263 Real reason for Obama's trip to Afghanistan: Karzai's China-Iran dalliance

Real reason for Obama's trip to Afghanistan: Karzai's China-Iran dalliance

(1) Israel fears Obama heading for imposed Mideast settlement
(2) Israel to allow clothes, shoes into blockaded Gaza
(3) UNHRC expected to pass resolution for Gaza compensation
(4) UN body suggests Israel should pay compensation to people in Gaza
(5) Big Brother listens to conversations in aircraft - fighter jets scrambled
(6) MPs demand British military equipment sold to Israel is not used in occupied territories
(7) AIPAC calls for US to bypass Security Council & unilaterally sanction Iran
(8) Real reason for Obama's trip to Afghanistan: Karzai's China-Iran dalliance

(1) Israel fears Obama heading for imposed Mideast settlement

From: Sadanand, Nanjundiah (Physics Earth Sciences) <sadanand@mail.ccsu.edu> Date: 31.03.2010 03:16 PM

By Ari Shavit, Haaretz Correspondent , March 29, 2010

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1159863.html

U.S. President Barack Obama's demands during his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Tuesday point to an intention to impose a permanent settlement on Israel and the Palestinians in less than two years, political sources in Jerusalem say.

Israeli officials view the demands that Obama made at the White House as the tip of the iceberg under which lies a dramatic change in U.S. policy toward Israel.

Of 10 demands posed by Obama, four deal with Jerusalem: opening a Palestinian commercial interests office in East Jerusalem, an end to the razing of structures in Palestinian neighborhoods in the capital, stopping construction in Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and not building the neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo.

But another key demand - to discuss the dispute's core issues during the indirect talks that are planned - is perceived in Jerusalem as problematic because it implies that direct negotiations would be bypassed. This would set up a framework through which the Americans would be able to impose a final settlement.

It is not just Obama's demands that are perceived as problematic, but also the new modus operandi of American diplomacy. The fact that the White House and State Department have been in contact with Israel's European allies, first and foremost Germany, is seen as part of an effort to isolate Israel and put enormous political pressure on it.

Israeli officials say that the Obama administration's new policy contradicts commitments made by previous administrations, as well as a letter from George W. Bush in 2004 to the prime minister at the time, Ariel Sharon. According to this view, the new policy is also incongruous with the framework posed by Bill Clinton in 2000.

Senior Israeli sources say that as a result of the U.S. administration's policies, the Palestinians will toughen their stance and seriously undermine the peace process' chances of success.

Moreover, sources in Jerusalem say that the new American positions undermine the principle of credibility that has guided U.S. foreign policy since the end of World War II. Ignoring specific promises made to its Israeli ally would make other American allies lose trust in its commitments to them.

Israeli officials warn that if the United States shirks its past commitments, the willingness of the Israeli public to put its trust in future American guarantees will be undermined - as will the superpower's regional and international standing.

(2) Israel to allow clothes, shoes into blockaded Gaza

Monday, March 29, 2010; 9:14 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032900904.html

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel will allow a shipment of clothes and shoes to be delivered to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for the first time in its almost three-year-old tight blockade of the enclave, Palestinian officials said on Monday.

They said the first 10 truckloads would be arriving via the Israeli-controlled Gaza border point on Thursday.

Israel is under international pressure to relax its blockade, which the United Nations says punishes Gaza's 1.5 million people over their leaders -- the Islamist group Hamas, who are pledged to Israel's destruction.

Israel prohibits shipments of cement and steel to Gaza on the grounds that Hamas could use them for military purposes.

Its long list of controlled goods also includes items that critics say have no apparent military value, such as children's crayons and books.

Gaza has been getting most of its consumer goods via tunnels from neighboring Egypt operated by smugglers who add on hefty surcharges. Gaza merchants said 10 truckloads would not fill their stocks and demanded that Israel release goods long held in its sea ports.

Egypt is building an underground wall to block the tunnels, which have been frequently bombed by the Israeli air forces since Israel's offensive against Hamas 14 months ago in which some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, writing by Douglas Hamilton; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

(3) UNHRC expected to pass resolution for Gaza compensation
Published Thursday 25/03/2010 (updated) 25/03/2010 22:03

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=271403

Bethlehem - Ma'an - The 13th session of the UN Human Rights Council is expected to pass a resolution demanding compensation for Gaza residents who suffered losses during Israel's Operation Cast Lead, observers said.

