DAR AL HARB-U.S.A./NORTH KOREA: STATE SPONSOR OF TERRORISM?!? NO LONGER...TRADES WITH ENEMIES?!? NO LONGER...

Bush's North Korea Capitulation
By JOHN R. BOLTON

President George W. Bush is fond of comparing himself to Ronald Reagan. But as he meets with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Washington this week, his policy regarding North Korea's nuclear weapons program looks more like something out of Bill Clinton's or Jimmy Carter's playbook.

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Last week in Singapore, U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill and his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye Gwan reached a deal that rests on trust and not verification. According to numerous press reports and Mr. Hill's April 10 congressional briefing, the U.S. will be expected to accept on faith, literally, North Korean assertions that it has not engaged in significant uranium enrichment, and that it has not proliferated nuclear technology or materials to countries like Syria and Iran.

Indeed, the North will not even make the declaration it earlier agreed to, but merely "acknowledge" that we are concerned about reports of such activities – which the United States itself will actually list. By some accounts, the North Korean statement will not even be public. In exchange for this utter nonperformance, the North will be rewarded with political "compensation" (its word): Concurrent with its "declaration," it will be removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and freed from the Trading With the Enemy Act.

President Bush has repeatedly told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley not to make him look weak on North Korea. If the president accepts the deal now on the table, things will be far worse than that.

...

Pyongyang's escape from accountability could break down international counter-proliferation efforts. What possible reason will Iran now have to be transparent about its nuclear activities? If North Korea can get away with deception and be rewarded, why should Iran not do the same? In Libya, Moammar Gadhafi will kick himself for giving up his nuclear weapons program in 2003. This deal with North Korea is troubling enough, but the worst news is still to come.

Last fall, President Bush rejected the idea of giving North Korea a pass on uranium enrichment and proliferation. Now, in the waning days of his term, he seems poised to accept it. If he does, and if this deal proceeds, we can well and truly say: "President Bush, you are no Ronald Reagan."

Ohhh just go & read the whole thing for yourself it's depressing enough to have to post it...



Pertinent Links:

1) Bush's North Korea Capitulation

DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - U.S.A./ISRAEL/IRAN/SYRIA: A SECRET PLAN?!?

Analysis: Iran's secret Syrian plan
By OLIVIER GUITTA

Israel has been providing intelligence and satellite images to the U.S. about a secret Syrian nuclear program for several months, according to media reports. Discussions between Israel and the United States took place last summer regarding a possible strike. But when Israel found the matter so pressing that when they realized the U.S. was not ready to act, on September 6 they attacked a Syrian nuclear site. Hence the question: what is Syria really up to or more to the point what is Iran up to?

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The Syrian story is far from over: in fact, on October 23, Al Seyassah ran a story about potential new secret nuclear sites in Syria. According to Western sources cited by the paper, it is possible that Syria is developing other nuclear sites with the help of North Korea, Iran and Iraqi experts, the latter who fled their country at the start of the Iraq war in 2003. In fact, observation satellites have allegedly located in Syria at least two other sites similar to the one destroyed by Israel last month.

Iran's handwriting is all over the wall from the chemical to the nuclear arms program in Syria. Indeed, in research conducted last year as part of an article published in Washington's The Examiner, this reporter delved into Syrian's secret nuclear program, making the point that Syria might actually be "Plan B" for Iran. By helping develop nuclear sites in Syria, strikes on Iran might turn out to be useless. This was a smart strategy until Israel bombed the Syrian nuclear site on September 6 and made the world notice.



Pertinent Links:

1) Analysis: Iran's secret Syrian plan

DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - NORTH KOREA/IRAN: MINI-SUBS FOR IRAN

North Korea to sell minisubs to Iran

North Korea is preparing to sell minisubmarines to Iran, according to Japan’s Sankei Shimbun.
The minisubs wouldlikely be deployed in the strategic Straits of Hormuz through which much of the world's oil transits.

The newspaper reported Jan. 18 that North Korea is negotiating to sell the submarines in exchange for debts incurred by Pyongyang, quoting a source familiar with North Korea affairs.

The report said Iran is urging North Korea to upgrade existing North Korean small submarines as a way for Iran to bolster its naval power.

...




Pertinent Links:

1) North Korea to sell minisubs to Iran

DAR AL HARB - U.S.A.: BOLTON BLOVIATES ABOUT IRAN & NORTH KOREA

Bolton talks tough on Iran, N. Korea
By Josh Richman, STAFF WRITER

SAN FRANCISCO — Regime change is needed and military force must remain an option in compelling North Korea and Iran to abandon nuclear ambitions, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton averred Tuesday.

President Bush "wasn't simply indulging in a metaphor" when he named these two nations, plus Iraq, as an "axis of evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address, Bolton told a few hundred audience members at a Commonwealth Club of California event in the Fairmont Hotel.

