There is a disheartening element in all of this. If moderators stated and followed clear rules, I would certainly follow them.

I am no less busy than the moderators of this blog, and I don’t wish to waste my time or theirs. When a comment is rejected, the time spent on writing it is wasted. That is why it is useful to give potential contributors some sense of what is unacceptable.

Also, if a moderator rejected a contribution because he doesn’t like the author cited or his point of view, that would be disappointing.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/here_we_wmd_again_iraq_pakistani_package_20100330/?ln

Any reactions?

That is great observation and very well written.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Opinions/Columns/17-Mar-2010/Targeting-us-to-make-money

To do that, consider a key WINEP report on how to tackle Iran, The Last Resort: Consequences of Preventive Military Action against Iran (June 2008), by Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt.

Clawson, as deputy researcher director, appears to be WINEP’s #2 in charge, and, as director of the institute’s Iran Security Initiative, the point man on how to deal with Iran.

Eisenstadt is also a top guy at WINEP, a Senior Fellow and director of the institute’s Military & Security Studies Program.

As the title suggests, the Clawson/Eisenstadt report recommends taking preventive action against Iran (because, the report say, the alternative, deterrence, is more daunting). When should preventive action be taken? “Should diplomacy fail to halt Tehran’s nuclear program, and should Tehran continue to make slow but steady progress toward accumulating fissile material for a possible weapons program.” Making these determinations, the report makes quite clear, will be up to policy makers in Washington (Hillary Clinton, for one, has already decided diplomacy has failed).

Fissile material? What “steady progress toward accumulating fissile material” means is not made clear. But the authors do write that preventive action should happen “before enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon has been produced,” which, if this is the acceptable criterion, gives license to let the bombs start falling at any point between zero and not enough.

Incidentally, the report notes, declared IAEA-supervised nuclear facilities will have to be destroyed. Clawson/Eisenstadt readily admit they don’t know if any clandestine facilities exist, but no matter, because it is the “declared facilities that could produce the fissile material for a nuclear weapon without relying on clandestine facilities.” Apparently we’re supposed to believe that the zero-to-not-enough fissile material will be produced under the watchful eye of the IAEA (as for proof of actual or planned nuclear weapons production, not important).

Simon Henderson’s view of Iran? “[T]here is little reason for confidence that Iran would be honest in declaring all its facilities. Even if Iran showed willingness to take a diplomatic route toward resolving doubts about its program, the standards imposed by the United States would probably be stricter than those of other members of the international community.” (Iran’s Nuclear Program: Lessons from Pakistan, WINEP Policy Watch #1562, July 30, 2009) There’s nothing factual in the piece to justify the first sentence. As for diplomacy, IAEA supervision, international law — it seems ultimately they don’t matter; just the “standards imposed by the United States.” A perfect fit with Clawson/Eisenstadt.

There’s lots more in Last Resort and other WINEP reports on how to box in and provoke Iran and run international PR campaigns to justify another March 2003-Iraq-style attack.

WINEP’s party line is clear: contempt for international law and never flinch from arguing new ways to vist more horrors on the Middle East.

Now I can see why a fellow at AIPAC’s think tank would publish this kind of nonsense, what i can’t figure is why anyone else would even pretend to take him seriously.

In a slightly different direction, I would like to hear from folks who know a little more about General Beg (Army Chief of Staff from 88-91), whose job it presumably was to keep Benazir in the dark about what was happening in the Pakistani nuclear program. Issue number one will remain who actually controlled or controls those activities, the military (the most stable institution in Pakistan since partition) or a series of unstable and short-lived civilian governments, including the nefarious deeds of Dr. Khan, and to what end debates resulted in high-level decisions or renegade actions to get Iran what it wanted. Most analysts in the late 1980’s believed it highly unlikely that Pakistan would proliferate a nuclear capability it had so costly obtained, particularly to Iran next door, although the possibility was never fully discounted.

Here’s a teaser in this dangerous soap opera: I met Gen. Beg and Ms. Bhutto personally, with former Rep. Steve Solarz and others in January 1989. In a separate meeting with Beg, several subjects were covered, many at his insistence, including a ten-minute ramble about his views of Pakistan’s strategic position and the idea he held of “the Greater Hindu Kush,” sort of like Pakistan’s “near abroad,” over which he thought Pakistan had every right and responsibility to exert influence. When asked about Iran, General Beg carefully and convincingly replied that Pakistan’s interest was to maintain cordial relations with its neighbor and work on shared concerns. His sketch of Pakistan’s strategic vision was his attempt to educate his American visitors on the region at large, rather than focus exclusively on the rivalry with India. After which he made an extraordinary offer to place all Pakistani facilities under safeguards prospectively, so long as any material produced by that point could be excluded. It was a kind of freeze in their program he was suggesting that would allow them to retain what they had produced to that point for a minimum deterrent against India, or at least that’s what I concluded.. Remember at this point the Pakistanis were up against the Pressler amendment, finally and agonizingly invoked shortly after Benazir left office the first time in the fall of 1990. Beg was certainly aware that discussions with the Bush 41 administration were running out of time the closer Pakistan got to the Pressler red line of “possession.” My impression was he knew a hell of a lot more than did the new Prime Minister (then just a 35-year-old girl, after all).

(Not important, but gossipy, I stayed up late that night preparing a memo for Steve on the legislative restrictions that would have to be waived in order to accept Beg’s seeming offer, and resolve the dispute over the F-16’s and related stuff that had been suspended, I think, at that point.. Any waiver was a long shot, but became moot immediately when Steve hinted at a deal to stop Pakistan’s program in a press conference, heavily attended by Pakistani and Indian journalists, upon his return to DC. But no matter all the “shoulda-coulda-woulda’s.”)

So here are the questions we should be asking:

The most obvious: how much leeway did Khan have? Somebody obviously knew what he was doing. He doubtless made a lot of money, and so did others, but could the sales to Iran be only about the money? What was the Pakistanis’ vision years hence? Did they simply assume they would soon be faced with yet another nuclear neighbor anyway, so they might as well make the best of it, control it any way they could? What the hell were they thinking sending this stuff, even crappy P-1’s, to an Iranian “revolutionary” government next door that to all else seemed at best a bit wacko?

The deeper question goes back to “the Greater Hindu Kush,” mostly related to Afghanistan, and to Pakistan’s strategic view. Very little has been written on the subject, but the better we are able to understand Pakistan’s view of the world and nuclear weapons in it (and that of India, Iran, and others in the region), it seems to me the better us folks might be able to figure out how to respond, if we can in any meaningful way. The “West” has not done well so far.

This subject, I submit, also bears much more research where possible, and can provide fodder for this blog or somewhere else for a long time.

There are just a few “think tanks” in Washington that establish a party line; I don’t think WINEP is one.