The resolution would be the fourth involving Israel, with two condemning the continued occupation and siege of Palestinian areas and a third on the continued occupation of Syria's Golan Heights.

A UN news brief issued on Monday said Palestinian permanent representative to the UN Ibrahim Khrashi had endorsed the compensation resolution, noting "Israel would contribute the most as it had caused the most damage."

He called on Switzerland to hold a conference before the end of the year on the alleged violations of the Geneva Convention perpetrated by Israel, and asked all stakeholders to demand real and conclusive investigations into allegations laid out by the Goldstone report.

The February move to declare two historic mosques on Palestinian lands "Israeli heritage sites" was discussed at the special session on Palestine, and a resolution demanding Israel stop "targeting of Palestinian civilians" and the "systematic destruction of their cultural heritage" was passed by the council.

According to a report by Al-Jazeera, the US and the EU both opposed the resolution, calling it "unbalanced." The news site said an American representative commented on the resolutions saying they would do nothing to help peace.

(4) UN body suggests Israel should pay compensation to people in Gaza

26 March 2010

http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/main/showNews/id/9197

In Geneva, the Human Rights Council of the United Nations has voted to form a committee of experts to evaluate the demand by the Goldstone Committee that Israel and Hamas launch independent investigations into their actions during the Gaza war in 2009. The UN body also voted that Israel should pay Palestinians reparations for loss and damages suffered during Operation Cast Lead. However, the 47-nation council did not call for similar payments by Palestinians to Israelis.

The proposal sponsored by Pakistan passed by a majority of 29 to 6, with 11 abstentions. The United States and five European countries on the council – Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine – voted against the resolution, while Belgium, France and the United Kingdom abstained.

“No such assessment committee has been formed by this council before,” Israel’s UN ambassador, Aharon Leshno Yaar, told the council ahead of the vote, adding: “This resolution is so biased and one-sided, so defamatory, that it crosses far over the line of being ‘only’ anti-Israeli,” he said

The retired South African judge Richard Goldstone and three other members of a special committee produced a report in 2009 which accuses both Israelis and Palestinians of having committed possible war crimes in Gaza, but the bulk of the report focused on Israel.

Leshno Yaar told the council that there was no need for a new committee of experts. It “clearly contradicts and duplicates last month’s General Assembly resolution that asked the secretary-general to report on investigations by the end of July, as the committee of experts will shoot out another report, less than two months later, in September,” the Israeli ambassador told the Human Rights Council.

(5) Big Brother listens to conversations in aircraft - fighter jets scrambled
From: David West <dgwest7@gmail.com> Date: 30.03.2010 09:17 AM
Subject: RAF fighter jets scrambled amid terror plot fears

It appears that some robots listen to the transmissions from airlines. It is very thoughtful of the BBC to inform us of this. Now we know that a keen amateur-radio enthusiast could transmit on the desired wave-length, and by using the right keywords at the right time could have Harrier jets going up and down like a bride's nightie.
David

RAF fighter jets scrambled amid terror plot fears

By Jonathan Beale
Defence correspondent, BBC News 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8592070.stm

Fighter jets were scrambled to intercept a United Airlines flight

RAF Typhoon fighter jets have been scrambled twice this month amid fears of possible terror threats in UK airspace, the BBC has learned.

One week ago - on 22 March - the RAF was alerted to a conversation overheard on the airwaves, believed to have come from a plane travelling through UK airspace.

It included the words "ransom" and "hostage".

Soon afterward a Delta Airlines plane - on its way from the US to Frankfurt - made what is described as an "unusual request" to descend just as it was flying south of Reading.

Within minutes, two Typhoon fighter jets were scrambled from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire.

The fighters circled over Kent as the civilian flight, which had raised concerns, cleared UK airspace. It was, thankfully, a false alarm.

It is the latest incident to trigger counter-terrorism measures - first introduced after the attacks on 11 September 2001.

Difficult decision

On average the alarm is raised every month - perhaps no surprise given that there are three million flights through UK airspace every year.

Whenever an alert is issued, Downing Street is immediately informed.

One of a small group of senior ministers is kept abreast of developments.

In this case, he or she would have been woken up in the middle of the night.

Ultimately the minister would make the difficult decision to intervene or, if all else fails, to shoot an aircraft down.

So far it has not come to that, but the procedures are in place.

Typhoon jets were also launched from RAF Coningsby on 2 March, in another incident which has already been reported.

They went to "assist" an American Airlines flight travelling from Dallas/Fort Worth to London.

