Israel Cannot Be Touched; It Must Remain A Nuclear Power. ~UN Attempts to Say

In the build-up to the final agreement for Syria to hand over its chemical weapons and place them under international control, embattled President Bashar al Assad attempted to mull what the world knows can never be possible; that Israel should destroy its own stockpile of chemical weapons too. It was another good try anyway. Assad knows better (but was trying to render his own voice so as not to appear weakened) that Israel is the only country in the world that can do whatever it likes without anybody holding it culpable.

The United States does not need to bark or roar before the majority of the UN member states know what to do as regards any resolution presented against Israel on the floor of the UN General Assembly or any of the the UN-affiliated bodies. The UN Security Council is simply a no-go area. Israel equals veto. An Arab-backed resolution targeting the Jewish state for criticism over its clandestine nuclear weapons arsenal was voted down by member states of the UN nuclear agency. Fifty-one countries voted against the so-called ‘Israeli Nuclear Capabilities’ measure and 43 states voted for it.

The indefinite postponement last year of an international conference on banning atomic arms in the region led to the frustration of the Arab states; hence, proposed the rejected measure at the annual member state gathering of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The US had pushed for the Israel’s neighbours not to present the text of the resolution. The US knows full well that it will die a natural death as always.

If the text had been adopted, Israel would have been compelled to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and place its nuclear facilities under IAEA monitoring.  Diplomats had expected a close vote. The United States said the move would endanger broader diplomatic efforts to create a Middle Zone free of weapons of mass destruction. Israel said it would severely undermine efforts to hold regional security talks.

Despite the warnings, Ambassador Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, head of the Arab League group at the IAEA, earlier said the draft resolution would go ahead. "The world has to know that Israel is not playing a constructive role, that Israel has a [nuclear] capability," Ramzy told Reuters. Iran for its part said this week Israel's nuclear activities "seriously threaten regional peace and security."

World powers agreed in 2010 to an Egyptian plan intended to lay the groundwork for establishing a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction. The US, who co-sponsored the meeting, said it would not take place as scheduled last December and did not forward a new date. Arab diplomats said they had held back on proposing the resolution over the last two years in a failed bid to buoy chances for the Middle East conference.

"We have engaged seriously and constructively in the preparations [for the conference]. The Israelis have been playing for time, delaying. We have never seen enough seriousness on their part," Ramzy said. Israel's atomic energy chief, Shaul Chorev, said that Arab states were using this week’s IAEA meeting as a platform for "repeatedly bashing" his country. The Arab-backed resolution only deepens "existing distrust" among the region's countries, he said.

Israel is believed to possess anywhere from 75 to as many as 400 nuclear weapons, including thermonuclear weapons in the megaton range. Israel has never confirmed or denied being in possession of the arms. In the most recent US report on the Israeli arsenal, published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, nuclear weapon proliferation experts Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen assess that Israel stopped producing nuclear warheads back in 2004 once it reached around 80 munitions, RT reported.

However, the country can easily double its arsenal since it has enough fissile material to build at least another 115 bombs, the experts say. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Israel’s assumed nuclear weapons stockpile made the country “a target” and “create foreign policy problems,” AFP reported.

Putin said “the technical advantage of Israel – we need to say this directly – is such that it doesn’t need nuclear weapons. Israel is already in a technical military sense several heads above the countries in the region.” He added that Syria had developed chemical weapons “as an alternative to the nuclear weapons of Israel.”

Despite the glaring tactical and strategic advantages of Israel over all countries in the Arab World, it still continues to roar profusely over the Iranian nuclear programme which Tehran had reiterated countless number of times that it is for peaceful purposes. Israel's stance has made Western powers slam numerous biting sanctions on Iran. Ayatollah Khamanei released a Fatwa in 2004 that nuclear weapons are not endorsed by Islam and was re-echoed recently by President Rouhani. However, Netanyahu continues to claim they are all lies.

