18/10 Why Russia Fears US Afghan Plan

October 18, 2011

       

Having feared the US entry into Afghanistan, some in Russia now fear the United States’ exit will make it a bigger target for Islamic militants.

By Joshua Kucera

• What Russia Fears in Asia
• ‘Iran has Afghan Peace Role’
• History’s Bleak Afghan Lesson
• NATO’s Afghan Lifeline
• The Dangerous Afghan Drawdown

For the last decade, Russian policymakers have watched in alarm as the United States, as part of its war effort in Afghanistan, has made strategic inroads into the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Washington has set up military bases and built relationships with the countries that Russia considers its sphere of influence, including Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

But now, the Kremlin is facing something potentially more dangerous than the Americans coming to Central Asia: the Americans leaving Central Asia.

13/10 Was Khamenei Reckless – Or Set Up?

October 13, 2011

Claims Iran was plotting to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador on US soil are extraordinary. Would Iran’s leadership really have OK’d such a plot?

By Meir Javedanfar

• Punching Holes in the Iran Plot
• WikiLeaks’ Awkward Reading for Iran
• The Missing Ayatollah
• Why Iran Eyes a Syrian Civil War
• Iran and Turkey Circle Syria

On Tuesday, the US Justice Department accused ‘agents of the Iranian government of being involved in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, with help from a purported member of a Mexican drug cartel.’

This warning came as ABC News,citing an unnamed official, reported that the plot also included ‘plans to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Washington, as well as those belonging to Saudi Arabia and Israel in Buenos Aires, Argentina.’

 

12/10 Laos’ Murky War on Drugs

October 12, 2011

By Joe Amon

Laos has vowed to be drug free by 2015. But the Somsanga ‘treatment centre’ offers a glimpse into a world of abuse, beatings and suicide.

• Laos’s Chinese Gamble
• Vietnam’s Murky Media Picture
• Diagnosing The Future
• Asia’s Opium Resurgence
• Cambodia’s Uighur ‘Madness’

Today’s Laos has a communist government that institutes free market reforms and advertises itself as a haven for backpacking tourists. It recently opened its own stock market. For many Americans, especially, Laos still evokes images of the ‘secret war’ fought on the sidelines of the Vietnam war. But even those familiar with modern Laos may not know much about another secret war, this time on the sidelines of the international war on drugs. In a strange realignment of forces, the United States is very much involved, this time on the same side as the government party it once fought against.