Nothing Up My Sleeve

Conditions: Glorious

Provocation

It seems to me that the biggest problem Iran has in their standoff with the West is Ahmadinejad himself. Speaking at the U.N last week:

The Iranian president said there was a theory that "some segments within the US government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East, in order also to save the Zionist regime.

"The majority of the American people as well as other nations and politicians agree with this view," he declared to the astonished chamber.
[...]

The United States led an enraged Western walkout after Ahmadinejad's comments on the Al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center, which was just four miles (six kilometers) from the UN headquarters. European Union delegations quickly followed and Canada boycotted the speech even before it started.

- google.com/

Now this is just flat-out stupid. And it makes dealings with Iran that much more difficult when their leader is making such stupid and provocative statements. And it wasn't the only stupid thing he's said while in New York.

(Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the United States of hypocrisy on Friday for criticizing the death sentence of an Iranian woman, while a woman was executed in the United States this week.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was convicted of adultery, but Iranian officials earlier this month suspended her execution by stoning after weeks of condemnation from around the world.

In the United States, Teresa Lewis, 41, was convicted of orchestrating the murders of her husband and stepson and died on Thursday by lethal injection in the state of Virginia. It was the first execution of a woman in the United States in five years.

Ahmadinejad told a news conference in New York, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, that the Iranian woman was accused of being an accomplice to the murder of her husband and that the case was still before the courts.

- reuters.com/

See the issue here is not that a woman has been sentenced to death (although that is a big damn deal in itself), the issue is about how the country carries out it's justice. America may be brutal in it's justice, but it is at least clinical in it's procedure. While you can compare sentencing a woman to death for murder, you can't really compare stoning to death with a lethal injection.

I can't really think that Ahmadinejad doesn't know that, in the same sense that I can't really think that Ahmadinejad believes 9/11 was an inside job. So I have to suspect that the man is acting more as a provocateur than anything else, willing to make outlandish claims in order to try and take control of the press, a press that has become more and more critical of his leadership, a press that is seeping more and more onto Iranian televisions and newspapers. What is the long game here? What is really going on?



- Peace out

Open The Gates

Conditions: All Shook Up

Enemies Become Allies

Not so long ago, the prospect of the Intercontinental Missile Shield was driving a wedge between relations between Nato and Russia. Russia was increasingly being portrayed as the bad guys, and various old Cold War scenarios were being shaken out and dusted off. But the threat of resumption has faded away, with some simple diplomacy and cooperation. Now we see that the Missile Defense plan could actually be used to strengthen ties between Moscow and the West, due to the powers that be wanting to invite Russia in under the umbrella.

Rasmussen (NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen) invited Russia on Wednesday to hold talks with the 28 NATO states at an alliance summit in November at which he wants the Western allies to agree to link existing missile defense systems and to formally invite Moscow to participate.

Moscow has been cautious about the plan, even though NATO has said the defense system is designed as protection against a perceived threat from Iran, not Russia.

"Progress in missile defense can create a better climate for progress in other areas critical to European security, including when it comes to conventional weapons," Rasmussen will say in his speech, according to a draft seen by Reuters.

"If we build missile defenses in Europe outside of a NATO framework, and without a clear offer to Russia, it will create new dividing lines, between who is in and who is out."

He will argue that Russian involvement in the missile defense system could "reinforce a virtuous circle" -- not only creating conditions for conventional arms control but diminishing the perceived need to rely on nuclear protection.

"If Russia and other countries feel like they are inside the tent with the rest of us, rather than outside the tent looking in, it will build trust ... Controls on conventional weapons make it easier to contemplate diminishing reliance on nukes."

- reuters.com/

See, finally some simple logic at work. By building a fence we demarcate sides, and create a rivalry. If instead we cooperate on fence building we end up building a community. Let's see if we can expand this philosophy outward.

See, currently the "threat" is Iran, and it's perceived missile systems. And so a fence made of economic restrictions, embargoes and military buildup has been slowly constructed around the nation. The natural response to this is hostility, ensuring that Iran probably is looking into building a Nuclear missile or two, likely because of the threat they perceive to themselves due to everyone thinking of them as a threat.

But what if we did the same thing with Iran that we did with Russia? What if we went to Iran and said we were worried about Pakistan, or North Korea, or Mars for that matter, and therefore wanted Iran to actually participate in the Missile Defense system?

Suddenly you have the potential for cooperation on the table. Suddenly there's the possibility of getting everyone to work together and maybe getting rid of some of the tension that's been building up. This is how you ease tensions, not by pointing bigger and bigger weapons at each other, but by finding something else you can both point your weapons at.



Film Review: The Expendables.

Sylvester Stallone directs a throwback to the Eighties, where a bunch of classic B-movie actors are teamed up as mercenaries charged with taking on a small army belonging to a dictator of some third-world island, in order to save the people from tyranny, and the dictator's daughter from torture and death.

Remarkably for a film that is all about guns and action, the two highlights of this film are dialog scenes. One a tense yet amusing argument in a church involving Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Stallone, and another quiet scene where Mickey Rourke talks about regret and the soul of a mercenary. But with those aside, this film is as shallow as they come. When Stallone decided to make this 80's throwback, one would have thought there would have been a lot of determination to make it really mean something. But sadly, it just plays out about as simple and obvious as it could have been.

The bad guys are bad, the good guys are good, except for one who goes both ways, but that's apparently OK as well. The characters get along with each not because they really want to, but because the script tells them too. The chemistry is lacking. And while the action is suitably violent, it's also difficult to follow in places. Stallone disappointingly wants to shake the camera around a bit, which really doesn't help matters at all. Ultimately it was probably a better idea to let the old legends lie. Three Shells out of Five.


- Peace out