The same Netanyahu was confirmed by former French President, Nicholas Sarkozy, as a foremost liar while President Obama confirmed him as being deceptive. They were unknowingly overheard by some reporters. The world only understands propaganda. It is a case of he who controls the media or has the most formidable influence on the media controls the minds and thought processes of many in the world.

This is why a McCain will always and maybe will forever be furious that a Putin is taking the [media] war to their doorstep by writing a masterpiece and an evergreen speech to the American people in the New York Times, where Putin lectured the 'most democratic' nation on earth on how to respect international law which would prevent the escalation of wars and to stop relying on brute force like Adolf Hitler. John McCain retorted with a vainglorious trash; neglecting virtually all the issues raised while attacking solely the personality of Putin and lectured Russians on how to be gays.

The Thinkers, Leaders and their War of Words; Washington versus the Kremlin

Either President Putin is fervently hated or mildly loved, he has done what the world continues to wish since the demise of the Soviet Union; reduction in wars especially Washington-led and backed wars. He has successfully dissuaded the United States from the usual 'no one can question me' nature. He has moved the thinking of the US away from 'I can strike any nation at will if it does not comply with Washington-imposed standards and red lines'.

Putin might be hated really based on Western fabrication and portrayal of him but he is currently ensuring all rational humans have the best rest of minds as possible. Had the US struck Syria, the world would currently be moving closer to an Iraq and a Libya by now. It is natural of Washington and NATO to strike, leave the country in disarray and stylishly exit such. Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya are ready-made illustrations.

Putin has finally completely changed the perception of the powers in Washington that everything is not all about war-war; it could be a case of word-word too and he is succeeding in that. No American leader would naturally have written an op-ed in any Russian Times long before now because to them, the US is too powerful and no one can challenge it in all spheres of life. Putin just did and basically through Snowden, Syria and his op-ed in the New York Times. In response, Senator McCain, the seemingly most 'powerful' war-hawk today retorted in kind.

Republican Senator John McCain has slammed President Vladimir Putin’s polices in an op-ed headlined “Russians deserve better than Putin,” written for Russia’s online newspaper Pravda.ru. McCain accused Putin and his associates of corruption, punishing dissent and creating an economy “based almost entirely on a few natural resources.” The US senator also singled out the case of Russian lawyer Sergey Magnitsky, who died in prison. McCain, who says he is often referred to as “an active anti-Russian politician,” described himself as “pro-Russian” and said he was not an antagonist of that country’s citizens.

McCain apparently refused to link the case of Edward Snowden and Sergey Magnitsky as well as failed to grab the tenets of Putin's op-ed which was primarily to tell Obama not to create fundamentalist ideology in the Americans through his 'Exceptionalism Stance'. What Putin is simply saying is that sensible countries of the world are tired of over-dependence on brute force by the US to force nations to bow at its feet and the message in guise to the Americans is that their nation is hated because it is God's own. Which nation is Devil's own?

Poll Reveals American Soldiers Do not want Strikes in Syria

As John Kerry of the United States and Sergei Lavrov of Russia battle for the soul of Syria diplomatically in Geneva while the two Presidents, Obama and Putin trade jabs with Obama's 9/11's speech and Putin's counter-voice in the New York Times, American soldiers have simply been showing their disapproval for any involvement and mission in Syria.

The irony of any disapproval though is that it would not stop any recalcitrant American President bent on war and directed by his war-hawks but it goes a long way to show the awkward madness of what democracy is in the United States.

The US service-members oppose military strikes in Syria by a three-to-one margin, according to a poll by Military Times. An online survey of more than 750 active-duty troops found 75 percent of respondents were not in favour of airstrikes against the Assad regime.

A slight percentage more said it is not in the US national interest to get involved in the country’s civil war. Military Times said money and a war-weary isolationist streak were top reasons for the soldiers’ disapproval. Despite this disapproval, Senator McCain still wants nothing other than military strikes. One definitely wonders what would be happening in the world by now as regards wars if he were the President.

