Terror From The Pakistan Horn (Daniel 7)

Pakistan probably most dangerous country for world: Ex-CIA official

WASHINGTON: Pakistan is probably the most dangerous country for the world as it is ripe with the threats of terrorism, a failing economy and the fastest growing nuclear arsenal, a retired CIA official has said.

“While Pakistan is not the most dangerous country in the world, it is probably the most dangerous country for the world, and as such, a serious case for close and continued US engagement with Pakistan can be made,” Kevin Hulbert, a former top intelligence officer who retired in June 2014, wrote in an op-ed in The Cipher Brief.

“As a country ripe with the triple threat of terrorism, a failing economy, and the fastest growing nuclear arsenal, Pakistan has the potential to create more nightmare scenarios for US policymakers than any other country,” said Hulbert, who previously served multiple overseas tours as CIA Chief of Station and Deputy Chief of Station.

Like it or not, Pakistan is similar to a bank or company considered too big to let fail because of the ripple effect it might cause across the entire economy.

The spectre of the sixth largest country in the world being a failed state is a hypothetical catastrophe that would unleash a world of unintended consequences, he said.

“Rather than risk it, and as much as we might like to move on, we really should increase the level of engagement with Pakistan, not decrease it,” he recommended.

Hulbert said many of the trend lines in Pakistan now seem to be moving in the wrong direction.
For years, Pakistan felt justified in its use of jihadist militias to attack India in a war of attrition.
It pursued a perverse double-dealing game where they supported ‘good’ radical Muslim extremists that helped them in their proxy war against India, while at the same time trying to hold the line against the ‘bad’ radical Muslim extremist elements who were focused on bringing down the Pakistani state, he observed.

A large percentage of the Pakistan population does not view jihadi groups, including the Taliban and other militant religious groups, as dangerous elements, but rather as good soldiers of Islam comprised of men performing their religious duty, he said.

“The fight against al-Qaeda in Pakistan was largely seen as a US fight, not a Pakistan fight, and Pakistan’s unwillingness to make the hard choices required to confront the growing menace of radical extremism, created a monster,” the former CIA official said.

Today, Pakistan finds itself in a very complicated security situation where there is little differentiation among radical groups, he noted.

Terrorist groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, are suddenly allied with al-Qaeda, while Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the Pakistan Taliban, the Afghan Taliban, and other assorted miscreants and non-state actors are intent on bringing down the elected government of Pakistan.

While the Pakistan government dithered, the militancy in the country took firm hold, he said.

The China Nuclear Horn Can Hit The US (Dan 7:7)

 

China Tests Its Most Dangerous Nuclear Weapon of All Time


Zachary Keck
August 19, 2015

China conducted a flight test of its new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) this month.
This week, Bill Gertz reported that earlier this month, China conducted the fourth flight test of its DF-41 road-mobile ICBM.

“The DF-41, with a range of between 6,835 miles and 7,456 miles, is viewed by the Pentagon as Beijing’s most potent nuclear missile and one of several new long-range missiles in development or being deployed,” Gertz reports.
He goes on to note that this is the fourth time in the past three years that China has tested the DF-41, indicating that the missile is nearing deployment. Notably, according to Gertz, in the latest test China shot two independently targetable warheads from the DF-41, further confirming that the DF-41 will hold multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV).

As I’ve noted before, China’s acquisition of a MIRVed capability is one of the most dangerous nuclear weapons developments that no one is talking about.

MIRVed missiles carry payloads of several nuclear warheads each capable of being directed at a different set of targets. They are considered extremely destabilizing to the strategic balance primarily because they place a premium on striking first and create a “use em or lose em” nuclear mentality.
Along with being less vulnerable to anti-ballistic missile systems, this is true for two primary reasons. First, and most obviously, a single MIRVed missile can be used to eliminate numerous enemy nuclear sites simultaneously. Thus, theoretically at least, only a small portion of an adversary’s missile force would be necessary to completely eliminate one’s strategic deterrent. Secondly, MIRVed missiles enable countries to use cross-targeting techniques of employing two or more missiles against a single target, which increases the kill probability.

In other words, MIRVs are extremely destabilizing because they make adversary’s nuclear arsenals vulnerable to being wiped out in a surprise first strike. In the case of China, Beijing’s acquisition of a MIRVed capability is likely to force India to greatly increase the size of its nuclear arsenal, as well as force it to disperse its nuclear weapons across a greater sway of land to prevent China from being able to conduct a successful decapitation strike. Such a development in Delhi would upset the Indo-Pakistani nuclear balance, likely prompting Islamabad to take corresponding actions of its own.
China’s acquisition of a MIRVed capability is also likely to upset the strategic balance with Russia. As Moscow’s conventional military capabilities have eroded since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has leaned more heavily on nuclear weapons for its national defense. It therefore seeks to maintain a clear nuclear advantage over potential adversaries like China. Beijing’s acquisition of MIRVed missiles threatens to erode this advantage.

