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

To: Win Smith who wrote (250545)	12/4/2007 8:58:08 PM
From: Ruffian	Respond to of 281500

lol....the usual suspects chime in..............now Bush was lying to the country on WMD in Iraq, right Lib?, now he is still lying saying Iran stopped the Nuclear process in 03, right Sicko?...........so what is Ur other point?.......never mind.............

To: Win Smith who wrote (250545)	12/6/2007 10:42:28 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Here is one of the best analysis of the NIE that I have read: atimes.com It is not everyday that both the CFR folks and Neocons call for the same thing. From the article: Interestingly, Brzezinski gave a logical explanation as to why the US and China should become equal stakeholders. He pointed out that cascading US-Iran tensions could cause a more dramatic shift in the global distribution of power than what the international system witnessed when the Cold War receded into history. He explained that unlike the US and China, Russia has an "uncertain role" in the Iran crisis. That is because Russia is an increasingly revisionist state, and denying Chinese and American access to Caspian and Central Asian oil is at the core of the Russian geostrategy. Also, Russia fears "potential Chinese encroachments on Russia's empty but mineral-rich eastern areas and American political encroachments on the populated western areas" of the former Soviet Union. Therefore, Brzezinski argued that unlike the US and China, Russia might even stand to gain from a political conflict in the Persian Gulf. Russia would certainly stand to gain out of a dramatic spike in oil prices, unlike the US and China, which would be badly hit. More important, high oil prices resulting from Persian Gulf tensions would leave Europe and China with no option but to depend heavily on Russian energy supplies. That is to say, "Russia would clearly be the financial and geopolitical beneficiary" of the Iran crisis. Brzezinski concluded, "A comprehensive strategic dialog between the United States and China regarding... ... The NIE poses Washington with a difficult choice. Prominent neo-conservative thinker Robert Kagan, who is close to the US administration, starkly posed the dilemma: "With its policy tools broken, the Bush administration can sit around isolated for the next year. Or it can seize the initiative, and do the next administration a favor, by opening direct talks with Tehran." Kagan argues a strong case for negotiations and suggests an agenda of intrusive IAEA inspections and monitoring of Iran's nuclear facilities, and underlines that any talks with Tehran should be wide-ranging and include such thorny issues as terrorism and al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas, and of course Iraq.