Monthly Archives: November 2007

NEWS: Iran, Russia and Venezuela feel benefits of rising oil price

Oil price rise causes global shift in wealth
By Steven Mufson, Washington Post, November 10, 2007

High oil prices are fueling one of the biggest transfers of wealth in history. Oil consumers are paying $4 billion to $5 billion more for crude oil every day than they did just five years ago, pumping more than $2 trillion into the coffers of oil companies and oil-producing nations this year alone.

The consequences are evident in minds and mortar: anger at Chinese motor-fuel pumps and inflated confidence in the Kremlin; new weapons in Chad and new petrochemical plants in Saudi Arabia; no-driving campaigns in South Korea and bigger sales for Toyota hybrid cars; a fiscal burden in Senegal and a bonanza in Brazil. In Burma, recent demonstrations were triggered by a government decision to raise fuel prices.

In the United States, the rising bill for imported petroleum lowers already anemic consumer savings rates, adds to inflation, worsens the trade deficit, undermines the dollar and makes it more difficult for the Federal Reserve to balance its competing goals of fighting inflation and sustaining growth. [complete article]

NEWS: Was N. Korea falsely accused?

N. Korea offers evidence to rebut uranium claims
By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, November 10, 2007

North Korea is providing evidence to the United States aimed at proving that it never intended to produce highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, undermining a key U.S. intelligence finding, South Korean and U.S. officials said this week.

In closely held talks, the North Korean government has granted U.S. experts access to equipment and documents to make its case, in preparation for declaring the extent of its nuclear activities before the end of the year. North Korean officials hope the United States will simultaneously lift sanctions against Pyongyang as the declaration is made.

If North Korea successfully demonstrates that U.S. accusations about the uranium-enrichment program are wrong, it will be a blow to U.S. intelligence and the Bush administration’s credibility.

The U.S. charges of a large-scale uranium program led to the collapse of a Clinton-era agreement that had frozen a North Korean reactor that produced a different nuclear substance — plutonium. That development freed North Korea to use the plutonium route toward gathering the material needed for a nuclear weapon. Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test last year, detonating a plutonium-based device, and has built a plutonium stockpile that experts estimate could yield eight to 10 nuclear weapons. [complete article]

FEATURE: “After we finish with al-Qaida here, we will turn toward our main enemy, the Shia militias.”

Meet Abu Abed: the U.S.’s new ally against al-Qaida
By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, The Guardian, November 10, 2007

Abu Abed, a member of the insurgent Islamic Army, has recently become the commander of the US-sponsored “Ameriya Knights”. He is one of the new breed of Sunni warlords who are being paid by the US to fight al-Qaida in Iraq. The Americans call their new allies Concerned Citizens.

It is a strategy that has worked well for the Americans, on paper at least. This week, the US military claimed it had forced the extremist group al-Qaida in Mesopotamia out of Baghdad altogether, and cut the number of murders in the city by 80%. Major General Joseph Fil, commander of US forces in Baghdad, said: “The Iraqi people have decided that they’ve had it up to here with violence.”

Critics of the plan say they are simply creating powerful new strongmen who run their own prisons and armies, and who eventually will turn on each other.

A senior Sunni sheikh, whose tribe is joining the new alliance with the Americans against al-Qaida, told me in Beirut that it was a simple equation for him. “It’s just a way to get arms, and to be a legalised security force to be able to stand against Shia militias and to prevent the Iraqi army and police from entering their areas,” he said. [complete article]

NEWS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Cheney meets resistance on Iran

Washington tells EU firms: quit Iran now
By David Gow and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, November 9, 2007

Multinational companies are coming under increasing pressure from the US to stop doing business with Iran because of its nuclear programme. European operators are facing threats from Washington that they could jeopardise their US interests by continuing to deal with Tehran, with increasing evidence that European governments, mainly France, Germany and Britain, are supporting the US campaign.

It emerged last night that Siemens, one of the world’s largest engineering groups and based in Germany, has pulled out of all new business dealings with Iran after pressure from the US and German governments. This follows the decision by Germany’s three biggest banks, Deutsche, Commerzbank, and Dresdner, to quit Iran after a warning from US vice-president Dick Cheney that if firms remain in Tehran, they are going to have problems doing business in the US. [complete article]

Iraqi sees thaw in U.S.-Iranian ties
By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times, November 10, 2007

An Iraqi official said Friday that he expected another round of talks this month including his government and those of Washington and Tehran, after the U.S. military freed nine Iranians it had detained in Iraq.

