New Rules for Nukes
"Bush Dog Go Home"
As Bush pens a nuclear deal with India, Pakistan's Musharraf is keeping his 'strategic options open.'
newsweek: George W. Bush doesn't seem to have many friends in Pakistan. To greet him on his visit last week, Islamic and secular political parties came to an unprecedented agreement to paralyze the country with a strike. Thousands of people rallied at what Urdu newspapers called "Bush Dog Go Home" protests, and a suicide bombing killed a U.S. diplomat in Karachi. Pakistani authorities virtually locked down Islamabad in order to protect the president, emptying the streets and detaining some 4,000 people.
Bush still has a devoted ally in Pervez Musharraf, who hung banners along the vacant motorcade route showing the two leaders smiling side by side. But even the Pakistani president's loyalties may soon be divided. The day before Bush flew to Islamabad in the dead of night, with his wing lights off and the window shades down, Musharraf delivered an address in his native Urdu to Pakistan's National Defense College. He had just returned from a trip to China, Pakistan's old cold-war arms supplier. "America has signed a civil nuclear agreement with India on the basis of what it sees to be its interests," Musharraf said. "My recent trip to China was part of my effort to keep Pakistan's strategic options open."
Bush still has a devoted ally in Pervez Musharraf, who hung banners along the vacant motorcade route showing the two leaders smiling side by side. But even the Pakistani president's loyalties may soon be divided. The day before Bush flew to Islamabad in the dead of night, with his wing lights off and the window shades down, Musharraf delivered an address in his native Urdu to Pakistan's National Defense College. He had just returned from a trip to China, Pakistan's old cold-war arms supplier. "America has signed a civil nuclear agreement with India on the basis of what it sees to be its interests," Musharraf said. "My recent trip to China was part of my effort to keep Pakistan's strategic options open."
What Musharraf gets from China could help determine whether Bush's new diplomatic accord with India is a triumph - or the trigger for a new era of proliferation. Both India and Pakistan have been subject to U.S. sanctions since the archrivals tested nuclear weapons in the late ' 90s. But under the terms of the U.S. deal, which was eight months in the making, India alone would be brought back from official outcast status. New Delhi agreed to subject 14 of its reactors to international inspection by 2014. But it reserves the right to produce unlimited fissile material, to keep its eight military reactors from any scrutiny and to build as many more as it wants. In return India will receive U.S. investment and equipment directed toward expanding its civilian nuclear program. Read more
"All of this is under our control if we're not willing to observe passively and obediently - take democracy seriously." [Noam Chomsky - World in Peril]
As Bush pens a nuclear deal with India, Pakistan's Musharraf is keeping his 'strategic options open.'
newsweek: George W. Bush doesn't seem to have many friends in Pakistan. To greet him on his visit last week, Islamic and secular political parties came to an unprecedented agreement to paralyze the country with a strike. Thousands of people rallied at what Urdu newspapers called "Bush Dog Go Home" protests, and a suicide bombing killed a U.S. diplomat in Karachi. Pakistani authorities virtually locked down Islamabad in order to protect the president, emptying the streets and detaining some 4,000 people.
Bush still has a devoted ally in Pervez Musharraf, who hung banners along the vacant motorcade route showing the two leaders smiling side by side. But even the Pakistani president's loyalties may soon be divided. The day before Bush flew to Islamabad in the dead of night, with his wing lights off and the window shades down, Musharraf delivered an address in his native Urdu to Pakistan's National Defense College. He had just returned from a trip to China, Pakistan's old cold-war arms supplier. "America has signed a civil nuclear agreement with India on the basis of what it sees to be its interests," Musharraf said. "My recent trip to China was part of my effort to keep Pakistan's strategic options open."
Bush still has a devoted ally in Pervez Musharraf, who hung banners along the vacant motorcade route showing the two leaders smiling side by side. But even the Pakistani president's loyalties may soon be divided. The day before Bush flew to Islamabad in the dead of night, with his wing lights off and the window shades down, Musharraf delivered an address in his native Urdu to Pakistan's National Defense College. He had just returned from a trip to China, Pakistan's old cold-war arms supplier. "America has signed a civil nuclear agreement with India on the basis of what it sees to be its interests," Musharraf said. "My recent trip to China was part of my effort to keep Pakistan's strategic options open."
What Musharraf gets from China could help determine whether Bush's new diplomatic accord with India is a triumph - or the trigger for a new era of proliferation. Both India and Pakistan have been subject to U.S. sanctions since the archrivals tested nuclear weapons in the late ' 90s. But under the terms of the U.S. deal, which was eight months in the making, India alone would be brought back from official outcast status. New Delhi agreed to subject 14 of its reactors to international inspection by 2014. But it reserves the right to produce unlimited fissile material, to keep its eight military reactors from any scrutiny and to build as many more as it wants. In return India will receive U.S. investment and equipment directed toward expanding its civilian nuclear program. Read more
"All of this is under our control if we're not willing to observe passively and obediently - take democracy seriously." [Noam Chomsky - World in Peril]
posted by exoplanet at 12:30 PM
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