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The current administration, for all of the strange things it is doing these days, is right to at least try to facilitate this:

The foreign ministers of Pakistan and India, meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York at the weekend, did not agree on the resumption of formal talks between the countries.

However, their meeting – the first high-level contact between the countries since July – sets the stage for Washington-mediated backchannel talks for which Pakistan has already appointed a senior envoy, Riaz Mohammad Khan.

The central issues in this dialogue will be the regional “war on terror” and the establishment of a “fair bargain” between India and Pakistan over their respective interests in Afghanistan.

Although most people (especially Christians) are focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict, in many ways the running clash between India and Pakistan is the most significant point of conflict between the Muslim world and a neighbour.  It’s certainly one of the deadliest, and has been since the two states were separated at independence sixty years ago.  And don’t forget that both India and Pakistan are both nuclear powers.

And that brings us to Afghanistan.  More than being just a place where terrorists train, Afghanistan is in effect the geographical centre of the “Old World,” and as such the locus for just about every geopolitical conflict in the world and involves all of the major powers, including Russia, China and Iran.  The India-Pakistan contest has always complicated the situation in Afghanistan, and the current administration hopes to simplify that.

It won’t be easy.  But for those of us who must content ourselves with watching, it’s something else for the prayer list.

Seen this kind of thing before, from the blog of attorney Chris Banescu:

Here is the risk inherent in leadership: The greater the leader’s power, wealth, authority, and influence, the more likely the leader could succumb to ethical lapses and moral failings. The risk increases if the organization has a culture that lacks financial or managerial transparency and accountability, has insufficient checks and balances on executive power, and discourages criticism from subordinates or members. When a leader with a poorly developed ethical or moral sense ends up leading an organization with a culture that prevents ethical self-examination, a slow but perfect storm starts to form that demands compromise from all levels of leadership and eventually leads to catastrophic consequences.

Read it all here.  HT to Virtue Online.

“Cuban missile crisis in slow motion” is a good way to describe the situation:

Graham Allison, a Harvard professor who is one of America’s leading security strategists, likes to speak of the U.S.-Iranian nuclear confrontation as “the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion.” Well, on Friday morning, that slow-mo process started moving a little faster, as President Obama issued a stark warning about a secret Iranian project that poses a “direct challenge” to the international order.

World leaders used language this morning that described a dangerous ladder of escalation ahead. Obama said Iran will be “held accountable” for its actions. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that unless Iran changes its nuclear stance by December, harsher sanctions will be imposed. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, normally no Churchill, said there was “no choice today but to draw a line in the sand.”

Allison’s Cuban analogy may strike some people as alarmist, but it seems more and more apt to me. The United States and its allies have caught Iran cheating, again, on International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards — this time by building a second undeclared enrichment facility in a mountain near Qom. It was an Iranian effort to gain leverage, reminiscent of Moscow’s moves in Cuba in 1962 as described by Allison in his classic book, “Essence of Decision.”

But the Iranians–rightly I think–are banking that Barack Obama is, like Lloyd Bentsen described Dan Quayle, no Jack Kennedy.

It’s hard to imagine a protégé of William Ayers doing anything but making speeches, having meetings and getting his international cronies to pass resolutions while the engineers in Iran keep building nuclear weapons and the methods to deliver them.  It’s equally hard to imagine that the existence of these facilities were unknown in the top secret briefings which our intelligence community (or what’s left of it) regales presidents with for some time.  Until last January, the chief objective of most of those who own and operate this place was to keep George Bush from doing something about it, and that effort was successful.

There are only three groups of people who have the will to solve this problem.

The first, and obvious choice, are the Israelis.  Their biggest obstacle is the Obama Administration’s animus towards the State of Israel, who would doubtless take Zbignew Brezhinski’s advice and shoot down Israeli planes flying over Iraq towards their destination.  (But then there’s always Plan B…)

The second are the Russians.  I’ve always hoped against hope that their government will wake up to the fact that an Islamic state with major military capabilities is against a millennium of Russian experience, and that they’re going to have to choose between quick cash and long-term survival.  The Russians have proven they’ll forcefully deal with people like the Chechens; will they repeat the feat?