Both nations — one controlled by cult-of-personality leader Kim Jong Il and the other by religious zealots — hold "fundamentally different values" that are not subject to Cold War-like concerns about retaliation should they develop, market or use nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, Bolton said.

Both have a history of using their nascent nuclear programs as diplomatic and economic bargaining chips, and then reneging on their ends of the deals, he said. But as much of Europe and many in America call for continued diplomacy, "time is not on the side of the United States" and its allies, but rather on the side of those seeking the weapons.

Only replacement of the hostile regimes in those nations will afford Americans the security they deserve, Bolton insisted.

"I think regime change in Iran is feasible," he said, citing gross mismanagement of the Iranian economy and a young, well-educated populace as underpinnings of mass dissatisfaction

with the fundamentalist government. But that process "is difficult, it's complex, it could take a long time," and so, unattractive though an air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities might be, it must remain an option, he said. "I don't recommend this alternative, I don't look forward to it — it is at best a last resort."

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi saw the light and not only opened his pre-nuclear resources to U.S. intelligence, but even let the United States box up all the materials and store them in Tennessee, Bolton noted.

"There's plenty of room next to it for the North Korea nuclear weapons program and the Iranian nuclear weapons program," he quipped. Bolton, 58, served within the State Department, the Justice Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development during the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

President George W. Bush tapped him first as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security until 2005 before appointing Bolton to his U.N. post from August 2005 until December 2006. But his was a recess appointment and — perhaps due in part to his oft-stated disdain for the United Nations — he was never confirmed by the Senate, and his bull-in-a-china-shop tenure expired with the 109th Congress' end.

Asked Tuesday whether his low opinion of the United Nations had been tempered by his time there, he replied, "It hasn't changed at all."

Incremental reforms won't alleviate its inefficiencies and roadblocks to U.S. progress, he said, calling for a shift to all-voluntary financial support from member nations — in effect, a way for the United States to starve the U.N. of funding should it not advance U.S. interests. "We should pay for what we want and get what we pay for."

Answering another question, Bolton cited the ongoing genocide in Darfur as an example of the U.N.'s impotence: China, Russia and Qatar, with economic and social interests in Sudan, successfully blocked the Security Council from sending a U.N. peacekeeping force into the region without the Khartoum regime's permission, he said.

Asked what his greatest success was, Bolton cited his role — as George H.W. Bush's assistant secretary of state for international organizations — in getting the U.N. General Assembly in 1991 to repeal its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism.

Bolton might've raised the most eyebrows Tuesday when fielding a question about national security and immigration. Current plans to strengthen border enforcement, provide a path to legalization for illegal immigrants already here and hit illegal immigrants' employers with sanctions will be no more effective today than they were as segments of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, he said.

Instead, we should increase legal immigration to accept more students and workers into the United States, he said, for there's no better way to win the world over to the American way of life. China has a population of about 1.3 billion, he noted: "We've got a long way to go."



Pertinent Links:

1) Bolton talks tough on Iran, N. Korea

DAR AL HARB: THREATS FROM IRAN & NORTH KOREA ON THE RISE

US: Iran, NKorea missile threat rising

LONDON, June 29 (IranMania) - The top US missile defense official warned that the ballistic threat from Iran and North Korea was rapidly growing and defended Washington's plans to base parts of its anti-missile shield program in Central Europe, The Associated Press (AP) reported.

But NATO called for more evaluation of the potential danger, saying there was "no assessment of the immediacy of that threat to NATO and Europe."

Washington is in talks with Poland on the deployment of 10 interceptor missiles in the country, and with the Czech Republic on a radar base. The US says the two sites are need to supplement bases in Alaska and California and create a network to defend Europe and North America from a potential attack by Iran or North Korea.

"The missile defense system addresses a real and growing threat. We believe it's prudent to stay ahead of this threat," Patricia Sanders, executive director of the US Missile Defense Agency, said at a hearing at the European Parliament.

She said the planned system was purely defensive, "delivering a package to a point in space where it can destroy a missile."

She did not give details on which country would get ultimate responsibility for firing the interceptors, but said control had to be "centrally located."

Moscow has denounced the plan as a threat to Russia's nuclear deterrent and later came up with a counterproposal for a radar site in Azerbaijan.

...



Pertinent Links:

1) US: Iran, NKorea missile threat rising

DAR AL HARB - MYANMAR, THE "OUTPOST OF TYRANNY" PLANS ON BUYING A NUCLEAR REACTOR FROM RUSSIA

Myanmar drops a nuclear 'bombshell'
By Larry Jagan

BANGKOK - Myanmar's military leaders have never made a secret of their interest in developing a domestic nuclear-energy industry. Plans to buy a nuclear reactor from Russia have been in the pipeline for years, and this month in Moscow the two sides formally resurrected those controversial plans.