Two of the Iranians released early Friday by the U.S. were among five men detained in January in an American raid in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil. The U.S. had said they were members of Iran’s elite Quds Force, which Washington suspects of aiding Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq and smuggling armor-piercing bombs into the country. Tehran has said the five men are diplomatic staff at its Irbil consulate. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — It’s often said that the complexity of Iran’s power structure makes it difficult for foreign governments to decipher Iran’s intentions. Tehran may well view Washington in the same way. While President Bush warns about the risk of World War III and Cheney is pushing forward on the economic war path, Defense Department officials are interested in reducing US-Iranian tensions. Not only have Iranian hostages been released, but the Navy has quietly returned to a one-carrier presence in the Gulf. At the same time, the intelligence community has been unwilling to arm Cheney with a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran — already held up for more than a year because in its current form it is “unsatisfactory” as support for Cheney’s military objectives.

NEWS: Israeli settlement expansion; Hamas’ mixed message on the West Bank

Peace talks do nothing to stop settlement growth
By Dion Nissenbaum, Jerusalem Checkpoint, November 9, 2007

Israel received a lot of praise two years ago for forcibly removing some 9,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and ending 38-years of military rule of the 1.4 million Palestinians living there.

But, in the two years since Israel left Gaza, the number of settlers has continued to grow.

A quick look at official Israeli population figures shows that more than 20,000 new settlers have moved to the West Bank since Israel pulled out of Gaza.

This week, Peace Now released its latest report which shows a steady six percent annual growth in the settler population, which now stands at 267,500 (not including another 200,000 living in East Jerusalem). [complete article]

Top Hamas official: We’ll seize West Bank if Israel withdraws
Reuters, November 10, 2007

The militant Islamic organization Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in June, would take over the West Bank if Israel pulled out of the territory, a senior Hamas leader said on Friday.

The comments by deposed Palestinian foreign minister Mahmoud al-Zahar contrasted with remarks by Ismail Haniyeh, who serves as prime minister of a Hamas-led government dismissed by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Haniyeh said earlier this week that Hamas had no intention of repeating its Gaza takeover in the West Bank, where Abbas’ secular Fatah faction remains dominant. [complete article]

EDITORIAL: Nuclear risks and nuclear realities

Nuclear risks and nuclear realities
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, November 8, 2007

General Musharraf today tossed a bone to his lapdogs in Washington — a promise of elections — and the White House wagged its tail and quickly applauded what it sees as “a good thing” — even while Pakistan’s dictator continued to bludgeon his political opponents. Three Pakistani politicians and a union leader were charged with treason today for making anti-government speeches and now face possible death sentences and in an attempt to thwart a protest rally, 500 members of Benazir Bhutto’s opposition party were arrested.

Having been a steady recipient of US aid — his military receives $100 million monthly in direct cash transfers which Musharraf can use however he pleases — the general is unlikely to be moved by threats that he might not be rewarded with any more F-16s.

Musharraf’s power and the White House’s impotence was further reinforced by the image of Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte appearing on Capitol Hill in defense of Bush’s “indispensable” ally. “No country has done more in inflicting damage on the Taliban,” Negroponte said, yet in a little noticed development, it seems possible that even while Musharraf was instituting martial law in Pakistan and releasing Taliban prisoners, in Afghanistan Pakistan’s intelligence services might have had a role in the assassination of one of the Taliban’s most serious opponents. “The killing of Sayed Mustafa Kazimi, the 45-year-old Hazara Shi’ite leader from Parwan province of Afghanistan, to the northwest of Kabul, bears all the hallmark of a political assassination,” writes M K Bhadrakumar in Asia Times. He continues:

Evidently, those who plotted his assassination had a grand design. The Taliban lack the political sophistication to work with such foresight and planning. Of course, the Taliban have an old feud with the Hazara Shi’ites dating to the murder of Mazari in March 1995, when the Taliban, already approaching Kabul, entrapped him after inviting him for peace talks. He was tortured and murdered before his body was thrown out of a helicopter somewhere near Ghazni.

Observers of the Afghan scene may have forgotten the incident, but what comes readily to mind is that the suspicion still lingers that Mazari’s murder was the handiwork of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The finger of suspicion must once again turn to the ISI over Kazimi’s killing, which raises the issue of what would be gained by removing him from the political landscape.

