patrick.net

A memorandum submitted to Manmohan by Muslim leaders stated: "in the post cold-war era the American imperialism has posed a serious threat to the world order based on mutual respect for the sovereignty of every country. Unprovoked aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq and a threatening posture against Iran has proved beyond doubt that the new security doctrine of pre-emptive strikes to destroy all foci of potential resistance to American dictates of world order has blurred and finally erased the distinction between peace and war."

Indeed, India’s stand against Iran has been a sticking factor with the Muslims in India. New Delhi has been unhappy with Tehran repeatedly dragging India into its problems with Washington. On Sunday Iran trashed the US for its "double standards" in signing the nuclear deal with India. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Washington was systematically trying to show Teheran in a bad light. "The United States' approach is a form of double standards. It signed a contract with a country that was not a member of the non-proliferation treaty. That is objectionable. On the other hand, it approaches Iran in such a (bad) way." India has not signed the NPT, which it says is discriminatory. Iran has voluntarily signed the agreement.

New Delhi has been trying to broker on behalf of Iran and has been instrumental in buying more time for Tehran at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meet in September despite the anti-Iran vote. The November meet of the IAEA postponed action due to active behind the scene lobbying by New Delhi officials. Matters were relatively quiet on this front, until in January this year when Tehran removed UN seals from three nuclear facilities, ending a two-year suspension of uranium enrichment-related activities.

i know a few indians who say the whole place is mired in corruption, and no-one can do meaningful business as a result. to call places 'democracies', and see them all as strategic allies when in fact they have their own self-interested agendas would be a grave geopolitical mistake. for instance, india needs oil to industrialise, and guess where the nearest source is?

i haveen't even got wordpress working... is that the secret? should just get good quality forum software : (

i wouldn't fight 'em... they feud to the death, even the ones who've emigrated to australia... and there's lots of them... iran is 4 times the population of iraq and 4 times the area - and indonesia has 250 million muslims....

if they have depleting oil, then i guess international interest in those regions will go down, and there will be less tension and conflict between east and west... borders mean that populations cannot shift far, so if they cannot support the populations after peak oil, i don't know what happens...

i don't know about pax americana, i think that's an overstatement - the view here is that the US has corruptly meddled in too many other countries in the last 50 or 60 years, and causes a lot of the world's strife and mischief by appropriating an unfair share of resources through economic imperialism, covert activity and gunboat diplomacy...

funnily enough, the romans were always looking for pretexts to invade. they used to trigger wars of conquest by saying that the people in a new territory had offended one of their 'friends' in a neighbouring territory and that they therefore had to intercede. sometimes they even fabricated allies in neighbouring territories to do it. but they had a big 'discourse' about how they were civilising the world, etc, as they expanded, but they were ultimately warlike and unpopular, causing the germanic tribes to turn back on them eventually.... the equivalent militarisation may well be the truman doctrine...

hmm, maybe there is a perfect storm of peace, economic co-operation and sustainable development, on the other hand...

just hum the words to Imagine...

I think it's a shame that this thread peaked at only 299 comments. If only someone would come by and make it an even 300. Oh, well... :-(