Myanmar's move notably comes at a time when both Iran and North Korea have raised US hackles through their nuclear programs. Washington in recent years has referred to Myanmar as an "outpost of tyranny" and maintains trade and investment sanctions against the military regime. Some political analysts are already speculating whether Myanmar might try to use the threat of re-gearing its nuclear test reactor to reproduce weapons as a way to counteract US-led pressure for political change.

Under the new agreement, Russia's atomic energy agency Rosatom will build a nuclear-research center, including a 10-megawatt light-water nuclear reactor with low-enriched uranium consisting of less than 20% uranium-235, an activation analysis laboratory, a medical isotope production laboratory, a silicon doping system, and nuclear-waste treatment and burial facilities, according to a statement released by Rosatom.

The project is initially slated to focus on medical and agricultural research in support of Myanmar's languishing and highly underdeveloped economy, a Western diplomat acquainted with the nuclear plans told Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity. As part of the agreement, Russian universities would also be tasked with training an additional 350 Myanmar-national specialists to work at the planned nuclear center.

Over the past six years, more than 1,000 Myanmar scientists, technicians and military personnel have received nuclear training in Russia, according to Myanmar government officials. Under a 2002 agreement, Russia was set to build a nuclear reactor in Myanmar but later scrapped the plan over the junta's lack of funds. Nonetheless, Moscow informed the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in mid-2003 that it planned to provide training in nuclear science to some 300 Myanmar citizens each year.

According to Russian officials, the construction and supervision of the planned research center will come under the control of the IAEA. Myanmar is currently a member of the IAEA and already reportedly has a so-called "safeguards agreement" in place. Under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), states in compliance with their safeguards' obligations and other provisions are allowed to pursue nuclear energy or technology solely for peaceful purposes.

In practice, however, verifying the fulfillment of those obligations has proved difficult, most recently witnessed in the case of Iran's secretive nuclear-energy program, which it insists is for peaceful purposes and within its NPT rights, while others, such as US, suspect it is geared for a weapons program. Russia is also involved in developing a nuclear facility for Iran.

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Myanmar = Burma = Union of Burma

-Type of government?!? Military Junta

-Religious make up?!? Buddhist 89%, Christian 4% (Baptist 3%, Roman Catholic 1%), Muslim 4%, animist 1%, other 2%



Pertinent Links:

1) Myanmar drops a nuclear 'bombshell'

2) Burma at CIA Factbook

DAR AL HARB - U.S.A./NORTH KOREA: A QUID PRO QUO, NOT ONLY EMBARRASSING, BUT A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT

Pyongyang's Perfidy
North Korea violates another deal. Where's the outrage?
BY JOHN R. BOLTON

Over a month has passed since sweetness and light were due to break out on the Korean Peninsula. On Feb. 13, the Six-Party Talks in Beijing ratified a bilateral agreement between the U.S. and North Korea, providing for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear programs. The first step, 60 days after ratification, was to be that North Korea "will shut down and seal for the purpose of eventual abandonment" the Yongbyon nuclear facility, and readmit inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Other steps were to follow, but the first move was unequivocally to be made by Pyongyang. The 60 days came and went, and indeed, another 37 days have come and gone. No IAEA inspectors have been readmitted, and not even Pyongyang claims that it has "shut down" Yongbyon.
Instead, observers--especially Iran and other nuclear weapons aspirants--have witnessed embarrassing U.S. weakness on a supposedly unrelated issue, unmentioned in the Feb. 13 agreement. That issue involves North Korea's widely publicized demand that approximately $25 million frozen in Macau-based Banco Delta Asia (BDA) accounts be released and transferred to Pyongyang. The funds came from North Korean counterfeiting of U.S. currency, money laundering and other fraudulent activities uncovered by a U.S. Treasury investigation begun in 2003. The accounts were frozen in 2005 and the BDA was promptly put on Treasury's blacklist for illicit activity.

While the Bush administration denies a direct link, the North Koreans have said publicly that they will not comply with the bilateral agreement until the BDA funds are safely under their control. This obvious quid pro quo is not only embarrassing, it sets a dangerous precedent for other regimes that would blackmail the U.S. What are the consequences of the BDA meltdown?

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It is not even clear if North Korea actually gave up anything significant in the Feb. 13 deal. It is entirely possible, for example, that Yongbyon is now a hulk, well past its useful life span, and that the North agreed, in effect, to shut down a wreck. Even if Yongbyon is not in such parlous condition, it may be that the North has extracted all the plutonium possible from the fuel rods it has, and that Yongbyon therefore offers it nothing more. Here, the omissions in the Feb. 13 agreement become significant. The deal says nothing about the plutonium, perhaps weaponized perhaps not, that North Korea has already reprocessed.