It followed reports that a passenger had tried to enter the flight deck.

In this case, a female passenger had become distressed during the flight, but the flight crew had managed to calm her down.

But the speed of the interception by the RAF Typhoons gives a sense of how seriously these incidents are taken.

We are not allowed to report precisely how soon the fighters were at the scene, but again it took a matter of minutes to intercept the American Airlines flight. ...

(6) MPs demand British military equipment sold to Israel is not used in occupied territories

From: Sadanand, Nanjundiah (Physics Earth Sciences) <sadanand@mail.ccsu.edu> Date: 31.03.2010 03:16 PM

Ensure Israel arms curbs, say MPs

BBC NEWS: 2010/03/30

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8594402.stm

The UK government must ensure that military equipment sold to Israel is not used in the occupied territories, MPs have said.

Ministers must learn "broader lessons" about ensuring the ban on the trade in such products for use in Gaza and the West Bank is enforced, a report adds.

The MPs said it was "regrettable" that UK arms sold to Israel were "almost certainly" used in Gaza in 2008.

However, they said the UK provided less than 1% of arms exported to Israel.

Rocket attacks

The Commons Committees on Arms Export Controls - made up of members of other select committees - questioned ministers on the state of the military equipment trade.

It heard that arms deals with Israel had been looked at on a "case-by-case basis", rather than the UK government imposing an embargo.

“ It is regrettable that arms exports to Israel were almost certainly used in Operation Cast Lead ”
MPs' report

Five licences had been revoked since Operation Cast Lead, launched by Israel in December 2008.

(7) AIPAC calls for US to bypass Security Council & unilaterally sanction Iran
From: Sami Joseph <sajoseph2005@yahoo.com> Date: 26.03.2010 01:37 AM

Obama Squeezed Between Israel and Iran

By Pepe Escobar

The AIPAC 2010 show predictably was yet one more "bomb Iran" special; but it was also a call to arms against the Barack Obama administration, as far as the turbo-charging of the illegal colonization of East Jerusalem is concerned.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25073.htm

Obama Squeezed Between Israel and Iran

By Pepe Escobar

March 25, 2010 "Asia Times" -- The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual show in Washington would hardly be out of place in a Quentin Tarantino movie; picture a giant hall crammed with 7,500 very powerful people regimented by a very powerful lobby - plus half of the United States Senate and more than a third of the congress - basically calling in unison for Palestinian and Iranian blood.

The AIPAC 2010 show predictably was yet one more "bomb Iran" special; but it was also a call to arms against the Barack Obama administration, as far as the turbo-charging of the illegal colonization of East Jerusalem is concerned.

The administration has reacted to the quarrel with a masterpiece of schizophrenic kabuki (classical Japanese dance-drama) theater. Corporate media insisted there was a deep "crisis" between the unshakeable allies. Nonsense. One just has to look at the facts.

Only 10 days after scolding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for 43 minutes over the phone, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton showed up at AIPAC spinning the usual platitudes. At least she talked about a "change of facts on the ground" in Palestine and stressed the current status quo is untenable. Netanyahu for his part apparently told Clinton in private (and later Obama as well) that Israel would take "confidence-building measures" in the West Bank, but would continue anyway to build settlements like there's no tomorrow.

When Clinton switched to Iran demonization mode, she was met with universal rapture. The Obama administration will "not accept a nuclear-armed Iran"; is working on sanctions "that will bite"; and the leadership in Iran must know there are "real consequences" for not coming clean with their nuclear program. The demonization seemed to turn Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei into a paradigm of wisdom. Khamenei remarked this week, "If they are extending a metal hand inside a velvet glove, we won't accept it."

Israel rules, Washington follows

AIPAC arm-twisted members of the US Congress to sign a letter to the White House calling for the US to bypass the United Nations Security Council and unilaterally sanction Iran. And AIPAC also urged lawmakers to pass with no comments the annual US$3 billion US aid to Israel. This means the new made-in-USA F-35 fighter jets Israel buys will be basically financed by US taxpayers.

No surprises here. This is a congress that backed Israel's assault in Gaza in late 2008 and condemned the Goldstone Report on Israeli atrocities in that conflict by a vote of 334 to 36. After all, the Democratic party depends heavily on very wealthy Jewish - and Zionist - donors for a chunk of its budget.

