Best practice risk management for RI banks<\/p>\n
Anthony Brent Elam
\nManaging Director
\nBank Central Asia
\nJakarta<\/p>\n
2. Power -- Can we avoid an Iranian bomb?
\n2 x 21<\/p>\n
Europe, U.S. must rethink
\ntheir strident stand on Iran
\nnb: "waived" and "waiving" should be "waved" and "waving". See
\nbolding below<\/p>\n
Jonathan Power
\nColumnist
\nIstanbul<\/p>\n
No country prevaricates so much unless it has something to
\nhide. The more the Iranians dodge and weave the clearer it
\nbecomes that an important faction in its divided ruling class
\nwants to keep open the option to build a nuclear weapon. Yet at
\nthe same time it is also apparent that another powerful faction
\nregards this as a mistaken policy that will set back all the
\nenormous effort that has gone into mending fences with both
\nEurope and America.<\/p>\n
It takes no great effort to understand that Iran has reasons
\nfor wanting nuclear weapons. Not least because Israel has them.
\nIt is not so much that Iran believes it could engage in nuclear
\nbrinkmanship to force Israel out of Palestine. Nor does it
\nbelieve it could use its own nuclear armory to neutralize
\nIsrael's and then seek to engage it with conventional forces.<\/p>\n
All these would be too risky strategies. It is more a simple
\nquestion of international standing. It is to be able to claim
\nthat it is the one who most faithfully supports Palestinian
\nMuslims. It is the one that dares goes nose to nose, at least
\ntheatrically, with the regional "bully" Israel.<\/p>\n
Then there is Iraq. If Iraq had nuclear weapons during its war
\nwith Iran, 1980-1988, it may well have used them. After all it
\ndid use chemical weapons and at the time hardly anybody
\nprotested.<\/p>\n
The arguments against further proliferation are immensely
\nstrong yet there has always been something unpersuasive in the
\nstick being waived should be "waved" by an America that continues
\nto develop the sophistication, if not the numbers, of its immense
\nnuclear arsenal. Moreover, it is joined in its Iranian quest by a
\nEurope which has two nuclear weapons states, both of which have
\ngreat intellectual difficulty in explaining why in a post Cold
\nWar world they hang on to their armories.<\/p>\n
Over the decades western policy towards proliferators has been
\nambivalent, indecisive and inconsistent, none more so than
\ntowards Pakistan whose nuclear weapons arsenal is now accepted
\n(as long as the government keeps it out of the hands of Taliban
\nsympathizers). But in April, 1979, the attitude in Washington was
\nalmost as harsh as it now is towards Iran.<\/p>\n
The Carter administration, convinced that Pakistan was
\nsecretly building a nuclear weapon, suspended military aid in a
\nmove mandated by Congress's Symington amendment. However, when
\nSoviet troops invaded Afghanistan in December of that year, the
\nAdministration persuaded Congress to overrule the amendment and a
\nlarge arms aid program was started up again.<\/p>\n
For the next decade, in return for Pakistan's help in building
\nup the anti-Soviet mujahidin fighters in Afghanistan, who later
\nwent to work for Osama bin Laden, Washington turned a blind eye
\nto Pakistan's nuclear bomb efforts. Only in 1990 with the Soviets
\ndriven out of Afghanistan did President George Bush senior decide
\nto cut off military assistance.<\/p>\n
Once again this was reversed under his son, President George
\nW. Bush, as America wooed Pakistan for help in defeating the
\nTaliban and hunting down Al Qaeda members. Not only is the bomb
\ntolerated, not much fuss was made last year when the U.S.
\ndiscovered that Pakistan was acquiring missiles from North Korea.<\/p>\n
Likewise, Washington's long refusal to acknowledge what it
\nknew since the early 1960s about Israel's secret nuclear reactor
\nand weapons plant in the Negev desert has cost it dear. Israel
\nwith the U.S. behind it has never lacked an adequate conventional
\ndefense. Its nuclear weapons program has been as much an
\nunnecessary provocation as its settlements policy.<\/p>\n
Credibility and consistency are necessary and important allies
\nin the war against nuclear proliferation. But the same solemn
\ninternational agreement that the U.S. and Europe are now waiving
\nshould be "waving" at Iran, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
\nis the very one in which the nuclear-haves solemnly promised to
\nmake rapid progress in getting rid of their nuclear weapons in
\nreturn for most of the rest of world remaining signatories. All
\nthis dissembling and double talking lowers the bargaining
\nstrength of the West at this critical moment.<\/p>\n
Yet the last thing the world needs is an Iranian bomb or Iran
\nto be within a screwdriver turn of having one. One more
\naccidental launch or opportunity for nuclear theft waiting to
\nhappen have to be avoided.<\/p>\n
The U.S. and Europe need to rethink their increasingly
\nstrident stand. Offer Iran all the civilian nuclear cooperation
\nit can swallow in return for open books and regular intrusive
\ninspections. Offer to end all political and economic estrangement
\n(a policy turnaround long overdue). And, not least, set a better
\nexample in their own nuclear disarmament programs. There is no
\ngood reason why if the West played its cards well it couldn't
\nhelp Iran become another Turkey, democratic, pro Western,
\nmilitarily strong if it so wants, but bomb free.<\/p>\n
3. Pro -- Just say no to Bush
\n1 X 48<\/p>\n
Just say 'no' to Bush on his unilateralist agenda
\nsee correction (bolded in white below)<\/p>\n
Joseph E. Stiglitz
\nProfessor of Economics
\nColumbia University
\nProject Syndicate<\/p>\n
For three years, America's president has pursued a
\nunilateralist agenda, ignoring all evidence that contradicts his
\npositions, and putting aside basic and longstanding American
\nprinciples.<\/p>\n
Take global warming. Here Bush is conspicuously absent without
\nleave (AWOL in military jargon). Time and again, he questions the
\nscientific evidence. (Of course, Bush's academic credentials were
\nnever very impressive.) Bush's position is more than wrong; it is
\nan embarrassment.<\/p>\n
Indeed, when asked by Bush to look into the matter, America's
\nNational Academy of Sciences came to a resounding verdict (the
\nonly one they could honestly reach) that greenhouse gases are a
\nmenace. But America's automakers love their gas-guzzlers, and
\nBush's oil industry pals want no interference with their
\ndestruction of the planet's atmosphere. So no change in policy.<\/p>\n
In Iraq, Bush again pursued a unilateralist agenda, saying
\nthat there was incontrovertible evidence of a link with al-Qaeda,
\nand that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Even before the
\ninvasion, there was overwhelming evidence that Bush was lying.