How these issues play out will have ramifications far beyond North Korea, particularly for Iran. Some say the Bush administration entered the Feb. 13 deal because it desperately needed a success. One thing is for certain: It does not need a failure. The president can easily extricate himself from the deal, just based on North Korea's actions to date. He should take the first opportunity to do so.


Pertinent Links:

1) Pyongyang's Perfidy

DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - U.S.A./NORTH KOREA/IRAN: N.K. TEST LONG RANGE MISSILE, MUSUDAN-TYPE, FROM IRANIAN SOIL

North Korea tests long-range missile
By Richard Spencer in Beijing

North Korea has used a launch-pad in Iran to test-fire a new long-range missile capable of hitting American bases in the Pacific, according to reports from Japan and South Korea.

The missile, known as a Musudan-type, was shown to the public at a vast military parade in the North Korean capital Pyongyang, according to the reports.

South Korean and American intelligence reports suggest it was then tested not from North Korean soil but from Iran, with which North Korea is known to have close military co-operation.

The missile, which could target the US military on the Pacific island of Guam, was previously unrecorded.

...


Pertinent Links:

1) North Korea tests long-range missile

DAR AL HARB - NORTH KOREA: WE WILL INVITE NUCLEAR INSPECTORS INTO N.K. IF YOU RELEASE OUR $25 MILLION

North Korea ready to compromise with US

Pyongyang: North Korea's top nuclear negotiator told US envoys yesterday his government would invite UN nuclear inspectors into the country the moment $25 million (Dh91.7 million) in disputed North Korean funds are released.

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan met with Bill Richardson, a Democratic US presidential candidate, and Anthony Principi, US President George W. Bush's former veteran affairs secretary, who were visiting the capital Pyongyang.

Kim "indicated that the North Korean government would invite the inspectors back the moment the funds are released to the North Korean government," Principi told reporters after the meeting.

Kim also told the US delegation it would be difficult to shut down the country's main nuclear reactor by this Saturday, the deadline called for in a February nuclear disarmament accord.

"They can make a beginning, but whether they can completely shut down a nuclear reactor in such a short time would be very difficult,"Principi said.

...



Pertinent Links:

1) North Korea ready to compromise with US

DAR AL HARB - NORTH KOREA: MULTI-LATERAL TALKS CONCERNING NORTH KOREA'S NUKES BREAK DOWN

North Korean Nuclear Talks Break Down
By BO-MI LIM

BEIJING -- Talks on halting North Korea's nuclear program broke down abruptly on Thursday with the country's chief nuclear envoy flying home after a dispute over money frozen in a Macau bank could not be resolved.

Kim Kye Gwan flew out of Beijing after refusing to take part in six-party talks to push forward a February agreement calling for North Korea to begin winding down its nuclear programs in return for energy aid and political considerations.

Kim waved to reporters when he arrived at the airport but did not say anything.

A Japanese Foreign Ministry official said that members of all six parties to the talks had agreed to a recess. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said the decision was made after Kim left Beijing.

The breakdown raises doubts over whether it will be possible to meet a deadline set in the Feb. 13 denuclearization agreement that calls for U.N. inspectors to verify the closure of North Korea's main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon by April 14.

In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe criticized North Korea for not being constructive."It's clear there is nothing for North Korea to gain from this kind of move," Abe said. "This kind of attitude is meaningless."

Abe said North Korea only will be accepted by the international society if it takes concrete steps toward complying with its commitment to dismantle its nuclear programs.

This round of talks has been dogged by troubles since it started on Monday, with Pyongyang refusing to take part for two days because of problems over the transfer of $25 million in North Korean funds frozen since 2005 at Banco Delta Asia in Macau under pressure from the United States.

Banco Delta Asia was blacklisted by Washington on suspicion the funds were connected to money-laundering or counterfeiting. The North boycotted the international nuclear talks for more than a year over the issue.

U.S. officials announced this week that the money would be transferred to the North Koreans, saying it was up to the Monetary Authority of Macau, a Chinese territory, to release the funds.

China had promised to resolve the issue as quickly as possible by transferring the funds to a North Korean account at the Bank of China.

...


Pertinent Links:

1) North Korean Nuclear Talks Break Down

DAR AL HARB - U.S.A.: "IRAN & NORTH KOREA WILL NOT GIVE UP THEIR NUKE AMBITIONS" SO SAYETH JOHN BOLTON

Former U.S. ambassador says North Korea and Iran will never give up nuclear ambitions

President Bush's former ambassador to the U-N says Iran will never give up its nuclear ambitions. Former U.S. ambassador says North Korea and Iran will never give up nuclear ambitions

President Bush's former ambassador to the U-N says Iran will never give up its nuclear ambitions.

