China continues to talk peace but prepare for conflict, this is visible even to a blind person living in China, and the rhetoric certainly leans that way as well.
To be fair to China, its main rival or competitor, India which is a nuclear power and has fought a war with China, is armed to the tooth and is making great efforts to modernise it's military. China is surrounded by states that are either 'friend's of the U.S., or a strategic partners of the U.S. and the U..S. does have a military presence in the region - in China's backyard. The question we should ask is whether China's current military modernisation drive is perfectly natural for a country that will soon be the biggest economic power in the world, and has legitimate concerns and interests to watch out for or is it really ''preparing for conflict'' as you suggest?
Back in the 1960's Nasser of Egypt, Syria and I think maybe Iraq formed a single pan Arab country for a while but that soon fell apart after defeat in the Six Day War. You are right in that most of the modern Middle Easter states are results of France and Britain splitting the spoils of their defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. Lines were drawn on maps delineating areas of influence and control without thought given to ethnic, cultural, historical, national or religious contexts.
Robert Fisk mentions in this video a proposed plan put forward in the aftermath of WW1 for a unified Arab nation, from North Africa to the Persian Gulf.
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b42FJwydOCY"]Fisk lashes out at West in Middle East - YouTube[/nomedia]
Do you recall ever, an Israeli suicide bomber boarding a school bus and murdering a bunch of innocent little kids on the way to school?
Why would there be an Israeli suicide bomber when Israel, unlike Hamas and Hazbollah, has jets, gunships, armour and frigates to help achieve its political and military objectives? There have been cases though of deranged or trigger happy Israeli settlers gunning down people.
The Israeli's have merely retaliated and one can hardly blame them, given the Arab penchant for Israels destruction.....
Not my intention to derail this thread but what ''
penchant'' are you referring to?? Calls for Israel's destruction by Arab is not an issue anymore, and is not on the list of ''to do things''. The Arab League, led by Saudi, has made it very clear that the only issue preventing a peace treaty and formal ties is Israel's continued occupation of Arab land. The problem has been made worse by the building of settlements and as you know, despite a public call by Obama to cease building so that peace talks could resume, Netanyahu did the opposite. Also, the main agenda of all Arab regimes is regime survival, making money and trying their best to stay in the West's good books, not preparing for a future war with Israel.
Certain countries have not recognised Israel simply because to do so would imply that there is approval for Israel's continued occupation of Arab land, which is violation of international law, and its continued building of settlements on land it does not own and is ilegally occupying - not because they still have dreams of Israel's destruction. Even Hamas, which at one time was courted by Israel as an alternative to the ineffective and corrupt Fatah [which Israel conveniantly does not mention], has publicly maintained that it is more than willing to recognise Israel in return for a permanent solution to the longstanding dispute. BTW, a plan put forward by Saudi around 2002 and agreed upon by all Arab countries, that would have led to full recognition and relations with Israel, in return for a settlement of the dispute, and a demilitarised Palestinian state, was rejected by Israel.
With regards to the Israel/Palestine problem, all the parties involved are equally responsible and all have blood on their hands. The Arabs have to get their house in order instead of bickering and convince Uncle Sam to keep applying pressure on Israel to agree on a settlement. As for Israel, it has to decide if it wants peace Or land - it can't have BOTH......
I am against nuclear proliferation and it is something that is happening regardless of treaties and bans. Once the genie is out of the bottle it cannot be put back in and any competent physicist could manufacture a nuke if given time and resources. States should be actively discouraged from following that path, however if they interpret the security situation such as to dictate that path is necessary for them to follow they will.
Agreed but it stinks of double standards and hypocrisy when some countries are allowed by the ''big powers'' to have a nuclear weapons capability and some are not. If I was Iran's senior leadership, I'd throw the ball back in Washington's court and take the initiative by proposing to the Security Council that the Middle East, with the cooperation and agreement of all countries is declared a '
'nuclear free zone''. I would then allow full access to all Iranian facilities at short notice, if Israel did the same. The problem here is that behind the scenes, Israel and the U.S. would then insist that an Israeli nuclear capability is needed given that it faces threats. The question that should arise then but which no mainstream, establishment newspaper has asked is who or which country would wish to target Israel with WMDs as this would lead to massive Israeli and U.S. retaliation that would be devastating. Another stumbling block would the great reluctance of the Gulf states agreeing to any joint initiative that would make the Iranians [whom they view with great historical mistrust and as heretics] look good and all are more than contend for Israel to remain as a counterweight to Iran.
Wishful thinking on my part but if the Israelis and Palestinians could sign a peace deal that would benefit both parties and if the West could come to some sort of agreement with Iran, this could in turn lead to a draw down of Western military presence in the Middle East, which in turn would solve a lot of problems and the various 'jihadist' or extremist groups would have much less of an excuse to wage 'war' on the West.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...oid-asking-the-one-real-question-2348438.html