Syria and Obama's Nobel Prize: Bush's Clone Prepares for War in Syria; 'unreliable' Russia takes on Saudi

Who gave President Barack Hussein Obama, the presumed first 'man of colour' to rule America a Nobel Prize? The bribe is not working. It will never work. He is a clone. This is just like giving George Walker Bush the prize of a 'man of peace'.

The world is again been fooled by some microscopic warmongers who see wars as the only cards to be played once a government refused to dance to their nefarious whims and caprices. Logically, Bashar al Assad made the mistake earlier of embarking on such massive crackdown of protesters and in the other angle, Syria's earliest responses to the protests were better and satisfactory compared to Mubarak's Egypt and Gaddafi's Libya. Assad's government kept on making concessions on Thursdays.

He kept on paving the way for peace and peaceful resolutions but the recalcitrant elements among the protesters, probably belonging to al Qaeda, bolstered by NATO elements through Turkey or maybe waiting to catch in on Western hatred of al Assad refused to mellow down and allowed for peace. They chose to go so nauseously militaristic beginning from Homs and the government cannot just fold its arms watching. The crackdown though affected a lot of unarmed protesters but where two elephants fight, the grass suffers.

Almost all governments on earth employ the same tactics to silence protesters but that of a government not on the same page with western diktats are usually blown beyond proportion otherwise was Bahrain better than Syria when Damascus' protests started? Syria was much reasonable. It did not order for thousands of Iranian troops to silence and kill its citizens.

Saudi sent over one thousand soldiers into Bahrain to crush all peaceful protests. That will be allowed because Bahrain must not fall because of Iran. America's fifth fleet is there, Saudi needs a buffer zone and an ultimate 'destruction' of Iran to eliminate its most potent rival. Israel needs that too as Iran is a formidable bone on its throat. It is a real Middle East of confusion. America continues to claim al Qaeda is its enemy, that is just another slap on the world. People are taken to be morons. Al Nusra was listed by the State Department as a terrorist group but when its actions and bestial acts are needed in Syria, it became a rebel group. Who is fooling who?

Al Qaeda was created through Osama bin Laden in the nomenclature of a Mujahideen to oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan but became a terrorist group after accomplishing the CIA-led mission and decided to bite its master a little. That is the same way the Free Syrian Army will be tagged in some few years. The world is in real mess. Libya knows no peace again. Gaddafi like Assad was about completing the job; hence, the rebels would have surrendered and Libya would be stabilized. Those who took up arms against a government should fight their wars to the last not when a monster comes in and turns the whole country into a continuous 'graveyard'. That is what Iraq is today. That is what Libya is now.

North to West Africa is now suffering from the outcome of NATO's involvement in Libya. Islamist militants parade the territories blatantly, causing mayhem and havoc. Russia has centrally been an unreliable partner, hence it is really usually better and safer to dance to the tune of the United States who can flex its muscle than depend on a country with much noises and less action but cries. If the news making the round is anything to go by, which revealed the Kremlin has ordered massive strikes on Saudi Arabia because it was threatened by Makkah to hands off Syria and allow Assad to fall, then Moscow is not taken seriously because the powers know it is not ready to act, hence the bombs would likely rain on Syria.

Tentative UN report proved the rebels not Assad may have likely used the sarin nerve gas. NO! The powers do not want any conclusion again and they will never go through the UN. Going through the UN means Russia will stop them. How can that be? They want wars. They have been able to save a little after the depression and financial meltdown. They need to charge world's tension. They need to strike and create pandemonium. It is not about regime change but 'humanitarian'. Yes! We know how Gaddafi was deposed and Libya is now left naked.

It is always 'humanitarian' with bombs. The same government that encouraged Saddam Hussein to gas Iran is now the police against such weapons. The same government that refused to apologise on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the alpha and omega. Soon, another declassified document of the CIA will come out in some years and it will be revealed that Israel, Saudi Arabia or even Turkey with the backing of the United States pushed the rebels to use or knew the rebels will use the gas on 'children' like it happened in the Iraq-Iran war of 1980-88. The world is full of noises; no actions. They know Russia and China will not risk wars, so they behave like injected dogs everywhere.