John Bolton spoke to reporters after a speech in New York last night. He says a change in regime is the only way to get Tehran to give up nuclear weapons.

Bolton says military action against Iran would be "unpleasant," but would be better than allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons.

He's also criticizing the US for freeing up 25 million dollars in frozen North Korean assets in efforts to get Pyongyang (pyuhng-yahng) to roll back its nuclear program.

Bolton says the move is a "signal of weakness" that sends a terrible message to Iran and other "would-be proliferators."

Bolton also commented on the crisis in Darfur, saying it's time to contemplate a regime change in Sudan to end the conflict there.


and


Bolton: Iran won't give up nuke ambition
By EDITH M. LEDERER

John Bolton gained a reputation for speaking out during his 17 months as U.S. ambassador to the world body. But his remarks Tuesday night were some of his boldest yet, especially concerning Tehran.

"I believe that ultimately the only real prospect of getting Iran to give up nuclear weapons is to change the regime," Bolton told reporters after an off-the-record speech to the Hudson Institute, a nonpartisan policy research organization. How should this be done?

"By the force of the Iranian people themselves," Bolton replied. "But if the alternative is a nuclear Iran, as unpleasant as the use of military force would be, I think the prospect of a nuclear Iran is worse."

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"I think Iran's record is clear that they're never going to give up the pursuit of uranium enrichment," Bolton said, "and I think that there's no disagreement within their leadership that that's the road to nuclear weapons."

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Bolton also criticized the U.S. government for releasing $25 million in frozen North Korean assets held by a Macau bank suspected of helping North Korea launder money from counterfeiting and other illegal activities.

The United States had promised to release the funds as part of international efforts to roll back the communist regime's nuclear weapons program.

"I think it's a signal of weakness," he said. "It's a terrible signal to Iran and other would-be proliferators."

The former ambassador also said it was time to contemplate regime change in Sudan, whose government is accused of inciting a conflict in the country's Darfur region that has killed 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million since 2003.

He said so many elements of Sudan are dissatisfied with the government that there would be a "lot of candidates" for undertaking regime change.

Pertinent Links:

1) Former U.S. ambassador says North Korea and Iran will never give up nuclear ambitions

2) Bolton: Iran won't give up nuke ambition

DAR AL HARB - NORTH KOREA / U.S.A.: THE TALKS BEGIN

US, North Korea start groundbreaking talks

NEW YORK - The United States and North Korea began groundbreaking talks Monday in a first step toward normalizing ties and cementing Pyongyang’s commitment to scrapping its nuclear arms program.

Less than three weeks after the reclusive Stalinist regime agreed to freeze its key nuclear facility, US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill met with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan before hosting his visitor to dinner at New York’s grand Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
It was the highest level meeting held in the United States between the two nuclear rivals since October 2000.

Hill, who arrived in a yellow taxi in an apparent bid to avoid the attention of a battery of reporters and photographers, said the talks which would continue on Tuesday was aimed at setting the pace for bilateral relations, including possible removal of North Korea from a US list of state terrorism sponsors.

The meeting would “form an agenda to work on our bilateral relationship — what’s involved in the establishment of diplomatic relations, what’s involved before North Korea can get off the state-sponsor-of-terrorism list, and how to get them off the Trading with the Enemies Act,” Hill told the New York Times.

He also said he would be “pressing for disclosure” of all of North Korea’s nuclear programs.

Kim, often guarded with his comments, said he was optimistic about the talks.

“I think everything will go well,” he told South Korea’s news agency Yonhap.

Kim also reportedly told his South Korean counterpart Chun Yung-Woo in separate talks in New York that North Korea was willing to shut down its nuclear plants in an “irreversible” manner.

...


Pertinent Links:

1) US, North Korea start groundbreaking talks

DAR AL HARB - U.S.A. - WASHINGTON D.C.: APPEASERS

No ‘crack’ on North Korea, Iran :US

WASHINGTON - After years of scolding North Korea, and a rising rhetorical drumbeat on Iran and Syria, the United States is set to confront its foes face-to-face in a sudden burst of diplomacy. But the administration of US President George W. Bush fiercely denies it has ditched its robust foreign policy and undergone a conversion on the road to Damascus, Teheran or Pyongyang.

After accusing Iran of boosting Iraqi militias and the dispatch of two aircraft-carrier groups to the Gulf, top US officials will join Iranian, Syrian and other regional envoys at just-scheduled talks on stabilising Iraq.

And following six years of decrying one-on-one talks with Pyongyang as a reward for bad behavior, a senior US negotiator will meet a North Korean official next week to start thawing Cold War relations under a landmark nuclear deal.

“This did not just happen overnight,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Wednesday, playing down talk of a sudden breakthrough with two-thirds of the “axis of evil,” Bush’s 2002 characterization of Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

“This happened as a result of careful policy and diplomatic groundwork that has been laid over the course of years by this administration.

