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2017-05-18 Arabia
A Pakistani's Suggestion, How Trump Can Secure the Strait of Hormuz
[TorontoSun] Donald Trump has been U.S. president for a little over 100 days, but there hasn’t been a week where he’s found respite from his critics, who are already whispering "impeachment".

The latest "scandal" heaped on Trump is the Washington Post claim he leaked highly classified information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about Islamic State (ISIS).

The only other American officials in that meeting, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster and his deputy, Dina Powell, have publicly denounced the Post story, entirely based on anonymous sources, as "false".

But even if the allegation that Trump shared intelligence about ISIS with Russia is true, isn’t the fact both Russia and the U.S. are fighting ISIS relevant to the Post, or to other commentators who immediately took to the air to denounce Trump?

For over 50 years, I have keenly followed the travails of 11 American presidents, protesting their crimes in Vietnam, Chile and my native Pakistan.

But never have I seen the outrage that has greeted Trump.

Is it because he vowed during his campaign last year to "drain the swamp" of the forces that really run Washington?

Trump, is like a bulldozer, shrugging off all the attacks on him.

Next week, he heads to Saudi Arabia, where the guile and cunning of its rulers have manipulated American presidents for 70 years.

However, the way the Trump administration has dealt with Turkey gives us hope.

Despite fierce opposition from that country, Trump has approved supplying arms to Kurdish YPG (Yekineyen Parastina Gel) fighters to support an operation aimed at retaking the Syrian city of Raqqa from ISIS.

The Turks howled in protest saying arming Kurds in Syria would pose a threat to Turkey, but U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis made sure Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s temper tantrums would not cause the U.S. to betray the Kurds.

If the Saudis lure America with a $100 billion order for jet fighters, let that not be the bait to suck America into the kingdom’s power struggle with Iran.

For all its bluster, Iran does not yet possess nuclear weapons.

Pakistan does, along with delivery systems, and these are available to Saudi Arabia.

The BBC reported this as early as 2013, saying, Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects, and "could obtain atomic bombs at will".

The BBC report cited a senior NATO decision maker saying, "he had seen intelligence reporting that nuclear weapons made in Pakistan on behalf of Saudi Arabia are now sitting ready for delivery."

There are also reports the Saudis are trying to whip up an anti-Shia uprising within Iran’s Sistan and Balochistan province.

This as a way to divert attention from the 70-year-old Balochistan freedom movement in Pakistan and turn that nationalist movement, similar to the Kurdish struggle, into an anti-Iranian, Sunni Islamic militancy.

Perhaps it is time for Trump to arm the nationalist Baloch in Pakistan-occupied Balochistan just as he’s armed the YPG in Syria.

A free Balochistan, secular and liberal, rid of ISIS, the Taliban, al-Qaida and the anti-India Lashmar-e-Taiba (LeT) at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, should be America’s goal and Trump’s priority.

After all, banking on Islamabad in Pakistan, Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and Ankara in Turkey has failed, because the Islamist double-speak of the dictators ruling these countries has consistently fooled America.
Posted by Angarong Angaviter4237 2017-05-18 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views ]  Top
 File under: Govt of Iran 

#1 Perhaps it is time for Trump to arm the nationalist Baloch in Pakistan-occupied Balochistan just as he’s armed the YPG in Syria.

I've made similar suggestions over the years.
Posted by phil_b 2017-05-18 01:20||   2017-05-18 01:20|| Front Page Top

#2 The BBC reported this as early as 2013, saying, Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects, and "could obtain atomic bombs at will".

...And Auntie Beeb was still about twenty-seven years late:

Royal Saudi Strategic Missile Force

Short Version: the Saudis have had Chinese-built IRBMs since the early 80s, originally to remind the Iranians and Iraqis that three could play at that game, but also to give them something to eventually use with the Pakistani bombs that they were paying for. (I have seen at least a couple sources that indicate the Saudis asked about Pershing IRBMs, but we wouldn't sell.)

Mentioned the Saudi missiles during a conversation late one night in the Magic Kingdom in 1995, and I was told - quietly but firmly- to shut the hell up and forget I'd ever even known about them. It was a VERY touchy subject.

Mike
Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2017-05-18 05:46||   2017-05-18 05:46|| Front Page Top

#3 ...And Auntie Beeb was still about twenty-seven years late:

I suppose it says something positive about the Saudis that they never used the things on Israel, though America would have been seriously annoyed with them if they had.
Posted by trailing wife 2017-05-18 08:56||   2017-05-18 08:56|| Front Page Top

13:20 irish+rage+boy
13:16 Grom the Reflective
13:16 DarthVader
12:58 trailing wife









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