War and cheeseburgers

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A specter haunts Europe. No, it's not communism; it's US rating agencies. Greece is bankrupt; the eurozone is about to crack; JP Morgan makes billion-dollar "mistakes"; there's no (jobs) future for the new generations. And yet the weaponized arm of the Western 0.1% elites occupies Chicago - turned into an Orwellian police city-state - to discuss "smart defense".

In Afghanistan, the "smart" North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is in fact bound for a humiliating escape. "Smart defense" is code for "there's no money". Only five among 28 NATO member states spend 2% of their gross domestic product on the military - as NATO would have it. One of them was - surprise! - Greece. Here's yet another crash course on weaponized neo-liberalism. First Greece was more or less forced to buy expensive submarines from the French and the Germans; then it was forced to make budget cuts. Call it the "food for subs" NATO relief plan.

The US pays for no less than 75% of NATO's bills - yet another graphic demonstration of NATO as the European arm of the Pentagon. Still, in 2011 European Union (EU) members spent no less that $180 billion on defense. Not anymore. There's no money. So it will be up to the Pentagon to keep it going.

And keep it going it will - with relish. As expected, this Sunday in occupied Chicago NATO approved - better yet, US President Barack Obama and his allies "just decided" - to go with the first phase out of four of the US missile shield for Europe.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NE22Ak02.html

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1. Iran and Europe, 'till death do us part

So the grand Barack Obama administration foreign policy strategy of trying to square the circle between an Iranian nuclear deal and getting the eurozone economy back on the road slouches towards ... what exactly? (See War and cheeseburgers Asia Times Online, May 22)

Not even Zeus knows. At least what was on the table this week in both Baghdad and Brussels has kept the ball rolling further on down the road in Moscow and Paris/Berlin.

The story in Baghdad

The much-anticipated meeting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the US, China, Russia, Britain and France plus Germany (P5+1) with Iran in Baghdad at least produced a result; a third round of negotiations in Moscow next month.

It couldn't be any other way. A divided P5+1 (the US and the Europeans on one side, BRICS members China and Russia on the other) wanted Iran to totally halt their uranium enrichment to 19.75% - to which it has a right, as it subscribes to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In exchange, the P5+1 offered a "sanctions-

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NE26Ak03.html

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2. du rec. nt