Mr Obama's World: Latest Alerts in US Foreign Policy (16 February)

Latest Post: Pakistan - Can You Balance Sharia and Missiles?
Latest Post: The Difficulties for Washington’s Diplomatic Engagement with Tehran
Latest Post: The Shock of Hypocrisy: US Operating From Within Pakistan

Current  Obamameter Reading: Fair, Possible Rumbles from South Later



9p.m. Missed this from earlier today: Italy has said it will not take any released detainees from Guantanamo Bay, further denting the Obama strategy of having "third countries" take the "hard cases" from the facility.

Evening update (6 p.m. GMT): White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has said President Obama will make a decision on US troop levels in Afghanistan "within days", not weeks.

1 p.m. Hillary Clinton has started his Asian tour in Tokyo with warm words for the "vitally important" US-Japan alliance: "Its foundation has been and always will be a commitment to our shared security and prosperity, but we also know that we have to work together to address the global financial crisis, which is affecting all of us."

12:25 p.m. A second fatal roadside bomb in Iraq today has killed four Shi'a pilgrims on a bus in eastern Baghdad. The first bomb killed four in Sadr City.

11:15 a.m. The Kyrgyzstan Government has followed up its declaration that it will close the US airbase in the country by sending the necessary documents to Parliament.

8:40 a.m. A witness says 20 more bodies from this morning's US airstrike in northwestern Pakistan have been found, bringing the death toll to at least 30. CNN is reporting at least 15 confirmed deaths.

8:15 a.m. A roadside bomb has killed four passengers on a bus in the Baghdad district of Sadr City.

In a barely-noticed incident on Sunday, a US soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Iraq, the fifth American combat facility in the past week.

7:45 a.m. In another sign of the Obama Administration's move for co-operation with China, Chinese state media is reporting that high-level military talks will resume at the end of February. The two-day "informal" dialogue will be between a U.S. assistant secretary of defense and a deputy chief of the Chinese army.

6:50 a.m. Engaging Iran via Afghanistan. The New York Times usefully notes a Sunday statement on an Afghan TV station by US envoy Richard Holbrooke: “It is absolutely clear that Iran plays an important role in Afghanistan. They have a legitimate role to play in this region, as do all of Afghanistan’s neighbors.”

6:40 a.m. Updates on US airstrikes: At least 12 people killed in Pakistan's Kurram region; US and Afghan officials claim nine militants, including the prominent leader Mullah Dastagir, killed in a raid Sunday night.

Morning Update (6 a.m. GMT; 1 a.m. Washington): No major developments, but yesterday's announcement in Kabul of Afghanistan participation in local security discussions with the US and in the strategic review in Washington appears to be a masterful political move, at least for now.

For President Obama and his envoy Richard Holbrooke, the measures give them some freedom of manoeuvre against military pressure for an immediate surge in forces. For Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai (pictured), it relieves Washington's direct pressure upon him and gives him a domestic political boost, with US recognition of his assertion of Afghan sovereignty.

In Pakistan, the story of US missile strikes --- which we updated last night with the not-so-surprising revelation that the American drones were flying from US bases inside the country --- runs and runs. Two more missiles were fired at "militant targets" this morning. Up to 10 people are reported killed.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton enters the first day of substantive talks on her Asian tour, beginning in Japan.

In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez has declared victory in a referendum which would enable to run for a third six-year term in 2013. With 94 percent of votes counted, the measure was favoured by more than 54 percent of voters. Chavez's victory will drive the "mainstream" US media such as The Washington Post crazy; the Obama Administration's reaction is likely to be more measured.

Mr Obama's World: Latest Alerts in US Foreign Policy (15 February)

Latest Post: The Shock of Hypocrisy: US Operating From Within Pakistan



5 p.m. Finally, movement from the Holbrooke-Karzai discussions in Afghanistan. At a joint news conference, they announced a declaration aimed at reducing civilian deaths from US and NATO military operations.

According to Al Jazeera, "Afghan security personnel will play a greater role in the planning and undertaking of night time attacks, searches and operations in populated areas, particularly in tribal regions." An Afghan delegation will join the strategic review, chaired by Holbrooke (pictured), in Washington.
Afternoon Update (4:30 p.m.): Militants in Pakistan's Swat Valley have called a 10-day cease-fire. Peace talks are underway that could establish sharia law throughout the area.

Pakistani officials say the US is "alarmed" by the possibility that sharia law will be accepted and is privately advocating large-scale deployment of Pakistani troops in the region.

Morning Update (6:25 a.m. GMT; 1:25 a.m. GMT): The lead item is a non-update. There is still no news out of the conversations yesterday between US envoy Richard Holbrooke and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, which come after a period of tension between Washington and the Afghan Government and amidst talk of an increased US military presence.