The war on Iran has begun. President Morsi who has a soft side for Hamas has been sent packing. Syria will soon be out. Russia should be ready, it will be left naked. Iran is the main target. Arabs like Africans are the problems of their lands now. They blame Israel but refused to think and settle disputes among one another. The greed of the leaders has destabilized their region. Saudi Arabia does not allow Israelis into its territory but it is working for Israel by allowing Washington to continue to invade any nation Israel wants out of the 'map'.

Assad is winning the war; no doubt. They want the table overturned like in the Iraq-Iran war. Syrian opposition says it will not not attend Geneva-2 peace conference if does not gain militarily. It needs a leverage to force Assad out on the negotiating table. It has happened before, it is happening and will likely continue. They control and determine it. The shi'ites are going down. Saudi wants that. The sunnis must 'rule'. It is a planned agenda. Sunni monarchies; Saudi Arabia and Qatar primarily have committed to the war in order to ensure their own continued hegemony, especially in terms of energy production. A renowned author and geopolitical analyst F. William Engdahl has noted, Israel’s new gas discoveries off the Mediterranean coast add a new dimension to the struggle for dominance in the region.

The real terrorists are the police of the world. They are the ones who determine what terrorism is and label anyone not working in their favour as a terrorist. Everything looks like a planned agenda. President Obama spoke and said categorically: 'I have told Assad to leave so we can have a transitional government'. Obama, the president of another country ordering another sovereign head to leave. Will they not use all means even if sarin gas is the key? How come it is all coming after Obama's 'red line' speech? He was so bold because he knew they control the world. This is no real joke. That is just it. Bahrain and all repressive regimes on Washington's good book can kill their citizens with smile but once your act are against Washington, just try not to touch even a criminal.

It is the Balkan wars all over again. Balkanization of the Middle East has been effected. The wars must keep coming like it led to the first world war (WWI). Like the Balkans almost exactly 100 years ago, Syria has become the proverbial powder keg in which Western leaders play with matches. Almost all the players and powers in the Balkan wars are still present today. America did not join the start but joined in the larger war (WWI). The world should brace up once again.

United States missile interceptor test ends in failure

Though the United States and Russia are showing interests in reducing the stock of destructive nuclear batteries, the decisions are not effective. The tones are still more like that of the predecessors; SALT1 and SALT2 as well as the STARTs.

The two 'pledges' but the consequent actions are always anti-pledges. Russia recently successfully tested a prototype ICBM with mammoth destructive capabilities which was antithetical to its reduction facade.

United States of course did not go to bed despite Obama's interest in engaging Russia. It is also advancing to prove that arms race has no end in sight. The latest test of a US missile interceptor system from a Southern California coastal base failed to destroy its target, the third such consecutive result for Boeing Co., according to the Defence Department.

In the test, target designed to emulate an incoming long-range ballistic missile was launched from the US Army's Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll, in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

The interceptor missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, though it failed to intercept its target. The US military has tested the ground-based defence system a total of 16 times, with eight confirmed instances of a successful interception, the last of which was reported in December of 2008.

The Pentagon has said that the latest test will not affect a decision to expand the missile defence system, which is in part aimed at North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. Defence secretary Chuck Hagel announced in March an additional 14 new anti-missile interceptor batteries at a cost of nearly $1 billion.

The North Korea and Iran debacle have been Washington's excuses to bolster its arsenal while Russia usually cites US expansion into its 'sphere of influence'; Georgia, Poland and Ukraine as reason to be security-conscious and not go to bed too on missiles' build-up.

