to her political career based on her involvement in the oil. On the other hand, many in her administration have been selected because of their connection to her while working at Petrobras. In Mexico, government control over the company is extensive: the president appoints the head of the company, the government’s energy minister acts as the chair of the board, and the finance ministry approves the budget of the company.[21] Similarly, in Venezuela, the president and external director of PDVSA hold two top government positions; they are the Minister of Energy and Oil and the Vice-minister of Hydro-Carbons, respectively.[22] With so close a relationship between the state and the oil company, the potential for political gain through involvement in the industry and vice versa is considerable.

In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez gained control of PDVSA in 2003 and used this authority to finance projects aimed to close the gap between the rich and poor. According to an article in the New Yorker Magazine, Chávez demanded that PDVSA start anti-poverty projects such as building houses for the poor and increasing the number of jobs available in the company.[23] These programs, largely state-led, and others—financed by taxes that Chávez collected from PDVSA and various other companies and individuals—led to a 37.6 percent decline in the poverty rate between 1999 and 2011 and a 57.8 percent decline in extreme poverty during the same period according to a 2012 report by Mark Weisbrot and Jake Johnston of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. With the state seizure of PDVSA the government realized new levels of social spending, allowing for a huge decrease in poverty levels. Clearly social spending has come from oil revenues. At the same time any losses in revenue to corruption will have led to less social spending making anti-corruption efforts worth the while.

The Resource Curse and the Curse of Aid

Some cite the “resource curse” as one of the reasons for endemic corruption throughout Latin America. This is the idea that many resource-rich countries have failed to develop by certain standards, for example, long-term growth rates, higher levels of equality, reduction in poverty rates, and overall GDP. [24] Additionally, the resource curse can bring about a descent into corruption and political conflict. Al-Kasim, Soreide and Williams explain, “a majority of the oil-producing countries are below the median rank on both the UN’s Human Development Index and most of the World Bank’s Governance Indicators.”[25] In countries that fall victim to the “resource curse” too much power rests in the hands of the elites who are tempted to commit fraud, as in the case of the Pemex oil rig. Such issues arise when there is little to no accountability for corruption.

Additionally, developing countries must consider the importance of aid in an extraction-based economy. Few donor countries give aid for entirely benevolent reasons; this usually accompanies an investment in the debtor country and its resources. In oil rich countries there is a distinct desire for access to the valuable energy that oil provides and it can be challenging to curb this desire. Al-Kasim, Soreide, and Williams state, “It is not difficult to imagine how actual or potential conflicts of interest may arise between donor countries’ needs to access oil resources or supply oil related technology and services, and donor initiatives aimed at improving welfare benefits in oil-producing countries.”[26] The conflict of interest between donor countries and debtor countries increases the potential for corruption in the creation and execution of aid-deals. If the leader of an oil-rich nation suspects that the donor nation is exploiting the country for economic gain, the temptation to siphon off money or take advantage of the donor country increases, as they don’t believe the deal is fair anyway.

In an article for the Journal of Economic Growth, Simeon Djankov, Jose G. Montalvo, and Marta Reynal-Querol, describe another concern. They claim, “foreign aid could lead politicians in power to engage in rent-seeking activities in order to appropriate these resources and try to exclude other groups from the political process.”[27] Aid deals, whether they include oil concessions or not, can be dangerous for the governments of developing countries because they open avenues for corruption in and out of the government.

Lack of Regulation

Persistent corruption boils down to a lack of accountability within government in regards to the industry. True, there is rampant corruption around Latin America, advanced by the resource and aid curses, but the fact that few, if any, resources are allocated to regulate those industries especially prone to corruption exacerbates the aforementioned issues. Charles Laurence of Alix Partners, a global business advisory firm, claims that South American countries often “lack the infrastructure and controls necessary to combat corruption, or they may possess a cultural dynamic that heightens the risks associated with bribery.”[28] In the oil industry, some regulatory frameworks have been created, but in many cases they have proven ineffective. Furthermore, there are outside limitations to the regulation of corruption. According to Al-Kasim, Soreide and Williams, “how well the oil industry functions [depends] not only on the robustness of the regulatory framework but also on the efficiency and capacity of the regulatory institutions.”[29] Furthermore, a framework to regulate corruption is nothing without honest people, who have an incentive to remain honest amidst temptations to cheat.

In the last few years, Pemex has been implicated in corruption scandals countless times, yet no one has been arrested or indicted. Arturo González de Aragón, formerly the head of the Federal Audit Office stated, “in Mexico, no one gets punished. If you don’t punish anyone, impunity becomes a perverse incentive for corruption.”[30] The lack of punishment encourages people to remain corrupt because it allows them to get ahead on both a personal and business level. Even though Mexico has a regulatory system in place—the audit office issues recommendations for cases that companies should investigate—the system leaves too much responsibility in the hands of the company itself. From 2008 to 2012, the audit office submitted 274 recommendations to Pemex; Pemex responded to 268, with only three resulting in action. In all three cases, “action” consisted of a brief suspension without any kind of subsequent legal action.[31] Inside Pemex, members of the Public Administration Agency (Secretaría de la Función Pública) internally manage the recommendations by the Federal Audit Office; however, even though these agents are technically government officials and not Pemex employees, Pemex pays them and they work in Pemex offices. Such a system foments reluctance to take action against the company.[32] This is a complete failure on the part of the regulatory framework because an employee will likely be loyal to the company that pays him or her, not the government. Because the government officials feel that they are part of the oil companies it is unlikely that they would implicate their own company on charges of corruption.

Brazil faces a slightly different problem. A complex tax structure has led to extensive opportunities for bureaucratic corruption. Charles Laurence states that, “Such a framework may make companies susceptible to tax collectors who request bribes in exchange for relaxing tax assessments and inspections, or for refraining from pursuing alleged acts of tax fraud.”[33] The more people involved in transactions, the more risk there is for corruption or bribery. With a complicated tax structure, numerous tax collectors have the opportunity to take advantage of corporate loopholes. Without a restructuring of the tax system to avoid so many levels of transaction, corruption risks remain high. Such oversight in regulation is one of many reasons that corruption persists in the oil industry, with all its damaging effects.

Far-Reaching Consequences

A lack of rules in the oil industry leads to both political and economic repercussions. According to a 2000 study in Economics and Politics, “corruption…retards economic growth.”[34] Because such an influx of much money is directed towards illicit outflows rather than legitimate business channels, companies fail to reach their full profit potential. The report asserts that it is not only the growth of companies themselves that slows, but also the economic growth of the companies’ nations. In the case of these three oil companies, lower profits mean diminishing government revenues. Decreased revenue leads to “decreased investment in physical capital.”[35] Without investment in capital, industries perpetuate inefficiencies leading to a lack of growth.

Furthermore, without demonstrating economic potential through high growth rates, outside investment in the country decreases. Investment by large countries in key industries in Latin America increases economic integration in the world market and introduces more money into the domestic market. Additionally, with high revenue, governments can spend money on welfare programs, job creation, and infrastructure growth. However, social programs are the first to get cut in the wake of slow growth. Far-reaching effects of corruption impact small business owners who refuse to enter a corrupt market, large industries that would profit from from infrastructure spending, and the country’s poor who do not receive welfare benefits.

Combating corruption is particularly challenging not only because such corrupt practices have become so engrained in the Latin American business culture, but also because it perpetuates itself. When bribery becomes common in larger companies, small business owners have to engage in the same kinds of bribery in order to compete with the larger companies. Bribery is thereby a necessity of survival for small businesses. Corruption in old or large businesses forces corruption on new or small businesses, and when old businesses try to abandon corruption, new businesses force them back into it. Corruption becomes a vicious cycle.

Corruption results in political consequences as well. When corruption goes unchecked, regime legitimacy declines. People begin to lose faith in both the political system and the particular regime. This is especially noticeable in the case of President Rousseff in Brazil, whose approval ratings have plummeted in the wake of the Petrobras corruption scandal. In an article in the Journal of Politics, Mitchell A. Seligson states that “exposure to corruption erodes belief in the political system and reduces interpersonal trust.”[36] Lack of trust in government and in people has damaging effects—presidents face impeachment, governments face coups, and, as a result, citizens face strife.

The Sticking Point: Falling Oil Prices

Corruption is a problem on any level, but the oil industry—and the vast wealth gained from it—pose particularly difficult problems in Venezuela, Mexico and Brazil. Recent accusations of corruption have drawn more attention to the issue, but falling oil prices make combatting corruption ever more important. On July 6, oil prices fell 8%, the largest drop in a single day in three months.[37] Given the reliance these countries have on revenues from the oil industry, further drops in oil prices could be disastrous. Recovering some of the money lost to corruption so that the oil industry can sell at its full potential is a crucial step if countries want to commit to having additional money for welfare and infrastructure spending.

While some might argue that state-run companies lead to a greater risk of corruption in both industry and government, the fact that the state is heavily involved in the industry actually offers more potential for solutions. Citizens can exercise the power to lobby the government for an end to corruption as they have. In Brazil, protests demanding Rousseff’s impeachment broke out in March. An article in the Economist speculates that, “as Latin America grows richer, more educated and more equal, citizens will press harder for honest politicians and officials.”[38] Venezuela, Brazil and Mexico have an opportunity here, an opportunity to fight for their citizens, to fight for economic success through their oil industries, and to fight against corruption. With falling oil prices, lowering corruption costs and finally producing at full potential could make the difference between success and failure.

Eliza Davis, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/19/415751296/brazil-arrests-heads-of-2-construction-giants-in-petrobras-probe

[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-33203790

[3] https://www.iif.com/publication/global-economic-monitor/february-2015-global-economic-monitor

[4] https://www.iif.com/publication/global-economic-monitor/february-2015-global-economic-monitor

[5] http://www.petrobras.com/en/magazine/post/oil-and-gas-sector-contribution-to-brazilian-gdp-reaches-13.htm, http://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/about_us/171.htm, https://www.dallasfed.org/assets/documents/research/swe/2014/swe1402g.pdf

[6] http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=33&t=6

[7] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-32428954

[8] http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21646272-despite-epidemic-scandal-region-making-progress-against-plague-democracy

[9] http://www.wsj.com/articles/brazil-presidents-approval-rating-hits-record-low-1434890135

[10] Ibid

[11] http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/06/22/anti-dilma-protesters-get-their-wish-u-s-will-help-with-petrobras-scandal/

[12] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-33203790

[13] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/23/us-mexico-pemex-contracts-specialreport-idUSKBN0KW1LZ20150123

[14] http://www.forbes.com/sites/doliaestevez/2014/04/15/are-u-s-companies-more-willing-to-play-by-mexicos-corruption-rules-to-stay-ahead-of-the-game/

[15] http://tenacitas-intl.com/citi-managers-blame-400m-fraud-pemex-corruption-culture/

[16] http://www.fincen.gov/news_room/nr/html/20150310.html

[17] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/02/venezuela-corruption-idUSL1N0VC1QI20150202

[18] http://www.resourcegovernance.org/countries/latin-america/venezuela/overview

[19] http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/anticorrupt/corruptn/cor02.htm

[20] http://www.cmi.no/publications/file/3034-grand-corruption-in-the-regulation-of-oil.pdf

[21] http://www.economist.com/news/business/21583253-even-if-government-plucks-up-courage-reform-it-pemex-will-be-hard-fix-unfixable

[22] http://www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de/fileadmin/sozialoekonomie/bwl/bassen/Lehre/ECG/Venezuela_Corporate_Governance.pptx

[23] http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/venezuelas-resource-curse-will-outlive-hugo-chvez

[24] http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/venezuelas-resource-curse-will-outlive-hugo-chvez

[25] http://www.cmi.no/publications/file/3034-grand-corruption-in-the-regulation-of-oil.pdf

[26] Ibid

[27] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10887-008-9032-8#page-1

[28]http://www.alixpartners.com/en/Publications/AllArticles/tabid/635/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/460/Corruption-Risk-in-the-Oil-and-Gas-Industry.aspx#sthash.VIFQA3Y7.zJaxzNiy.dpuf

[29] http://www.cmi.no/publications/file/3034-grand-corruption-in-the-regulation-of-oil.pdf

[30] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/23/us-mexico-pemex-contracts-specialreport-idUSKBN0KW1LZ20150123

[31] Ibid

[32] Ibid

[33]http://www.alixpartners.com/en/Publications/AllArticles/tabid/635/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/460/Corruption-Risk-in-the-Oil-and-Gas-Industry.aspx#sthash.VIFQA3Y7.zJaxzNiy.dpuf

[34] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.14.9021&rep=rep1&type=pdf

[35] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s101010200045

[36]http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=1886844&fileId=S0022381600001328

[37] http://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-prices-fall-to-3-month-low-on-china-iran-worries-1436175365

[38] http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21646272-despite-epidemic-scandal-region-making-progress-against-plague-democracy

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Kashmir: Modi Must Turn Challenges Into Opportunity – Analysis

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By Lt Gen Kamal Davar*

In the holy month of Ramzan, when the faithful should be reciting sacred verses, undertaking ‘rozas’ (fasts) and carrying out other pious activities, some in the beautiful yet restive Kashmir Valley have, once again, committed most unholy acts — brandishing Pakistani and the Islamic State (IS) flags at the Jamia Masjid in downtown Srinagar. The most shameful and utterly unacceptable act of treason has been enacted there with the burning of the Indian flag after the Friday prayers. The sacred tri-colour represents everything India stands for —- how this most heinous, unpardonable act can ever take place in our land defies comprehension.

That tons of money —- all illegal funds transferred along the ’hawala’ route — would have been paid to these masked enemy flag-brandishing mercenaries is a well-established fact since years. That the Indian state has hardly shown much urgency or firmness in dealing with these Pakistani paid and their masters across, is a cause of much regret to millions of Indians and, especially now when a strong government supposedly is in power in New Delhi. A fair number of people in India today have that eerie feeling that rhetoric and optics seem to have become the fashion of times even transcending the sacred task of upholding national sovereignty.

Indian political leaders, of whichever political hue, need to rise above their self-perpetuating motivations, and for a change, rise unitedly —- to defeat the forces, both within and without, who dare to question the Idea of India. Time is slipping away much faster than we can even fathom. We cannot afford to resurrect Nero’s legacy in India. It is time to act speedily and to deliver the right message to all those who, since years, have been attempting to disintegrate India.

That the frequency of Pakistani, lately IS, flags and stone pelting in the Valley has multiplied in the past few weeks should not come as a surprise. Pakistan’s deep state, namely the Pakistan Army and its notorious Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), has, after a long interval, been administered generous volumes of much required’ oxygen’ from diverse sources recently, which has sufficiently emboldened them to pursue their nefarious agendas inside Jammu and Kashmir with greater vigour.

The visit of Pakistan’s mentor-in-chief, China’s President Xi Jingping to Islamabad in April and his overly generous grants announcements of $56 billion to Pakistan for the so-called economic corridor and various other projects, military aid has resurrected Pakistan’s economy and military might. That, for both China and Pakistan, the common adversary is India hardly requires any analyses notwithstanding pious declarations of intent by China. The, once again, renewal of military and economic largesse by the US, which for incomprehensible reasons continues to, off and on, keep Pakistan in good humour, with liberal doses of dollars and arms, has made the Pakistan military additionally provocative along the Line of Control and the International border in J&K. That the Pakistani Army continues to think tactical and not strategic will surely, one day, again be their downfall! It conveniently underplays the fact that their nation is being corroded from within.

All “the cobras” they have been rearing in their backyard, as famously stated by former US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, are swarming all over, now biting all and sundry in Pakistan. In addition, the new Ashraf Ghani administration in Kabul warming up to Islamabad, at the expense of India, has given the Pakistani establishment an additional reason to gloat about. It goes without saying that as and when possible with the reducing US troops presence in Afghanistan, some out of work terrorists may be diverted by the ISI to J&K from Afghanistan to reinforce terror-driven activities there.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have to pull out all stops from his armoury to put J&K back on the road to normalcy. If the present uneasy coalition of the state of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state government cannot deliver, President’s Rule should be unhesitatingly considered. Importantly, the J&K Police and the other central police forces should be strictly ordered that, whether it is inside or outside any place of worship, no hoisting of foreign flags will be permitted. Let the major separatist leaders be dealt under the national law and be incarcerated immediately and imprisoned outside J&K —– comfortable house arrests have no meaning. The Indian government must not allow any cavorting between separatist leaders and the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi.

The ‘Hawala routes’ of separatist funding from Pakistan and abroad which fuel terror inside J&K must be plugged, once for all. Importantly, Pakistan has to be reminded of its various fault lines which India too can exploit and has not done so far, in order to promote good neighbourliness.

For the time being India must synergise a slew of diplomatic, economic and military measures to drive home an adequate lesson to Pakistan that it should not traverse on the path to self-destruct. The Valley too requires a comprehensive “healing touch”, political confabulations with locals including the Kashmiri Pandits must be encouraged. The Indian Army and our intelligence agencies must identify potential IS recruits and trouble makers and firmly nip their activities in the bud.

Prime Minister Modi has a historical chance now to implement his pre-national poll promises for a state which must become a beacon for India’s inclusive, multi-religious and multi-cultural society. Let the current challenges in J&K become an opportunity to address the old problems plaguing its complete emotional integration with the rest of the nation. It can be done.

*Lt. General Kamal Davar was India’s first Chief of Defence Intelligence Agency.. He can be reached at editor@spsindia.in

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Saudi Arabia: Six Mosque Attacks Thwarted, Arrested 431 Suspected Islamic State Members

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Saudi interior ministry officials on Saturday said authorities arrested 431 suspected Daesh members and thwarted several planned attacks on mosques and security forces, Reuters reported.

“The number arrested to date is 431, most of them citizens, in addition to participants from other nationalities … six successive suicide operations which targeted mosques in the Eastern province on every Friday timed with assassinations of security men were thwarted,” read a ministry statement, according to state-run SPA news agency.