The only possible signal came from Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told The Washington Post:

We can send more troops. We can kill or capture all the Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders we can find - and we should. But until we prove capable, with the help of our allies and Afghan partners, of safeguarding the population, we will never know a peaceful, prosperous Afghanistan. Lose the people's trust, and we lose the war.

It is unclear whether Mullen's words were meant as a reassurance to Karzai or a wider appeal to other Afghan leaders, NATO allies, and opinion in Washington as the US military presses for a new strategic approach.

UPDATED: The Shock of Hypocrisy - US Operating From Within Pakistan

Update (16 Feb. --- 7:45 p.m. GMT): Yesterday we predicted a deluge of comment, after Senator Feinstein's revelation of US airbases inside Pakistan, on the lines of "None of these realities [of missile strikes] harm the US. Only appearances do."

Here you go. Thomas Ricks of The Washington Post is fussing, quoting military blogs: "Unfortunately for the US personnel at the Pakistani base, they have now been identified as targets for the militants. US access to Pakistan also became vastly more fragile today. Moreover, the elected government has been weakened, possibly fatally."

It doesn't occur to Ricks that, if you didn't want to expose US forces to insurgent assault and if you didn't want to undermine the Pakistani Government, then you shouldn't have set up the not-so-secret base in the first place. Anyone who wants a bit of history might think back to Cambodia 1970, when Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger played a similar disastrous game with "secret" US operations to blast away the sanctuary for the Vietnamese insurgency. The eventual outcome was public embarrassment when someone noticed big ol' American planes on the wrong side of the border, a coup and the emergence of the Khmer Rouge, and a failure to break the Vietnamese enemy.


Sometimes political theatre has to be acknowledged as farce, especially when it is attempting to obscure tragedy.

On Thursday Senator Dianne Feinstein caused a stir when she expressed surprise, in a Congressional hearing, at Pakistani Government objections to US missile strikes: "As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base." Greg Miller in the Chicago Tribune breathlessly exclaimed, "The basing of the pilotless aircraft in Pakistan suggests a much deeper relationship with the United States on counterterrorism matters than has been publicly acknowledged."


A much more practical response might have been, "No s***, Sherlock." The Tribune article might have even-more-breathlessly commented, "Many counterterrorism experts have assumed that the aircraft were operated from U.S. military installations in Afghanistan, and remotely piloted from locations in the United States," but my experience, reflected in analysis on Enduring America, is that US-run operations from within Pakistan were close to becoming an open secret.

No, the wringing of hands over Feinstein's statement had little to do with the rights or wrongs of the US conniving with someone in the Pakistan Government to run operations killing Pakistanis; it was consternation that the truth might be known. Witness the fluttering of The Weekly Standard: "The statement gives weight to the notion that the CIA is launching attacks on targets in the tribal areas from a base located on Pakistani territory. And that genie cannot be put back into the bottle, Pakistanis will believe this."

Guess what, boys? "Most Pakistanis", as the Tribune article noted, already believed this --- you know, it's kinda hard to hide the flight of a plane, even an unmanned one, from folks who live nearby. So the pretence of "if they know see it, it doesn't exist" is about two steps beyond ludicrous. As is The Weekly Standard's follow-up concern:

All this has done is harm the image of the United States, as we're portrayed as the big, bad bully that violates Pakistan's sovereignty without a care for the people.

Note, it's not the killing of Pakistani civilians that has harmed the US. It's not the dubious respect for another country's sovereignty that has harmed the US. It's not the effective expansion of a war-going-badly in Afghanistan that has harmed the US.

None of these realities harm the US. Only appearances do.

Right.

"You" Are Corrupt, "We" Just Misplace Things (Like Top-Secret Laptops)0

Update: U.S. officials looking into irregularities in the early portion of the $125 billion U.S.-led effort to rebuild Iraq have expanded the inquiry to include senior U.S. military officers who oversaw the program....Officials told the [New York] Times several criminal cases in recent years pointed to widespread corruption within the operation run by the men being investigated."


Amidst the growing Washington campaign against Afghan President Hamid Karzai over corruption, you can classify this story from Thursday under I for Irony:

The Pentagon has lost track of some 87,000 weapons handed out without proper accounting to Afghan army and police units, federal investigators reported today. The weapons included rifles, pistols, machine guns, grenade launchers, shotguns, mortars and other weapons, the Government Accountability Office said.

OK, maybe you can pin that one of the Afghans as well: just can't trust the locals, can you? (N.B. Surprisingly, nowhere in the story do the words "black market" occur.) It's harder, however, to pass the blame in this incident in Peshawar, Pakistan, reported by Shahan Mufti of GlobalPost:

I was recently able to purchase a U.S. military laptop for $650 from a small kiosk, which is known as the “Sitara Market,” on the western edge of the sprawling open-air markets on the edge of Peshawar. The laptop, which has clear U.S. military markings and serial numbers, contained restricted U.S. military information, as well as software for military platforms, the identities of numerous military personnel and information about weaknesses and flaws in American military vehicles being employed in the war in Afghanistan.

