The Great Indian Intelligence Smorgasbord

I was reminded of this term somehow and looked it. Though the word was originally meant for a dish it has become synonymous with a heterogeneous mixture.

Moving on, I was reading an article on why there is some opposition to the NCTC mooted by the Home Minister, P Chidambaram (PC). Apparently PC envisaged an umbrella organization with an operations wing and which would report solely to him. I initially thought Mamata, among various others, was being extremely impractical when she was opposing the very idea of the NCTC. Now I have mixed feelings. On the one hand we have a number of intelligence agencies. Look at this list. For quite some time there has been a clamour for centralized analysis of intelligence collected by various agencies. It is quite possible that a piece of information collected by an agency in Tamil Nadu, which seems insignificant to the local personnel could be the key piece in a puzzle being put together by a central intelligence agency.

So why can't we change the NCTC into such an agency? Unless I am mistaken we do not have a proper central agency today which does that. We have the NSA and CCS (Cabinet Committee on Security). However they cannot sift through the huge volume of information that keeps flowing in. This could be something that is handed over to the NCTC. It can act as a central collator of information coming in from various quarters. It can analyze the same and then give appropriate directions to various government agencies.

This would also require setting up a secure and robust communication network for information sharing between central agencies. Given today's instances like spyware originating from China, the Stuxnet attack in Iran, this should be all the more secure as it would be used to share very sensitive information. Now we can only wait and watch as to how the NCTC game plays out.

Why I support Leno but not America - part 2

In my previous post I had expressed my support for Jay Leno. In this post I want to write about America and Iran today.This has been in the news quite some of late. Granted, the current administration in Iran is not the ideal one a democracy would want in another. However what must be kept in mind (and which the US is wont to ignore) is that Iran is a sovereign state with its own democratically (even if the elections were questionable) elected government. How the US has supported autocratic regimes in the middle east while claiming to support democracy elsewhere must have been discussed ad nauseam. Hence I will not venture into that territory in this post.

Let us consider a few points. There seem to be multiple reasons why the US seem to be so antagonistic to Iran. For one, I believe the government before Iran was turned into an Islamic Republic was favourably disposed towards the US. The current regime is Islamic and this is something the US has a problem with (unless the regime is pro-US as in the case of other middle eastern countries like Saudi Arabia). Then Iran is a neighbour of Israel. The US has consistently been pro-Israel to my knowledge probably because of the large number of Jews in influential positions in the US. Thus when such a country as Iran aspires or shows aspirations to become a nuclear weapons state it must give sleepless nights to Israel and the US. Further Israel is sufficiently close to US strategic interests (read oil) in the middle east to affect them adversely in the event of a conflict. 

1. The US is an existing nuclear weapons state. Israel is rumoured to have nuclear weapons. It has always maintained an ambiguous position with respect to its nuclear capability. Iran, in all probability has no nuclear weapons currently. 
2. The US has in the recent past deposed regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. I am not even taking into account conflicts like the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Iran does not seem to have done so. The last war Iran fought was with Iraq after being invaded by it.
3. The US has the world's largest military budget which is 4.7% of its GDP. Among all developed countries Israel  has the highest defence spending as a percentage of GDP at 6.3%. Iran's spending as a percentage of its GDP stood at 1.8% in 2008. Refer to this and this. 
4. Though Iran  is an Islamic country it is predominantly Shia. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are predominantly Sunni. The Sunnis have no love lost for the Shias and some Sunnis even cosider the Shias to be heretics (one only needs to remember the sectarian violence that keeps popping up in Pakistan). Thus Iran can be said to be surrounded by hostile Muslim countries also.

There is talk of the US invading Iran if it continues its nuclear program. A few nuclear scientists have been killed in what seem to be targeted assassinations in the past few years. The EU is joining hands with the US to put pressure on Iran to drop its weapons program. Among the articles I read was an interesting point. A very important reason, if not the most important reason why countries go the nuclear way is deterrence. The US is today very worried about stability in Pakistan and North Korea precisely because they possess nuclear weapons. This in a way deters the aggressor from invading. Thus the current pressure on Iran can in fact drive to hasten its program so that it reaches a stronger bargaining position. Israel seems to have an intention of undertaking pre-emptive strikes to stop Iran from making nuclear weapons. Even taking into consideration the instinct of self preservation this can only be described as arrogant disregard for another country's sovereign status (similar to its ally, the US).

Countries like India are being pressurised not to purchase energy from Iran. Due to this, India is also facing problems in paying Iran for the oil it imports. Thus I believe it is high time for countries like us to stand up to US and European pressure while persuading Iran to get to the negotiating table. It is unfair to ask Iran to give up its defence programs when it perceives most if not all of its neighbouring or nearby countries to be hostile.