Daesh claimed two suicide attacks in recent months on Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, killing 25 people and prompting major concerns for security in the oil-rich region.

The Saudi interior ministry statement also said that authorities prevented planned attacks on a diplomatic mission, as well as security and government facilities in Sharurah province, SPA reported.

Daesh has encouraged attacks in the kingdom, home to Islam’s holiest sites. Militants from the radical group have said they plan to drive away the kingdom’s minority Shiite Muslims, whom they believe are heretics.

Original article

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Energy Implications Of Iran Deal For India – Analysis

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After 20 months of negotiations, Iran this week agreed to a long-term nuclear deal with the P5+1 (US, UK, France, China and Russia plus Germany) to limit its sensitive nuclear activities in return for the lifting of crippling international oil and financial sanctions.

The deal is seen as a “big one” in the strategic space. Not only does it hold multifarious and multi-dimensional implications, but its linkages to hydrocarbons, finance and security when unravelled over a timeline have the potential to influence developments far out, from the Middle East and Asia. The implications are strategic, geopolitical and geo-economic in nature. They may be a cause of worry to Iran’s rivals Saudi Arabia and Israel; relief to emerging economic powerhouses China and India, and challenging for countries like Russia who would be adversely impacted by Iranian oil and gas production but would benefit from the close relations with Iran as the country throws opens its door for infrastructure development.

This article examines a “slice” of these implications to see how India’s energy security would be influenced by the Iran nuclear deal. This comes with the understanding that none of the sanctions relief measures will take immediate effect and when they do, there could be some unforeseen geo-political and geo-economic factors in play.

The Deal

The agreement reached in Vienna has been hailed as a good deal as it is seen to sufficiently provide for its objective of cutting off Iran’s major pathways to a nuclear weapon for a decade or more and ensure detailed international inspections of all aspects of Iran’s nuclear programme. It also addresses the domestic US concern regarding the eventuality that should Iran renege on the agreement, neither Russia nor China will be able to block the “snapback” of international sanctions. Finally, the US in concluding the deal has not foregone any of options it currently holds to move against Iran. Sanctions imposed on Iran for its support for terrorism or human rights abuses do not form part of the deal.

None of the sanctions relief measures will take immediate effect, but will be conditional on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verifying that Iran has carried out all its promised steps. The aim is to have this done by the end of this year. At that point, $100billion ($150bn according to some estimates) in Iranian assets around the world will be unfrozen. There is also appreciable attention on Iran’s hydrocarbons; the world’s fourth-largest oil reserve and second-largest gas reserve.

Oil & Gas

Iran’s domestic oil and gas sector has suffered due to the international sanctions targeting its nuclear programme over the last several years. Foreign investment was restricted; many international oil companies (IOCs) divested their interest in Iran’s upstream sector; access to technical expertise and equipment for exploited oil and gas fields was denied and many key greenfield oil and gas projects were either cancelled or delayed.

Iran is now OPEC’s (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) 5th biggest oil producer (with around 2.8 million bpd per annum). To achieve its pre-sanctions position as the 2nd biggest producer, Iran, given its declining oil revenue and the state of the economy, would require foreign investors, new technologies and producers. The direct implications for India’s energy security largely flow from the opening up of the Iranian hydrocarbons sector, the availability of these hydrocarbons to India and their cost. The share of Iranian crude oil in India’s imports has declined from 16.5 percent in 2007-08 to 5.8 percent in 2013-14.

Implications for India

Analysts estimate that it could take upto 12 months for Iran to revive production by about 500,000 barrels a day. New oil flows are expected to hit an oversupplied market. It is assessed that the Iranian crude oil inflow coupled with US shale oil will at the least stabilise crude oil prices around the current levels if not depress them further.

Oil importing countries such as India are being advised to use this period of subdued oil prices to strengthen their monetary policy framework along with fuel pricing and taxation reforms. The subdued crude oil prices have afforded the 2015-16 budget an estimated subsidy bill at Rs.2.43 trillion, around 9% less than the revised estimate of Rs.2.66 trillion for 2014-15.

The other suggested opportunities for oil-importing countries in the current scenario are, one, to boost research into extracting shale oil more efficiently and in renewable sources of energy. Two, increase oil exploration, acquire new hydrocarbon assets and build more upstream infrastructure both in India and overseas. Three, diversify sources of hydrocarbons and sources of energy; four, increase strategic storage, and lastly, increase the capacity utilisation of refining assets and their profit margins.

The fall in prices has also presented countries such as India an opportunity to revise terms of imports, both in contract terms and costs. India has made a pitch for price and terms correction with the OPEC from which it sources 85% and 94% of its crude oil and gas imports, respectively.

Strategic Petroleum Reserves

To ensure energy security, India had decided to set up 5 million metric tons (MMT) of strategic crude oil storages at three locations namely, Visakhapatnam, Mangalore and Padur (near Udupi). These strategic storages are in addition to the existing storages of crude oil and petroleum products with the oil companies and would serve as a cushion to external supply disruptions. The facilities at Mangaluru, Visakhapatnam and Padur together offer just 11 days’ capacity. The International Energy Agency (IEA) recommends that importers should hold 90 days of imports in a dedicated reserve. China’s strategic stocks were estimated in January at more than 30 days’ worth of crude imports.

Diversification of crude oil sources is another option that becomes attractive as crude oil prices fall and logistics costs become less significant. Sourcing of hydrocarbons, under ideal conditions, is a commercial (costs and risks) decision at the refinery level and not a foreign policy decision. In May this year, Saudi Arabia lost its spot as India’s top oil supplier to Nigeria for the first time in at least four years, an indication of the oil sourcing dynamics. Indian oil refiners have consistently reduced imports from traditional markets like Saudi Arabia and Iran and have stepped up purchases from other geographies such as Mexico, Iraq and Venezuela.

Saudi Arabia has been struggling to maintain its market share in Asia and has proposed a price cut for medium and heavy grades of crude oil to draw refiners to increase imports from the country. There maybe other consideration(s); for example, India is the second largest buyer of Kuwaiti oil, and Kuwait is also helping India to build up its strategic petroleum reserves. The point here is that the Iran deal may benefit India by driving down crude prices, but it may not necessarily result in increase in India-Iran trade in crude oil. On the other hand a gas pipeline can make India significantly dependent on Iran for its natural gas requirements.

In June this year, India extended approval to two Iranian insurers to cover container and tanker vessels calling at Indian ports by a year, in a move that will aid oil imports from Tehran.

The key for India in the near term would be to accurately sense Iran’s development needs and to pitch its proposals for cooperation by suitably anticipating the phased lifting of sanctions on the country.

*Monish Gulati is Associate Director (Strategic Affairs) with the Society for Policy Studies. He can be contacted at m_gulati_2001@yahoo.com

This article was published at South Asia Monitor.

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A DUI, The Second Amendment, And Jihad – OpEd

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Borrowing a trademarked slogan from “Hijabman,” Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez wrote as his senior quote in the 2008 Red Bank High School yearbook: “My name causes national security alerts. What does yours do?”

No doubt he chose this statement at that time because he shared the same sense of frustration experienced by millions of ordinary Muslims, viewed with suspicion in post-9/11 America. And no doubt there are now many Islamophobic Americans who see those words as prophetic rather than ironic.

Indeed, the discovery of a short-lived blog attributed to Abdulazeez, writing on religious themes, will reinforce the assumption that the shooting rampage that the 24-year-old gunman went on in Chattanooga, was inspired by Islam.

Yet if Abdulazeez was an Islamic extremist, it’s strange that he would have selected the parable of the blind men and the elephant for one of the two entries on his blog.

Choosing a story that illustrates why no one has a monopoly on truth — a story shared by Sufis, Hindus, Buddhists and Jains — Abdulazeez wanted to disavow the narrow-mindedness of fellow Muslims:

As Muslims, we often do this. We have a certain understanding of Islam and keep a tunnel vision of what we think Islam is. What we know is Islam and everything else is not. And we don’t have appreciation for other points of view and accept the fact that we may be missing some important parts of the religion.

This appeal for tolerance doesn’t sound like the kind of message that would be expressed by anyone with an affinity for ISIS or any other extremist group.

Since Abdulazeez’s deadly motives will likely never be known, we can do no more than speculate about what was running through his mind yesterday.

The fact that in April he’d been stopped while apparently driving under the influence of marijuana, further undermines the notion that he was some kind of religious zealot.

Perhaps he dreaded an upcoming court appearance and ensuing parental rebukes for bringing shame upon his family.

A neighbor told the New York Times that Abdulazeez and his sisters were well behaved and polite, with strict parents and a structured lifestyle. Maybe in those circumstances, dying in a hail of bullets seemed preferable to living with a criminal record.

While the media focuses on questions about this case that will most likely never be answered, the elephant in the room — just as it was after the Charleston massacre — is gun control. (A national campaign against the Confederate flag turned out to be a very effective way of dodging that political bullet after the last mass shooting.)

The reason the contents of the mind of an Abdulazeez or a Dylann Roof suddenly become objects of national fascination, actually has nothing to do with anything of intrinsic interest about the cognitive functions of killers.

It is simply because these particular aberrant thoughts could find expression through the barrel of a gun — thoughts that could be translated into violence just as easily as attending, for instance, the Camp Jordan Arena gun show in Chattanooga last weekend.

The “right of the people to keep and bear Arms” is what allowed Abdulazeez and Roof to gun down their victims, and yet this constitutional anachronism continues to be held as sacrosanct.

It is as though the gun was an indispensable extension of the American spirit, when in reality this passion for firearms is nothing more than the most graphic manifestation of American narrow-mindedness.

A country that spends billions of dollars on national security and fights an endless war on terrorism, yet is still reluctant to erect effective barriers to mass killing.

That’s plain dumb!

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Why Yakub Memon Should Not Be Hanged – OpEd

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By Manoj Joshi*

Don’t get me wrong on this, I support the death penalty – for rapist-murderers, child killers, terrorists and even acid-throwers. But I go with our Supreme Court’s caveat, that it should be reserved for the “rarest of rare” cases. Yakub Memon, who could be executed on July 30 for his role in the Bombay blasts of 1993 does not fit that criterion.

Punishment in a civilised democracy must balance between retribution on behalf of the victim and the possibility of the rehabilitation of the criminal. And, of course, it must meet the requirement of proportionality, in other words, the punishment must fit the crime.

In my view, Yakub Memon was a second-level actor in the conspiracy and not deserving of what is called the “supreme” punishment. The main conspirators are Dawood Ibrahim, his brother Anees, Yakub’s elder brother Mushtaq “Tiger” Memon and the unknown ISI officers who helped them to stage the horrific Bombay blasts of 1993 that took the lives of 257 people. All of them are hiding in Pakistan. There were also others, such as the ten small-time hoods who actually planted the bombs, others who were involved in landing the RDX explosives and storing them at various locations in Mumbai.

Yakub is not innocent. He was aware of the conspiracy and even aided it, but he was not the main player. More important was his behaviour subsequent to his escape from India and his role in exposing the Pakistani hand in the blasts.

Yakub’s return

Just before the blasts on March 12, 1993, the Memon family slipped out of Mumbai on a flight to Dubai via Karachi. During the Karachi stopover, they slipped out and entered Pakistan without any immigration formalities. As the heat built up, they were whisked away to Bangkok and brought back to Pakistan after a few days, traveling on Pakistani passports with new identities. Nearly 17 months after they fled, in August 1994, Yakub was dramatically arrested in New Delhi along with six members of his family, which included three women. However, Tiger and another brother, Ayub, remained in Pakistan.

The government hailed it as a big catch. Before the magistrate who remanded him, Yakub said that he had returned of his own volition to surrender before the Indian authorities. The police, however, showed him as being arrested at New Delhi railway station and the media was told that he had been sent on a clandestine mission to trigger blasts on Independence Day. Privately, police sources acknowledged that Yakub had been “arrested” in Kathmandu. In reality, he and his family were pushed across the border on July 28 and interrogated by the Intelligence Bureau. Thereafter onAugust 5 he was taken to New Delhi railway station and formally arrested.

Helping nail Pakistani role

The value of Yakub in proving Pakistan’s complicity in the Bombay blasts was invaluable. Subsequently, Yakub persuaded six other members of his family to return and face the law – his brothers Essa and Suleiman and his wife Rubina, his own wife Raheen and his mother Hanifa and father Abdul Razzak.

Between March 12, 1993, and Yakub’s return, Pakistan played a cat and mouse game with India, first denying the presence of the Memons in Karachi, then acknowledging it when evidence was provided. But they claimed that the Memons, who had no visas for Pakistan, had left for places unknown.

Yakub provided the Indian authorities with knowledge of the Pakistani officials who assisted the family in Dubai and Karachi, as well as details about the Pakistani passports and other identity documents issued to them by the Pakistanis, thus nailing Islamabad’s lies. He also had a few micro-cassettes of conversations of Tiger and his associates that he had taped surreptitiously in Dubai and a few other items of proof.

The information he provided played an important role in the trial of the accused but instead of being treated as an approver of sorts, he became a fall guy. Since the authorities did not have Tiger in their hands, they wanted another Memon to hang.

There has been a pattern in India in relation to the death penalty. Sometimes, really nasty criminals get amnestied, either by the Supreme Court or the President. In March, President Mukherjee commuted the death sentence of Man Bahadur Dewan who was sentenced to death for killing his wife Gauri and two minor sons, Rajib and Kajib, in September 2002. The President did so at the recommendation of the Home Ministry which sought leniency because of Dewan’s poverty-ridden background. His predecessor, Pratibha Patil commuted 30 death sentences, including seven to murderers who had also raped their victims, several of whom were children. The Home Ministry recommendations that must have led to this Presidential action would probably make nauseating reading.

Politics in command

However, in cases of terrorism, courts and officials usually respond to the blood lust of society. People accused of terrorism, even those peripheral to the crime, are sentenced to death and hanged. In this category comes Afzal Guru, who, as the evidence clearly showed, was a side-show in the Parliament House attack case. Yet, somebody needed to hang since the actual perpetrators had been shot dead and the main conspirators were out of our reach in Pakistan.

In the Rajiv Gandhi case, too, Indian investigators only managed to lay their hands on some Indian Tamil dupes of the main conspirators. The chief villains – Prabhakaran and his intelligence chief, Pottu Aman – were in Sri Lanka, the main culprit dead while her support team led by ‘one-eye Jack’ Sivarasan and his team committed suicide when they were surrounded by the police.

So Nalini, Murugan, G. Perarivalan and Chinna Shanthan were sentenced to death. Nalini’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2000, and earlier this year, the sentences of the other three were also commuted by the Supreme Court. The commutation had more to do with the political pressure brought by various political players in Tamil Nadu, rather than some change of heart of the system.

Politics is playing a role in the death sentence awarded to Balwant Singh Rajaona, convicted for the assassination of Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. His execution was scheduled for March 2012, but has been stayed by the Home Ministry following appeals by the SGPC and various Sikh notables of Punjab.

To reiterate, Yakub is not innocent, but neither does he deserve the death sentence, given the background cited above. The charges against him are not of participating in the military training that was given to several of the conspirators by the Pakistanis, or of landing the RDX and placing the explosives. He was charged with financing the blasts, though his co-accused Mulchand Shah got just five years for the same charge. Indeed, his co-accused in the three charges he faced have all got lesser sentences for the same offence. Don’t forget, of course, that the conviction took place under TADA, a law which has since been discredited and repealed.

In Yakub’s case, the balance has shifted too much towards retribution and is disproportionate to his crimes.

It is for the Indian judicial system to reflect on whether the death sentence has become a whimsical lottery, tilted a bit against the Muslim community. Heinous criminals get away with barbaric crimes, terrorists who are politically convenient are given the benefit of doubt, but to make up for it, peripheral players in Islamist terrorist conspiracies feel the full might of the law.

*The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi

Courtesy: www.thewire.in

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‘Gentle Raidings': American Psycho And Censorship In The City Of Churches – OpEd

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The more things change, the more they stay the same in all their decaying tedium. And so, the censors in Australia have been busying themselves through the not so intelligent arm of the law by insisting that copies of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, the Wall Street, psycho dramatic examination of 1980s “Gecko” culture that can only be damned for its disservices to art rather than censorship, be placed under plastic wraps.

Ellis himself described in the Guardian what he was hoping to do in the novel. It was an account about his estrangement, his loneliness, rather than an indictment of “yuppie” culture. “In retrospect, Wall Street is just wall paper in the novel.”1 The critics did not think so, finding in it a digest for torture, murder and dismemberment, with investment banker Patrick Bateman the foolishly murderous messenger. Moralists and critics came together, conflating taste and talent.

Roger Rosenblatt poured scorn on a book he regarded as filled with “moronic and sadistic contents”. He suggested in his New York Times review that American Psycho “is the journal Dorian Gray would have written had he been a high school sophomore.”2 The sin there, argued Rosenblatt, was more in what the publishers did, or did not do, regarding the book’s release. Leaf through it at the bookstores, yes, but in heaven’s name, don’t purchase it.

Feminists also took up arms against the book, despite Ellis repeatedly explaining that the book could hardly qualify as an anti-female screed. “Mr. Ellis,” laboured the then president of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Organization for Women, Tammy Bruce, “is a confused, sick young man with a deep hatred of women who will do anything for a fast buck.”3

That has not stopped efforts on the part of directors and thespians to flesh out that other side of Bateman – witness Mary Harron’s adaptation, which was also, in due course, assailed for its purported “misogyny”.

On Friday, an Adelaide bookshop owner found himself “gently raided” for selling copies of the novel that were not wrapped in desensitising, prophylactic plastic. Since 1991, Australia’s R18 classification has made the novel, not so much a matter of pulp fiction as plastic wrapped fiction. The entire event was redolent with embarrassment. Yes, the law suggests that it ought to be enforced by the plodders, but there was a feeling that this should have been left to the prurient seeking ecclesiastics.

