Afghanistan-Pakistan Analysis: Why is the US Shutting Islamabad Out of Peace Talks?

OK, get your head around this. In recent weeks, both political and military figures in the Obama Administration have swung behind negotiations between the insurgents and the Afghan Government, and NATO (read US-led) units have provided support to get Taliban leaders to the talks.

That part is not too challenging to comprehend. Here's the twist: Washington's alleged effort is not only to get the insurgents in but to keep the Pakistanis out.

The Karzai Government, while infuriating, has to be America's son-of-a-bitch for the sake of some alternative to endless intervention in Afghanistan. The Taliban and other Afghan insurgents may become another of our SOBs if they are ready to negotiate as well as fight. (Osama bin Laden is a largely irrelevant SOB.)

And Pakistan? Well, here's the tip-off from the latest possibility that Washington is supporting talks with the Afghan insurgency while shutting out Islamabad....

We're not sure they're our SOBs.

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Israel Analysis: Washington Gives Way to West Jerusalem on "Strategic Dialogue"

On Tuesday, American and Israeli officials issued the Joint Statement on the U.S.-Israel Strategic Dialogue.

As you might notice, there is no emphasis on the unfinished and damaged peace process except a naive "commitment to the pursuit of lasting peace". Instead, we have a clear threat: Iran. A threat that is big enough to overcome any commitment to peace.  

The other significant feature is the emphasis on the "continued efforts by the international community." In other words, instead of a military option, diplomatic measures are the prescription to meet the "grave concern to both countries and the entire international community" The message to Israel is clear: no airstrikes on Tehran.

Some might argue that Washington may want to steer Israel away from a drumbeat on the need to use the military option against Iran by maintaining a low-profile, gentle pressure on the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. If this is the case, the Obama Administration can only defer its pile of troubles on Israeli-Palestinian conflict to tomorrow. Giving the green light to an Israeli foreign policy, anchored on the urgent need to solve the Iranian issue first and foremost, means bypassing every opportunity to renew the peace process with the Palestinians.

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Responding to Obama's Wars: The Battle Within over US Counter-Insurgency

David Fitzgerald, a specialist on American counter-insurgency campaigns past and present, writes his first article for EA:

Bob Woodward’s latest chronicle of the post-9/11 White House’s deliberations, Obama's Wars, has enriched our understanding of the present administration’s process of decision-making on Afghanistan.  However, as much as the book reveals, in typical Woodward fashion, the inner workings of the national security bureaucracy, it also is just as significant in shedding light on the counterinsurgency community’s thoughts on the war in Afghanistan.  The reactions of members of that community to Obama’s Wars says much about the contradictions and tensions inherent in counterinsurgency.

Does this hint at a change of heart over the US intervention and military campaign?

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Pakistan: "Top NATO Official" (Petraeus?) Blames Islamabad for Sheltering Bin Laden

Sometimes Twitter misses the story.

The sub-140-character flash this morning was "Bin Laden Hiding in Northwest Pakistan". And I'm thinking, "This is news to whom?"

But then I click the link, to CNN's website,  just to confirm the bleedin' obvious: "NATO official: Bin Laden, deputy hiding in northwest Pakistan". Still nothing to break a yawn.

Then, in the third paragraph, the significant news jumps out: "Al Qaeda's top leadership is believed to be living in relative comfort, protected by locals and some members of the Pakistani intelligence services, the official said."

Whoa. Someone from NATO just threw petrol on the fire: Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are not only surviving but free from imminent challenge. The deadly duo can put their feet up, not just because of the "tribes" in the "autonomous" areas beyond Islamabad's control --- the story-line for most of the past eight years --- but because some people in Islamabad are supporting them.

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Afghanistan Analysis: US Military Asserting Dominance over White House Again?

Last week, the White House announced that National Security Advisor James Jones would be replaced later this month by the current deputy advisor, Tom Donilon.

Jones, a retired Marine General, had been wounded in a number of bureaucratic encounters over 20 months. Notable amongst these was his attempt to limit the military's demands for more and more US troops in Afghanistan. It was Jones, for example, who carried the message to Kabul in summer 2009 that the President would ask, "WTF?", if his commanders asked for another escalation, only months after getting additional forces. Yet by December, that same President was agreeing to another injection of 30,000 soldiers.

Well before that incident, the military had set out its tactics of briefing the press against White House attempts to check a bolstered intervention. So it was intriguing to see what happened 72 hours after Donilon, who is also seen by many as a sceptic of the ramped-up military effort, was named as Jones' successor.

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Iran Video and Transcript: Top US Official Stuart Levey on Sanctions

Stuart Levey, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the US Treasury, spoke for 50 minutes with Charlie Rose of the US Public Broadcasting Service on Wednesday about sanctions and economic pressure. Much of the discussion was about Washington's strategy and tactics and Levey's assessment of the economic and political effects on Tehran.

Whether or not one agrees whether sanctions are working, or indeed whether it is the right approach to Iran, the interview is a revelation of how the Obama Administration has pursued the approach --- note Levey's "personal diplomacy" with dozens of trips to foreign governments, companies, and banks --- and its belief that the measures are working:

CHARLIE ROSE: How bad is their economy today?

STUART LEVEY: It’s interesting, because I think their economy is a lot worse than they try to present it as being.

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Afghanistan: Endorsing the Pentagon's "Forever War" (Engelhardt)

Tom Engelhardt writes for TomDispatch:

Sometimes it’s the little things in the big stories that catch your eye.  On Monday, the Washington Post ran the first of three pieces adapted from Bob Woodward’s new book Obama’s Wars, a vivid account of the way the U.S. high command boxed the Commander-in-Chief into the smallest of Afghan corners.  As an illustration, the Post included a graphic the military offered President Obama at a key November 2009 meeting to review war policy.  It caught in a nutshell the favored “solution” to the Afghan War of those in charge of fighting it --- Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General David Petraeus, then-Centcom commander, General Stanley McChrystal, then-Afghan War commander, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, among others.

Labeled “Alternative Mission in Afghanistan,” it’s a classic of visual wish fulfillment.  Atop it is a soaring green line that represents the growing strength of the notoriously underwhelming “Afghan Forces,” military and police, as they move toward a theoretical goal of 400,000 -- an unlikely “end state” given present desertion rates.  Underneath that green trajectory of putative success is a modest, herky-jerky blue curving line, representing the 40,000 U.S. troops Gates, Petraeus, Mullen, and company were pressuring the president to surge into Afghanistan.

The eye-catching detail, however, was the dating on the chart.  Sometime between 2013 and 2016, according to a hesitant dotted white line (that left plenty of room for error), those U.S. surge forces would be drawn down radically enough to dip somewhere below -- don’t gasp -- the 68,000 level.  In other words, three to six years from now, if all went as planned -- a radical unlikelihood, given the Afghan War so far -- the U.S. might be back close to the force levels of early 2009, before the President’s second surge was launched.

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