Target Pakistan

A lot of commentators now recognise that the US and Israel have no interest in any peace deal with Iran. Diplomatic overtures by the Iranians on the diplomatic front have been firmly rebuffed. The truth is that peace is simply not an option for the Zionist-neocon axis. Their plans saw Baghdad as a mere stopping point in the march into Tehran. The failure of the occupation has changed the tactics since another land war is out of the question. However, tactical nuclear missile strikes remain a favoured option and they are mad enough and willing to use them.

The plans do not stop in Tehran. The next targets are Syria and then Pakistan. The former is weak and easily dealt with, but the latter will be tricky. It also depends on the cooperation of India with the plan. The Zionists do not fear Iran, but want to eliminate any chance of them developing any defence. A bombing campaign destroying large parts of the infrastructure would cost the Iranians billions and set them back years. No doubt the US would also arm and support the MEK to keep the country in a state of civil war. They do however fear Pakistan, which is the sole Muslim country that already has the nuclear weapons. For now they are content to use Pakistan as an ‘ally’ but later on that will change, depending on who is in the white house. Hilary Clinton has already demanded that Pakistan hand over Dr A Q Khan, the father of its nuclear weapons programme. That is not an option even for Musharaff, but can be used as one excuse later to isolate and punish Pakistan. Musharaff himself in his biography revealed the threat by Richard Armitage to bomb Pakistan back to the stone age, if they did not cooperate with the US in the wake of 11/9/2001. Because they needed the cooperation, they did not go further in their demands at the time. Following the attack on Afghanistan, Seymour Hersh also revealed a risky plan by the US to attempt to grab Pakistan's weapons (allegedly to prevent them falling into terrorist hands). The truth is that this aim has never been shelved. History tells us that whoever is the commander in chief in Washington, the broad geopolitical strategy never changes. Somewhere down the line perhaps in five to ten years, the time will come for them to deal with Pakistan. Evidence for this is not hard to find. The truth is that the democrat contenders are even more hawkish on the issue of Pakistan than the neocons. An article by Kaushik Kapisthalam in the Asia Times reveals :

" In a January 2004 debate with other contenders from his Democratic Party, Kerry said that if he were elected president, he would get tough with Pakistan on nuclear safety, noting that past Pakistani leaders had lied to him and the US quite blatantly on the nuclear issue. Kerry added that failing to protect Pakistan's nuclear weapons from falling into the wrong hands was "one of the most glaring weaknesses in this [Bush] administration's entire foreign policy". More curious, Kerry said the US should work with India to make a plan for taking out Pakistan's nukes in case of an emergency. Another Democratic senator, Barack Obama of Illinois, went a step further and said the US should launch surgical strikes on Pakistan in a nuclear leak eventuality. "

Barack 'great black hope' Obama, may be posing as an anti-war candidate at the moment but he will be no less hawkish than his rivals. Condoleeza Rice also hinted at the existence of such plans in her exchange with Kerry:

"Kerry: And what about any initiatives or discussions with President Musharraf and the Indians with respect to fail-safe procedures in the event - I mean, there have been two attempts on President Musharraf's life. If you were to have a successful coup in Pakistan, you could have, conceivably, nuclear weapons in the hand of a radical Islamic state automatically, overnight. And to the best of my knowledge, in all of the inquiries that I've made in the course of the last years, there is now no failsafe procedure in place to guarantee against that weaponry falling into the wrong hands.

Rice: Senator, we have noted this problem, and we are prepared to try to deal with it. I would prefer not in open session to talk about this particular issue."

Although, the US has supplied Pakistan with PAL locks to prevent unauthorised use of the nukes, it would not be difficult for any intelligence agencies to gain access to the codes and remove the locks. Ironically the one strategy that remains open to Washington would be to try and force real democracy on Pakistan. This would most likely result in power for the popular anti-american bloc, thus allowing the US to engineer a 'crisis' in order to justify an attack. Musharaff, is too wily an operator to allow this to happen, so he is likely later to become an 'obstacle to democracy' with the West switching horses to support the Bhutto Clan once more.