The absurdity is demonstrated further by the efforts of Imprints Booksellers co-owner Jason Lake to explain what the fuss was all about. “We just assumed the classification has been lifted.” A dangerous assumption indeed – especially where authoritarian habit remains lazily present. “It’s the only book on our shelf that we ever have with a plastic wrapper.”4 The short of it was that the book be released from the wrapping, because that, of course, is what counts.

As with any such regulations, the complainant is usually a dowdy wowser who gives an anonymous tip off in the name of protecting the good public’s delicate and decently boring taste. The world, with its famines, wars and depredations, is ghastly, but best not talk about it much. Australia, some confection of paradise, is worth defending against knowledge. Fittingly then, such censorship constitutes the giving of two fingers to the public’s capacity to come to its own conclusions about taste and how far they wish it to be corrupted. At the very least, they should be 18 or over.

According to the ABC, a “police spokesperson confirmed they received a complaint regarding the novel.” (In this case, it proved to be an “aggressive lady”, which would have gotten Ellis rather excited.) But the limiting vice of censorship enhances the product, granting it lurid status. Lake himself “suspected a ploy by publishers to keep it in plastic longer because it makes it stand out on the shelf.”

Such events give one indigestible food for thought. This is, after all, a country with a legislature that is fast expanding powers to punish individuals for the rather novel idea of thought crime. Assumptions are repeatedly made about who gets radicalised by using social media platforms, and who stays at home to vegetate to the tunes of Team Australia, a ghastly compilation if ever there was one. Patriotism continues to be the crutch of scoundrels.

Eventually, the matter of American Psycho, wrapped or not, was resolved after a chat by the police with bookstore staff. According to the police spokesperson, this act of gentle raiding involved police speaking “with bookstore staff, who were very cooperative, and the matter was resolved to the satisfaction of the police.” Good to see that not all aspects of the law, including law enforcement, need be mirrors of its ass like qualities.

Notes:
1. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jul/10/book-club-american-psycho-ellis
2. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/16/books/snuff-this-book-will-bret-easton-ellis-get-away-with-murder.html
3. http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/20751/1/how-american-psycho-became-a-feminist-statement
4. http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-17/american-psycho-removed-from-adelaide-bookshelves/6628846

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Ralph Nader: Yours To Know: Worst Pills, Best Pills – OpEd

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When I co-founded the Public Citizen Health Research Group with Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe in 1971, he declared that this was his “last job.” The drug industry might have been advised to quiver. For through his Worst Pills, Best Pills books, newsletters and spectacular outreach via the Phil Donahue show, he has exposed by brand names hundreds of drugs with harmful side effects (worst pills) compared to drugs without such an unfavorable risk-benefit profile (best pills). In the nineteen seventies, he and his associates successfully advocated that many totally useless prescription and over-the-counter drugs be taken off the market.

Saving lives and saving consumers’ money—which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) neglected to do so often—was the mission of Dr. Wolfe and his dedicated colleagues. Citizen dues and donations are what maintained this lean and efficient watchdog.

In the historic annals of consumer groups correcting the false or deceptive corporate assurances associated with consumer products, no one has done more to expose Big Pharma’s mendacity. Sid Wolfe and his Health Research Group team made countless such corrections regarding hundreds of pharmaceuticals with hawk-like intensity and accuracy despite the drug companies’ obstructions and false denials.

I’m making this point because this week I received, along with many thousands of people, what has to be considered the most phenomenal offer to subscribe to Worst Pills, Best Pills News to “protect you from unsafe or ineffective medications.” At least eighty percent of all Americans take some kinds of pills during the year. Many of them may be taking just the kind of medicines that are actually making things worse for their bodies and minds.

This alert mailing is not about generalities. One insert lists “20 Pills you Should Never Take” (but only after you inform and consult with your physician). Here are their names: ACTOS, ARICEPT, AVANDIA, CELEBREX, CRESTOR, echinacea, glucosamine and chondroitin, LUNESTA, MIACALCIN NASAL SPRAY, MOBIC, QYSMIA, RELENZA, SEREVENT, SINGULAIR, SYNEPHRINE, TRICOR, TUSSIONEX, ULTRAM, VALIUM, VICTOZA, and 11 top-selling dietary supplements.       You may react by saying “why has the FDA approved these drugs instead of taking them off the market?” To put it mildly, it is because the FDA is always behind in its work and too often has high-level regulators sympathetic to the powerful drug industry whose lobbyists are always swarming around the agency and the members of Congress who do its bidding.

In the amazing Health Research Group mailing, there is an eight page invitation that you won’t be able to put down. Here is a sample:

“Some drugs are not dangerous by themselves, but…they can be deadly in combination with other drugs. There are many dangerous combinations:  insulin and INDERAL; PROZAC and trazadone; TAGAMENT and DILANTIN; DEMEROL and NARDIL; and CALAM SR and quinidine or LANOXIN, to name a few.

Here is more: “We’ve also seen cases where one doctor was prescribing a medication to treat symptoms that were being caused by another medication prescribed by another doctor! You’d be surprised how many drugs cause symptoms that are similar to these in patients with Parkinson’s Disease (CARDIZEM, amitriptyline, GEODON, HALDOL, PROZAC, REGLAN, chlorthalidone and RISPERDAL are among them), and how often people taking those drugs are then given other drugs to treat the parkinsonism symptoms caused by the first drug!”

Throughout the eight pages are statements by named patients regarding improvements in their painful symptoms after they got off these harmful medicines. Among some of the named medications was the notorious VIOXX which Dr. Wolfe warned about years before the FDA took it off the market.

Now, here’s the offer: for senior citizens, 14 monthly issues of Worst Pills, Best Pills News for $10, half of the regular price. (Made out to Pills News, PO Box 96978, Washington, DC 20090-0978.)

Does any of this sound like quackery mailings we all get so often? Banish the very thought. This is the most accurate information you’ll receive about your medicines. As the super-precise Dr. Wolfe guarantees: “If you are ever less than 100% satisfied with Worst Pills, Best Pills News…just cancel your subscription for a full refund of the subscription price.”

I’m giving subscriptions now to ten older friends who are taking medicines on the say-so of their prescribers. You know the saying, “trust, but verify.” There is one that is better: “do not trust, if you can verify.”

To subscribe online go to: https://www.worstpills.org/sub.cfm.

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Relationship Between The Student Movement And The State Of Egypt – OpEd

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The role of social groups in making historical events succeed takes shape according to two important factors: Their ability to change and, the kind of their contribution to the development of that change in a way or another. The role of social groups especially emerges at times of revolutions and their subsequent changes on the political, socioeconomic and even intellectual levels. The most active and capable group to achieve change is the group of youth and students. In the revolutionary movements in Latin America, for instance, students prominently contributed to the fall down of long-lasting totalitarian dictatorships such in Chile, Brazil and Argentina. In the Arab uprisings in 2010-2011, students’ roles varied from one country to another based on three axes of context, networks and contentious practices. This article expands on the role of Egyptian student movement in thriving for change despite the intensified restrictions by the state and how it continued its protest under repressive circumstances as a political actor.

The Egyptian student union (the institutional form of the student movement) enjoys a long register of mobilisation and contribution to social and political change at critical junctures of the country’s history, and a long register of contestation with the authoritarian state; therefore, the contribution of student movement might depend on perception in different historical contexts. The type of the regime and its structures and the space of freedom available for all social groups affect the role of students in driving change.

The student movement has played a distinguished role in the history of Egypt, even under the British colonisation before 1919 revolution. Students were in the heart of protest and change and took an important and active part in tackling and debating important national issues. Despite all repressive policies to control the political activism within the universities since 1950s, student movement remained, in some times more than others, an important actor in the political landscape in Egypt. In January 2011, students, like any other social milieu in Egypt, perceived the change as an opportunity to demand freedom of political practice at universities.

Such perception stems from inter alia socioeconomic and political grievances over the past decades. Since then, universities have been important contention fields in Egypt, provided that since 2011 the state, under several consecutive governments, has been unwilling or unable to institutionalise the student movement. Following the removal of Mohammad Morsi in 2013, students continued to protest and contest. The number of students’ protests reached 1,677 only in the period between July 2013 and January 2014, whereas the same period witnessed 72 student protests in favour of the Egyptian authority according to Democracy Indicator Report in 2014.

Different actors in Egypt had different readings of the continuity of contestation. While some – the Muslim Brotherhood and some liberal factions – consider the student movement legitimate and perceive the army intervention as a coup d’état, others perceive the on-going protests belong to a specific political faction, namely, the Muslim Brotherhood, which means that the demands of the student movement do not enjoy a support among wide segments of social milieus in Egypt.

Since July 3, 2013 Egyptian student movement has been weakened due to a sharp political polarisation, loss of control within universities, and loss of social sympathy and support due to acts of vandalism and transgression against private and public properties, and in some cases violence against individuals by some students. Despite the repressive security measures of the Egyptian authority against the student protest, which led to the expansion of more protests within several universities, the student movement seemed unable to coin a cohesively united student movement that could articulate their demands or to develop a collective action to face a collective threat.

Apart from aspects of cohesion, there are however further complex factors to be considered when analysing the weakening of the Egyptian student movement. “The length of the conflict, the modes of contentious interaction before the introduction of violence, the extent of repression or tolerance by the incumbent regime, and the origins and histories of the populations (urban, tribal) that join the mobilisations” impact significantly the student movement’s actions, said Joel Beinin and Frédéric Vairel in their 2013 book Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa.

Some students in protests resorted to violence; nevertheless, there might be some factors that might have contributed to such a relation between the student movement and violence. On one hand, the political contestation in the Egyptian society has reflected in the structures of student movement at universities, which transformed into confrontations among students affiliated with different political factions.

Such contentious political context has escalated within the frame of mobilisation, demobilisation and counter-mobilisation campaigns. On the other hand, the excessive violence of security forces and police against student protests led to the death of several students, the injury of dozens, the arrest of hundreds, and sentencing several students, in questionable trials, to several years in prison. In addition, tens of students were suspended from universities for, arguably, their involvement in violent acts.

The Muslim Brotherhood has also mobilised its supporters within the universities against the incumbent regime, despite the ultra repressive security measures against protests. The political contention between the Muslim Brotherhood and the new president affected the student movement, which was called by some, rather many, Ikhwanisation process of the movement (turning the student movement into Muslim Brotherhood loyalists), which has negative connotations in the Egyptian political construct.

The current president Abdulfattah Al-Sisi is known for his strict views concerning the student movement and student union in Egypt, especially through his support to a law on regulating student protest, which in return many perceive as a repressive measure against freedom of political activism within universities. Al-Sisi comments on the student movement might increase the contestation between the authority and the youth segments, especially within the universities. The file of freedoms does not seem to have priority in Al-Sisi’s policies, as security and improvement of economic conditions remain on the top of the list.

As students have been a substantial element of the Egyptian uprising, and many of them have joined the protests on Tahrir Square, their universities have not witnessed the same revolutionary change. Presidents of universities affiliated with the old regime, presence of police and military on campus and repression of political freedom within the higher educational institutions raised key questions concerning democratisation of universities as well as demands for socioeconomic equality. The socioeconomic student protests influence the patterns of interaction between the state and the student movement. This interaction consequently has an impact on political participation, institutional representation and social justice.

*Hakim Khatib is a political scientist and analyst works as a lecturer for politics and culture of the Middle East, intercultural communication and journalism at Fulda and Darmstadt Universities of Applied Sciences and Phillips University Marburg. Hakim is a PhD candidate in political science on political instrumentalisation of Islam in the Middle East and its implications on political development at the University of Duisburg-Essen and the editor-in-chief of the Mashreq Politics and Culture Journal (MPC Journal).

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Iran’s Time Has Come – OpEd

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The landmark deal between Iran and the P5+1 countries will gradually phase out all international sanctions on Iran and pave the way for Iran’s re-entry into the global economy. How will this affect the chaos in the middle-east and what are the opportunities for India?

On July 14, Iran and the UN Security Council’s permanent members, and Germany arrived at a landmark agreement, regarding Iran’s nuclear programme. The deal, negotiated over nine years, the last two of which were the most intense, has been hailed as “historic” by its supporters and castigated as a “historic failure” by its detractors. It will, in essence, constrain Iran’s nuclear programme and ability to manufacture a bomb by reducing its uranium enrichment capacity for the next 10-15 years. In exchange, UN and western sanctions against Iran that were first imposed in 1979 and became more stringent in subsequent years, will begin to be gradually lifted as the International Atomic Energy Agency signs off on Tehran’s compliance with its Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations.

This will bring Iran back into the global economic and political flow. The agreement, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), holds the key to unshackling Iran’s economy, and strengthening Iran’s currency, the value of which dropped against the dollar from 3,000 rial in 1995 to 29,089 rial now. It will also provide opportunities for Iran’s educated and outward-looking population, nearly 70% of which is below the age of 30. They have long desired an end to isolation and a rapprochement with the West.

Iran’s time has come. The international consensus on Iran’s isolation was crumbling, and the rise of an economically empowered China and a Russia embittered by the clash over Ukraine, had weakened America’s position in the UNSC, making their cooperation on continued UN-mandated sanctions against Iran, unlikely. This was evident from the proliferation of political and business delegations from China and western Europe in Iran, and in Russia’s announcement that it will supply its advanced S-300 missile defence system to Iran. And Iran’s role in combating the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq, through its Revolutionary Guards and support to Shia militias, has given it leverage with the U.S. and the West, which are fearful of the return of hardened IS fighters to their home countries, mostly in Europe.

Iran will be integrating with the world at a time of extreme chaos in West Asia. There are savage wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, and the continued expansion of the IS. Iran’s old enemies Saudi Arabia and Israel still oppose the lifting of sanctions. Nuclear capabilities will proliferate regionally. Israel is already an undeclared nuclear power, while Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey will embark, if they have not already, on their own nuclear weapons programmes, or seek arrangements with friendly countries that have them. A nuclear arrangement between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is widely believed to already exist. Pakistan refers to its nuclear weapons as the “Islamic bomb,” which has been at least partly funded by Saudi largesse.

For India, Iran’s impending return to the global energy markets has clear benefits, given our massive and growing energy requirements. We have long been in discussion with Iran for transnational gas pipelines and have successfully attempted, in recent years, to acquire oil and gas exploration rights in Iran. These plans should be accelerated, including the acquisition of small and mid-sized Iranian and other oil and gas assets, whose values have dropped by as much as 70% in the past year due to lower oil prices. This will secure out future energy needs.

India also has an interest in expanding the export to Iran, of inorganic chemicals, food, refined petroleum products, agricultural machinery, pharmaceuticals, vehicles and other items, and new products such as aero-structure components.

To promote these interests, Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari visited Iran in June. He signed a memorandum of understanding to develop Chabahar Port on the country’s south-eastern coast, and discussed connectivity projects, including the International North-South Transport Corridor (to connect India to Russia via Iran and Azerbaijan). With the JCPOA in place, it will be easier to finance and execute these projects.

Later this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Saudi Arabia and Israel. Iran should surely be on the agenda, and Modi must use his diplomatic skills to ensure that India and Iran become partners in securing Afghanistan, and enhancing connectivity with an emerging Eurasia.

This article was written by Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations

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Massive Sweep Foils Islamic State Plot To Sow Chaos In Saudi Arabia

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By Rashid Hassan

Saudi Arabia announced Saturday it has broken up a cluster of Islamic State cells, members of which planned strikes in the Kingdom, and arrested over 400 suspects, mostly Saudis, in an anti-terrorism sweep.

The detainees include suspects in recent attacks on security patrols in Riyadh and suicide bombings in the Eastern Province.

The operatives had planned attacks on diplomatic missions and conducted a reconnaissance on one of them. They were also working to identify the houses of a number of security men in a plot to assassinate them. Security and government installations in Sharourah were also in their crosshairs.

The startling revelations were made at a Ministry of Interior press conference on Saturday.

“Security authorities have, over the past few weeks, worked to dismantle a network of cluster cells linked to Daesh. They were following a scheme managed from troubled spots abroad with the aim of inciting sectarian strife and chaos in the Kingdom,” said Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, the ministry’s spokesman.

He added that 431 people have been arrested so far. The foreigners in the cells are from Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Algeria, Nigeria and Chad. Some of the operatives are yet to be identified, he pointed out.

The task of five members of a cell was to prepare suicide bombers while another five-member cell had the mission of manufacturing explosive belts.

Of the 431 arrested, 190 made up the four cells suspected to be behind Al-Qadeeh and Al-Anoud bombings in the Eastern Province.

“What combines these cells — not allowed to make direct contacts with each other due to security restrictions — is their ties with Daesh in terms of the adoption of thought, division of society and bloodshed and then exchanging roles to implement the plans and objectives dictated from abroad,” Al-Turki added.

The ministry accused those arrested of involvement in several attacks, including a suicide bombing in May that killed 22 people in the eastern village of Al-Qadeeh.

It also blamed them for the November shooting and killing of eight worshippers in the eastern village of Al-Ahsa, and the Al-Anoud Mosque attack in Dammam where a suicide bomber disguised as a woman blew himself up during Friday prayers, killing four.

Those arrested included suspects behind a number of militant websites used in recruitment, the ministry said.

The ministry said that authorities foiled attacks plotted during Ramadan, including a bombing at a mosque belonging to security forces in Riyadh and Shiite mosques in Eastern Province.

Among those detained are 144 people accused of supporting the network by “spreading the deviant ideology on the Internet and recruiting new members.”