Just one day after Israel's Interior Minister Eli Yishai announced the building of 1,600 exclusively Jewish apartments in East Jerusalem (part of a planned, non-negotiable 50,000 which will block it from becoming the capital of a Palestinian state and prevent Palestinian residents of the city from traveling to the West Bank), publicly humiliated US Vice President Joe Biden went to Tel Aviv University and told his audience he is ... a Zionist.

He added, "Throughout my career, Israel has not only remained close to my heart but it has been the center of my work as a United States Senator and now as vice president of the United States."

Of course it does not matter that General David "I'm positioning myself for 2012" Petraeus, chief of US Central Command, told the US Senate Armed Services Committee that the Israeli-Arab conflict "foments anti-American sentiment due to a perception of US favoritism for Israel". Even though "perception" may be the understatement of the millennium, as a potential Republican presidential candidate Petraeus knows he will be in deep trouble with the Republican hardcore Christians and with the Christian-Zionist fringe.

When Obama, as a presidential candidate, addressed AIPAC on June 3, 2008, he said, "We will also use all elements of American power to pressure Iran ... I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power. Everything and I mean everything." Obama even pulled a Netanyahu avant la lettre and declared, "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

At AIPAC this week, Netanyahu said the Israelis were already building in Jerusalem 3,000 years ago and will continue to do so. Even without referring to Israel's religious supremacist and colonialist approach to Jerusalem for these past few decades, historian and Middle East expert Juan Cole at his blog "Informed Comment" demolished Bibi's claim. For instance, "Adherents of Judaism did not found Jerusalem. It existed for perhaps 2,700 years before anything we might recognize as Judaism arose. Jewish rule may have been no longer than 170 years or so."

Cole points out that Muslims, Egyptians, Romans, Iranians and Greeks have the greatest claim on the city.

All in all, it's no wonder Stephen Green, in Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with Militant Israel, a book published in 1984, had already noted how "since 1953, Israel, and friends of Israel in America, have determined the broad outlines of US policy in the region. It has been left to American presidents to implement that policy, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and to deal with tactical issues."

Free-for-all Zionism

Former Moldovan bouncer turned Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is basically a spokesman for Zionist settlers and a million immigrants from the former Soviet Union. He can tell the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel that "Iran is threatening the whole world" and still get away with it. No wonder multitudes across the developing world - and not only Muslim lands - increasingly deplore Zionism policies of occupation/colonization, targeted assassinations, Lebensraum (living space) and degrading Palestinians.

But crisis? What crisis? Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies could not have put it better. "Someone seems to have told the Obama administration that a series of polite requests equals pressure. It doesn't. Real pressure looks like this: 'Please stop settlements.' Answer: 'No.' 'Then, you know that [the] $30 billion that [former president George W] Bush arranged for you from US tax money, and we agreed to pay - you can kiss that goodbye.' That's what pressure looks like."

It won't happen. This "crisis" between Tel Aviv and Washington is a non-event. On the other hand, no one knows exactly whatever hardball Obama and Netanyahu played behind closed doors for three-and-a-half hours in Washington. Did Netanyahu "spit into Obama's eye", according to Israeli Labor Party member Eitan Cabel? Or was this was just more kabuki designed to obscure a not-so-silent drive towards an attack on Iran - where once again fresh American blood will be spilled to placate a non-existent "existential threat" to Israel?

© 2010 Asia Times

(8) Real reason for Obama's trip to Afghanistan: Karzai's China-Iran dalliance

From: Sadanand, Nanjundiah (Physics Earth Sciences) <sadanand@mail.ccsu.edu> Date: 30.03.2010 04:19 PM

Mar 30, 2010 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LC30Df01.html

Karzai's China-Iran dalliance riles Obama

By M K Bhadrakumar

Great moments in diplomatic timing are hard to distinguish when the practitioners are inscrutable entities. Afghan President Hamid Karzai's visits to China and Iran within the week rang alarm bells in Washington which were heard in the Oval Office of the White House.

Karzai's two days of talks in Beijing last week were scheduled exactly at the same time as the high-profile strategic dialogue taking place between the United States and Pakistan in Washington.

Karzai has coolly defied the President Barack Obama's do-or-die diplomatic campaign to "isolate" Iran in the region - not once but twice during the past fortnight. Karzai earlier received his Iranian
counterpart, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, with manifest warmth in Kabul while the US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was on a visit to Afghanistan.

Washington lost no time signaling its displeasure. Obama flew into Kabul on Sunday unannounced for an "on the ground update" from Karzai.

US national security advisor James Jones told the White House press party that Obama hoped to help Karzai understand that "in this second term there are things he has to do as the president of his country to battle the things that have not been paid attention to almost since day one".

