[Peace-discuss] Threat analysis

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Robert Kaplan, the reactionary editor of the Atlantic
Monthly, gets it right.  --CGE]


    The traditional state remains the most dangerous force on
the international scene. Perhaps the greatest security threat
we face today is from a paranoid and resentful state leader,
armed with biological or nuclear weapons and willing to make
strategic use of stateless terrorists.

    Robert D. Kaplan
    Old States, New Threats
    April 23, 2006

________________________

"a paranoid and resentful state leader . . ."

    A government consultant with close ties to the civilian
leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely
convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not
stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do
“what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future,
would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going
to be his legacy.”

    Seymour Hersh
    The Iran Plans
    April 8, 2006

"armed with biological or nuclear weapons . . ."

    If the United States' nuclear modernization were really
aimed at rogue states or terrorists, the country's nuclear
force would not need the additional thousand ground-burst
warheads it will gain from the W-76 modernization program. The
current and future U.S. nuclear force, in other words, seems
designed to carry out a preemptive disarming strike . . .”

    Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press
    The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy
    April 2006

"willing to make strategic use of stateless terrorists . . ."

    One of the operational assets being used by the Defense
Department is a right-wing terrorist organization known as
Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), which is being “run” in two southern
regional areas of Iran. They are Baluchistan, a Sunni
stronghold, and Khuzestan, a Shia region where a series of
recent attacks has left many dead and hundreds injured in the
last three months.

    Raw Story
    On Cheney, Rumsfeld order,
    US outsourcing special ops, intelligence
    to Iraq terror group, intelligence officials say
    April 13, 2006

________________________

    National elections combined with weak, easily politicized
institutions produce a lethal mix —- dictators armed with
pseudo-democratic legitimacy. And they come in many shapes and
forms.

    Robert D. Kaplan
    Old States, New Threats
    April 23, 2006

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