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Iran, Islamic State And Rising Specter Of Radiological Warfare In Middle East – Analysis

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The official silence on radiological warfare probably is expressive of classification rather than disinterest[1] — Louis Ridenour (1949)

Ironically, in the post-cold war world, one of the safest places for plutonium may well be on top of a missile.[2] –Paul Woessner & Phil Williams (1996)

Among the several argued deficiencies of the nuclear agreement between the P5+1 and Iran, the most abject is perhaps also the least discussed—the consummate failure to address radiological weapons.

The use of radiological weapons has been called the “poor man’s nuclear warfare.”[3] So it may come as a surprise that the international community has never negotiated a treaty prohibiting radiological weapons, this despite their definition as a “weapon of mass destruction” (WMD) by the United Nations and the United States, among others.

This essay takes on the grim subject of radiological weapons, perhaps the most vilified of an already-vilified class of weapons. That term—WMD—is a misnomer when applied to radiological weapons, however, as their effect is more likely localized, ephemeral and disruptive rather than destructive on a mass scale.

Radiological weapons are an inherent part of the nuclear risk[4] but infrequently considered independent of it, save in the context of their improvised embodiment, the terrorist’s “dirty bomb.” That term excludes the likely more lethal class of military-grade radiological weapons to which nuclear and near-nuclear states such as Iran or Syria (or for that matter, Israel) today have access. To the extent these weapons are ever discussed, it is usually in a defensive context, for example, as an area-denial weapon, the proverbial “Death Sand” (Todessand)[5]-this despite James Ford’s observation that while radiological weapons “may not be well suited as ‘military weapons’ in the classic sense,” their use “could be powerfully coercive.”[6]

Gavin Cameron thought radiological weapons the “most likely form of nuclear device as well as the least catastrophic.”[7] What he meant is that they possess the least lethal potential of all nuclear devices—Stephen Gowan stops here, sardonically dismissing radiological weapons as “weapons of little destruction”[8]—but are capable of inflicting widespread psychological and economic damage even if their lethal effects are more confined.

“[B]eing nuclear, it conveys an added prestige and status on the perpetrators. Radiological terrorism would set a group apart and take its terrorism to a new level, so has considerable attractions. Furthermore…the arguments that make a nuclear-yield device an unlikely, if dangerous, threat apply to a much lesser degree for radiological weapons. While a nuclear-yield bomb would be extremely expensive and difficult mass-casualty weapon, a radiological device would only be moderately difficult.”[9]

While his image of a people held hostage by radiological weapons—a “large-scale Lod”[10]—is no less vivid today, the language employed c.1975 by the RAND Corporation’s Brian Jenkins (whom Cameron quotes) to diminish their threat seems almost quaint:

“Terrorist actions have tended to be aimed at producing immediate dramatic effects, a handful of violent deaths—not lingering illness, and certainly not a population of vengeance-seeking victims…If terrorists were to employ radioactive contaminants, they could not halt the continuing effects of their acts, not even long after they may have achieved their ultimate political objective. It has not been the style of terrorists to kill hundreds or thousands.”[11]

Modern day violent actors indubitably seek both immediate dramatic events and the deaths of thousands, and are not fearful of an imagined “population of vengeance-seeking victims.”[12]

It is easily conceived if not often openly acknowledged that radiological weapons could be used in an offensive capacity, much like their improvised cousin, the dirty bomb, wrought large(r). As conceptualized by the United States in World War II, offensive radiological weapons could be used variably to contaminate terrain or “as a gas warfare instrument” (i.e., “radioactive poison gas”).[13]

It is reasonable to postulate that a state menaced by a radiological weapon-capable adversary—state or non-state—would try to rate that risk and to erect a workable defense, possibly extending to “a radioactive maginot line.”[14] Israel has indeed been engaged in a defensive effort, apparently for at least the past decade. It is also reasonable that a state might assess whether radiological weapons (even if it is ambiguous about possessing them) can serve some deterrent role, even if its sole mission is a narrowly defined preemptive one. Such a mission might well involve rendering a clandestine facility—where, say, a rogue state was pursuing weapons-grade enrichment activities at scale—unusable for an extended period of time, even if physical destruction of the facility was unachievable.

It is the author’s contention that radiological weapons in the Middle East have a significant albeit under-acknowledged provenance—and a significant if almost never acknowledged place in regional arsenals. Together with the sustained presence in the region of hostile, radiological weapon-aspirant non-state groups such as ISIL/DAESH[15] and Al-Qa`ida, it is worth asking: is there a rising specter of radiological warfare in the Middle East? Answering that question requires, in good FPRI fashion, that one understand historical and technical factors that influence the place of radiological weapons in order to put those factors in proper contemporary context.

Radiological Weapons: A Primer

Like a particularly vicious form of poison gas.  — Henry DeWolf Smyth

Radiological weapons were added to the legal definition of weapons of mass destruction in 1994, joining the triad nuclear-biological-chemical when the term was first codified in 1992. WMD is too oblique a term, however, for radiological weapons. Those designed to kill or main large numbers of human beings are more properly described as weapons of mass victimization.[16] Likewise, radiological weapons designed deliberately to render structures and land useless for long periods of time are best characterized as weapons of mass contamination.[17]

The formal definition of a radiological weapon is a device—other than a nuclear explosive one—designed to employ radioactive material by disseminating it to cause damage, destruction or injury by means of the radiation produced by the material’s decay. An explosive radiological weapon (RW) or radiological dispersion device (RDD) combines an explosive device and radioactive material, detonating the former to disperse and scatter the latter.[18] A fragment[19] RW/RDD uses a high explosive (e.g., dynamite) to disperse radioisotopes[20] (either alone or in combinations of two or more) that are in the physical form of a metal or a ceramic. The radionuclides of choice are cobalt-60, strontium-90, and plutonium-238, any of which is sufficiently long-lived to cause long-term radioactive contamination of structures and soil.[21] Cobalt-60 is normally produced in metallic pellets that that an explosive detonation disperses in small metallic fragments. Cleaning a contaminated area involves searching for and collecting these particles, which though time-consuming is relatively straightforward. Strontium-90 and caesium-137 in the form of a powdery salt are highly dispersible, making decontamination difficult and time-consuming.

Military-grade RW/RDD will be referred to as radiological weapons to distinguish them from non-military improvised weapons. Although the principal intended effect of detonating a fragment radiological weapon is to distribute radioactive material and cause radioactive contamination, the detonation’s blast effect can also cause physical trauma, thermal burns, and in some cases, radiation injury depending of the magnitude of the explosion. The immediate lethality is almost always due to the blast effect. The use of pulverized or powdered radioactive material is a meaningful advantage of military-grade versus improvised weapons. Powdered metals pose a risk of spontaneous ignition—along with metal dust, powdered metals are prone to explode when in contact with oxygen—that usually precludes the use of these forms in improvised weapons since the danger increases drastically when radioactive metals are used.[22]

The radioactive material released in a detonation causes two different effects, radiation exposure and radioactive contamination. Radiation exposure—also called irradiation—occurs when external ionizing radiation penetrates tissue; it does not require any physical contact with radioactive material. Humans are susceptible to external and internal radioactive contamination. External contamination occurs when radioactive material settles on clothing, hair, or skin. Internal contamination occurs when where radioactive material is inhaled, ingested, or absorbed through the skin or wounds. While radiation exposure does not perforce imply radioactive contamination, radioactive contamination always involves radiation exposure. The radiation dose[23] can accumulate over time; thus, the extent of any injury depends on the duration and the amount of radiation exposure and radiation contamination.

From the security viewpoint, radioisotopes with medium half-lives (on the order of months to decades) present far greater security risks than very short (minutes or seconds) or very long half-life radioisotopes.

Medium Half-Life Commercial Radioactive Sources

Radioisotope

Half-Life

High Energy Alpha Emissions

High Energy Beta Emissions

High Energy Gamma Emissions

Cobalt-60

5.3 years

N/A

Low-energy

Yes

Cesium-137

30 years

N/A

Low-energy

N/A

Iridium-192

74 days

N/A

Yes

Yes

Strontium-90

29 years

N/A

Yes

Low-energy

Californium-252

2.7 years

Yes

No

Low-energy

Plutonium-238

88 years

Yes

No

Low-energy

The impact of prompt radiation is extremely difficult to estimate, and lethal and serious doses can vary sharply according to exposure even in the same areas. There are deterministic injuries—when an individual receives a known exposure to radiation and became ill as a result—and stochastic ones—likely future illnesses resulting from radiation exposure—as well as non-quantifiable psychosocial damage. Moreover, the characterization of radiological weapons presents a significantly greater problem than does the detection of these weapons. Estimating the type and effects of a specific radiological weapon —particularly true of contamination—is difficult.[24]

That being said, external decontamination of humans can be as simple as removing contaminated clothing and shoes (where about 95 percent of external agents settle) and washing the skin and hair with soap and water. Normal body-cleansing mechanisms (e.g., digestion and excretion) will achieve partial internal decontamination, and can be supplemented through the use of dilution (e.g., water, phosphorus) and decorporation agents (e.g., laxatives, chelating compounds). The use of blocking agents can inhibit uptake of some radioactive materials (e.g., Sr-89, Sr-85).

The physical effects of a radiological weapon detonation are dependent on several factors, among which the type and the amount of radioactive material are especially critical.[25] The effects in open-air detonations are highly dependent on local weather conditions and terrain:

“Early experiments showed that cities, or build-up areas, would require ‘something approaching 100 times greater concentration’ because structures would absorb a large fraction of the radiation. As a result of these early studies, the U.S. government concluded that RDDs were not a ‘militarily useful weapon’.”[26]

The decontamination of buildings and other structures can be complicated by the fact that certain radioactive substances are water-soluble (e.g., cesium-137), and penetration of the solution into materials like concrete may be followed by the virtually irreversible fixation of the dissolved elements.[27] Likewise, some radioactive substances including cesium-134 and strontium-85 react and bond with concrete and other substances (e.g., tile, asphalt), making decontamination expensive and time consuming.

Victor L. Issraelyan wrote in 1982 when he was Soviet ambassador to the United Nations Disarmament Conference:

“Since radiological weapons are not yet developed and have never been used on the battlefield, it is difficult to speak of their effectiveness in military terms. However, it is quite easy to conceive of several hypothetical possibilities for their use, for example, as a means for an offensive military operation on the battlefield, for deliberate long-lasting radioactive contamination, or for establishing radioactive barriers.”

“It is quite obvious that military requirements in each particular case can vary considerably. While in one situation it might be preferable to employ radioactive materials of high intensity with a short half life, in others only radioactive materials of medium intensity with a long half life would be used.”[28]

Issraelyan’s suggested “radioactive barrier” might involve, for example, establishing an obstacle (particularly in an area where terrain features cannot be exploited) that is seeded with sodium carbonate (soda ash), which becomes highly radioactive when exposed to neutrons produced in a nuclear explosion.[29] It evokes Eliot’s imagery:

“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish?”[30]

However horrific a radioactive barrier may seem, it was given serious consideration by the United States in the 1940s and 1950s.

A Wartime America Assesses Radiological Weapons

A magnificent example of military madness being encouraged by learned professors.[31]

A May 1941 National Academy of Sciences report contemplated the “production of violently radioactive materials…carried by airplanes to be scattered as bombs over enemy territory” as the first of three “possible military aspects of atomic fission.”[32] The “violently radioactive” material of choice was strontium-89, which is produced more abundantly by nuclear weapons than strontium-90 and is far more radioactive,[33] also yielding a very high radiation dose when internalized.

Two years hence, no less a figure than Robert Oppenheimer suggested the United States investigate possible “military uses of radioactive materials”—again strontium—during World War II.[34] Oppenheimer was prompted by doubts whether a fission weapon could be produced—and if so, how soon—raising the question of radiological weapons as a possible fallback.[35]

In July 1945, the Smyth Report—named for Henry DeWolf Smyth, its author and a consultant to the Manhattan Project— hypothesized it would be “possible to extract [radioactive fission products] and use them as a particularly vicious form of poison gas.”[36] The 1946 CROSSROADS tests at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands yielded dramatic evidence of the destructive potential of radiological warfare. Oppenheimer once again raised the question of military uses, writing in July 1947:

“As everyone knows, the third[37] is that fission products can be used as poisons. I do not know whether this is a particularly effective form of warfare.”[38]

The absence of international control over military uses of radioactive material prompted him to suggest again that the United States investigate and, if found practicable, produce radiological weapons. In February 1948 a group he chaired—the United States Atomic Energy Commission’s General Advisory Committee[39]—recommended forming an ad hoc panel under the Atomic Energy Commission. It was chartered

“for the purpose of examining the present status of possibilities of employing radioactive materials in warfare and of suggesting useful field tests of proposals and weapons relating to the problem of dispersal,” including possible defenses against radiological weapons.”[40]

The ad hoc panel began work in April 1948 by exploring the large-scale production of radioisotopes for use as radiological warfare “agents.” Oppenheimer’s committee suggested the ad hoc panel take the approach of an offensive-defensive competition “between those who wish to disperse the material in order to contaminate an area and those who would attempt to decontaminate it.”[41]

The parallel Military Liaison Committee expert panel did just that, i.e., study the offensive and defensive aspects of what it termed “Rad War”. While early experiments concluded radiological weapons were ineffective battlefield weapons—denying territory during a military campaign, the Defense Department concluded, required an operational radiological weapon capable of producing a sustained high radiation dose rate over an area of at least 10km3—the weapons could have a significant psychological effect. While Oppenheimer’s GEC panel remained focused primarily on the production question, it disbanded in November 1950 without recommending specific radiological warfare agents or a preferred production method.[42]

Around the same time, another noted physicist, Louis N. Ridenour,[43] wrote an article asking “How Effective Are Radioactive Poisons in Warfare?”[44] Regarding what he called radioactive poisoning—“the delivery to a target of radioactive materials”—Ridenour wrote:

“This is a novel type of warfare, in that it produces no destruction, except to life. Even the hazard to life and health is short-lived, its duration being governed by the lifetime of the radioactive materials used.”

“Radioactive poisoning of this sort is a novel thing. It can be regarded as a horrid and insidious weapon, since the person in a poisoned area has no way of knowing that he is in danger…He may receive a lethal dose of radiation two weeks before he knows he is endangered, and yet a few days later he may be dead.”

“On the other hand, this weapon can be regarded as a remarkably humane one. In a sense, it gives each member of the target population a choice of whether he will live or die. For, as we shall see, the concentrations of radioactivity that it is practicable to use will surely kill a person who remains in the affected area a month, while giving an excellent chance of survival to a person who flees at once, with a folded, dampened handkerchief over his nose and mouth. The high explosive and incendiary bombs of the last war gave the target population no such choice. They killed you or they didn’t, and the issue was decided in a flash, without your participation in the judgment.”[45]

After an extended discussion of various technical questions, Ridenour sums up by asking, “What shall we conclude from all of this?”

“The area that can be poisoned with the fission products available to us today is disappointingly small; it amounts to not more than two or three major cities per month. The problems presented by the proper use of fission products in war are very difficult. Despite these drawbacks, the novel and unique properties of the weapon may well make it useful in special situations.”[46]

It is understandable that looking back, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists described Ridenour’s as “one of the most bizarre articles in the history of the Bulletin.”[47]

The Army Chemical Corps continued to carry out radiological weapons-related tests at Oak Ridge and the Proving Ground into at least the mid-1950s. The CIA in 1957 determined that the agency “will consider the possibilities for clandestine use of radiological weapons in general war, and will seek policy approval of plans for their use as feasibility may be indicated,”[48] but there was little documented interest in developing radiological weapons for the next four decades.[49] The United States radiological weapons testing program remained classified until 1974, and largely unknown thereafter until a 1993 General Accounting Office report.[50]

Forewarned Is Forearmed: Israel Assesses its Radiological Defense

It was made clear during the war that [chemical, bacteriological & radiological] weapons are very decisive. It was also made very clear that the moral teachings of the world are not very effective when war reaches a serious stage…We should fully equip ourselves in the defensive and offensive use of [these] weapons.”[51]

Israel is a fake temporary state. It’s a foreign object in the body of a nation and it will be erased soon.[52] — Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

The reality of an Israel menaced by radiological weapons is not new: its lineage extends back some five decades. If General Nasser was the face of the existential threat to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s, and Saddam Hussein was during the 1970s and 1980s, the modern face of this threat is Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.[53] As discussed in the next section, he was joined recently by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of ISIL/DAESH.[54]

Nasser Pursues Radiological Weapons

Egypt in the aftermath of the 1956 Sinai campaign actively pursued a surface-to-surface missile capability that extended to the development of radiological weapons. It sought commercial radioactive materials in Europe and Canada—reputedly containing cobalt-60 and strontium-90 industrial capsules—intending to weaponize the material in conventional warheads. Israel conducted counterintelligence operations against the Egyptian project in the 1950s and early 1960s under the cryptonym DAMOCLES. By May 1964, the Manchester Guardian exposed a team of German scientists engaged in assisting Egypt with two covert projects—under the reported cryptonyms IBIS and STRONTIUM—to load radioactive material into small missiles and artillery projectiles, which General Nasser intended to direct toward Israel.[55]

Saddam Hussein’s Prototype Weapon

Iraq disclosed in the late 1980s that it had fabricated a prototype radiological weapon. Its intended use was area-denial against Iranian troop formations by means of contaminating contested buildings complexes and territory.[56] The weapon utilized powdered zirconium oxide irradiated in its Tuwaitha[57] research reactor, and combined it high explosives that would disperse the material in an airburst. The irradiated zirconium oxide (0.5-1kg) was packed into three-foot long lead-lined capsules. Each capsule was loaded into a prototype iron aerial bomb casing based on Iraq’s Nasser-28 aerial bomb. The intent was to take advantage of the compound’s relatively short half-life[58]—75.5 days—to allow Iraqi forces to secure contaminated areas in a matter of a few weeks. The weapons were unwieldy, however, at twelve feet long and weighing more than three thousand pounds.