The third are the Arabs.  They in reality have the most at stake here; a nuclear Iran could put a lot of heat on those across the Persian Gulf (and, with nuclear weapons, it would be the Persian Gulf.)  I am confident that the cash-rich Saudis are diverting a little of their mosque-building budget to acquire nuclear capabilities of their own.  Those in the Middle East know a weakling when they see one; the Saudi’s can’t depend on the U.S. for their security indefinitely.

And the Chinese?  They have ring side seats to this.  They are the only long-term beneficiaries of this mess, assuming there’s a long term to be had.

P.S.  After posting this, I saw Susan G’s piece on the Daily Kos.  What a bunch of pap!  But that’s the trouble with too many liberal outlets; talk critical thinking, do propaganda.

A few days ago I wrote a piece on how the “socialists” who are in the ascendant in our government have sold out.

Evidently the real articles–and their anarchist friends–have hit the streets of Pittsburgh:

Police fired canisters of pepper spray and smoke at marchers protesting the Group of 20 summit Thursday after anarchists responded to calls to disperse by rolling trash bins and throwing rocks.

The march turned chaotic at just about the time that President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama arrived for a meeting with leaders of the world’s major economies.

The clashes began after hundreds of protesters, many advocating against capitalism, tried to march from an outlying neighborhood toward the convention center where the summit is being held.

The protesters banged on drums and chanted “Ain’t no power like the power of the people, ’cause the power of the people don’t stop.”

The marchers included small groups of self-described anarchists, some wearing dark clothes and bandanas and carrying black flags. Others wore helmets and safety goggles.

One banner read, “No borders, no banks,” another, “No hope in capitalism.” A few minutes into the march, protesters unfurled a large banner reading “NO BAILOUT NO CAPITALISM” with an encircled “A,” a recognized sign of anarchists.

There are still a few true believers out there…

But that’s the way revolutions are: the idealists get them into power and then the “realists” get taken over by the power.  The right calls Barack Obama a socialist but the real leftists say he’s not.

The reality is that socialism, communism and revolution is a lot of fun until it’s actualised.  Then, things go downhill.

Another note: when I took microeconomics, my professor–no conservative–opined that there was little difference between a state owned monopoly and a state-regulated one.  In a broad way, that’s true.  That’s why the difference between, for example, the co-ops and the public option in the health care debate isn’t as significant as it looks.  Once we start thinking in these terms we blur the difference between facism and socialism, and our elites absolutely hate that.

The situation, as described by The Hill’s Brent Budowsky, is a revolutionary’s dream come true:

The great fault line in American politics today is not Democratic versus Republican, left versus right or black versus white. It is between the core political and financial power centers and the great silent majority of Americans who want to work hard, play fair, build a better life for their families and be treated fairly by government and business alike…

As Christmas approaches, there will be stories of humongous Wall Street bonuses alongside stories of unemployment rising above 10 percent and foreclosures remaining at record levels. There will be stories of speculation on Wall Street alongside stories of credit card rates still rising as banks rush to beat the effective date of the new credit card law.

It is not “Merry Christmas” for workers worried about losing their jobs or benefits. It is not “Happy New Year” for those receiving pink slips while others receive giant bonuses.

People like Lenin and Mao made careers and changed nations with stuff like this.

But the American left, the supposed home of socialism in this country, has been bought off.  They have been bought off by our major financial and corporate interests.  They say they speak for the people but they hold the people in contempt.  They say it’s for our good while they cut endless deals with the insurance and pharmecutical companies for programs whose main purpose is to turn the American people into clients and themselves into patrons, with the people’s money no less.

Marx used to say that history repeats itself, the first time as a tragedy and the second time as a farce.  His followers did the tragedy, and now the children of the 1960’s and their followers are working on the farce.