White House spokesman Tony Snow also ruled out a foreign policy flip-flop.

“There is no crack ... there will not be bilateral talks between the United States and Iran, or the United States and Syria, within the context of these meetings.”

“If you’re expecting, suddenly, new, chummy relations, you’ve created a scenario that is not justified by the facts on the ground.”

Those remarks appeared a step back from comments by a senior State Department official Tuesday who declined to rule out bilateral talks with Teheran on the issue of Iranian-made munitions allegedly being used against US troops in Iraq.

The Baghdad conference on March 10 will involve envoys from Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Bahrain, the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, along with the five UN Security Council powers — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

A ministerial meeting will follow as early as mid-April, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday.

The meetings appear to closely resemble the call for a regional conference advocated by the independent Iraq Study Group in December, which the US administration first appeared to reject.

Snow argued US diplomats had attended multilateral meetings alongside Iranian counterparts for years, including Afghan reconstruction talks in 2002 and 2003 and an Iraqi Compact group meeting at the United Nations last year.

On another front, just two weeks after North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear program, the State Department said Wednesday senior US diplomat Christopher Hill would meet in New York next week with Pyongyang’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-Gwan.

All that added up to a climbdown from the previous stance of no direct two-way meetings with the communist state, according to Bush’s critics.

...

Shut up Tony, the White House cracked wide open...

APPEASEMENT IS THE NAME OF THE GAME, and no matter how much you say it isn't, it is...


Pertinent Links:

1) No ‘crack’ on North Korea, Iran :US

DAR AL HARB - U.S.A. / NORTH KOREA: HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHICH DICTATORSHIP TO SPEAK TO CONCERNING THEIR NUKES

On nuclear issues, U.S. must decide which enemy is worth talking to

WASHINGTON: When it comes to finding a way to disarm your enemies, here is a puzzle: How do you decide which dictatorial, nuke-building regimes to negotiate with, and which to freeze out, sanction or intimidate with a couple of aircraft carriers?

That, in a nutshell, is a looming question raised by last week's long-delayed nuclear deal with North Korea. Even while hard- liners and conservatives were assailing the administration last week for "selling out" to Kim Jong Il, some in Washington were wondering whether there were lessons here for dealing with Iran.

The deal President George W. Bush approved requires North Korea to stop producing plutonium, seal its giant nuclear facility at Yongbyon and — after a negotiation yet to happen — take apart the nuclear complex.

Over the next 60 days, North Korea also has to invite back the inspectors it threw out of the country four years ago, and declare where it has hidden the rest of its nuclear materials and facilities.

That would seem hard enough for the hermit nation, but the next part could be even harder: In return for concessions no one is yet talking about, North Korea would give up its nuclear arsenal.

Many hardened North Korea watchers say it will never happen. After all, that arsenal, estimated by U.S. intelligence agencies at six to a dozen weapons or the fuel for them, is the only source of power for the isolated, bankrupt Hermit Kingdom.

But here's the curious part: Bush's aides worked out this "first step" in one- on-one talks in Berlin of the kind the White House refused to hold a few years back, while North Korea was still busily producing nuclear fuel to make its next generation of weapons.

Those are exactly the steps Bush refuses to take with Tehran.

On Wednesday, even while celebrating the North Korean deal, Bush repeated his bottom line on opening talks with Tehran: They must stop enriching uranium first.

...


Here are my posts concerning this 'new' agreement reached with the North Koreans:

1) U.S.A. / North Korea hold bi-lateral talks.

2) The United States makes concessions to the tin-pot dictator of North Korea.

3) North Korea helps Iran with nukes.

4) U.S.A. / North Korea talks resume.

5) "North Korea Agreement" is a bad signal to Iran.

6) North Korea will not give up its weapons.

Pertinent Links:

1) On nuclear issues, U.S. must decide which enemy is worth talking to

DAR AL HARB - NORTH KOREA: KIM JONG IL WILL NOT GIVE UP HIS NUKES, NOT AFTER SPENDING DECADES IN TRYING TO GET THEM

North Korea unlikely to give up its atom weapons, analysts say

HONG KONG: For decades, North Korea badgered its communist allies to supply it with a nuclear reactor and the technical know-how that could have allowed it to build a nuclear bomb. It eventually achieved both.

After such a long struggle, North Korea is unlikely to agree easily to dismantle the weapons it possesses, despite an agreement this week to start the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, analysts said.

They said that, at best, it would require long and arduous negotiations, and further diplomatic and economic concessions, before North Korea would agree to dismantle nuclear weapons, without any certainty that it was fully disclosing the extent of its nuclear weapons capability. The agreement has been widely criticized for failing to directly address the issue of scrapping the weapons already built by North Korea.