Iraq’s Al Muthana State Establishment[59] conducted field tests of three prototypes—one ground-level static test and two airdrops—in which the weapons worked as planned by contaminating a wide area with low-level radiation in large radioactive clouds. These clouds tended to disperse quickly, however, and the preponderant ground contamination was concentrated within the bomb crater and declined sharply within a short distance. The relatively short half-life of the irradiate zirconium oxide also meant the material had to be recharged in the Tuwaitha research reactor every several days. A redesigned prototype bomb casing (derived from the Muhanna-3 chemical bomb casing and designated the “Muhanna-4”) succeeded in reducing its weight by over two-thirds (from 1400kg to 400kg), which allowed more than one bomb could be delivered by a single military aircraft.  Based on the ambiguous test results, however, Iraq’s Military Industrialization Corporation reportedly terminated the program in mid-1988.

Netanyahu Confronts the Radiological Threat

But where there is danger, there grows also what saves.[60] — Friedrich Hölderlin

Consider a widely quoted Haaretz “exclusive” published in June 2015:

“In 2010, staff from the Dimona nuclear reactor began a series of tests, dubbed the ‘Green Field’ project, designed to measure the consequences of the detonation of a dirty bomb in Israel. The project was concluded in 2014, and its research findings have been presented at scientific gatherings and on nuclear science databases. The researchers explained that the experiments were for defensive purposes and that they were not giving consideration to offensive aspects of the tests.”[61]

The article’s appearance is curious for the fact that the Green Field and Red House experiments had been discussed in open-source literature since at least 2008.[62] So, coming as it did in the final weeks of the P5+1 negotiations with Iran, the question arises “why now?” although that question may answer itself.

Israel conducted a series of experiments beginning in 2006 and continuing through 2014 to assess the dispersal of radioactive material in an RDD detonation. One group of experiments was conducted in the Negev Desert under the operational name “Green Field”. It involved testing the dispersal of radioactive material released in an outdoor detonation of TNT charges at or near ground level. The first set of experiments known as Green Field-I (GF-I) involved multiple[63] detonations conducted over 2006 and 2009. These detonations released a radioactive simulant, and produced data that was used to characterize the height of the explosion cloud formed when explosive detonation aerosolizes and disperses the simulant.

The GF-I experiments altered different inputs—explosive mass (0.25-100kg of TNT and geometry (rectangular, spherical and cylindrical); atmospheric stability; the type of radioactive simulant—to develop data about cloud rise, simulant aerosolization, micro-meteorology, and indoor and outdoor cloud evolution. On this basis a second, and eventually a third set of experiments known as GF-II and GF-III were conducted to assess the results of more detonations—this time dispersing a liquefied form of the radioisotope technetium-99m[64]—during 2010 and 2011.[65] The Green Field experiments produced useful data for modeling a hypothetical outdoor RDD detonation. The principle finding—subject to a charge geometry and choice of radioactive material that create fine aerosol particles[66] upon detonation—was that almost all activity remained concentrated within 200 meters of ground zero.

A second group of experiments known as “Red House” assessed the indoor dispersion of radioactive materials inside larger buildings. The Red House experiments were conducted at an Israel Defense Force Home Front Command facility, and involved four dispersion tests using nonradioactive powders (as a proxy) and six using liquefied technetium-99m.[67] These experiments concluded that the detonation of an RDD inside a building with openings (e.g., windows, doors, ventilation ducts) would result in part of the radioactive materials contaminating the building while some fraction (proportionate to the area of the openings relative to the building’s total area) is dispersed outside the building as radioactive material is emitted through the openings. The distribution of radioactive material inside the building is a function of several variables, including it interior geometry (the floor, ceiling and walls reflect the turbulent detonation cloud) and airflow patterns (the building’s ventilation system disperses aerosol, net of airborne material that is captured by the system’s filters).

The Radiologic Weapon Threat from DAESH

Let me throw a hypothetical operation onto the table. The Islamic State has billions of dollars in the bank, so they call on their wilāyah in Pakistan to purchase a nuclear device through weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials in the region. The weapon is then transported…through the porous borders of Central America before arriving in Mexico and up to the border with the United States. From there it’s just a quick hop through a smuggling tunnel and hey presto, they’re mingling with another 12 million ‘illegal’ aliens in America with a nuclear bomb in the trunk of their car. — “The Perfect Storm,” Dabiq (DAESH online magazine)

In the case of violent non-state actors like DAESH, possession equals use. “It is a near-universal opinion that deterring the use of CBRN by terrorist who have acquired it will be extremely difficult. Most conclude that acquisition of such weapons generally will lead to attempted use.”[68]

In 2001 the Syrian government commenced construction of a gas-cooled, graphite-moderated nuclear reactor—based on a North Korean design, it was similar to (but not an exact copy) of a reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear center—near the town of Al Kibār in the eastern Syrian Deir ez-Zor governate bordering Iraq. In 1985 United States intelligence agencies determined that Syria and North Korea (with which Syria signed a five-year technical cooperation pact in 2001 that was renewed in October 2008) were engaged in a project somewhere in Deir ez-Zor. Subsequent imagery detected the Al Kibār (aka Dair Alzour) reactor sometime around August 2007. Within a month, it was struck and heavily damaged in a 6 September 2007 Israeli airstrike—assigned the cryptonym ORCHARD[69]—and later by Syrian efforts to conceal the site.

A 24 May 2011 report by the IAEA Director General concluded “the destroyed building was very likely a nuclear reactor,” based this judgment on the features of the destroyed building and the configuration of the infrastructure at the site, among other factors.[70] Environment samples taken at the Al Kibār site by IAEA inspectors in June 2008 “contained particles of anthropogenic[71] natural uranium […] of a type not included in Syria’s reported inventory,” on which basis the IAEA Inspector General concluded:

“The presence of a significant number of particles of anthropogenic natural uranium at the Dair Alzour site indicates a connection to nuclear related activities at the site and increases concerns about possible undeclared nuclear material at the site. The Agency has not been able to determine the origin of the particles.”[72]

According to a January 2015 Der Spiegel exposé, Syria moved an unspecified quantity of nuclear material to Marj as Sulțān, a suspected uranium processing facility located in the eastern suburbs of Damascus that has been linked to fuel production for the Al Kibār reactor. Some or all of this material was later reported moved to an underground site 15km west of Al- Qusayr near the Syria-Lebanon border[73] some time before the Syrian government abandoned Marj as Sulțān.[74] Given that United States intelligence officials concluded by mid-2008 that the Al Kibār “reactor was destroyed in early September 2007 before it was loaded with nuclear fuel or operated,”[75] the material moved to Al-Qusayr may include some or all of the 8000 fuel rods intended for the now-destroyed reactor.[76] It is worth noting Al-Qusayr was the scene of intense fighting in June between Syrian government-aligned Hezbollah and DAESH.

DAESH took control of Al Kibār in mid-2014 from the Free Syrian Army (which earlier captured it in February 2013). By June 2015, DAESH was reportedly dismantling the site, including possible excavation of its now-destroyed underground facilities.[77] “The remnants of Syria’s undeclared nuclear program pose a proliferation risk,” cautioned analysts at the Institute for Science and International Security:

“Any known or suspected nuclear materials inside Syria are not as readily usable…unless it is further enriched […] Natural uranium is a weak radioactive source and thus a poor choice for a dirty bomb. Nonetheless, the allegedly large stock of natural uranium, other nuclear-related materials, equipment, and other resources associated with the past nuclear program would be attractive to terrorists, certain states, and commodity traffickers. They may wish to sell these goods on the black market or otherwise seek to use them to extract concessions or cause damage. This material may also end up in undeclared nuclear programs of other states.”[78]

Recent (uncorroborated) press reports claim “Syrian residents from villages near the destroyed Syrian nuclear site…report that members of Islamic State have been excavating the destroyed Syrian secret nuclear facility.”[79] Australian intelligence reports reportedly assess that DAESH “has seized enough radioactive material from government facilities to suggest it has the capacity to build a large and devastating ‘dirty” bomb’.”[80]

The author earlier detailed DAESH’s June 2014 seizure of suspected Saddam-era “uranium compounds” from a Mosul University laboratory that originated from Iraq’s former al-Jazirah conversion plant:

“The likely source of the material ISIL seized from Mosul University is al-Jazirah’s analytical laboratory, which may have transferred all or part of its inventory of samples from the conversion processes. It is known that some equipment and instrumentation from al-Jazirah was taken to Mosul University after 1991, and that Iraq failed to declare whatever material was transferred as required under its 1979 IAEA safeguards agreement.”

“The sample inventory may have been sizeable, and could have included reagents such as uranyl acetate (both radioactive and highly toxic if ingested, inhaled as dust, or by skin contact) as well as uranium oxide “yellowcake”; ammonium diuranate (an intermediate chemical form of uranium produced during yellowcake production); uranium trioxide (UO3) and dioxide (UO2); and possibly, gram-quantity samples of uranium tetrachloride.”[81]

The threatened use of radiological weapons by jihadist groups is not new: in 2005, a jihadist operational website published a document that encouraged RDD attacks in western cities:

“The important thing is to disperse radioactive material in a large commercial area so the government is forced to shut down this area which will cause this country massive economic disruption due to the following reasons:

  • The high costs of decontamination of radioactive areas.
  • The high economic losses in this large commercial area due to closure.
  • Subsequent unemployment and loss of jobs.
  • Stoppage of general life in that area.
  • Large compounded problems are to follow due to these losses.”[82]

There is strong evidence as well to suggest Al-Qa`ida attempted to procure radiologic material as well but none (at least in the public domain) to indicate its quest bore fruit. Nor despite the grossly disproportionate attention it garnered, is the scenario sketched in DAESH’s online publication, Dabiq—purchasing a nuclear weapon from Pakistan—likely or practicable [83]

Magnificent Façade: The Myth of “Peaceful Nuclear Facilities”

The erection of Potemkin villages…never leads to the establishment of the real thing but only to a proliferation and perfection of make-believe.[84] — Hannah Arendt

It is a lamentable truism of the modern era that marginalizing the threat of confrontations with nuclear weapons has not eliminated the threat of virulent radiation.[85] Radiological weapons are after all, as Torsten Sohns wrote, part of the nuclear risk.[86] When discussed at all, radiological weapons traditionally have been included under the general rubric of nuclear weapons. However, wrote one analyst, “the present reality that terrorist organizations are seeking access to CBRNE weapons has resulted in a renewed concern over radiological weapons in their own right.”[87]

Add to “terrorist organizations” rogue states. Most states—and all or nearly all non-state actors—do not have the sophisticated infrastructure required to handle nuclear material safely. For these states and non-states, the difficulty associated with acquiring and handling spent nuclear fuel assemblies without receiving a lethal dose is far greater than the difficulty of producing a radiological weapon using commercially-available industrial and medical radioisotopes.[88] Iran, however, possesses a sophisticated nuclear material infrastructure and so presents a first-tier radiological threat, since it could weaponize, at its option, spent nuclear fuel assemblies as well as industrial and medical radioisotopes. One might reasonably add to that Iran’s growing stockpile of uranium dioxide (LEUO2).

Some resist characterizing Iran as a prima facie radiological threat. That position is more difficult to sustain when one takes into account that Iran has neither signed nor ratified the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Terrorism or the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material. Nor has Iran so far expressed support for major International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines like the Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radiological Sources.

The issue of radiological weapons is connected indirectly to the IR-40 heavy water-moderated research reactor at Arak, which Iran has declared will be used for medical and industrial radioisotope production.[89] The July 2015 nuclear agreement provided for Iran to “redesign and rebuild” the Arak reactor to an agreed-to specification (for example, modified with a low-enriched uranium core[90]) under which it would no longer produce weapons-grade plutonium, but instead “support peaceful nuclear research and radioisotope production.”[91] Iran should have no objection to following through on that commitment since the converted reactor would result in an enhanced capacity for radioisotope production compared to the original design.

In its original Arak declaration the Iranian government stated that it intended to construct a building for the production of what it called “long-lived” radioisotopes in addition to “short-lived” ones (e.g., molybdenum-99, the parent nuclide of technetium-99m used for diagnostic nuclear medicine). Iran did not clarify what this distinction meant although the IAEA inferred “long-lived” might mean cobalt-60 and iridium-192,[92] which have half-lives of 5.2 years and 74 days, respectively (other analysts interpreted “long-lived radioisotopes” to mean plutonium). Iran revised its Arak declaration in May 2004 and eliminated plans for long-lived radioisotope production citing “difficulties with the procurement of equipment” (i.e., hot cell manipulators and lead glass windows).[93]

Iran earlier declared its intention to substitute radioisotope production at Arak for its existing production facility at the Tehran Research Reactor, which is located within the Tehran Nuclear Research Center (TNRC).[94] A TNRC laboratory that has attracted IAEA attention is the Molybdenum, Iodine and Xenon Radioisotope Production Facility (“MIX Facility” for short) where Iran produces medical and industrial radioisotopes from natural uranium oxide. Iran completed construction of the MIX Facility in 2005 but claims it never became operational due to technical difficulties. It is known, however, that Iran used the uncompleted laboratory between 1987 and 1999 to separate iodine-131 from small quantities of the irradiated natural uranium targets. Iodine-131 is a good illustration of a dual, benignant/malignant use radioisotope. It is utilized in a form of radiotherapy; however, its relative volatility means iodine-131 can contaminate large areas—it is one of three radioisotopes (the others are cesium-137 and strontium-90) that accounted for most of the harmful effects following the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Chernobyl demonstrated the release of iodine-131 is capable of causing the development of malignant thyroid nodules in children within a 300-mile radius.[95]

Iran is not the only state in the region capable of producing some quantity of radioisotopes. The author has identified five other research reactors in the region at which radioisotopes are produced today or have been in the past:[96]b

  • Egypt’s Atomic Energy Authority (AEA) operates the Egyptian Second Research Reactor (ETRR-2) also known as the “Multipurpose Nuclear Reactor” at the Nuclear Research Center, the oldest and largest of the four research centers operated by the AEA. Its precise location is uncertain but is reportedly near Inshas, some 60 km northeast of Cairo.
  • Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission operates the IRR-1 located at the Soreq Nuclear Research Center, Yavne
  • Libya’s Renewable Energies and Water Desalination Research Center operates the IRT-1 research reactor at the Tajoura Nuclear Research Centre near Tripoli.
  • Syria’s Dar Al-Hajar Nuclear Research Centre operates the SRR-1 located 140km north of Damascus. In June 2015 the IAEA announced it was studying Syria’s request for assistance to convert the SRR-1 to low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel, and to ship its 1kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel out of the country.[97]
  • Turkey’s Çekmece Nuclear Research and Training Center (ÇNAEM[98]) operates the Turkish Second Research Reactor (TR-2), the main purpose of which is the production of radioisotopes (including technitium-99m, iodine-131 & iridium-192) for medical and industrial uses.

Concluding Thoughts

It is unsurprising that the Israeli government would call attention to its multi-year effort to understand the effects of a radiological weapon detonation. Haaretz qualified that Green Field and Red House “were for defensive purposes” and did not “give consideration to offensive aspects of the tests.”[99] That does not mean they failed to yield information useful to a hypothesized offensive use for a narrowly defined preemptive mission, however.

This essay opened with the observation that among the several argued deficiencies of the P5+1 nuclear agreement with Iran, the most abject deficiency is perhaps the one least discussed—the consummate failure of the P5+1 to address Iran’s radiological weapons capability. Earlier consideration of radiological weapons by the United States and others invariably settled on the question of how to defend against their use by an adversary. It is not unreasonable to speculate that some parties in the Middle East today—possibly Iran but most assuredly DAESH—can envision their offensive use, with the nation of Israel and the United States’ presence in the region the likeliest targets. The incomprehensible omission of Iran’s radioisotope production capacity from the P5+1 process, and the Syrian government’s inability to control critical nuclear sites, are a grave regional security and proliferation concern.

The translation of all source material is by the author unless otherwise noted.

About the author:
*John R. Haines
is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Executive Director of FPRI’s Princeton Committee. Much of his current research is focused on Russia and its near abroad, with a special interest in nationalist and separatist movements. As a private investor and entrepreneur, he is currently focused on the question of nuclear smuggling and terrorism, and the development of technologies to discover, detect, and characterize concealed fissile material. He is also a Trustee of FPRI.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

Notes:
[1] Louis N. Ridenour (1949). “How Effective Are Radioactive Poisons in Warfare?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 6:7 (July 1950), 224.

[2] Paul N. Woessner & Phil Williams (1996). “The Real Threat of Nuclear Smuggling.” Scientific American. 274:1 (1 January 1996), 41. Last accessed 4 July 2015.

[3] From a 1964 New Scientist article by the same name on the same subject.

[4] So write Torsten Sohns in his essay, “Protection Against Weapons of Mass Destruction: A German Perspective.” See: Sohns (1998) in Oliver Thränert (1999). Preventing the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: What Role for Arms Control? (Bonn & Berlin: Freidrich-Ebert-Stifung), 145.

[5] The phrase “Death Sand”—Todessand in the original German text—is from a 1949 monograph by the Austrian physicist Hans Thirring.

See Thirring (1949). “Über Das Mögliche Ausmaß Einer Radioaktiven Verseuchung Durch Die Spaltprodukte Des U235.” Actua physica austriaca. (Wien: Springer), 379.  An American 1950s popular writer of the 1950s, J. Alvin Kugelmass, called it “Our silent mystery weapon: death sand.”

[6] James L. Ford (1998). “Radiological Dispersal Devices: Assessing the Transnational Threat.” Strategic Forum. 136 (March 1998). http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ndu/forum136.htm. Last accessed 9 July 2015.