Longtime observers of the region and military experts say the open market on U.S. military hardware and technology is increasingly compromising the American military supply route that runs from the Pakistani seaport in Karachi through the Khyber Pass and into neighboring Afghanistan.

"This kind of trade has been happening in the past, but not so openly," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a Peshawar-based journalist who has reported from Afghanistan and Pakistan for several decades. "In the past few months this has started in a big way," he added.

(Hat-tip to reader Beth)

One to Watch: Secret Talks in Afghanistan with the Taliban

Amidst the attention to the possible US military "surge" in Afghanistan, we've been keeping a close eye on an alternative strategy, namely, talks with "moderate Taliban". High-ranking officials in Pakistan have long favoured such a strategy, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been vocal recently in advocating such discussions.

The twist in the excellent article below by Kim Sengupta of The Independent is the detail of Saudi Arabia, notably the head of Saudi intelligence Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (pictured), in setting up these secret negotiations. Conversely, there is little sign of Pakistani involvement, probably of the great pressure from Washington for Islamabad to show a tough line against the Taliban as well as its own insurgents.

Secret talks with Taliban gather pace as surge looms: Saudis warn Washington that offensive may hinder talks with militant group
By Kim Sengupta

Secret talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, brokered by a Saudi royal who heads the country's intelligence service, are gathering pace before the US-led military surge in Afghanistan.

Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is said to have been greatly encouraged by meetings he had held with both sides on recent visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan, paving the way for a fresh round of negotiations, The Independent has learnt.

The militant groups have appointed a former member of the Taliban regime as their envoy because of his good relations in the past with the Saudi government. He is Aghajan Mutasim, a minister under the ousted Taliban leader Mullah Omar, who is believed to have held detailed discussions with Saudi officials and also to have visited the kingdom during Ramadan.

The Afghan President Hamid Karzai, uncertain of US support in the forthcoming national elections, is said to be prepared for direct dialogue with the insurgent leadership. Officials close to him claim there is also growing concern that the US military offensive, with its prospect of a rising toll of civilian casualties, would hinder prospect of a peace deal.

Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a former Taliban envoy in New York at the time of 9/11, was invited by Mr Karzai to return to Afghanistan and help organise the reconciliation process. In 2001 he conveyed the Bush administration's demands to Mullah Omar, that Osama bin Laden should be handed over. He was among those, including Mr Karzai's older brother Qayum, who took part in a meeting with representatives of the insurgents organised in Mecca last September by the Saudi King Abdullah.

Mr Mujahid said: "Prince Muqrin is an influential man and so his involvement in the negotiation process is very important. The talks he held here in Kabul were at the top level and the armed opposition groups on the other side also respect him. The appointment of Aghajan Mutasim by the resistance is also important because he had very good relations with the Saudis and also because it shows that some of the armed resistance is taking this seriously.

"The Saudi government is doing its best to get peace talks going but there may be big problems if the Americans carry out this big offensive in the wrong way. That kind of action will lead to anger and help those in the Taliban who do not believe in any kind of negotiations. So it is important that we start doing things before this offensive starts and the international community should try to persuade the US that there should be less military action and not more."

Mr Karzai has repeatedly complained that Afghan civilians have been wounded and killed in Nato air strikes. He recently sent a document to Nato outlining new "rules of engagement" which Nato officials say are "totally impractical" as they would directly interfere with the mandate for foreign forces in the country.

Diplomatic sources say Mr Karzai's recent pronouncements on welcoming back insurgents into the fold show his need to show he is a nationalist standing up to the West. He told the Afghan parliament last week: "Once again I call on all oppositions to return home without any fear, save the life of children and help rebuild their country."

Facing each other: The negotiators

Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

Given the post of the head of Saudi intelligence service with the task of combating jihadist groups which had declared war on the kingdom. He played a part in establishing a reconciliation process under which a number of Saudis arrested on terrorism charges were rehabilitated. He also knew Osama bin Laden well and encouraged him to join the jihad against the Russians in
Afghanistan where the Yemeni-born Saudi set up al-Qa'ida. Although the Saudi government fell out with Bin Laden it has maintained contacts with militants and Prince Muqrin is said to have used these links to try to broker peace with the Afghan government.

Aghajan Mutasim

Became finance minister under the Taliban and, in that capacity, had extensive dealings with the Saudis who were bankrolling the Islamist regime. After the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and the battle of Tora Bora which saw Osama bin Laden and leading Taliban leaders escape to Pakistan, Mr Mutasim issued a statement saying: "We want to tell the people that the Taliban system is no more. They should not give donations in the name of the Taliban." Since then he had been living in Pakistan keeping a low profile before emerging recently as a key negotiator in the recent talks organised by the Saudis with whom he had maintained contacts through the years.