\nDetection technology made it clear that Iraq did not have nuclear
\nweapons, as chief UN inspector Hans Blix pointed out. It's
\npossible that Bush read those reports, but that they were beyond
\nhis comprehension. It is also possible that he did not believe
\nwhat he read. Whatever the case, American policy was not based on
\nevidence.<\/p>\n
Since the Cold War's end, America is the world's sole
\nsuperpower. Yet it has failed to exercise the kind of leadership
\nneeded to create a new world order based on principles like
\nfairness. Europe and the rest of the world are aware of this; but
\nthey don't vote in American elections. Even so, the rest of the
\nworld is not powerless. Instead, the rest of the world should
\njust say no.<\/p>\n
America has not won the hearts and minds of those in Iraq;
\nindeed, it has lost them, just as it has lost the hearts and
\nminds of much of the world. The U.S. wants to retain control of
\nthe occupation, but it wants others to receive the bullets now
\nmowing down American soldiers. UN soldiers should not bear the
\nconsequence of America's failure to manage the occupation, so
\nU.S. cries for financial help should fall on deaf ears.<\/p>\n
What sympathy does the U.S. agenda deserve, when President
\nBush has ladled out tax cuts of hundreds of billions of dollars
\nto the richest people in the world. It was not long ago that a
\nRepublican Congress held up US$1 billion of UN dues, and
\nthreatened that it would only pay what it owed if the UN
\nsatisfied a raft of conditions. America's unwillingness to
\nprovide small sums to wage peace contrasts sharply with the huge
\namounts Congress quickly granted to wage war.<\/p>\n
Advocates of a softer approach say that if the UN stays on the
\nsidelines, it will become irrelevant; by participating in Iraq,
\nit will build trust with America, so that the next time a dispute
\nsuch as this arises, America will turn earlier to the UN.
\nNonsense. Those in the White House today believe in realpolitik.
\nThey don't believe in loyalty or trust.<\/p>\n
If history matters, it matters most significantly in this:
\nThose who have shown that they can be pushed around will be
\npushed around again. If there is a next time, the U.S. will make
\nits judgments on what is in its best interests, regardless of
\nwhat the UN does.<\/p>\n
I normally write about economics, not politics. But in the new
\nworld of globalization, there is greater economic
\ninterdependence, which requires more collective action, rules and
\ninstitutions, and an international rule of law. Economic
\nglobalization has, however, outpaced political globalization; the
\nprocesses for decision making are far from democratic, or even
\ntransparent. In no small measure, the failures of globalization
\ncan be traced to the same mindset that led to the failures in
\nIraq: Multilateral institutions must serve not just one country's
\ninterest, but all countries'.<\/p>\n
At the recent World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in
\nCancun, the developing countries put America -- and Europe -- on
\nnotice that this system can no longer continue. In that case,
\nEurope was as much the culprit as America. Europe has no trouble
\nseeing the dangers of unilateralism in America's actions, in
\neverything from abandoning Kyoto to its refusal to join the
\nInternational Criminal Court.<\/p>\n
But Europe should also reflect on its own practices, including
\ntrade policy, where the EU works systematically to unbalance the
\nglobal trade regime against developing countries, despite
\npromising that those imbalances would be corrected in the current
\nround of trade negotiations.<\/p>\n
Here, Europe acts like America, which has long talked the
\nrhetoric of free trade, while its actions have long ignored the
\nprinciples. Forget about America's rhetoric of upholding fairness
\nand justice; in trade negotiations, the U.S. ignores the pleas of
\nthe poorest countries of the world to eliminate the cotton
\nsubsidies that have had so devastating an effect on them.<\/p>\n
If we are to make the world politically more secure and
\neconomically more stable and prosperous, political globalization
\nwill have to catch up with economic globalization. Principles of
\ndemocracy, social justice, social solidarity, and the rule of law
\nneed to be extended beyond national boundaries. Europe and the
\nrest of the world will have to do their part--abiding by these
\nprinciples themselves, and giving each other, and America, a
\nshove in the right direction. Right now, this entails "Just
\nSaying No" to President Bush.<\/p>",
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