[7] Gavin Camaeron (2001). “Nuclear Terrorism: Reactors & Radiological Attacks After September 11.” Paper presented to the IAEA Meeting 2/11/01. .\ http://www.gazettenucleaire.org/~resosol/InfoNuc/documents-importants/IA…. Last accessed 8 July 2015.

[8] Stephen Gowans (2015). “The Concept of WMD, and its Use against Syria, in the Propaganda Systems of Western States.” https://gowans.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/the-concept-of-wmd-and-its-use-a…. Last accessed 9 July 2015.

[9] Ibid., 15-16.

[10] Jenkins is referring to the Roman siege of Lod (then called Lydda) during the Kitos War (CE 115-117).

[11] Brian M. Jenkins (1975). “Will Terrorists Go Nuclear?” RAND Corporation report no. P-5541 (November 1975), 6. http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2006/P5541.pdf. Last accessed 9 July 2015.

[12] Others reached a similar conclusion: “Above all else, the concept that a ‘new’ form of terrorism has emerged resonates through the recent literature. In particular, a number of authors have begun to question the long-held notion that ‘terrorists’ want more people watching than dead.’ Many now claim that this view, espoused by Brian Jenkins several years ago, may have been true insofar as secularly motivated terrorist organizations were concerned, but that such an idea might not characterize well some contemporary groups.” National Defense University Center for Counterproliferation Research (2002). “Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Terrorism: The Threat According to the Current Unclassified Literature” (30 May 2002), 4-5.

[13] Subcommittee of the S-1 Executive Committee (1943). Document E. Memorandum from Drs. Conant, Compton & Urey to Brigadier General L. R. Groves on “Use of Radioactive Material as a Military Weapon.”

[14] The author asked whether radioactive waste “could be spread in front of a defense position, thereby creating a radioactive ‘maginot line’. Any enemy troops that crossed it would face certain death.” R. De Rose (1955). “What are we doing about our deadly atomic garbage?” Collier’s (20 August 1955), 34. Quoted in Adri De La Bruheze (1992). “Radiological Weapons and Radioactive Waste in the United States: Insiders’ and Outsiders’ Views, 1941-55.” The British Journal for the History of Science. 25:2, 224.

[15] The author has elected to use DAESH, an adapted acronym of the group’s transliterated Arabic name, ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyah f’il-Iraq wa’sh-Sham or “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant”.

[16] James D. Ballard (2000). “Weapons of mass victimization: Considerations for the 21st century.” Paper presented at the United Nations Congress on terrorist victimization: Prevention, control and recover, Vienna, Austria.

[17] Using radiological weapons “to contaminate small critical areas” was proposed as far back as the United States War Department’s 1943 paper “Use of Radiological Material as a Military Weapon” [http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meet3/brief3.gfr/…

[18] Other devices are designed to disperse radioactive aerosols by active means other than an explosive detonation, e.g., sprayers, or by passive exposure to radioactive material. These types of devices while they can produce serious effects are not of particular interest in the context of this essay.

[19] A high explosive (HE) weapon can be tailored so that one or another of its damage-agents dominates its effects, the result being predominantly either a blast weapon or a fragmentation weapon. In a fragmentation weapon, a HE charge is surrounded by material designed to split into fragments upon detonation and disperse (sometimes directionally).

[20] A chemical element has unique chemical properties that derive from the number of protons or positively charged particles inside the nucleus, which also contains uncharged particles called neutrons that determine its nuclear properties. Each element has a family of different nuclear forms called isotopes that have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons. Most isotopes are unstable and undergo radioactive decay during which ionizing radiation is emitted. Called radioisotopes, they can emit different types of ionizing radiation are alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. Alpha emitters decay by releasing a helium nucleus (two protons and two neutrons, called an alpha particle) and are relatively harmless as external hazards because their range is short. They can, however, cause significant cellular damage if inhaled and deposited in lung tissue; ingested through contaminated food; or if they enter an open wound. Beta emitters decay by releasing a high-energy electron (a beta particle). While they can cause skin lesions (a “beta burn”), beta emitters are relatively harmless unless internalized. Gamma emitters decay by releasing highly energetic gamma rays that, unlike alpha and beta particles, easily penetrate the skin. In high doses, gamma emitters can cause Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS) aka radiation toxicity or radiation sickness. ARS is a set of symptoms resulting from injuries to the bone marrow, gastrointestinal system, cardiovascular system, central nervous system, gonads, and skin by internal exposure to ionizing radiation. The onset latency and magnitude of ARS are determined primarily by the total radiation dose received, the rate of delivery of the radiation, and the distribution of radiation in the body. An isotope’s half-life is a measure of the amount of time it takes for half the radioactive substance to decay.  A short half-life means a rapid decay, and a long half-life means a more lengthy decay.

[21] Co-60 is a beta and multiple gamma emitter with half-life of 5.27 years. Sr-90 is beta emitter with a half-life of 29 years. Pu-238 is an alpha emitter with a half-life of 87.5 years.

[22] Julian Palmore (2003). “’Dirty Bombs’: An analysis of radiological weapons.” Defense & Security Analysis. 19:1, 70. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1475179032000058035. Last accessed 4 July 2015. Palmore illustrates this point with the historical example of Nazi Germany’s use of aluminum powder in high explosives (Amatol) to increase the yield of V-2 rocket warheads by as much as 30 percent.

[23] Two different materials, if subjected to the same gamma-ray exposure, will in general absorb different amounts of energy. The energy absorbed by any type of material is defined as the absorbed dose, the historical unit for which is the radiation absorbed dose or “rad”. It refers only to energy absorbed by a type of material. It is energy absorption that causes biological damage along with ionization, which creates radicals and causes chemical reactions to occur.

[24] Anthony H. Cordesman (2001). “Radiological Weapons as a Means of Attack.” Center for Strategic & International Studies, 8 November 2001. http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/radiological[1].pdf. Last accessed 11 July 2015.

[25] James L. Ford (1998). Radiological Dispersal Devices: Assessing the Transnational Threat. Institute for National Strategic Studies. 136 (March 1998), 3.

[26] Ibid., 3-4.

[27] J. Real, et al. (2002). “Mechanisms of Desorption of 134Cs [cesium-134] and 85Sr [strontium-85] Aerosols Deposited on Urban Surfaces.” Journal of Environmental Radioactivity. 62:1, 7.

[28] Victor L. Issraelyan & Charles C. Flowerree (1982). “Radiological Weapons: A Soviet and US Perspective.” The Stanley Foundation Occasional Paper 29 (February 1982), 21. https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/radiological…. Last accessed 7 July 2015.

[29] The suggested application is from Roger D. Speed (1979). Strategic deterrence in the 1980s. (Standord: Hoover Institute Press), 118-119.

The idea, however, is neither novel nor new. In March 1944 the Manhattan Project’s commanding officer, General Leslie R. Groves, warned General Marshall, “Radioactive materials are extremely effective contaminating agents; are known to the Germans; can be produced by them and could be employed as a military weapon. These materials could be used without prior warning in combatting an Allied invasion of the Western European Coast.” [Groves (19632; 1983). Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project. (New York: DeCapo Press)]  General MacArthur advocated something similar to President-elect Eisenhower during the Korean War, similar to the radioactive barrier across North Korea he proposed in 1950.

[30]The Waste Land, lines 19-20.

[31]Barton J. Bernstein (1985). “Oppenheimer and the Radioactive-Poison Plan.” MIT Technology Review. 88:4 (May/June 1985), 17. Bernstein quotes an unnamed “distinguished physicist” concluding about Oppenheimer (“who [he] first knew…in the postwar years at Princeton”), “it is a magnificent example of military madness being encouraged by learned professors.”

[32] Quoted in Richard Rhodes (1986). Making of the Atomic Bomb. (New York: Simon & Schuster), 365. Later that same year, Princeton physicists Henry DeWolf Smyth and Eugene Wigner reported that the fission products produced in one day’s operation of a 100-megawatt reactor could render a large area uninhabitable. While the NAS did not recommend the use of “radioactive poisons,” but serious consideration was given to the possibility that Nazi Germany might do so, and recommended defensive measures. See: Eugene Wigner & Henry D. Smyth (1941). “Radioactive Poisons.” National Academy Project, 10 December 1941. (ACHRE No. NARA-033195-A).

[33] 1 gram of Sr-89 has a radioactivity of 27,800 curies which the same 1 gram of Sr-90 has a radioactivity of 143 curies.

[34]  He wrote, “I think we should not attempt a plan [to investigate the use of strontium] unless we can poison food sufficient to kill a half a million men, so there is no doubt the actual number affected will, because of non-uniform distribution, be much smaller than this.” See: “Letter from Robert Oppenheimer to Enrico Fermi dated 25 May 1943.” Quoted in Bernstein (1985), op cit., 14-17.

[35] Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (1996). Final Report of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. (New York: Oxford university Press), 325.

[36] Smyth, Henry De Wolf (1945). Radioactive Poisons, Section 4.27. A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes under the Auspices of the United States Government, 1940-45. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office). This document is commonly referred to as “The Smyth Report”. http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/SmythReport/smyth_iv.shtml. Last accessed 8 July 2015. The authors were quick to qualify in the following paragraph (Section 4.28) that they “did not recommend the use of radioactive poisons nor has such use been seriously proposed since by the responsible authorities, but serious consideration was given to the possibility that the Germans might make surprise use of radioactive poisons, and accordingly defensive measures were planned.”

[37] The “third” refers to the last of three “monopoly” fields of use that Oppenheimer suggested should be reserved to the international agency contemplated by the 1946 Acheson-Lilienthal Report (formally, the “Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy”). Oppenheimer was a member of the committee that prepared the Acheson-Lilienthal Report.

[38] J. Robert Oppenheimer (1947). “Functions of the International Agency in Research and Development.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 3:7, 176. Bernstein (1985), op cit., 17, quotes an unnamed “distinguished physicist” concluding about Oppenheimer (“who [he] first knew…in the postwar years at Princeton”), “it is a magnificent example of military madness being encouraged by learned professors.”

[39] The General Advisory Committee or “GEC” was one of two bodies established under the 1946 Atomic energy Act (the other being the Military Liaison Committee or “MIC”) to provide consultative support to the United States Atomic Energy Commission.

[40] Adri De La Bruheze (1992). “Radiological weapons and radioactive waste in the United States: insiders’ and outsiders’ views, 1941–55.” The British Journal for the History of Science. 25, 214. https://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2F8063_100DD6124837D5E…. Last accessed 8 July 2015.

[41] De La Bruheze (1992), op cit., 217.

[42] Ibid., 219.

[43] Ridenour at the time was a physics professor and Dean of the Graduate School of the University of Illinois.

[44] Louis N. Ridenour (1949). “How Effective Are Radioactive Poisons in Warfare?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 6:7 (July 1950), 199-202, 224. https://books.google.ca/books?id=4g0AAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA193&dq=Bulletin+of+th…. Last accessed 8 July 2015.

[45] Ibid., 200.

[46] Ibid., 224.

[47] “45 years ago in the Bulletin.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 51:4 (July/August 1995), 9. https://books.google.com/books?id=VQwAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9&dq=“How+Effective+Are+Radioactive+Poisons+in+Warfare?”&source=bl&ots=pj1Ntx6b4P&sig=qB0WT8ueUKTi0TWOgMDk9ZHocw0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gHudVYCLFYLp-QHG_aOgBQ&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=“How%20Effective%20Are%20Radioactive%20Poisons%20in%20Warfare%3F”&f=false. Last accessed 8 July 2015.

[48] United States Central Intelligence Agency (1957). CIA Global War Plan for Clandestine Operations. Annex G. Technical Services.  Document No. 5197c260993294098d50d6fa http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/1705143…. Last accessed 2 July 2015.

[49] James L. Ford (1998). Radiological Dispersal Devices: Assessing the Transnational Threat. Institute for National Strategic Studies. 136 (March 1998), 2.

[50] Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (1996), op cit., 327.

[51] Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaking in October 1988. Quoted in Anthony Cordesman (1998). Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East. (London: Brassey’s, 1991), 93.

[52] Former Iranian president Rafsanjani speaking on 6 July 2015. Quoted by the Iranian state news agency IRNA: http://www.irna.ir/en/News/81673652/. Last accessed 7 July 2015.

[53] Dieter Bednarz & Ronen Bergman (2011). “Israel’s Shadowy War on Iran: Mossad Zeros in on Tehran’s Nuclear Program.” Der Spiegel [published online in English 17 January 2011]. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/israel-s-shadowy-war-on-iran-m…. Last accessed 8 July 2015.

[54] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the nom de guerre of the Islamic State caliph, Ibrahim Awwad Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai.

[55] “Nasser’s nuclear breakthrough: Middle East is drawn into atomic arms race.” The Manchester Guardian (4 May 1964). http://search.proquest.com/hnpguardianobserver/docview/184945458/fulltex…. Last accessed 7 July 2015. Under the direction of Egypt’s former chief of Air Intelligence, General Mohammed Khalil, Egypt’s surface-to-surface missile development program enlisted some 100 German scientists and technicians in the late 1950s and early 1960s, many of whom were veterans of the Wehrmacht’s V-2 project. The program operated under cover of a recently built Messerschmitt airframe and engine factory located near Heliopolis and known as “Factory 333”. MOSSAD reportedly terminated DAMOCLES in March 1963 following the arrest of two agents in Basel.

[56] Richard Rhodes (2010). The Twilight of the Bombs: Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World Without Nuclear Weapons. (New York: Vintage Books), 21. The Iraqi RDW was condemned by the director of the Wisconsin Project on Arms Control, Gary Milhollin, as “nasty stuff meant to kill people over a long period of time” and “cross[ing] the line into moral barbarism.” See: William J. Broad (2001). “Document Reveals 1987 Bomb Test by Iraq.” The New York Times, 29 April 2001.

[57] The Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center was located some 18 km southeast of Baghdad. Its Al Asil General Establishment was the headquarters of the Iraqi Nuclear Commission and the main site for Iraq’s nuclear program. It included several research reactors, and facilities for plutonium separation and waste processing, uranium metallurgy, neutron initiator development, and uranium enrichment. The Pure Lead Project developed shielding for Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. The Osiraq reactor bombed by Israel in 1981 was located at Tuwaitha. See: http://fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/facility/tuwaitha.htm. Last accessed 4 July 2015.

[58] Half-life describes the rate at which a specific radioactive material decays or changes from one nuclide to another nuclide that may in turn be radioactive or stable. Half-life can vary from a fraction of a second to many years, but once a material is stable, there is no longer an associated radiation hazard.

[59] Prior to 1986 the Al Muthana State Establishment was known as Project 922, which directed Iraq’s CBW program. The existence of Project 922 was concealed behind a front organization known as the State Establishment for Pesticide Production, which operated a 100km2 industrial facility near Samarra, Iraq. UNSCOM decommissioned and destroyed the facility over the period 1992-1994. It was common for Iraq to use chemical weapon facilities like the Al Muthana State Establishment to support other WMD programs.

[60] From Friedrich Hölderlin’s poem Patmos (1808).

[61] Chaim Levinson (2015). “Haaretz exclusive: Israel tested ‘dirty-bomb cleanup’ in the desert. Series of tests in conjunction with four-year project at Dimona nuclear reactor measured damage and other implications of detonation of radiological weapon by hostile forces.” Haaretz [published online in English 8 June 2015]. http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.660067. Last accessed 7 July 2015.

[62] The earliest open-source discussion identified by the author in which Israel’s Green Field (GF) experimental program is identified by name is: Ilan Yaar & Avi Sharon (2008). “Calibration of a Cloud rise model for a RDD Scenario.” In Samuel Apikyan, et al., eds. Prevention, Detection and Response to Nuclear and Radiological Threats. (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer Science & Business Media), 193-205. See also: Avi Sharon (2009). “Cloud Model (& some related issues) for RDD & Nuclear Terrorism Scenarios.” Negev Nuclear Research Center (November 2009). http://www.nucleonica.net/wiki/images/7/76/ITRAC2_Sharon.pdf. Last accessed 7 July 2015. This material was used at ITRACN 2 aka the “2nd Advanced Training Course on Illicit Trafficking and Radiological Consequences with NUCLEONICA” held at the Institute for Transuranium Elements in Karlsruhe, Germany, on 4-6 November 2009.

[63] The stated number of experimental detonations conducted in GF-I varies widely depending upon the source. According to Yaar, et al. (2014), there were 13 GF-I detonations while Sharon, one of the paper’s co-authors, wrote five years earlier that there were “over 100 explosion tests”. See: Ilan Yaar, Itzhak Halevy, Zvi Berenstein & Avi Sharon (2014). “Protecting National Critical Infrastructure against Radiological Threat.” Paper presented to the 27th Conference of the Israel Nuclear Societies held 11-13 February Daniel Dead Sea Hotel, Israel. http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/45/114/45…. Last accessed 7 July 2015. Also: Avi Sharon (2009). “Cloud Model (& some related issues) for RDD & Nuclear Terrorism Scenarios.” Negev Nuclear Research Center (November 2009). http://www.nucleonica.net/wiki/images/7/76/ITRAC2_Sharon.pdf. Last accessed 7 July 2015.  In 2014, Sharon writes that there were 20 Green Field experiments in which liquefied Technitium-99m, a radioisotope, was dispersed. See: Avi Sharon, Itzhak Halevy, Daniel Sattinger, Zvi Berenstein, Rony Neuman, Moriel Pinhas, Pini Banaim, & Ilan Yaar (2014). “Ground deposition pattern of an explosive radiological dispersal device (RDD).” Paper presented to the 27th Conference of the Israel Nuclear Societies held 11-13 February Daniel Dead Sea Hotel, Israel. http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/45/114/45…. Last accessed 7 July 2015.