Obama-Putin agree to settle scores in Geneva. Obama to boost aid to Syria and Neighbours

After the two leaders; Putin and Obama, central from the outside to the conflict in Syria met, they made the pledge after a 2 hour meeting at the G8 summit to push the sides of the conflict to the negotiating table in Geneva.

“We have agreed to push the sides of the Syrian conflict to come to the negotiating table at the international Geneva conference,” Putin said.

“On some points, we still have a different stance, but we are united by an aspiration to prevent violence, to put an end to the growing number of victims, to solve the problem by peaceful means, including through negotiations at the international conference at Geneva,” the Russian President added.

President Obama also conceded that he has a “different perspective” on Syria than his Russian counterpart, but confirmed that both countries have a shared interest in stopping the violence and “securing chemical weapons” in Syria.

“We do have differing perspectives on the problem but we share an interest in reducing the violence, securing chemical weapons and ensuring that they're neither used nor are they subject to proliferation,” Obama said. “We want to try to resolve the issue through political means if possible.”

President Obama is set to announce a further $300 million in new humanitarian aid to Syria, which will bring the total of US aid during the two-year civil war there to over $800 million. A little less than half of the new aid package will go to Syria itself, with the rest being sent to neighbouring countries harbouring Syrian refugees, the White House said on Monday.

The Obama administration had already declared that Assad’s government had crossed a red line when it looked like Assad was winning the war despite all efforts to pull him down. Obama claimed new classified evidence showed chemical weapons use by government forces. As a result, American officials went on the record supporting the idea of military aid to the Syrian insurgency.

US officials had already told Reuters that Washington was also reviewing the possibility of setting up a no-fly zone in Syria that would extend 40km into its territory and would be used as a safe haven for refugees and a platform to train rebels. Moscow spoke out against the US plan to aid the rebels, saying Kremlin officials were “unconvinced” by the US claim of evidence.

Apart from Syria, in the course of their nearly two-hour-long talks the presidents touched on a number of sensitive issues including Iran, nuclear security and the prevention of nuclear arms proliferation, as well as cyber security and cooperation in fighting terrorism.

“We spoke in detail about strategic security between the two countries and the world in general. I think that we have opportunities to move forward in the most sensitive areas,” Putin said.

Russia to Soft-pedal on Oil Exploration

Russia’s remote regions could become alive with access by foreign companies to explore oil in order to avoid the possible decline in oil, gas and mineral extraction.

They may be allowed to co-developing onshore deposits of federal importance, the Russian Natural Resources Minister Sergey Donskoy told a news-conference. He explained deposits in the Far East and Eastern Siberia will be first.

The initiative concerns all kinds of mineral resources except of those on the continental shelf, the Russian Deputy Minister of Natural Resources, Denis Khramov, told the Vedomosti daily.

In current Russian law, oil and gas deposits of national importance are those having 70mn tones of oil and 50bcm of gas. The list of those deposits was outlined in 2008. Ever since, only two Russian majors, Gazprom and Rosneft, have had access to sea deposits, while the right to develop fields were put up for auction with the limited list of bidders.

The access of foreign investors to such deposits was restricted four years ago; they have to get government approval to have more than 10% of the company developing deposits of federal importance.

The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources expects oil production in the country to considerably drop in the near future. In 2013 the decline is expected to reach 0.8% or 510 million tonnes. In order to change the trend and until the Arctic shelf can fill the gap, which is unlikely to happen until 2020, the ministry plans to propel onshore production.

It is hoped the initiative will have a major impact on ore extraction as well as oil and gas. Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East are under-explored even though they have great potentials. If the initiative is approved by the government and the president, it could stimulate companies to develop the  area.

This will mark a turning point in Russia's Oil Industry and in Vladimir Putin's external rapport. The KGB 'guy' has always been skeptical of foreign investments and actions in Russia. Russia could simply be taking a leaf from China.

Russia and the United States: No Common Ground

                                                    'The fear of Putin.......'

It seems that US-Russian relations are in a state of pure noises and mere words full of repetitions and sounds and the only option left for the leaders of both countries is to behave like provincial actors repeating a meaningless jumble of words.