As Gertz’s notes, the U.S. intelligence community believes that the DF-41 will ultimately be able to carry up to 10 nuclear warheads. Such a development would likely force China to increase the size of its nuclear arsenal. To date, China and India (as well as the world’s other nuclear powers) have maintained relatively small nuclear arsenals compared with Russia and the United States.
The introduction of MIRVed technologies into the Asian nuclear balance may render this no longer true. For this reason— along with its long-range and solid fuel—the DF-41 is the most dangerous nuclear weapon in China’s arsenal.

The Danger Of the Pakistani Horn (Daniel 8)

Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif, not his army, the world’s most dangerous

Kamal Alam
Sunday 12 April 2015 17:07

The increasingly close ties between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia should be seen as a cause of concern.

No country has had more written about its army in the past decade than Pakistan.  Every three years, there is more global speculation about who will be Pakistan Army Chief than there is on the appointment of the head of the US military.

It is no mystery, since Pakistan’s military commands the strongest air force in the Islamic world and has the world’s fastest-growing nuclear arsenal. The country has been dubbed the world’s  most dangerous country by at least three magazines – Newsweek, the Economist and Time. Yet few analysts look beyond the simplistic nature of this discourse: the true danger that Pakistan poses comes in the shape of its current prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.

In the past few weeks, Sharif has mobilised the right-wing sectarian groups Jamaat Ud Dawa (JUD) and Ahlah Sunna wa Jamaat (ASWJ), two militant outfits that were born out of the Afghan-Arab groups during the Afghan civil war in the 1980s. Both these parties have links to terrorist groups that have killed Sunni and Shiite alike. They are putting heavy pressure on the Pakistani media and army for  troops to be sent to fight in Yemen and beyond.

What is even more disturbing is that lies are being spun in the Pakistan media insinuating that the Houthis have already attacked Saudi soil, thus suggesting that the battle in Yemen has become a holy war incumbent on Pakistan. There is nothing holy about Saudi Arabia to begin with, yet often under Sharif’s premiership efforts are made to convince the illiterate masses of Pakistan that Saudi Arabia is synonymous with Islam and thus Pakistan’s creation. 

Pakistan suffers from multiple identity issues and ethnic wars between the Pashtun, the Punjabi and the Baluch; only Islam unites the country, as it was created for the Muslims of the subcontinent, and its media see Pakistan’s powerful army as the protector of Saudi Arabia. 

Under Sharif’s direction a strong narrative has been built of equating the House of Saud to an infallible ordained family that protects Islam, and thus Pakistan, as the most powerful Muslim army, must protect the al-Sauds. 

However, if you talk to Western defence chiefs and long-term CIA experts they are quick to caution against the oft-repeated narrative of “Islamic” generals at the helm of nuclear weapons and commanding an array of militant groups rivaled only by the groups in Iraq and Syria.

Aside from the Western narrative on Pakistan, there is also an Arab narrative: Pakistan is now the only Muslim country to possess nuclear weapons; it has also previously been a full participant in the wars against Israel in 1967 and 1973. 

Furthermore, its pilots have shot down Israeli planes, and have also taken part in Arab civil wars, most notably in the 1970 overthrow of the PLO during Black September in Jordan and during previous Saudi-Yemen skirmishes when its pilots were in the cockpits of Saudi jets.

The latest skirmish in Yemen, though, sheds new light on the increasing sectarian divide in the Pakistani political and military leadership. Pakistan’s military has always prided itself on its professional ethos and the non-sectarian nature of its general officer corps, but, since the nuclear tests in 1998, it has pulled ever closer  to the Saudi leadership. 

The prime minister during that earlier period was Nawaz Sharif. Since coming to power for a third time almost two years ago, Sharif has made a dizzying number of visits to Riyadh, and similarly there is a revolving door of top-tier Saudi princes in and out of Islamabad on a weekly basis. 

It is no secret that the Saudis see Pakistan as very much in their sphere of influence. The Saudis have boasted that they are not just influential in Pakistani politics and security affairs, but they are active participants. Furthermore, the Saudis have always seen former president Asif Ali Zardari and the Pakistan Peoples Party, which he co-chairs and whose leadership is predominantly Shiite, as “rotten”. The PPP was created by the leading Shiite feudal family, the Bhuttos from Sindh, and is seen as heretical as far as Saudis are concerned.