It is also noteworthy a 2014 paper of which Sharon is the lead author gives the Green Field project dates as “2010-2014” while a 2013 paper of which he is also the lead author gives them as “2008-2011”. Avi Sharon, et al. (2013). “Outdoor Dispersion of Radioactive Materials.” Paper presented to the 26th Conference of the Nuclear Societies in Israel, 307-310. http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/44/128/44…. Last accessed 7 July 2015. But in a 2008 paper co-authored by Yaar and Sharon, they wrote that GF-I commenced in 2006. See: Ilan Yaar & Avi Sharon (2008). “Calibration of a Cloud rise model for a RDD Scenario.” In Samuel Apikyan, et al., eds. Prevention, Detection and Response to Nuclear and Radiological Threats. (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer Science & Business Media), 193-205.

[64] Technitium-99m (99mTc) is a metastable isotope of the element technetium and a commonly used tracer radioisotope in nuclear medicine. It results from the neutron activation of molybdenum-98 to produce molybdenum-99, which decays into technitium-99m. The experiments coupled an explosive charge and a canister containing 5-7Ci of technitium-99m suspended in 30cm3 of saline water. A non-experimental RDD would likely use a metallic cobal-60 or iridium-192 source.

As Yaar, et al., write, Technitium-99m is well suited for these experiments: it is easily accessible at a reasonable cost; it has a short half-life (6.02 hours) that allows sufficient time for data collection while short enough to permit access to the experimental field within several days; and its 140.5 keV gamma line is easily detected using simple gamma detectors. [Ilan Yaar, Itzhak Halevy, Zvi Berenstein & Avi Sharon (2016). “Protecting Transportation Infrastructure against Radiological Threats.” In Simon Hakim, Gila Albert & Yoram Shiftan (2016). Securing Transportation Systems. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), 32]

[65] Avi Sharon, et al. (2013). “Outdoor Dispersion of Radioactive Materials.” Paper presented to the 26th Conference of the Nuclear Societies in Israel, 307-310. http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/44/128/44…. Last accessed 7 July 2015. Sharon, et al. (2013) state that there were seven GF-II detonations while Yaar et al. (2016) state that there were fourteen GF-II and GF-III detonations using liquefied Technitium-99m.

[66] Particles in the air will tend to settle to the ground as a function of several factors including gravity, particle size, and the aerosol’s density.

[67] Sharon, et al. (2012) identify the nonradioactive power as titanium oxide while Yaar, et al. (2016) indicate that two nonradioactive powders, caesium chloride (CsCl) and strontium titanate (SrTiO3), were used.

Avi Sharon, et al. (2012). “An Experimental Study of Indoor Dispersion of Radioactive Material.” Paper presented to the 26th Conference of the Nuclear Societies in Israel, 307-310. http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/44/128/44…. Last accessed 7 July 2015.

[68] National Defense University (2002), op cit., 6.

[69] Hebrew transl.: Mivtza Bustan.

[70] International Atomic Energy Commission (2011). “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Syrian Arab Republic.” GOV/2011/30 (24 May 2011), 2. https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/gov2011-30.pdf. Last accessed 9 July 2015. According to this report, “Syria maintains that the particles of anthropogenic natural uranium found at the Dair Alzour site originated from the missiles used to destroy the building.”

[71] The origin of uranium in soil can be from geochemical sources or from anthropogenic activity, e.g., disposed nuclear waste.

[72] Ibid., paragraph 21.

[73] Erich Follath (2015). “Assad’s Secrtet: Evidence Points to Syrian Push for Nuclear Weapons.” Der Spiegel [published online in English 9 January 2015]. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/evidence-points-to-syria-still…. Last accessed 9 July 2015. Regarding the Al-Qasyr site, a Jane’s Defense Weekly analysis stated, “The site has previously been identified by IHS Jane’s as a possible weapons storage complex that could be used by the Lebanese militant group Hizbullah, which controls the adjoining Lebanese territory.” However, “The assertion that Syria built an underground reactor to produce plutonium in two years should consequently be treated with skepticism.” Jennie Binnie (2015). “Analysis: Syria’s alleged secret reactor site.” IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly (15 January 2015). http://www.janes.com/article/47950/analysis-syria-s-alleged-secret-react…. Last accessed 7 July 2015.

[74] Marj as Sulțān is located a few kilometers away from the site of a Syrian government chemical weapons attack on 21 August 2013.

[75] “Background Briefing with Senior U.S. Officials on Syria’s Covert Nuclear Reactor and North Koreai’s Involvement” dated 24 April 2008. http://fas.org/irp/news/2008/04/odni042408.pdf. Last accessed 7 July 2015.

[76] On this point, spent fuel rods are sometimes mentioned as potential sources of radiological material. However, they are very hot, heavy, and difficult to handle, making them less desirable for use in a radiological weapon than commonly supposed. See: Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction (1999). “First Annual Report to the President,” (15 December 1999). http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/www/external/nsrd/terrpanel/terror.pdf. Last accesed 10 July 2015, 33.

[77] David Albright, Serena Kelleher-Vergantini & Sarah Burkhard (2015). “Syria’s Unresolved Nuclear Issues Reemerge in Wake of ISIL Advance and Ongoing Civil War.” Institute for Science and International Security Imagery Brief (30 June 2015). http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/Syria_June_30_2015…. Last accessed 7 July 2015. The report includes satellite imagery of a building erected on the site of the destroyed reactor in progressive stages of dismantlement and possible signs of excavation work inside the building.

[78] Ibid.

[79] “Report: Islamic State Excavating Destroyed Syrian Nuclear Site.” The Jewish Press [published online 1 June 2015]. http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/report-islamic-state-excav…. Last accessed 7 July 2015.

[80] “Isis’s dirty bomb: Jihadists have seized ‘enough radioactive material to build their first WMD’.” The Independent [published online 10 June 2015]. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isiss-dirty-bomb-jih…. Last accessed 7 July 2015.

[81] John R. Haines (2014). “’Dirty Bombs’: Reason to Worry?” Foreign Policy Research Institute E-Notes (July 2014). https://www.fpri.org/docs/haines_-_dirty_bombs_0.pdf.

[82] Abu al-Usood al-Faqir (2005). “Instances of Radiation Pollution from 1945-1987.” www.al-farouq.com (October 2005). Quoted and translated in Sammy Salama & David Wheeler (2007). “From the Horse’s Mouth: Unraveling Al-Qa`ida’s Target Selection Calculus.” James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute of International Studies [published online 17 April 2007]. http://cns.miis.edu/stories/070417.htm. Last accessed 9 July 2015. The online jihadist forum Muntadayat al-Farouq [author’s note: Farouq is the name of the second caliph Umar bin Khattab (634-644)] was active from August 2005 through early 2006 when its website (www.al-farouq.com) ceased operations.

On 9 October 2005 the Al-Farouq website published a document (“Nuclear Preparation Encyclopedia”) which its author under the nom de plume Layth al-Islam (“the Lion of Islam”) earlier posted on the al-Firdaws website (www.alfirdaws.org). According to one analysis, “All the information presented by the author is readily available in open sources, but he appears to be the first Al-Qaeda sympathizer to collect this information and translate it into Arabic.” [“Al-Qaeda Jihadi Website Publishes ‘Nuclear Preparation Encyclopedia’.” WMD Insights. 1 (December 2005/January 2006), 9. http://cns.miis.edu/wmd_insights/WMDInsights_2006_01.pdf. Last accessed 9 July 2015]

An analysis of the document [links to which were disabled shortly after its publication] concluded, “Unlike previous literature that was largely void of scientific data, this document contains tens of pages on a historical survey of nuclear technology, including an Arabic explanation of nuclear experiments, concepts, and an overview of Enrico Fermi as well as other prominent nuclear pioneers. Most disturbing, it includes information about critical mass and the amount of fissile materials needed in the construction of nuclear weapons. In addition, various sketches and diagrams in English and Arabic are provided of purported gun-type and implosion-type nuclear warheads, which are clearly borrowed from open-source information available on the Internet. […] However, similar to other al-Qaeda WMD production manuals, this nuclear encyclopedia contains numerous basic technical flaws.” [Sammy Salama & Lydia Hansell (2005). “Does Intent Equal Capability? Al-Qaeda and Weapons of Mass Destruction.” Nonproliferation Review. 12:3, 635. http://cns.miis.edu/npr/pdfs/123salama.pdf. Last accessed 9 July 2015].

[83] The relevant paragraph reads, “Let me throw a hypothetical operation onto the table. The Islamic State has billions of dollars in the bank, so they call on their wilāyah in Pakistan to purchase a nuclear device through weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials in the region. The weapon is then transported overland until it makes it to Libya, where the mujāhidīn move it south to Nigeria. Drug shipments from Columbia bound for Europe pass through West Africa, so moving other types of contraband from East to West is just as possible. The nuke and accompanying mujāhidīn arrive on the shorelines of South America and are transported through the porous borders of Central America before arriving in Mexico and up to the border with the United States. From there it’s just a quick hop through a smuggling tunnel and hey presto, they’re mingling with another 12 million “illegal” aliens in America with a nuclear bomb in the trunk of their car.” See: John Cantlie (2015). “The Perfect Storm.” DABIQ [published online May 2015], 77. http://media.clarionproject.org/files/islamic-state/isis-isil-islamic-st…. Last accessed 9 July 2015. For an excellent dissection of Cantlie’s hypothesized scenario, see Michael Cruickshank (2015). “Don’t stress. ISIS can’t buy a nuclear weapon.” Conflict News [published online 23 May 2015]. http://www.conflict-news.com/dont-stress-isis-cant-buy-a-nuclear-weapon/. Last accessed 9 July 2015.

[84] Hannah Arendt (1967) “Truth and Politics.” The New Yorker (25 February 1967), 78. She wrote, “consistent lying, metaphorically speaking, pulls the ground from underneath our feet and provides no other ground on which to stand,” a condition she called Bodenlosigkeit (literally, “groundlessness”) or to have no foundation.

“Magnificent façade” is from Aleksandr Panchenko’s essay, “Potemkin villages as a cultural myth,” in Panchenko (1999). Russkaya istoriya i kul’tura: Raboty raznykh let. (SPb.: Yuna), 462-475.

[85] CAPT David Cohen. USAF (1998). “Ionizing Radiation.” In: United States Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (1998). Report on United States Air Force Expeditionary Forces, Volume 3: Appendix I, I-125. SAB-TR-97-01 (February 1998).

[86] Torsten Sohns (1998). “Protection Against Weapons of Mass Destruction: A German Perspective.” In Oliver Thränert (1999). Preventing the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: What Role for Arms Control? (Bonn & Berlin: Freidrich-Ebert-Stifung), 145.

[87] LTC John Mark Mattox, USA, SHAPE (2003.). “Deterring Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and High-Energy Weapons Use in the War Against Terrorism:

The Moral Dimension.” Paper presented to JSCOPE 2003 Joint Services Conference On Professional Ethics, Anti-Terrorist Operations and Homeland Defense (30-31 January 2003). http://isme.tamu.edu/JSCOPE03/Mattox03.html. Last accessed 7 July 2015.

[88] Charles Ferguson, Tahseen Kazi & Judith Perera (2003). “Commercial Radioactive Sources: Surveying the Security Risks.” The Center for Nonproliferation Studies Occasional Paper No. 11. (Monterey: Monterey Institute of International Studies), 3. http://cns.miis.edu/opapers/op11/op11.pdf. Last accessed 13 July 2015.

[89] David Albright & Christina Walrond (2013). “Update on the Arak Reactor.” Institute for Science and International Security (15 July 2013). http://www.isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/Arak_complex_1…. Last accessed 13 July 2015.

[90] By some estimates, the converted core potentially could produce a greater amount of radioisotopes than the natural uranium core. See: Thomas Mo Willig, Cecilia Futsaether & Halvor Kippe (2012). “Converting the Iranian Heavy Water Reactor IR-40 to a More Proliferation-Resistant Reactor.” Science & Global Security. 20-2-3 (The Technical Basis for Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation Initiatives), 107. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08929882.2012.713767. Last accessed 13 July 2015.

[91] United States State Department (2015). “Parameters for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Nuclear Program” (2 April 2015). http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2015/04/240170.htm. Last accessed 13 July 2015.

[92] See: Paragraphs 68-70 in International Atomic Energy Agency (2004). “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Report by the Director General dated 15 November 2004. http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/iaea-iranreport-111504.pdf. Last accessed 13 July 2015. The author notes that heavy water reactors are optimal for the production of high quality, weapons-grade plutonium, and thus a proliferation concern.

[93] Albright & Walrond (2013), op cit. The quoted text is from IAEA (2004), op cit., paragraph 70.

[94] The Tehran Research Reactor is a 5MWt pool-type light water research reactor that was supplied by the United States in 1967 and is housed at the Tehran Nuclear Research Center (TNRC).

[95] Eric R. Braverman, Kenneth Blum, Bernard Loeffke, Robert Baker, Florian Kreuk, Samantha Peiling Yang & James R. Hurley (2014). “Managing Terrorism or Accidental Nuclear Errors, Preparing for Iodine-131 Emergencies: A Comprehensive Review.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health [published online 15 April 2014]. 15]. 11:4, 4158–4200.

[96] There are additional research reactors in Algeria and Morocco.

[97] “IAEA Studies Syrian Reactor Conversion.” Arms Control. Today [posted online 8 July 2015]. http://www.armscontrol.org/ACT/2015_0708/News-Briefs/IAEA-Studies-Syrian…. Last accessed 13 July 2015.

[98] ÇNAEM is the acronym of the Center’s name in Turkish, Çekmece Nükleer Araştırma ve Eğitim Merkezi.

[99] Chaim Levinson (2015), op cit.

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Obama To Bibi: Want Some (More) Money? – OpEd

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Ron Paul has always said that US foreign policy is incredibly simple: do what we say and we will send you money; disobey and we will bomb you. While there is (fortunately) little threat of the US dropping bombs on Israel over that country’s hysterical opposition to the recently-agreed Iran deal, the carrot has just become even more gold plated.

According to the New York Times, President Obama called Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week to promise him a massive increase in US military aid — from the current $3 billion per year to $4.5 billion — as bribe money to soothe Israeli fury over the possibility of peace breaking out between the US and Iran.

But, according to the Times, Bibi is playing coy with Obama’s generous offer of other people’s money, refusing to even consider the gift until the US Congress has the opportunity to kill the Iran deal. But if the real Israel lobby otherwise known as the US House and Senate are unable to nuke the nuke deal, Netanyahu will likely enjoy an additional $1.5 billion per year over the next ten years as a consolation prize. The Times quotes AIPAC-funded Washington Institute “scholar” David Makovsky as swearing that Netanyahu would never accept the additional payment from the US because he would view it as “muddying what he sees as the moral clarity of his objection” to the Iran deal. Well let’s not hold our breath.

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who comes to the Pentagon directly from the military-industrial complex, will be in Israel next week to wave a few dollars around to the uncontainable glee of the Beltway death merchants. US military aid to Israel is like US military aid to other countries — most of it finds its way back to the US military-industrial complex and their posh homes in the Virginia suburbs of McLean and Clifton. It is the most deadly welfare for the rich.

There is no word yet on how much additional military equipment the US will make available for sale to other US “allies” in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, but it is becoming clear that each of our “friends” are going to extract their pound of flesh from the American taxpayer for Obama’s unpardonable sin of seeking rapprochement with Iran.

This article was published by the RonPaul Institute.

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Republicans Outraged After Trump’s Attack On McCain

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John McCain is only seen as a war hero because he was taken prisoner in the Vietnam War, billionaire and Republican presidential contender Donald Trump said, angering fellow GOP party members.

“He’s not a war hero,” Trump said after the moderator of the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, used the term to describe McCain.

“He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured,” the real estate mogul explained.

McCain, an Arizona Senator and one of the key figures in the Republican Party, was a navy fighter pilot during the Vietnam War.

After his plane was shot down over Hanoi in 1967, he spent five years in prison, where he was frequently tortured.

Trump called McCain “a loser” for being defeated by Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race.

“I supported McCain for president. He lost and let us down. … I’ve never liked him as much after that,” he said.

“I don’t like losers,” the tycoon, whose support among Republicans spiked at 57 percent, according to recent polls.

Trump stressed that he is also dissatisfied with McCain’s performance as a senator due to the 78-year-old not doing enough for veterans.

“John McCain talks a lot, but he doesn’t do anything,” he said.

At a news conference after the event, Trump tried to take the edge of his comments, saying that “If a person is captured, they are a hero as far as I’m concerned.”

“I was not a big fan of the Vietnam War,” he said, telling the media that he used student deferments and later a medical deferment to avoid joining the army during the US-Vietnamese conflict of 1955-1975.

The tycoon’s camp then released several statements to clarify his stance, with one of them explaining that Trump isn’t sympathetic towards McCain, but has “great respect for all those who serve in our military, including those that weren’t captured and are also heroes.”

The war of words between the two began earlier this week when Trump called McCain a “dummy” after the latter said that the tycoon’s decision to join the election race brought out the “crazies.”

Other high-ranking Republicans, including 2016 presidential candidates, used Trump’s comments to criticize the billionaire, saying the he was unfair to both McCain and the veterans.

Former Texas Governor Rick Perry tweeted that Trump’s “disgraceful” comments made him “unfit” to be the US president and the commander in chief.

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Modi’s Central Asian Swing: Shoring Up Strategic Interests – Analysis

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By Nilova Roy Chaudhury*

Not since India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru travelled across Russia and a total of five Soviet Republics in a grand official sweep 60 years ago, has another Indian prime minister attempted something similar. Nehru’s visit spread over weeks, but Narendra Modi visited six countries in eight days.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited five Central Asian Republics (CAR – ‘stans’), beginning with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, from where he travelled to Ufa in Russia for the BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summits, before going on to Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

“I will be in Kazakhstan, the largest of the Central Asian nations, on July 7th and 8th. This will be my second stop (after Tashkent in Uzbekistan) during my visit to Central Asia. Kazakhstan is India’s largest trading partner in Central Asia and has been a valued friend of India at various international forums. India and Kazakhstan have a strategic partnership,” Modi said in a statement. He was on an eight-day, six-nation tour from July 6, returning to India on July 13.