The security conference in Munich over the weekend provided a convincing demonstration of this. Both US Vice President Joseph Biden and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tried to put a positive face on things by emphasizing the New START, cooperation on Afghanistan and Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization, but their words left no doubt that the two countries are at loggerheads and that attempts to break the impasse will be the main focus of US-Russian relations for a long time to come.

No matter how many vague and evasive statements officials might make, it is obvious that US-Russian relations have hit what is probably their lowest point in the past 20 years. Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, which the Kremlin considers an infringement on Russian sovereignty. For its part, in the span of just a few months Moscow evicted USAID, announced its withdrawal from the Nunn-Lugar program, prohibited individuals with US citizenship from holding leadership positions in Russian nongovernmental organizations and banned US citizens from adopting Russian orphans.

On the surface, it would seem that Washington is so frightened by the erratic behavior of President Vladimir Putin that it is ready to accept the rules of his new game and play the whipping boy, thereby lending credence to Putin's claim that he is a tough guy who has forced the US to put up with his abuse. After all, Washington is willing to maintain the appearance of decent relations with Moscow because it desperately needs a northern transit route out of Afghanistan.

Many believe that the Obama administration will end up making concessions to Moscow in the next four years. After all, newly appointed Secretary of State John Kerry and likely new Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel have consistently opposed the very type of global interventionism that infuriates the Kremlin. In this situation, it would be logical to assume that Kerry, Hagel and National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon will push Obama to "appease" the Kremlin.

Concessions could take the form of an agreement not to deploy ships equipped with missile-defense interceptors in the Baltic and North seas, thereby relinquishing even the theoretical US ability to intercept Russian nuclear missiles. What's more, the U.S. could announce that it will postpone for an indefinite period the implementation of the fourth stage of deployment of its missile defense system, a stage that will give the US the ability to destroy long-range strategic nuclear missiles.

But even these bold efforts would be in vain because in reality, US missile defense deployments in Europe are just a pretext. The real reason for Putin's discontent with Washington is based in his sincere belief that the Moscow protests against his regime were US-­sponsored. He is convinced that the US State Department is out to stage a color revolution in Russia and deprive him of power.

This creates an obvious impasse. Washington cannot give the one guarantee that is most important for the Kremlin — that there will not be any more mass protests — for the simple reason that the State Department and CIA have no control over Russia's street demonstrations.

The Obama administration has recognized the futility of trying to appease Putin. For example, the US announced that it was withdrawing from the Civil Society Working Group of the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission. Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Melia did not mince words, saying the US was withdrawing because "recent steps taken by the Russian government to impose restrictions on civil society … called into serious question whether maintaining that mechanism was either useful or appropriate." In the end, Washington refused to take part in what had become a hypocritical farce.

If the decision to walk away from the civil society working group was linked to the new team in the State Department, then it is a clear sign of a major change in Washington's policy toward Russia. Biden's comments in Munich seem to confirm this. Yes, Russia remains a key player in solving global security issues that are important for Obama, but Biden made it clear that the US has no intention of pretending for the Kremlin's sake that Russia is a democracy. "It's no secret that we have serious differences on issues like Syria, missile defense, NATO enlargement, democracy, human rights. These differences are real," Biden said in Munich.

Washington does not want to pursue its old policy of engagement, which was based on the assumption that by working with Moscow on issues important to both sides, the US would gradually instill democratic values in Russia. This approach has never worked with the Putin regime. In Obama's second term, it seems that the US will treat Russia as it does any other authoritarian government and will express its disapproval when the regime violates the rights of its citizens.

If the first result of that new approach is the withdrawal from the Civil Society Working Group, then eventually the question of Russia's membership in the Group of Eight will be called into question. Last year, Putin ignored the G8 summit in the US, and the day may not be far off when the presidents of the seven leading democratic countries decide they have nothing to discuss with their Russian counterpart.