Every time Sharif has come to power, he has had a run-in with the Pakistan military leadership and has interfered in the promotion processes of the Army Board, the military body that oversees the elevation of military officers. There has been much speculation of Saudi Arabia’s role in the promotion ladder of Pakistan’s army with the help of Sharif’s premiership. 

Sharif’s credentials as a supporter of the Taliban have also been an open secret, with active “ignorance” of the Punjabi Taliban. The south of Punjab is where most of the Saudi funding ties in with the most extreme groups that have been linked to the violence in Afghanistan and even Iraq and Syria. The Saud family own thousands of acres in southern Punjab, which are used for their food security and hunting grounds for falcons.

An increasing sectarian rift in Pakistan has been seen since Sharif’s latest return to power in 2013, with attacks on the Shiite community reaching a new high in the past 12 months. The government has looked away at the plight of these communities in comparison to attacks on army schools and charities.

Similarly, on the issue of the Syria war, Sharif’s extreme Wahabi nature has shown its true colours (his father reportedly followed a Salafist group, Ahl al-Hadith, which rejects claims it is synonymous with Wahabism). Sharif has seen the Syrian war as a Shiite-Sunni war despite most of the Syrian Arab Army officer corps being Sunni, Christian and Druze, yet Sharif, pressured by the Saudis, has falsely told the Pakistani political leadership that the war in Syria is an assault on Sunnis

Syria and Pakistan have always been strong military allies with deep counter-intelligence ties. Pakistan has historically been one of the largest trainers of the Syrian Air Force, and also regular annual military exchange of officers and equipment sold to the Syrians. Yet this five-decade-old historic relation was put aside when, under heavy Saudi pressure, Sharif called for the Syrian government to step aside as it had lost credibility.

This shift in a historic stance towards Syria came about through direct pressure from the then-Saudi Crown, and now ruler, Prince Salman. Sharif has also had strong relationships with the Hariri family in Lebanon, and used the “old-school” Afghan-Arab jihadi network to facilitate Sunni groups in Lebanon to take on Hezbollah.

The most disturbing element of the Sharif-Saudi alliance in Lebanon has been the arming of the Wahabi groups in Nahr al-Bared and Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian camps in Lebanon, which turned into an all-out skirmish in 2008-2009. 

The present conflict in Yemen has the potential to turning Sharif’s sectarian objectives from being covert to overt. That he has always been close to the Saudis has never been in doubt to seasoned Pakistan watchers. But the growing bravado with which the Saudis lord it over Pakistan has the potential to further exasperate the region’s problems as most of the Gulf Cooperation Council looks to Pakistan to provide security to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and increasingly also Qatar. 

Pakistan took full part in the suppression of the popular uprising in Bahrain in 2011, and Pakistani Sunni families have been given Bahraini passports to settle in Bahrain with a strong bias towards military and security as a background prerequisite to get this citizenship.

All the opposition parties in Pakistan have come out against Sharif’s support for the Saudi’s in the conflict in Yemen. Saudi Arabia without doubt sees as its own Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and Riyadh’s increasing involvement in all aspects of Pakistan’s foreign policy means that the worst fears of international observers may not be sensationalist as some thought previously. 

Perhaps the most telling sign of Pakistan’s full participation in Saudi Arabia’s sectarian wars has been the “official” announcement by the Saudis on 30 March that Pakistan has agreed to be part of the coalition against the Houthi militants. This decision was taken even before the Pakistani parliament or defence committees had met to discuss the motion. 

Moreover the announcement came from Saudi sources rather than Pakistani. (After days of debate, Pakistan’s parliament has now decided against military involvement in the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthi militants.)

The Pakistan-Saudi relationship has begun to resemble that of a puppet and its master. Iran is extremely cautious about Pakistan’s growing tilt towards playing Saudi Arabia’s dirty games in the Middle East, from Lebanon and Syria on towards Bahrain and Yemen. Yet, Pakistan’s prime minister looks set to take his nuclear-armed state into a full involvement in Arab conflicts. 

- Kamal Alam specialises in contemporary military history of the Arab world, he is a Fellow for Syrian Affairs at The Institute for Statecraft, and is a visiting lecturer at several military staff colleges across the Middle East and UK. 

- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/pakistans-nawaz-sharif-not-his-army-world-s-most-dangerous-1643972215#.dpuf

The Dangerous Iranian Horn (Daniel 8)

Iran more dangerous to Iraq than ISIS: U.S. terror experts

JAMES WARREN

Iran presents a far greater threat to Iraq’s future than ISIS terrorists, experts told U.S. senators Tuesday.

An ideologically divergent group left the Armed Services Committee with little doubt that the ISIS threat will ultimately diminish, but Iran will maintain its ability “to dominate the region.”

“It has a greater ability to control the region and sustain that control if allowed to do so,” testified Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution as he compared Iran, ISIS and Al Qaeda.