Jones's unusually sharp comment bears out the New York Times report from Kabul that Obama "personally delivered pointed criticism" to the Afghan president that "reflected growing vexation" with him.

The newspaper commented:

Mr Obama's visit to Afghanistan came against a backdrop of tension between Mr Karzai and the Americans. It quoted a European diplomat in Kabul as saying, "He's [Karzai] slipping away from the West" and it went on to point out that the Afghan president "warmly received one of America's most vocal adversaries" in Kabul and then "met with him again this past weekend in Tehran", apart from visiting China, "a country that is making economic investments in Afghanistan, ... taking advantage of the hard-won and expensive security efforts of the US and other Western nations."

It seems Karzai had barely got back to Kabul from Tehran when the US Air Force One carrying Obama landed in Bagram air base north of the Afghan capital. Obama has since asked Karzai to go over to Washington on May 12.

Spring is in the air Clearly, the Americans are furious that Karzai is steadily disengaging from the US's grip and seeking friendship with China and Iran. Pretences of cordiality are withering away even as Washington realizes that the ground beneath its feet is shifting.

Curiously, two days after his return to Kabul from Beijing on Thursday, Karzai flew to Tehran to celebrate Nowruz festival. By celebrating the advent of spring at an extraordinary conclave of Persian-speaking regional countries in Tehran, Karzai drew attention to Afghanistan's multiple identity as a plural society of pre-Islamic antiquity.

But in political terms, he ostentatiously displayed his freedom from American control. His itinerary in Tehran included a meeting with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

If Karzai's Iran diplomacy was rich in political symbolism, his state visit to China was politically substantive. Karzai was accompanied by the Afghan ministers of foreign affairs and defense. China's Xinhua news agency reported from Beijing that Karzai's upcoming visit "has drawn wide attention at a time when major powers are speculating whether China would engage deeper in efforts to rebuild - and possibly offer military assistance to - the war-torn country."

Xinhua scotched speculation regarding any role for China in the war:

Since early 2008, Afghan officials, as well as the NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] troops, have repeatedly asked China to open the border on the east end of the Vakhan corridor to help them fight terrorists in the country. China has rejected the appeal, refusing to be sucked into a war on terror. ... Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said earlier this month that military means would not offer a fundamental solution to the Afghan issue.

Zhang Xiaodong, deputy head of the Chinese Association for Middle East Studies, was quoted as saying, "China definitely will not participate in the country's internal affairs under the NATO framework".

Zhang challenged the call last month by NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen to reinforce the alliance's ties with Asian countries such as China, India and Pakistan as well as Russia, which would have a stake in Afghanistan's stability. Zhang said "unbalanced engagement by these [Asian] stakeholders" could lead only to more problems.

Zhang added: "Afghanistan should cut its reliance on the US. At the moment, Washington is deeply involved, and it makes other neighbors nervous. Karzai now hopes to seek more support from other big countries and find a diplomatic balance."

However, in a meeting with his Afghan counterpart, Abdul Rahim Wardak, Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie pledged bilateral military cooperation. "Chinese military will continue assistance to the Afghan National Army to improve their capacity for safeguarding national sovereignty, territorial integrity and domestic stability," Liang said. He pointed out that the military cooperation is proceeding smoothly in the direction of military supply and personnel training and the Chinese assistance is "unconditional".

China Daily lambasts AfPak

On Wednesday, ahead of Karzai's meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, the government-owned China Daily featured a devastating critique of the US's AfPak policy in an article titled "Afghanistan reflects US' self-obsession".

The commentary said:

It is clear that the US would like to maintain its influence over Afghanistan even after withdrawing its troops, no matter when that happens. Which means it would not allow regional powers such as China to play a greater role in Afghan affairs. Instead, what the US is willing to share with countries like China is the burden of economic reconstruction.

The commentary harped on differences in the "basic stances" of China and the US. First, the US has adopted a differentiated approach toward terrorism insofar as its focus is on preventing Taliban or al-Qaeda from threatening its homeland security or US's facilities and personnel. On the contrary, "China, as Afghanistan's neighbor, also needs to tackle non-traditional security threats such as drug trafficking, arms smuggling and other cross-border crimes," China Daily said.

Second, the US's "consolidation" of its military presence in Central and South Asia" on the pretext of the Afghan war "put extra pressure on China's defense and security interests".