But Joseph Bermudez, an expert on the North Korean military and a senior analyst with Jane's Information Group, said that Washington had been "desperate" to get a deal because time was running out for six-nation talks on the nuclear crisis to make progress and that it had "settled for less than could be had."

"I believe the North Koreans will say dismantling nuclear weapons is not in the letter of the agreement," Bermudez said in an interview.

...

"The word weapon or disarmament doesn't seem to be anywhere in the agreement," said Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst and specialist on Korean security at the RAND Corporation.

"So what we have agreed, at least in the letter of the law, is to stop their production but not necessarily to get rid of what they already have."

...

The second factor is that North Korea will find it harder to improve the quality of its existing capability and have fewer options as to how it uses nuclear weapons if the number of bombs it has is kept small and the country is prevented from obtaining the material to build more.

In a 2005 paper on the military implications of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, Bennett warned that there was a risk of North Korea using nuclear weapons not as a last resort but in the opening stages of a conflict and to target vital military installations if it acquired a sufficiently large arsenal.

"As the numbers of North Korean weapons grow, nuclear use becomes more likely, and that use will tend to start early in a campaign." Bennett said.

In such a scenario, North Korea might calculate that it could use a nuclear weapon against a military target without necessarily risking automatic nuclear retaliation because it would retain the potential for escalation by next hitting a major population center.

Bennett calculated that a 10-kiloton bomb dropped on a South Korean city could kill about 200,000 people. The Oct. 9 test was estimated to be only 1 kiloton, underscoring the importance of preventing North Korea from improving the yield of its weapons or developing an effective missile-delivery system.

...


Pertinent Links:

1) North Korea unlikely to give up its atom weapons, analysts say

DAR AL HARB - U.S.A.: THE MUCH HAILED "NORTH KOREA NUKE AGREEMENT" IS A BAD SIGNAL TO IRAN, SO SAYS JOHN BOLTON

Bolton hits agreement as 'bad signal' to Iran
By Bill Gertz

The deal reached in Beijing on North Korea's nuclear program is being criticized for making too many concessions to the hard-line government that violated a past accord, and gives up key U.S. leverage that blocked illicit financial activities by Pyongyang in the past.

"It is rewarding bad behavior of the North Koreans by promising fuel oil," said former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John R. Bolton, who emerged as an outspoken critic of the nuclear accord.

"It's a bad signal to North Korea and it's a bad signal to Iran," Mr. Bolton said in an interview, noting that the message to would-be arms proliferators around the world is that "if you hold out long enough and wear down the State Department negotiators, eventually you get rewarded."

Also, giving up financial leverage on North Korea after further talks by agreeing to lift banking sanctions is a "huge" mistake, Mr. Bolton said. "That leverage is what brought them to the table. ... The Chinese were paying them to come to the talks. Now we're paying them."

The Beijing agreement, announced yesterday, involves supplying some $400 million in aid, including 1 million tons of fuel oil, to the communist regime that set off its first underground nuclear blast in October, despite an agreement since 1994 to freeze its nuclear program.

Under the announced terms of the accord, North Korea will received an immediate shipment of 50,000 tons of fuel oil in the next two months, with further shipments and other concessions if it then agrees to shut down its nuclear facility at Yongbyon. An additional 950,000 tons of fuel will then be provided.

Problems with interpretation of the accord already surfaced yesterday.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the agreement requires North Korea to "permanently" disable all nuclear facilities.

However, North Korea's state-run news organ, the Korean Central News Agency, announced the shutdown of reactors at Yongbyon would be "temporary."

...

The smell of weakness and appeasement is not a good thing in the morning...

I wonder where moslem jihadists get the idea that the United States is a PAPER TIGER?!?!?!?


Pertinent Links:

1) Bolton hits agreement as 'bad signal' to Iran

DAR AL HARB - NORTH KOREA / UNITED STATES: TALKS RESUME

Korean nuclear talks resume

Talks on winding up North Korea's nuclear weapons programme resume on today with Pyongyang pressing the United States to "abandon its hostile policy".

Envoys from North and South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China were due to gather at a secluded compound in western Beijing to discuss how to nudge forward a 2005 statement offering North Korea economic and security concessions in return for abandoning nuclear weapons capabilities.

Top US envoy Christopher Hill said that after years of stop-start six-party talks, the latest session in Beijing would grapple with specifics.

"I don't want to tell you what aspects of the September '05 agreement we're trying to get implemented, except to say that when we do get a set of actions - if we do - it will be widely seen as a very solid, positive step toward implementation," Mr Hill told reporters.

North Korea's chief negotiator, Kim Kye-kwan, said the United States needed to show goodwill to make a deal possible.

"We are prepared to discuss the initial steps, but the judgement should be based on whether the United States will come forward and abandon its hostile policy against us and co-exist peacefully," Mr Kim said on arriving in Beijing.

