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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: paul_philp who wrote (72536)	2/8/2003 11:32:42 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

David Warren connects some dots and draws some conclusions: The cameras may now focus directly on Iraq, with a sidebar displaying parallel events, not at the U.N., but in Korea. It is the "game" we've been awaiting for the last year, and it is going to be played for keeps. Looking ahead to the next fortnight, we should therefore be expecting surprises. We can be almost certain what two of these surprises will be. The first is a dramatic last-minute concession to Hans Blix and Mohammad el-Baradei. This is what Saddam Hussein has always done with his back to the wall, and believe me there are people who are still impressed. They no longer include any members of the U.S. administration, so the trick is not going to work. Saddam will back down on spy-plane overflights (now that he has had the time to prepare for them), or offer up more scientists to be interviewed (privately, in Iraq, in bugged rooms), or even make a deathbed confession about certain hidden stockpiles (a small fraction of what he owns), in the hope of turning the tables on Mr. Powell. But that will no more sway the members of the "alliance of the willing" who are poised to strike him down, than Mr. Powell's chapter-and-verse presentation swayed Schroeder or Chirac. It will merely make whistling noises as it passes through the empty spaces between the ears of the liberal media. The second is a major scare from North Korea. There may be a missile test (perhaps another over Japan), or a nasty incident at the DMZ (with GI casualties), or even a detectable underground nuclear explosion, I should think before next Friday. I would not be surprised to learn, eventually, that the regime of Kim Il-Jong was actually paid by Saddam in cold hard currency to perform such a stunt -- for it has a long track record of doing anything for cash. Those who think the present wild North Korean bellicosity is unconnected to developments in Iraq will be proved naïve. A third possible surprise -- more likely from the week after -- will be a sudden missile attack or other attempt at a large-scale terrorist hit on Israel, directed from Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. This is a very substantial wild card, for whether its president, Bashir Assad, fully understands it or not, allowing this to happen would open a second front between Syria and Israel, either just before or after U.S. special forces have taken positions around Baghdad. For as the Americans know, from both satellite and defectors, Saddam has been transferring some of his most lethal weaponry in advance of the inspectors through Syria to Lebanon. I find it hard to imagine this won't be consequential. All media eyes will be fixed, Valentine's Day, next Friday, on what must prove the final Iraq inspections report. Regardless what Messrs. Blix and el-Baradei say, the British are preparing to table what will amount to a war resolution in the Security Council on Monday the 17th. And regardless of its fate, we shall be waiting for the flash, from that day forward. davidwarrenonline.com

To: paul_philp who wrote (72536)	2/9/2003 9:47:07 AM
From: Rascal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<<The problem is that a large number of them hate you. Hate the fact of you. Hate is not the same as anger. Hate is a committment to destroy. You cannot engage the way you suggest with hate.>> This argument was used to describe the Russians Japanese Germans Vietnamese. And lo and behold, negotiation, engagement, peace created the 180 to make them allies. What's the difference between enemies and allies? The calendar and engagement. Rascal@ Ilovelogic.com