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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RMF who wrote (36918)	9/10/2009 2:55:21 AM
From: Broken_Clock	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

can we finally throw in the towel on Iranian nukes? Lack of Evidence Over Iran ‘Nukes’ Alarms US With US Poised to Press for New Sanctions, Rumors About Iran's "Breakout Capability" Are Spread by Jason Ditz, September 09, 2009 news.antiwar.com Though there appears to be virtually no evidence that they have any inclination to do so and considerable evidence to suggest they aren’t currently doing so, US Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Glyn Davies is now accusing Iran of desperately trying to retain the ability to hypothetically create a single atomic weapon if they chose to do so at some later date. The latest rumor mongering is based on assessments which US intelligence agencies have gleaned from the IAEA’s own report on Iran, which suggest that Iran may have enough low level enriched uranium stored up to use at the soon-to-be-open Bushehr nuclear power plant that, if they decided to enrich it further they’d have an outside shot at constructing a single, usable weapon of some sort. At the same time intelligence officials concede that Iran is not doing so. And indeed, the IAEA’s report does caution that there are some questions which remain unanswered, but it has continued to be able to confirm with absolute certainty that none of the low enriched uranium is being diverted to any other purpose. The IAEA has cameras installed at all of Iran’s enrichment facilities, so this hypothetical additional enrichment, even if Iran did possess the technology to do so (and there is some doubt to this) could not be done without immediate international attention. But with the US poised to make a new push for crippling sanctions this month, even speculative claims are better than no claims at all, and as they face an uphill battle to convince Russia and China of the need to destroy Iran’s economy to punish them, stories of what they might theoretically some day be able to do if they wanted to are sure to continue to pour out of Washington.

To: RMF who wrote (36918)	9/21/2009 4:43:41 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

McChrystal Report: More Forces or Failure in Afghanistan by Jordan Vivian 09/21/2009 Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s August 30 report -- which the White House has worked to suppress -- says in no uncertain terms that to avoid defeat in Afghanistan, America and its allies must invest more troops, material and time. HUMAN EVENTS has obtained a copy of the full unclassified report, in which McChrystal points to the “dual threat of a resilient insurgency and a crisis of confidence in the government and the international coalition” as the obstacles to victory. The full 66-page report can be read here in pdf format (see the first five pages for the commander's summary). In the highly publicized report Gen. McChrystal, commander of United States Forces in Afghanistan, warns that only “unwavering commitment” signaled by an increase in troops and shift in strategy will bring victory in the war-torn nation. “We must do things dramatically differently -- to change how we operate, and also how we think,” McChrystal writes in a five-page summary of the 66 page report. “The insurgents cannot defeat us militarily, but we can defeat ourselves.” McChrystal declares that a failure to “gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum” within the next 12 months “risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.” "Although considerable effort and sacrifice have resulted in some progress, many indicators suggest the overall effort is deteriorating," he writes. The content of the report was first publicized by The Washington Post, which said it withheld publication of portions of the document at the government's request. The sudden publicity of the sobering assessment is likely to provide further unwanted distraction from President Obama’s health care media push, coming only hours after Obama made unprecedented appearances on several Sunday morning talk shows. When questioned about the president’s response to the sudden pressure to increase troops in Afghanistan and risk endangering his support from the left, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama’s attention is not yet focused on resource decisions. Insisting that a focus on this new strategy “will be revolutionary to our effectiveness,” McChrystal’s assessment, while dour, does not preclude the possibility of lasting success. “As we analyzed the situation, I became increasingly convinced of several themes,” writes McChrystal, “that the objective is the will of the people, our conventional warfare culture is part of the problem, the Afghans must ultimately defeat the insurgency, we cannot succeed without significantly improved unity of effort, and finally, that protecting the people means shielding them from all threats.” There is currently no deadline for a decision to commit more troops to Afghanistan, and the president has insisted there has been no effort to delay such a request until a more politically opportune time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jordan Vivian is a HUMAN EVENTS intern and recent graduate of Principia College. He is the former editor in chief of the Principia Pilot student newspaper and host of The Cheat Sheet, a weekly news radio program on Principia Internet Radio. Feel free to email him at jvivian@eaglepub.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- humanevents.com