Ignore US threats on Iran: Yashwant Sinha

[burythehatchet]

London, Sep 12 (IANS) Declaring that 'American law is not international law', former foreign minister Yashwant Sinha has said India should resist US pressure while formulating its course of action on Iran, even at the cost of the Indo-US nuclear pact.

'India should not support the US on the question of Iran,' Sinha, who was a senior member of the previous National Democratic Alliance government, said on a BBC radio programme Sunday

Sinha, whose government was considered by many to be one of the most pro-US, also advocated that India ignore Washington's demands for New Delhi to withdraw from the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline

http://in.news.yahoo.com/050912/43/603qb.html

[H2O Man]

1. Interesting article.

There is frustration on the part of the Bush administration, because even those countries considered friendly to the USA are refusing to cooperate with the Cheney efforts to create an international crisis with Iran. In fact, many nations are taking small but significant steps to counter the Cheney attempts to bully. There is only one other government that is actively supporting and indeed participating in the neocon's "Iran policy." And even that government does not have the support of a majority of its population.

It seems unrealistic to think that Iran will not be the leading Islamic power in the Middle East. Our future, and indeed global stability, is not enhanced by the Cheney=based threats of violence against Iran.

[burythehatchet]

2. I'm sure you've kept up with the revision of the nuclear

use policy that the pentagon is putting into place ("allowing" pre-emptive nuke strikes). My question would be whether one can extract oil in a radioactive land. I believe China and Russia are not on board with the US, notwithstanding Mr. Bolton's charm offensive...or is that offensive charm.

[H2O Man]

3. I believe that

it was the Saturday edition of the New York Times that had an interesting article about Russia and China's responses to US efforts to get the UN to pressure Iran. This administration has created a climate where the US is being kept at arm's length by old friends, and has become the target of hatred by many, many countries.

The policy on WMD is best understood in the context of what Iranian leaders have made clear they will do if the extreme right of Israel launches air strikes on select targets in Iran. Rather than uniting the world in a reasoned concern about the spread of nuclear weapons -- a path that can only lead to nuclear war -- the world is uniting in fear of the reckless, unstable bully in the White House.