First, he comes from a region of Afghanistan which is very sensitive. Those who know the Afghan chessboard would acknowledge the supreme importance of controlling the provinces of Baghlan and Parwan. They form the gateway to the northern Amu Darya region, the Panjshir Valley to the east and the central Hazarajat region respectively.

Control of the mountain passes to the west of Baghlan was bitterly contested between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. The hub was extremely important strategically. In political terms, it is possible to say that without exercising control of the hub, there can be no effective unity between the non-Pashtun ethnic groups of Tajiks and Hazaras (and even the Uzbekis).

Baghlan connects the predominantly Tajik areas with the Hazarajat region and is also on the main communication line between Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif in the Amu Darya region. Baghlan itself is a mosaic where Pushtuns, Tajiks and Hazaras have traditionally vied for influence and control.

Kazimi hailed from Parwan and did much of his political work in his early years in Baghlan province, where he was quite popular. There is no better way of creating volatility, if not mayhem, in that sensitive region than through a political assassination. The ISI has used targeted political assassinations with devastating effect in Afghanistan many a time at critical junctures on the battlefield.

As everyone knows, Washington can only focus its attention on one thing at a time and with all eyes now on Pakistan, opportunities for reckless maneuvers present themselves elsewhere. Yet there are compelling reasons why Pakistan now looks like the most dangerous country in the world. Washington’s confidence in the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is largely invested in its confidence in one man: Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai, head of the special branch of the military known as the Strategic Plans Division in charge of operations and security. Kidwai represents what one former State Department official describes a the only “safe box within Pakistan’s army.” Irrespective of Kidwai’s close ties to U.S. military officials, the inherent vulnerability of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons has long been understood.

In October 2001, nuclear weapons expert, David Albright wrote:

Several observers have suggested that if Pakistan suffers a coup by forces hostile to the United States, the US military should be ready to provide security over the nuclear weapons (or even to take the weapons out of Pakistan entirely) without the permission of the Pakistani authorities.13 Others have raised the possibility of asking President Musharraf to allow the United States or China to take possession of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons during a coup.

Although such responses appear possible in theory, their implementation could be extremely difficult and dangerous. A U.S. military action to seize or cripple Pakistan’s strategic nuclear assets may encourage India to take similar action, in essence to finish the job. Even if India does nothing, a new Pakistani government may launch any remaining nuclear weapons at U.S. forces or against India.

In addition, removing the nuclear weapons would not be enough. The new government would inherit the facilities to make nuclear weapons. Extensive bombing would thus be required at several nuclear sites, including the relatively large Khushab reactor and New Labs reprocessing plant. These types of attacks risk the release of a large amount of radiation if they are to ensure that the facility is not relatively quickly restored to operation.

No wonder Washington is now in a state of paralysis. The administration’s fears will only be reinforced as critics such as Senator Biden compares Pakistan to Iran when in 1979 it shook off its own US-backed dictator.

As for present-day Iran, President Ahmadinejad’s announcement that Iran has 3,000 working uranium-enriching centrifuges is leading to renewed fears that Israel might respond by bombing the country’s nuclear facilities. In a familiar pattern, this warning was reported in The Times and then echoed around the Israeli press. Israel’s Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, who is also a former defense minister and IDF chief of General Staff, told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish organizations in New York, “Iran’s nuclear program is proceeding like an express train. The diplomatic efforts to thwart Iran are like a slow train. If we cannot derail the Iranian train from the tracks, we are on the verge of a nuclear era that will totally alter the regional reality.” Yet the longer the crisis in Pakistan continues, the more widely it will be recognized that, as Ariel Sharon might have put, the nuclear realities on the ground are more significant than those that lie beyond the horizon.

Indeed, as one observer astutely notes:

An Iranian-instigated chemical or biological attack against Israel or the United States has been within the capability of the Iranian regime for at least a decade, and yet they have not launched one. Nor have the Iranians committed 9/11-style terrorist spectaculars against the U.S. homeland despite the relative ease and low cost of such attacks.

All this suggests that Iran understands, and respects, the limits of its aggression. Despite the end times rhetoric issuing forth from its demagogic president, the country has assiduously avoided acts that would invite a massive military retaliation. This is not indicative of a nation longing for a nuclear conflagration.