The hearing chaired by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) underscored fears about Iran’s historic clout in the region, the persisting weakness of the Iraq government and doubts about ongoing international bargaining over Iran’s nuclear program.

Ray Takeyh, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted the tricky reality of Iran training Iraqi Shia militia, presumably for the ongoing domestic conflict in Iraq against ISIS.

His fear, he told the panel, is an Iranian ulterior motive of training them for “transnational purposes,” meaning as “the ISIS threat diminishes, they may have plans for them to operate in Syria and beyond the boundaries of Iraq.”

Both Pollack and Takeyh sought to slightly qualify their views of Iran by saying that its regional influence is not necessarily a permanent reality.

But to avoid it being so, an array of changes must place.

Those include a dramatic beefing up of the potency of the current Iraqi government via more U.S. military and civilian help, as well as somehow avoiding Iran producing nuclear weapons.

The consensus was that the latter might just be a pipe dream, and that ongoing nuke talks led by the U.S. can avoid that prospect.

Iran will likely get a nuke whether or not there is an agreement in the ongoing talks, said Retired Army Col. Derek Harvey, who was in charge of an internal think tank on Afghanistan and Pakistan at U.S. Central Command.

Dafna Rand, a deputy director of studies at the Center for a New American Security, said the question was no longer Iran’s nuclear intentions.

Instead, the key matter is whether the rest of the world can somehow use a mix of export controls, sabotage and economic sanctions “to provide obstacles to those intentions.”

And, she said, “The logic for waiting for a better deal has a lot of holes in it.”

GOP Are Clowns, Albeit Dangerous Clowns (Ezekiel 17)

David Ignatius: Senators' partisan meddling downright dangerous

The Billings Gazette

WASHINGTON — Even by congressional Republican standards, the naysaying letter to Iran sent Monday by 47 GOP senators was grossly irresponsible. Not only did it undercut President Obama's ability to negotiate a diplomatic agreement but it also undermined the aspect of the Iran nuclear deal that would potentially be most beneficial to the United States and Israel.

From the beginning of the Iran nuclear talks, a key U.S. goal has been to obtain an agreement whose duration is long enough that it will bind Iran's actions into the next generation of leaders who will follow Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who is 75 and ailing. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed the future expiration of the agreement as a key worry during his speech to Congress last week criticizing the deal.

The political wrecking ball that is the Republican caucus has, perhaps unwittingly, challenged precisely this goal of a long-term pact by advising the Iranian leadership that the deal being negotiated is merely an "executive agreement" that could be abandoned if the domestic political winds change. "The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time," the letter says.

Helping Iran's hardliners

To this assertion of the impermanence of an agreement, Khamenei and other hard-liners might well respond with an Iranian version of "Amen." They could use the Senate GOP letter as a rationale for abandoning aspects of the deal they find too constraining. That would force the United States to consider military action. The casus belli, bizarrely, might begin with an argument made by Senate Republicans.

"I think it's somewhat ironic to see some members of Congress wanting to make common cause with the hard-liners in Iran," Obama told reporters. That was putting it mildly. A blunter assessment came from Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who said he was "beyond appalled" by what the Senate letter-writers had done.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who doesn't want hard-liners in Washington or Tehran to upset his deal-making, responded with a civics lesson of his own: "The authors may not fully understand that in international law, governments represent the entirety of their respective states. ... Change of administration does not in any way relieve the next administration from international obligations undertaken by its predecessor in a possible agreement about Iran's peaceful nuclear program." Whether such views are binding on Khamenei & Co. is a key issue for the future.

Contempt for Obama, U.S. allies

This latest GOP tactic of conveying skepticism about the accord directly to Tehran follows House Speaker John Boehner's invitation to Netanyahu to, in effect, lobby against the deal from the floor of the U.S. Congress. These actions may be seen by allies abroad not just as a gesture of contempt for Obama, but also for the broader P5-plus-1 negotiating group that includes Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China.

Liberal bloggers were arguing that the GOP letter violated the Logan Act, named for a Pennsylvania politician's attempt to meddle in President John Adams' delicate negotiations with France in 1798.
The language of that 216-year-old statute does sound eerily pertinent: "Any citizen ... who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government ... or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

The Obama administration surely isn't going to take its GOP critics to court. But this latest act of congressional defiance should make reasonable Republicans wonder whether their party's foreign policy agitprop has moved beyond being merely partisan to downright dangerous.

Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/news/opinion/editorial/columnists/david-ignatius/david-ignatius-senators-partisan-meddling-downright-dangerous/article_14d72ad6-5756-5ac7-adc7-03f3db321c52.html#ixzz3UDBVHmMI