Where's Joe Biden in this ?

Here's a some stress relief for you.
The presidential dance-off 2008 :

New York a carnival for Ahmadinejad ?

Yes, he does it again. Iran's President Ahmadinejad is in New York, and again he's making a show of himself. Is it something in that American tapwater after all then ?

Read the mindbending interview with mister Ahmadinejad, conducted by Neil Macfarquhar for The New York Times. Find it here.

SWISH report : advice to al-Qaida

Paul Rogers at openDemocracy publishes the eighth SWISH report from the South Waziristan Institute of Strategic Hermeneutics to the al-Qaida Strategic Planning Cell. SWISH is a management consultancy that has issued seven advisory reports to al-Qaida before.

This time, ahead of the the US elections, this is the recommendation :

"Your concern must still be with the prospect of an Obama victory, and a key question is whether you should engineer a major attack against US interests shortly before the election. We would advise against this. Whether or not you have the resources to mount a major attack (and we understand why you will not take us into your confidence), the result could be unpredictable.

In the immediate wake of a 9/11-scale attack within the continental United States, Obama's advisers would know that this would benefit their opponent strongly. They might well then take the risk of going on the offensive against McCain, pointing to the folly of George W Bush's policies and the manner in which they have made the United States unsafe. It would be a risky strategy but these would be desperate times for the Obama campaign and it might just come off. The risk to you is too great and for this reason alone we do not advocate such an attack.

Instead, we stand by our recommendation in February 2008 that you seek, in the weeks before the election, to make it known that you favour Barack Obama and believe he would be a president with whom you could do business. This would be combined with strong statements to the effect that you believe a John McCain presidency would be a disaster for the United States and that he would be a leader unto darkness and death. Such a strategy, we believe, would go a long way to ensure he was elected, this being the outcome you should most earnestly desire."

Favoured by wide-eyed Europeans and shrewd muslim fundamentalists, Obama doesn't stand a chance in an America that has a cork up its ass.

Veto use in the Security Council

Not surprisingly Russia has threatened to veto any Security Council resolution on Georgia that didn't include a six point peace plan as proposed by French president Sarkozy. As a consequence, a recent draft was binned before it even got to the table.

In recent times news of Russia and/or China using or threatening its veto power in the United Nations Security Council has become more frequent. It seems as if both nations have only recently discovered their blocking capabilities, and are using them now with a vengeance.

For instance, a Zimbabwe resolution was vetoed by both countries; a Myanmar resolution was vetoed; China threatens to block a vote on a proposition to send Sudan's leader to The Hague; and Russia threatens to do the same with a Georgia proposal - as we mentioned above...

Only in their opposition to Iran have the five permanent SC members managed to occupy common ground - so far. It remains to be seen how long that will last in the face of growing international tensions surrounding the Georgia debacle...

Amidst all the consternation over the recent voting behaviour of Russia and China, one should remember that the US is an avid user of the veto too, especially with regard to the Middle East and Israel.

Russia has in fact used its veto rather sparingly so far, at least since the collapse of the Soviet empire. It is as yet too soon to say if a new trend is developing whereby Russia will translate its newly found self-confidence and national grandeur into obstructive behaviour in the SC.

China on the other hand seems to have definitely broken away from its former veto-reluctance. Even if it has only cast its veto 6 times so far, 4 of those have been issued in the last decade, and the last two vetoes have been submitted in 2007 and 2008, both in conjunction with Russia. The question whether China has turned to the veto to counterbalance US power is now open.

For those interested in the somewhat longer view of the situation, I recommend the following tables available at the Global Policy Forum website.

Changing Patterns in the Use of the Veto in the Security Council
as well as
Subjects of UN Security Council Vetoes

A general reading of the veto problem can be found on this Wikipedia page

Nato and Iran : On Line Opinion

My article on Nato and Iran has been published by On Line Opinion, Australia's leading opinion e-journal. Click here