Yonatan Zunger’s Blog

[politics]
An unpleasant development

Apparently, there’s a resolution in the UN that wants to reward Iran for its recent openness about its nuke program, and just forget about the past 20 years of its running it covertly. (Story here) Apparently, if we’re nice to them now, they’ll stop trying to build nuclear missiles.

mrph

[politics]

It looks like Iran has finally agreed to suspend uranium enrichment, after first agreeing, then backing out of the agreement, and then delaying a few weeks.

Hypothesis: they wanted to delay a few weeks to get their enrichment program to a checkpoint state before any inspection regime started. Purpose could be to get it into a state where it could easily be resumed, or to get it into a state where it’s no longer obvious to inspectors. This suggests that their nuclear weapons program could be farther along than is commonly known.

[politics]

And now, for your latest Nerve-Wracking News from the Near East!

<Cut to anchorman in plaid blazer with synthetic grin>

The rumor has started to circulate – (Confirmed by UPI, denied by the governments involved, no clear word yet from other journalistic sources) – that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have concluded a deal by which Pakistan will station nuclear weapons on Saudi territory, offering them an (Islamic) nuclear umbrella to replace the American defense which has been increasingly pulling out of the country since this past summer. The deal is apparently a straight oil for nukes swap. Linked story above has good overall analysis, or see Google News reports for other stories.

In sync with this, Iran has agreed to permit nuclear inspections. While definitely a step in the right direction, there are fairly widespread concerns that this is too little, too late – the program may already be at the point where it is easily concealable. Israel’s chief of military intelligence advised the Knesset today that their program could reach the “point of no return” in bomb development within ten months, even given this inspections regime.

Combine this with heatups in politics [the Palestinian attack on American officials in Gaza a few days ago, various kinds of increased tension in Iraq, new pronunciamentos from bin Laden, the start of winter (and the corresponding drop in temperature to humanly sustainable levels), and even things like Malaysian PM Mahathir‘s and American LGEN Boykin‘s respective bits of brilliant statesmanship], it looks like it’s going to be a hell of a winter…

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News of a protest in Baghdad. Large numbers of Shi’ites, angered over the deaths of two Iraqis, apparently at the hands of American forces, the day before. (n.b. I have no idea about the actual circumstances of death of these people; I don’t think that’s relevant at this point)

Israeli experience tells me: This sort of protest is a sign of a sudden spike in the anger levels, and a lot of trouble about to happen. Combine with the general increasing friction between Shi’ites and the rest of the Iraqi population, and a possible perception among Shi’ites that Americans aren’t doing enough to safeguard their interests – [whether or not there is such a perception now, such a thing can very easily grow in a very short time, and there are several people with strong incentive to make that happen] – likely portends a sharp escalation in violence in the near future, possibly up to and including major engagements with mobs.

Furthermore, this could be the signal for the start of large-scale trouble between Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds; time will have to tell on that.

Either way, here comes amusement….

From the NY Times today:

The Palestinian prime minister-designate, Ahmed Qureia, has given Arafat and Fatah considerable say over the composition of his government. Qureia has said he wants to avoid confrontations with Arafat that helped bring down his predecessor, Mahmoud Abbas.

The appropriate English translation, I believe, includes the phrase “butt-monkey.”

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Quick summary of Middle East events of note in the past few weeks, some already mentioned here:

Breakdown of cease-fire with major terrorist strikes and retaliatory measures by Israel. (Odd side note: In the first few hours, Hamas denied responsibility and Islamic Jihad claimed it; shortly afterwards, Hamas changed their mind and claimed responsibility. English translation: They thought they were still on the cease-fire. Once it became clear that that had failed, it was much to their advantage to have been the ones to do it)

Israel decides to open the Temple Mount, including the mosque area, to everyone. (n.b. this is the heart of everything in Jerusalem – and it had a status quo of each religion controlling their own areas there)

Arafat manages to set up a no-confidence vote against Mahmoud Abbas. On the eve of this, Israel gibs some high-level Hamas leaders by blowing up a 7-story apartment building with them in it. No bystander casualties reported, but plenty of dramatic footage and several families left homeless; this pretty much seals the vote against Abbas.

Arafat installs Abu Ala as the new Prime Minister. He starts to form a cabinet, but as of today has stopped this process without explaination. (Subtext: Things have started to heat up to the point where really, Arafat needs to be in direct control again, so he’s not going to do anything to distract from Arafat’s next attempt at media spotlighting. No, the Prime Minister doesn’t actually do anything important; Arafat very carefully rigged it that way.)

Increasing violence of all sorts – several terror strikes, followed by major raids into Gaza, etc.

Today: Call-up of reserves to bolster anti-terror effort in Israel. Sharon calls an emergency cabinet meeting to deal with the matter, and it ends with a decision to “deal with” Arafat – by deportation or by less savory means – but to hold off for now. Point is still unclear.

In sync with this: Iraq is heating up, with several major bombings in the past few weeks, and shooting increasing.

Brief summary: Things are heating up rapidly against a political tinderbox. It may go off relatively quietly, but if a spark catches the resulting fire could spread rapidly over the entire Middle East – and thence around the world. We currently hold the high ground in Iraq – but as woody77 recently pointed out in a completely different context, that’s not where you want to be when a wildfire starts.

This isn’t quite the warning bell for the Apocalypse, but it’s a sign to be paying close attention to world politics in the near future – troubles abroad could make it here much faster than usual.

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Last notes before heading out to Seattle. Headlines for today given here, behind a cut tag – these are from Debka, but they’re over quite a few other sources as well. Casualties from the strike in Iraq are currently listed as 95 dead, 140 wounded. (that number from the NY Times)

Get ready, here comes more fun.

Headlines

Another article

You probably don’t want to read this one. Those of you who prefer to avoid politics almost definitely don’t want to. If there’s anyone who does – it’s about the work of dealing with the aftermath of yesterday’s attack in Jerusalem, and in particular how hospitals and families are coping with the large number of children among the casualties.

Not quite sure why I’m posting this. It’s not exactly a happy-making thing. Just something that’s on my mind a lot this past day.

(Side note, in response to something musae said yesterday: “getting used to it” involves very little numbing of the emotional responses, unless you really want to numb them. Some people do. It’s more about being good at dealing with them and getting on with one’s life and the tasks at hand. I have no idea how social workers and ER doctors handle it. They have my deepest respect.)