Deciding to visit the five CARs in one swathe, Modi has indicated that he will refocus government’s energies on a region where critically important strategic and economic interests are the main drivers shaping Indian policies. Modi’s visit was intended to renew traditional, cultural and civilizational ties with these former Soviet republics, which India terms as its ‘extended neighbourhood’, build connectivity, and assert its presence in the face of China’s ever-expanding influence. With North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) forces leaving Afghanistan, the CARs, three of which share long borders with Afghanistan, become more vitally important.

“Today, Eurasia is once again at the centre of global geopolitics,” wrote Rajiv Sikri, a former secretary in India’s foreign ministry, in an article in ‘The Wire’. “The most noteworthy development in the CARs over the last quarter century is the decline of Russia’s influence and the concomitant rise of China’s,” wrote Sikri. “Others, including India, still play only marginal roles in the region.”

According to Sikri, “Energy is a new, critical factor in strategic calculations. Road, rail and energy pipeline connectivity across Eurasia has dramatically improved. The flip side is that it has also made it easier for drug smugglers, terrorists and fundamentalists to move freely across borders.”

According to Sergei Karmalito, senior Counsellor at the Russian embassy. “With the USA leaving Afghanistan, there have been suggestions for the RIC (Russia, India and China) to step in to stabilise that country,” he said. “The CARs are also important for the North-South transport corridor,” Karmalito said.

“The INSTC (International North South Transport Corridor – a ship, rail, and road route for moving freight between India, Russia, Iran, Europe and Central Asia) is targeting Bandar Abbas, from Bandar Abbas up to the Caspian, and through the Caspian to Russia,” said Navtej Sarna, Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs. “So, there are various things happening. Somewhere you are missing a rail link, somewhere you are missing a road link, somewhere you are getting a positive development. Recently the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran rail link was inaugurated,” and this is good news for India, said Sarna, adding that India would be stepping up its pace of work at the Chabahar port in Iran, to act as a transit point for Central Asia.

India’s interests in Eurasia are fundamentally strategic, said Sarna. Instability in any of these countries could make them a haven for terrorists like ISIS, Taliban and Al Qaeda, other separatists and fundamentalists.

Talks during Modi’s visit focused on terrorism, which is a common concern in all five CARs, and tackling the rising influence of terror groups like the Islamic State. Over 1,500 youth from the region are reported to have joined the jihadi organization and are fighting in Syria and Iraq. The five countries, which follow moderate Islam and are secular in nature, are concerned about the spread of the Islamic State’s influence among its youth.

Since the USSR collapsed, India has tried to establish independent linkages with all the states, particularly the CARs, but has not been able to develop meaningful economic and people-to-people linkages primarily for lack of easy and reliable connectivity. India outlined a ‘Connect Central Asia’ policy three years ago, but did not get far.

“Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Central Asia is a landmark event to revitalize our ancient links with the region. CII estimates that trade with the five Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan can multiply manifold from the small base of $1.4 billion currently,” said Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

According to CII, major areas of opportunity for India in Central Asia include oil and gas, minerals and metals, agricultural products, pharmaceuticals, textiles and chemicals. The services sectors are an untapped potential between the two sides, including sectors such as Information Technology, education and skill development, and tourism. A high-level business delegation, representing sectors such as construction, pharmaceuticals, mining, banking, power transmission and IT accompanied the Indian prime minister to Kazakhstan.

Modi’s visit was aimed to re-engage with the resource-rich, land-locked countries that India has not managed to really engage with but where China has fast spread its reach through major infrastructure projects, like pipelines, and with unfolding plans like the ‘One Belt, One Road’ linkage project. The five countries are part of the old ‘Silk Road’, the ancient trade route through which not only silks and spices were ferried but was also a pathway for exchange of ideas, art, architecture and spiritual beliefs, like Buddhism.

According to Ashok Sajjanhar, former Indian ambassador to Kazakhstan, Moscow is now taking determined steps to regain its predominant influence in the CARs. “A Russia-dominated Eurasian Economic Union including Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan has been set up; Tajikistan too may join it. India is looking to be part of this initiative too. Economic relations will look up if India signs a Free Trade Agreement with the EEU,” Sajjanhar said.

In Turkmenistan, the $10 billion TAPI gas pipeline project was top on Modi’s agenda during his visit to Ashgabat. The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline is expected to bring Turkmen natural gas from its giant Dauletabad and Galkynysh gas fields to India. The legal framework for the pipeline project is to be finalized by September, then consortiums will be announced. The project is expected to take off in December, said Parakhat H. Durdyev, Turkmen ambassador to India.

Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are keen to have India on board the CASA 1000 project, under which the abundant hydropower energy of the two countries can be tapped. Both countries are rich in water cascading from the mountain ranges, said Samargiul Adamkulova, Ambassador of the Kyrgyz Republic to India.

India has some defence linkages with Tajikistan, which was the last stop on Modi’s itinerary. Modi gifted medicines for the India-Tajikistan Friendship Hospital, said Tajik Ambassador to India Mirzosharif Jalolov. Some agreements to boost economic and cultural cooperation were also signed.

*Nilova Roy Chaudhury is a senior journalist and foreign policy analyst. She can be reached at editor@spsindia.in

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Russian Orthodox Activists Increasingly Engage In Pogrom-Like Violence, Moscow Journal Says – OpEd

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An article in the current issue of “Sovershenno Sekretno” asks whether there is a line between Russian Orthodox Church activists and those who engage in pogrom-like violence. It concludes sadly that there is not — and that church activists and those engaged in attacks on other groups are increasingly one and the same people.

The monthly’s Dmitry Rudnyev writes that he decided to focus on this issue after the fights between those who want to build more Orthodox churches in Moscow and those who oppose these being put in what are now public parks and Father Dmitry Smirnov’s shutting down of a concert that he said was disturbing prayer (sovsekretno.ru/articles/id/4902/).

Such incidents, he continues, “are taking place ever more frequently, and the causes which generate among Orthodox [activists] such an incommensurately stormy reaction are becoming ever more varied.” That raises the question as to why Russian Orthodoxy has “suddenly acquired hysterical aspects” and seems to be trying to find occasions to be upset.

“Five to ten years ago, the phrase ‘Orthodox radicalism’ would have elicited a condescending smile,” Rudnyev says. “Today however, this has become one of the realities of Russian religious life.” So far, “thank God,” it hasn’t claimed human victims in the way that nationalist or Islamic radicalisms have.

“But the problem of radicalism in the church exists,” he continues, “and today people talk about it in a serious way.”

Yevgeny Nikiforov, head of the Orthodox Radonezh Society, says that “the percent of radically inclined people among believers is absolutely equal to the percent of radicals in society as a whole.” It generally “’infects’” recent converts, but at times, it involves those who have been active in Orthodoxy their entire lives.

An example of the latter is Father Dmitry Smirnov, Nikiforov continues. He is nominally only a priest, but “in the structure of the church he has already for a long time occupied the slot of a bishop. This is like in the army where a colonel may serve in a general’s place” and where he enjoys the trust of those above him.

What Father Dmitry did, Archdeacon Andrey Kurayev says, reflected “a free decision” on his part. Each of us is complicated, and each makes his choice as a result of a multitude of causes pressing on him.” What makes his action of concern is that Father Dmitry had the kind of access that would have allowed him to solve this problem without any conflict.

He “could have made a single telephone call,” Kurayev continues, and there wouldn’t have been a problem. But “of all the mass of possible resolutions of the problem, Father Dmitry chose the path of open and forceful intervention. And this is not a result of shortcomings of his mind or experience.” Instead, it reflected his judgment of “the general atmosphere of today’s dialogue between the church and society.”

Since 2012, Kurayev says, some in the church have felt “called upon to show that we also are a force agency,” that the people of the church are part of the foundation of the secular authorities, that they can act on that basis, and that they may move against anyone confident that they won’t be punished even if we go beyond the bounds of legality.

In this, they are not different from the pro-Putin bikers, and this propensity to engage in violence won’t end as long as the powers that be continue to support. Indeed, Kurayev continues, actions like those of Father Dmitry “will be a regular feature” of Russian life.

What makes this situation somewhat of “a paradox,” Kuryaev says, is that Patriarch Kirill “is one of the most educated of all the hierarchs of the Russian Church” but because of his dramatic expansion of the number of bishoprics, he has brought into the hierarchy many who are uneducated and thus inclined to settle things not by negotiation but by violence.

Roman Lunkin, a senior specialist at the Center for the Study of the Problems of Religion and Society at the Russian Academy of Sciences, agrees. “Earlier under Aleksii II, the church did not use in its political goals various kinds of radical groups … this would have been unnecessary and quite dangerous in a democratic society where the church suddenly wouldhave been associated with the worst kind of nationalists suffering from xenophobia.”

“However,” Lunkin says, “the situation in [Russia] has changed.”

The Church needs the help of the state to achieve its goals, he continues, and consequently, “radical Orthodox tricks are called upon to convince the authorities that Orthodoxy is a powerful force. Therefore, often the hierarchs themselves make declarations in defense of the Orthodox” in ways that offend others.

However, “the paradox is that the more official representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church demand from the government and even impose on it its own ideology, the more such people come into conflict with what church life really needs,” Lunkin says.

The church radicals, he continues, have little support: “the majority of believers have no desire … to prohibit plays or break up rock concerts.” Instead, they properly understand that “the single task [which the church must fulfill in the future] is the construction of an Orthodox community in a democratic society in which believers support one another, life according to the law, and respect even non-believers” rather than use force to address problems.

Moving in that direction is a long and slow process, Lunkin says, and the actions of some who speak for the Russian Orthodox Church are not helping. “But the process is inevitable and it is already in course.”

There have always been radicals in and around the church, but in general, the hierarchy has kept them on a short leash as was the case with Bishop Diomid of Sakha in 2008, the scholar says. His views were quite radical then, but now they would be viewed as more or less mainstream.

(On Diomid, see windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2008/07/window-on-eurasia-orthodox-schism.html, windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2008/08/window-on-eurasia-diomid-tapping-into.html, windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2008/07/window-on-eurasia-bishop-diomid-raises.html, windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2008/06/window-on-eurasia-diomid-case.html and windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2008/07/window-on-eurasia-how-much-support-does.html.)

Indeed, the “Sovershenno Sekretno” journalist says, there is evidence that some in the church hierarchy like Father Dmitry are actively sponsoring radical groups like the Movement in Support of 200 Churches and the Movement of 40 by 40 and encouraging their members to go from one place to another to push their views, something ordinary believers would not do.

And many of those in the leadership of these groups are not only followers of Father Dmitry but show both his intolerance and willingness to engage in force, two things that alienate many ordinary believers even if they are not inconsistent with the kind of values being promoted by the Putin regime.

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South-East Europe On Edge Of Civilization: Keep Public In Ignorance And Mediocrity – Essay

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Philosophy of the borough: The less you know, you better know how. The more you know, you know less how!

First:

Educate future teachers and professors in such a way that even form them it is not possible to understand the basic law of science – that everything should be questioned until the proof is on the table.

Upon that backdrop we then come to the No.7 of Noam Chomsky’s “Ten Strategies of Manipulation”:

7. Keep the public in ignorance and mediocrity

Making the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used to control and enslave. – “The quality of education given to the lower social classes must be as poor and mediocre as possible so that the gap of ignorance it plans among the lower classes and upper classes is and remains impossible to attain for the lower classes (See “Silent Weapons for Quiet War“).

Second:

Within the area of South-East Europe (actually in all countries) exists the following:

1. Less knowledge is accepted and gained during the education process: Making this the easiest way to manipulate the future lifes of the people;

2. Language: If I am from Serbia, I will be taught only about Cyrillic alphabet letters and not about the Latin alphabet, and if I am from Croatia vice versa. In Bosnia and Herzegovina it is even funnier, because it will depend on which people I belong (Croats – Latin; Serbs – Cyrillic; and Bosniak Muslims – both Latin and Cyrillic including some Turk loan-words).

3. History: We will teach “my” nation about “our” history as victors throughout the ages in the textbook in the schools, regardless from which country you are from in South-East Europe. People (not only those who escaped being brainwashed within the last twenty five years) do not know that “my” history might not be a completely true.

And example of such myths:

  • In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosniak Muslims talks about the Turks and their time within BiH (between the 14th Century to the end of 19th Century) as the time of prosperity, forgetting that the Turks were invaders.
  • In Serbia, Serbians talks about the famous Battle of Kosovo back in 1389 as a victory against the Turkish empire, forgetting that this was a massive loss (lost battle) that happened for them.
  • In Croatia they talk today about the Illyrian language written in dictionaries and grammatical books back in 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries as the part of Croatian history with the explanation that Illyrian language = Croatian language, but this is not true. The truth is that Illyrian was synonym for the Vlach language, and as a matter of fact for Orthodox Serbian language, it has been used as the group identifier for all South Slavs. Furthermore that term has been used to determine ancient residents of the Balkans and has been used for the appointing of the štokavian dialect (See: Andreja Zorić, Munchen, Germany – 2005 and Zagreb, Croatia – 2006).

4. Enemies: All others and those who are different from my “nation” are the enemy. Just check out the media and textbooks throughout the region of South-East Europe. Only a few liberal examples might be found.

  • In Serbia, enemies in the textbook for schools are (see the book “Školokrečina” of Nenad Veličković, published by Mass Media Sarajevo, 2015 – the title of the book might be translated as “Backwater school” – Info: http://www.skolegijum.ba/ ) Turks, Germans (using the word for them “Švabo”), Catholics, converts, Ustaša’s (Nazi associates in Croatia during World War II), and Albanians.
  • In Croatia, the enemies are Hungarians, Četnik’s (Nazi associates in Serbia), Turks, the Habsburg monarchy, Venetians, Turks, and Serbs (knaves).
  • In Bosniak Muslim textbooks the enemies are Austrians.

5. Territory: As I said in a recent radio show (Radio FBiH…Editor Ljiljana Simic…04.06.2015), “Patriotism is the sanctuary for crooks”. As such, ignorance that focuses on territory and the supremacy of “my” nation are the preconditions for ultra-patriotism.

  • For Bosniak Muslims the fatherland is Bosnia and very rear Herzegovina.
  • For Serbs the fatherland is where lies the Serbian soul (or grave, or bones) – even if in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
  • For Croats the fatherland is the land of Croats, regardless where they live – Croatia and/or Bosnia and Herzegovina.

6. Symbols: The anthem, flag, coat of arms…reflects the soul of the nation. For others and those who are different, these items can also be offending: “But, who cares, if we are unified under them.”

7. Religion and tradition: Ignorance about others and those who are different is based (in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia, but in other South-East Europe countries as well) on the idea that I have to respect, above all else, my own traditions (read: nationalism) and religion. And there is no learning about other religions and/or traditions but my own. Also, we are not even allowed to question or have any  kind of criticism with regard to religion and tradition: “Everything is perfect within my nation, by all means.”

8. Gender and patriarchate: Nobody, exactly nobody within the SEE is developing knowledge in regards to an open discussion about sexuality – none. There is no conversation about sexuality in school, and if there is, it is very rare indeed and depends on individual goals, regardless that there are nowadays talk about such, but because of the Item 7. above, it is still very delayed. Also, patriarchate structures consider the father (male) as the boss, the leader of the nation – God in the family. There is no democracy at all.

Third:

Namely, to fulfill Chomsky’s No 7. Manipulation strategy, in the media and textbooks there have been used:

  1. Dealing with the form instead of the essence (deviation, deflections) and attention of the people has been diverted from important subject to those that are not important (recently – example: Srebrenica, 11.7.2015 – everybody talks about attack on Prime Minister of Serbia and less talk about the funeral of 136 murdered people)
  2. Implying and insinuation connected to the news and stances regarding certain points of view.
  3. Reduction and making conclusions on small patterns.
  4. Mystification, deceitfulness – if you repeat one lie ten times it becomes the truth.
  5. Invocation – based on invoking one essay of thoughts with another one.
  6. Absorption – on purpose giving the wrong interpretation of other and different people and transferring defects of “my nation” into virtues and using (and abusing) only partial information that is connected with current ideology.
  7. Arrogance, ignorance – by intentionally avoiding discussion, by intentionally not seeing others (as mentioned in the book of N.V. above). Focusing on stereotypes with no accompanying critical opinion.

So, how can we fight against all of this and stay normal?

Through the creation of:

  1. Independent source of critical thought that will question any information given by the current ideologies in SEE – through the establishment of citizen-scientist agencies that will learn to teach about mutual interaction as only way out from nationalism – knowing better about others who are different from ourselves, allowing us to know ourselves better and to interact better with others.
  2. Opening the public broadcasting service to the presentation of historical, sociological, and geographical facts that will be based on scientific truth and not on “ideological truth”.
  3. Using new media (social networks above all) to create a brotherhood of different thoughts and not a brotherhood of “my nation” – i.e. no improvement of my own “nation” without interaction with other “nations”.

And this something that needs to be done not only in South-East Europe, but all around the world: “We are all red under our own skin.” Does that means that we all are communists?

As I wrote a long time ago: “In former Yugoslavia, during Tito’s time, ideology was religion…In current times, and in former parts of that Yugoslavia, religion is ideology.”

Wake up please, dear Serbians, Bosniak Muslims, Croats, Slovenians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Albanians and others or…

…as my my dear Bob Dylan said, the “Answer is blowing in the wind.”

The post South-East Europe On Edge Of Civilization: Keep Public In Ignorance And Mediocrity – Essay appeared first on Eurasia Review.

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