Mr Obama's World: Latest Updates on US Foreign Policy (21 February)

Latest Post: Atoms of Fear - Reality Check on That Iranian Nuclear Programme
Latest Post: Obama Administration to Detainees in Afghanistan - You Have No Rights
Latest Post: Secret Britain-Iran Talks in 2005 on Iraq, Tehran Nuclear Programme?



Evening Update: Pakistani Government officials say militants in Pakistan's Swat Valley have agreed to a "permanent cease-fire".

Afternoon Update: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has met Chinese leaders in Beijing, stating, ""It is essential that the United States and China have a positive, cooperative relationship." Clinton also put priorities in order: while she had discussed human rights matters with President Hu Jintao, "Human rights cannot interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises."

Morning Update (8:30 a.m. GMT; 3:30 a.m. Washington): In a step that was foreshadowed by Syrian President Bashir al-Assad (pictured) in his interview with The Guardian of London, the US will resume direct talks with Damascus this week. The State Department's Acting Assistant Secretary for the Near East, Jeffrey Feltman, has requested a meeting with the Syrian Ambassador to the US, Imad Moustapha.

State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said, "The meeting is an opportunity for dialogue to discuss our concerns with the Syrians," Duguid said. "There remain key differences between our governments."

Three NATO coalition soldiers were killed by an improvised explosive device on Friday in Uruzgan province in Afghanistan.

Obama Administration to Detainees in Afghanistan: You Have No Rights

Lawyers for the Justice Department told a Federal Court on Friday that the Obama Administration "adheres to [the] previously articulated position" on the rights of detainees held in facilities such as Camp Bagram in Afghanistan.

In effect, President Obama's officials are maintaining the Bush Administration position, first set out at Guantanamo Bay but extended to US prisons around the world that "enemy combatants" have no right to challenge their detention. The prisoners at Camp Bagram can thus be held indefinitely without any prospect of a hearing in a military tribunal or US or international court.

Last year the Supreme Court voted 5-4 that detainees at Guantanamo Bay did have the right to a legal process but declined to extend the ruling to those held in other US prisons.

Mr Obama's World: Updates on US Foreign Policy (20 February)

Evening Update (8.30 p.m. GMT / 1.30 p.m. Washington): Amnesty International and a Tibetan rights group are reported to be "shocked" by Hillary Clinton's decision not to press China on human rights today. Clinton believes that "We pretty much known what they are going to say."

Perhaps proving Clinton right, China today deployed thousands more troops to Tibet to stave off unrest.

In Poland today Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told NATO allies that the Obama administration was expecting significant contributions towards troop levels in Afghanistan, however some are calling Gates' appeal for a contribution towards non-combatant, civilian roles a tacit admission that troops are unlikely to be forthcoming.

Back in Washington the White House has announced that it will today "refine" its legal position on detainees held at Bagram air base. Over 600 people  are detained at the base outside Kabul, and under the Bush administration they were deemed not to be entitled to US legal rights. At present it is not known whether Obama's break with Bush on the rights of 'enemy combatants' at Guantánamo Bay will extend to Bagram.

Afternoon Update (2.30 p.m. GMT / 7.30 a.m. Washington): Clinton has arrived in China on the final leg of her Far East tour. The economy, human rights, the environment and North Korea could all be on the agenda.

Speaking to CNN Clinton said that North Korea was "miscalculating" if it thought it could "drive a wedge" between the US and South Korea. Clinton suggested that North Korea deploys two different approaches to its neighbours, alternating between sabre-rattling and appeasement in order to gain diplomatic leverage.

Clinton has also appointed former ambassador to South Korea Stephen W Bosworth as a special envoy to Pyongyang, with the aim of getting the North back to the negotiating table.

Elsewhere, the Kyrgyzstan Government has signed the bill closing the US Manas airbase.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said that the US will consider Russian concerns over missile defence.

Morning Update (5:30 a.m. GMT; 12:30 a.m. Washington): A relatively quiet start to the foreign-policy day, but we're keeping a close eye on the reaction to the International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iranian nuclear production, released on Thursday. We've got the text of the report and an immediate analysis.

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (pictured) visits South Korea, the headlines are on North Korea's latest belligerent posturing, threatening an "all-out confrontation" with the South, and the possibility that Pyongyang will test a long-range missile.

This is more sound than fury. North Korea is now pulling back a bit, saying it will be testing a satellite, and it is unlikely that Clinton will go beyond general references to the need for regional security and alliance with South Korea. Seoul doesn't want a showdown with the North, China --- where Clinton heads next --- will emphasise the need for engagement, and Washington is still signalling that it prefers diplomacy to the image of confrontation.

On his first visit as President to a foreign country, Barack Obama has denied asking Canada for any additional troops in Afghanistan: ""I certainly did not press the prime minister on any additional commitments beyond the ones that have already been made."

It is a shrewd political move, as any proposed increase would prompt a Canadian political crisis and possibly doom the government, but it raises the question of whether the US can get any significant military backing for its "surge" this year. Canada has 2700 troops in Afghanistan and is committed to withdrawing them by 2011.

Meanwhile, another sign of the US escalation in Afghanistan: plans are underway to double the size of the detention facility at Camp Bagram. The facility currents hold more than 600 detainees in conditions which have been criticised as a deprivation of basic human rights.

Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, has criticised the Pakistan Government's allowance of local autonomy, including sharia law, in the northwest of the country: "I am concerned, and I know Secretary (of State Hillary) Clinton is, and the president is, that this deal, which is portrayed in the press as a truce, does not turn into a surrender." Holbrooke added that Pakistani President Asif Zardari had assured him the arrangement was temporary.

In northwest Pakistan, at least 18 people have been killed and many others wounded after a sucide bomber exploded at a funeral procession for a Shia Muslim.


The Obama Administration continues its slowdown of the Bush Administration's Missile Defence scheme. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Thursday that "the U.S. would consider whether the system was affordable and technologically feasible" and would try to reopen talks with Russia over the project.

UPDATED --- Not a Bombshell: The Report on Iran's Uranium and US (Non-)Reaction

See Also: Text of the International Atomic Energy Agency Report on Iran’s Nuclear Programme



Update (2:45 p.m.): The lead story on CNN International's website, "Experts: Iran ready to build nuclear weapon",  is not a "scary interpretation" of the IAEA report: it is an outright distortion. Rather than quote from the report or the officials who compiled it, they refer to the "Institute for Science and International Security", who have "interpreted" the report.

Thus we get the scary side that "Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon but does have enough low-enriched uranium for a single nuclear weapon without any of the explanation, details, and caveats offered by United Nations officials. Or, for that matter, other "experts" who might have offered the appropriate context for the report.

Robert Dreyfuss of The Nation offers a useful corrective: "Don't Let the Iran Headlines Scare You".

On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency issued its latest report on Iranian nuclear production. It was a classic half-full, half-empty analysis: those wanting to play up the Iranian threat could note that that Iran has produced more enriched uranium than previously estimated, declaring that Tehran now has enough material for "one bomb". Those preferring a more measured response could highlight the conclusion  that Iran's enrichment programme has slowed "considerably".

Some in the American and British "mainstream" media will go for the scarier interpretation --- in The New York Times, it's Iran understates enriched uranium level by one-third in Paragraph One, Enough for a Bomb in Paragraph Two. However, it is not only Agence France Presse that is pointing to the slower pace of enrichment. The Washington Post headlines, "Iran Easing Aspects Of Nuclear Program" and leads with, "The slower pace was interpreted by some U.N. officials as a conciliatory gesture in advance of any diplomatic overtures by the Obama administration."

Indeed, UN officials are also providing the general reassurance that "the discrepancy results from Iran’s estimates versus careful measurement", rather than any deception by Tehran, and that "the inconsistency [is] reasonable for a new enrichment plant". That could be important, countering the soundbites of "experts" like Gary Milhollin on the higher level of enriched uranium: "It's worse than we thought".

Of course, enrichment is not the key issue for an Iranian nuclear weapons, as opposed to nuclear energy, programme. That issue is whether Iran is "weaponising" with any programme to develop nuclear warheads, and there is no evidence that Iran has reversed its suspension of that effort in 2003. As a UN official told The New York Times, "The material would have to undergo further enrichment if it was to be used as fuel for a bomb and...atomic inspectors had found no signs that Iran was making such preparations."

Most importantly, it is not the media reaction --- or even that matters here but the response of the Obama Administration. In the NYT, "a senior administration official" took a We're Watching line:

There is a steady timeline of improvement, especially in terms of mastering the efficiency of the centrifuges. Everyone’s nervous and worried about the possibility of Iran pursuing a clandestine capability.

There is no Administration response in The Washington Post.

Of course, with the President and Secretary of State outside the US, the Administration could be in a holding pattern until next week. Yet it's still significant, I think, that Obama's officials were not primed to return to the Bush Administration's blueprint of Sanctions, Sanctions, Sanctions. In effect, they've allowed the UN to take the lead, damping down any media hyperbole.

And that means, I think, that engagement with Iran is still the priority for this Administration. No bombshells here, just the steadier if slower emphasis on diplomacy.

So keep an eye on whether the Obama Administration plays up the drama of the higher enriched-uranium figures and refers to more sanctions against Iran, or whether it  plays down any threat, thus protecting the priority of engagement.

Guantanamo Bay Watch: 17 Chinese Told Go Straight to Limbo

A US Federal Appeals Court has ruled that 17 Uighur Chinese men cannot be released into the United States from their detention at Guantanamo Bay, even though there is no cause to keep them at the facility:

We do know there is insufficient evidence to classify them as enemy combatants — enemies that is of the United States. But that hardly qualifies petitioners [the Uighurs] for admission. Nor does their detention at Guantanamo for many years entitle them to enter the United States.

Ironically, if the 17 had actually done something to threaten America, there might be the prospect of transferring them to the US for criminal proceedings. Because they are in effect innocent, however, there is nowhere to go. They face abuse and torture if they are returned to China, and at this point there is no arrangement with a third country to take them.

But that is now a political problem for President Obama, not a legal problem. The Federal Appeals Court washed its hands of the issue: ""The government has represented that it is continuing diplomatic attempts to find an appropriate country willing to admit petitioners, and we have no reason to doubt it is doing so. Nor do we have the power to require anything more."