Third, the US and Chinese economic interests clash. "America gets priority in project selection ... And its economic input is aimed at paying for its military operations," while Chinese enterprises face unfair competition in securing contracts and are vulnerable to security threats.

Fourth, the US is prescriptive and has been "trying to force its political model on the backward country. On the other hand, China believes the Afghans (of all ethic groups and political parties) should decide on what form of government they want based on their culture, tradition and domestic conditions."

Fifth, China Daily said the US and China are pursuing contradictory "geopolitical objectives". The US has an "offensive counterterrorism strategy in which Afghanistan is being used as a pawn to help it maintain its global dominance and contain its competitors. China, on the contrary, pursues a defensive national defense policy and wants to have good relations as neighbors of Afghanistan."

Looking ahead, the commentary said:

The chaos caused by the war in Afghanistan is threatening security in China's northwestern region. A weak government in Kabul could mean a poorly manned border, which in turn would facilitate drug trafficking and arms smuggling and allow "East Turkmenistan" separatists to seek shelter in Afghanistan after causing trouble in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

China should get more countries to come together to resolve the Afghan problem. ... The SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization] could play a more active role because five of Afghanistan's six neighbors are its members or observers. ... But given the present situation in Afghanistan, an SCO-led reconciliation and reconstruction process is an unrealistic proposition. Hence at present it [China] could only provide help through multilateral channels.

A show of support for Karzai

On the eve of Karzai's departure for Beijing, he received a delegation from the opposition Hizb-i-Islami group headed by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Washington is ambivalent about Hekmatyar, but in the joint statement issued after Karzai's visit, Beijing expressed support for the reconciliation and reintegration process in Afghanistan and affirmed "respect for the Afghan people's choice of development road suited to their national conditions".

Ahmadinejad's consultations in Kabul, followed by Karzai's dash to Islamabad, and now his visits to Beijing and Tehran - the sudden spurt of high level exchanges suggest a pattern.

What should alarm Washington most is that the Chinese position on Afghan national reconciliation meshes with Karzai's political agenda and accords with Iran's overlapping concerns and interests.

The China-Afghan joint statement affirms Beijing's readiness to expand economic cooperation, trade and investment while upholding the principle of "respect for the Afghan people's choice of development road suited to their national conditions".

Washington will factor in that it is quite within China's financial capacity to reduce Karzai's dependence on Western largesse, in turn encouraging the Afghan leader to shake off the West's attempts to dominate him.

The US-government funded media speculated that during his stay in Beijing, Karzai might seek Chinese investment in Afghanistan's vast reserves of minerals such as the rich gas fields in the northwestern region bordering Turkmenistan, which is already connected by a pipeline to Xinjiang.

It cannot be lost on Washington that Beijing and Tehran share similar concerns on almost all core areas of the Afghan situation.

These include their perspectives regarding the US's "hidden agenda" in the Afghan war and therefore the urgency of stabilizing the Afghan situation, Washington's double standards in the fight against terrorism, the West's hegemonistic approach toward Afghanistan, the imperative need of "Afghanization" including an Afghan-led national reconciliation, and most important, the desirability of cooperation among like-minded countries in the region in the search for an Afghan settlement.

Conceivably, Beijing's worries over the critical security situation in Afghanistan and its commonality of interests with Tehran could well act as an additional factor hardening Beijing's stance apropos the Iran nuclear issue.

Equally, does the prospect of long-term strategic ties between the US and Pakistan worry China?

A senior advisor to the former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wrote recently, "Strategic relations with the US may well impinge on other vital linkages. Two are critical. With the US determined to engineer a 'regime change' in Iran, what would its expectations be from Pakistan? Finally, can we [Islamabad] contemplate cooperating with the US in any initiative that could trouble our relations with China?"

For the present, the Chinese commentaries seem to take a detached view. They tend to view the US-Pakistan long-term strategic partnership project as a pragmatic move on both sides - borne out of Washington's need to solicit Pakistani help to stabilize Afghanistan on the one hand and on the other hand Islamabad's need of US help to resuscitate its economy and to maintain a strategic balance vis-a-vis India.

But Beijing cannot be oblivious of the underlying US regional strategy to frustrate China's efforts to gain access routes to the Persian Gulf region via Central Asia bypassing the Malacca Strait, which is effectively under American control. The US strategy cannot work unless Pakistan falls in line.

Beijing's (and Tehran's) show of support for Karzai comes at a time when his relations with the US and Pakistan are somewhat rocky, to say the least.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.