WASHINGTON, June 3 (UPI) -- The UPI think tank wrap-up is a daily digest covering brief opinion pieces, reactions to recent news events and position statements released by various think tanks.
Institute for Public Accuracy
(The IPA is a nationwide consortium of policy researchers that seeks to broaden public discourse by gaining media access for experts whose perspectives are often overshadowed by major think tanks and other influential institutions.)
WASHINGTON -- India and Pakistan
-- Pervez Hoodbhoy, professor of physics at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan.
"Nuclear affairs are now being guided by wishful, delusional thinking. The most frightening delusion is India's trivialization of Pakistan's nuclear capability. ... Lacking any desire for political settlement ... jihadists in Kashmir (are attempting to) provoke full-scale war between India and Pakistan, destabilize (Pakistani President) Musharraf, and settle scores with the U.S. ... Many observers have noted that attacks on Indian civilians coincided with the visits of high officials from Western countries. Could the upcoming visits by (Deputy Secretary of State) Richard Armitage and (Defense Secretary) Rumsfeld provide a trigger for the next atrocity and a nuclear war?"
-- Mohan Rao, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has just returned from India.
"In both India and Pakistan much of the rhetoric is aimed at a domestic audience. It's a race to the bottom. In Pakistan there's been a series of dictatorships while in India there's been more of a tradition of democracy, but there's been a growth of extremist ideology in both. In India, the BJP Hindu fundamentalist party has used fascist ideology and violence to mask narrow economic agendas. It has used the Kashmir question to galvanize the population. Now, the BJP is benefiting from the silent majority seeing a benefit from cooperating with the U.S. and the anti-Islamic rubric of the 'war on terrorism.' The U.S. is asserting its power overtly with money and covertly with intelligence ..."
-- Rahul Mahajan, author of "The New Crusade: America's War Against Terrorism." "The 'you're with us or you're with the terrorists,' 'axis of evil,' 'ready for preemptive action' rhetoric, combined with bellicose U.S. actions, not just in Afghanistan, but also towards Iraq -- less directly towards Venezuela, Cuba, Somalia, potentially others -- has naturally created a climate in which non-superpower states argue that they can take similar license as the U.S. already has -- (Israeli Prime Minister) Sharon in Israel, (Indian Prime Minister) Vajpayee in India ... The governments of India and Pakistan do have an interest in a limited war -- a border skirmish with hundreds or thousands of deaths -- to help stabilize both governments domestically. They have no interest in all-out war of a conventional kind, let alone nuclear."
-- M. V. Ramana, research staffer at the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University, Ramana is coauthor of a recent Scientific American article, "India, Pakistan and the Bomb."
"From what we know, India and Pakistan have not yet deployed their nuclear weapons. ... Even under these circumstances, if India launched attacks across the line of control in Kashmir, it could result in a full-scale war, possibly leading to nuclear war. ... The new U.S. nuclear posture review calls for expanding the role of nuclear weapons. That could act as a model for India and Pakistan in terms of thinking about using nuclear weapons on the battlefield. Despite the rhetoric around the recent accord between (U.S. President) Bush and (Russian President) Putin, the U.S. and Russia still have thousands of nuclear weapons deployed, many on hair-trigger alert. As part of its efforts at defusing the India-Pakistan crisis and urging India and Pakistan to not deploy their nuclear weapons, the U.S. should follow what it preaches by de-alerting its missiles."
The National Center for Public Policy Research
(NCPPR is a communications and research foundation dedicated to providing free market solutions to today's public policy problems, based on the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility. NCPPR was founded to provide the conservative movement with a versatile and energetic organization capable of responding quickly and decisively to late-breaking issues, based on thorough research.)
CHICAGO -- Ten Second Response: Court Says EPA's Haze Plan Infringes On States' Rights
by Gretchen Randall
-- Background: The U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington has voted 2-1 that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its power in implementing what's called the "Haze Rule." In 1999, the EPA's Haze Rule imposed emissions controls on power plants in several states after the EPA claimed air pollution from these plants drifts into national parks. The court ruled that EPA could not force the plants to install pollution control equipment without "empirical evidence" that individual plants were contributing to the haze.
-- Ten Second Response: Once again the Clinton Administration's EPA made rules that would have cost millions of dollars without using sound science.
-- Thirty Second Response: States rights were upheld by this decision. The court reminded the EPA that the law doesn't allow all parties to be penalized just because one party is guilty. Only those facilities that contribute to the haze should be required to install new equipment -- not those that are not responsible.
-- Discussion: The Court pointed out "that Congress intended the states to decide what sources impair visibility" and what "Best Available Retrofit Technology (BART) should apply to those sources." EPA must now revise the Haze Rule to allow states to exempt those facilities that do not contribute to air pollution in the parks.
(Gretchen Randall is the director of the John P. McGovern, M.D. Center for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs The National Center for Public Policy Research.)
The Center for Strategic and International Studies
WASHINGTON -- Canada's crisis worries Washington: Leadership feud claims another U.S.-friendly cabinet member in Ottawa
A CSIS scholar made the following statement regarding the impact on the United States of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's decision to fire Canadian Finance Minister Paul Martin and to replace him with Deputy Prime Minister John Manley:
"Paul Martin's firing by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien represents a great loss for Canada, the international community, and for the Bush administration in particular, which had developed an excellent working relationship with Martin through Treasury Secretary Paul
O'Neill.
"His replacement, John Manley, is widely respected in Washington, but there is a growing concern that Manley is now overloaded with the critical finance ministry as well as his role as deputy prime minister. Manley has become the go-to guy in Ottawa for the Bush administration on Homeland Security, the management of the border, and many other issues where the responsible cabinet minister is junior or considered weak.
"The attrition of senior cabinet members in whom the Bush administration has confidence has lately become a torrent. When crisis strikes -- or opportunity knocks -- will the man who has become Washington's 911 hotline in Canada now give us a busy signal?
"In any case, Martin will not remain unemployed for long -- he may now challenge the prime minister for the Liberal Party leadership at the party's convention in 2003. However, if he indicates that he will not, he will vault to the top of the list of candidates to head any number of international organizations, from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and even the United Nations."
The CSIS Canada Project is dedicated to the study of Canada, the Canada-U.S. relationship, and North American economic integration.
CSIS notes that these are the views of the individual cited, not of CSIS, which does not take policy positions.