...

Pertinent Links:

1) Korean nuclear talks resume

DAR AL HARB / ISLAM - IRAN / NORTH KOREA / U.S.A.: THE U.S.A. WILLINGLY NEGOTIATES WITH NORTH KOREA, NORTH KOREA ON THE OTHER HAND HELPS IRAN

N Korea helping Iran with nuclear testing
[What does the title of this article imply?!?
Give it a minute, think about it...
Iran already has a nuke, now it just needs to test it to see if it works like they think it does...ed. A.I.]
By Con Coughlin

North Korea is helping Iran to prepare an underground nuclear test similar to the one Pyongyang carried out last year.

Under the terms of a new understanding between the two countries, the North Koreans have agreed to share all the data and information they received from their successful test last October with Teheran's nuclear scientists.

North Korea provoked an international outcry when it successfully fired a bomb at a secret underground location and Western intelligence officials are convinced that Iran is working on its own weapons programme.

A senior European defence official told The Daily Telegraph that North Korea had invited a team of Iranian nuclear scientists to study the results of last October's underground test to assist Teheran's preparations to conduct its own — possibly by the end of this year.

There were unconfirmed reports at the time of the Korean firing that an Iranian team was present. Iranian military advisers regularly visit North Korea to participate in missile tests.

Now the long-standing military co-operation between the countries has been extended to nuclear issues.

...

Well isn't this special...Let us continue with our verbal negotiations, perhaps they will finally come to an end when NYC begins to glow...

Pertinent Links:

1) N Korea helping Iran with nuclear testing

DAR AL HARB - U.S.A. / NORTH KOREA: THE UNITED STATES MAKES CONCESSIONS TO THE TIN POT DICTATOR

In North Korea talks, U.S. made 'concessions'


SEOUL: North Korea has shown a new willingness to take steps toward dismantling its nuclear program after the United States offered concessions during bilateral talks last week, South Korean officials said Wednesday.

"South Korea and the United States have presented a proactive proposal aimed at implementing the Sept. 19 agreement, and North Korea is showing flexibility on this," Foreign Minister Song Min Soon of South Korea said at a media briefing, referring to the September 2005 pact in which Pyongyang pledged to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for aid and security guarantees.

Song declined to give more details of the proposal, saying negotiations were still under way.

But another South Korean official, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing the issue's sensitivity, said that the minister was referring to an offer that the United States had made during three days of one-on-one negotiations with North Korea in Berlin last week.

The official said that the U.S. proposal included "various exceptional concessions," but declined to specify them.

...

The Berlin talks were between Christopher Hill, the U.S. assistant secretary of state, and Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan of North Korea. After the talks, the North Korean Foreign Ministry said that it had reached an unspecified agreement, but did not elaborate.

Kim said Tuesday in Beijing that the U.S. position had changed in a "positive" direction, suggesting that Washington may have backed down from its earlier position that the financial dispute was a law enforcement matter unconnected to the nuclear issue.

Kim also said the North's position could change as well.

North Korea tested its first nuclear bomb in October, adding urgency to the six-nation talks that have been held since 2003 without concrete progress toward disarming the communist dictatorship.

No date has been set for the next round of negotiations, but officials said that they could be expected before mid- February.

...


Does the phrase "paper tiger" ring a bell?!?

Pertinent Links:

1) In North Korea talks, U.S. made 'concessions'

DAR AL HARB - U.S.A. / NORTH KOREA: NORTH KOREA & U.S.A. HOLD BI-LATERAL TALKS

U.S. and N.Korea pursue nuclear talks
By Louis Charbonneau

BERLIN (Reuters) - The United States and North Korea will pursue unprecedented talks on Wednesday, raising hopes of a breakthrough in efforts to curb the communist state's nuclear weapons programme.

Envoys from the two sides were due to hold a second, and possibly third, day of talks in the German capital after six hours of discussions on Tuesday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said.

The bilateral talks were the first outside the framework of six-country negotiations in Beijing which began in 2003 to try to stop North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions.

Officials said Washington's willingness to talk directly with Pyongyang -- as North Korea has long demanded -- suggests it may be ready to compromise over a crackdown on North Korea's finances, despite a nuclear test by Pyongyang last October.

Russia's new chief negotiator at the six-party talks has put pressure on Washington to scrap its financial sanctions against Pyongyang.

"The United States should make some steps towards the (North) Koreans by lifting financial sanctions," Alexander Losyukov told RIA news agency in an interview.

...

America is weak and every single tin pot dictator, jihadist, leftist freak is going to take advantage of it...Dhimmi Bush is going to give the away everything and the kitchen sink in the next two years...


Pertinent Links:

1) U.S. and N.Korea pursue nuclear talks