If Washington is to develop a new way of approaching Iran, the substance of one such means of engagement was outlined in Congress yesterday by Flynt Leverett. Testifying to the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, Leverett said:

…when one asks Iranian diplomats, academics and officials what is required from the United States to condition a fundamental improvement in U.S.-Iranian relations, these Iranian interlocutors routinely talk about American acceptance of the Islamic Republic and recognition of a legitimate Iranian role in the region—and it is precisely American acceptance of the Islamic Republic and recognition of legitimate Iranian interests that is the core of what I describe as a “security guarantee”.

If in the eyes of President Bush, Pakistan’s military dictator can appear “indispensable,” is Iran’s desire for recognition of its own legitimacy really such a tall order? For this or any future administration to undergo such a shift in its alignments it needs to put aside the prism through which only strategic threats and assets can be seen and recognize that it is dealing with people and with nations. America’s interests can ultimately only be served by respecting the interests of others.

NEWS: Pakistan’s legal revolution

Lawyers: Pakistan political conscience
By Matthew Pennington, AP, November 8, 2007

Thousands of black-suited lawyers facing police batons and tear gas to protest the declaration of emergency rule have become Pakistan’s political conscience.

Enraged by President Pervez Musharraf’s assault on independent judges, the legal community has eclipsed discredited opposition parties as the torchbearers for democracy.

The general’s botched attempt to oust Pakistan’s top judge this spring sparked a mass movement against military rule, with lawyers in the vanguard. That put wind in the sails of a defiant Supreme Court, which challenged Musharraf’s dominance and the secret workings of Pakistan’s spy agencies.

Fearing the court would declare his recent presidential election victory illegal, Musharraf finally pulled the plug on its activism on Saturday by suspending the constitution and purging its ranks. Deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, now under house arrest, has urged lawyers to revolt. [complete article]

NEWS: Adoption of nuclear first-strike posture

U.S. plan envisioned nuking Iran, Syria, Libya
By Spencer Ackerman, TPM Muckraker, November 5, 2007

Despite years of denials, a secret planning document issued by the U.S. military’s nuclear-weapons command in 2003 ordered preparations for nuclear strikes on countries seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction, including Iran, Saddam Hussein-era Iraq, Libya and Syria.

A briefing (pdf) on the document obtained by the Federation of American Scientists, showed that the document itself was created to flesh out a 2001 Bush administration revision of long-standing nuclear-weapons policy, known as the Nuclear Posture Review. That review was a Defense Department-led attempt to wean nuclear policy off a Cold-War focus on Russia and China, but the shift raised questions about what purpose nuclear forces would serve apart from deterring an attack. In March 2002, leaks indicated that the review would recommend preparations for nuclear attacks against WMD-aspirant states. Arms Control Today pointed out at the time that planning to attack non-nuclear states that were signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty reversed decades of U.S. nuclear policy. [complete article]

See also, Nuke planning against DPRK, Libya & friends (Arms Control Wonk).

NEWS & ANALYSIS: Changes in Hamas; Israel’s continued expansion

Hamas and al-Qaida: The prospects for radicalization in the Palestinian Occupied Territories
By Khalid Amayreh, Conflicts Forum, November 7, 2007

The rise of the Islamic Resistance Movement — Hamas — in the Palestinian Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza provided a challenge for Israel and the West. Israel, the United States and the European Union have responded to this challenge by failing to differentiate Hamas from other and more radical Islamist movements and networks. That policy, which includes economic and political sanctions, now threatens to radicalize Palestinian society, pushing supporters of Hamas into the arms of al-Qaida and other salafist organizations. What are the prospects that — should the Hamas political program fail as a result of these sanctions — the Palestinian population will turn to more radical Islamist groups? [complete article]

IDF reservists: Hamas men fight like soldiers, not terrorists
By Amos Harel, Haaretz, November 8, 2007

Reserve-duty paratroopers who completed a month of duty in the Gaza Strip last week say that facing militant groups such as Hamas was like taking part in a “mini-war.”

During the patrol company’s operations deep in Palestinian territory, four Hamas militants and one Israel Defense Forces soldier, Sergeant-Major (Res.) Ehud Efrati, were killed. “The people we killed weren’t terrorists, they were soldiers,” an officer in the company told Haaretz.

“In a direct confrontation, the IDF has superiority over them, but in all parameters – training, equipment quality, operational discipline – we are facing an army, not gangs,” he said. [complete article]

Israel flouts pledge to curb settlements
By Richard Boudreaux, Los Angeles Times, November 8, 2007

Israel is enlarging 88 of its 122 West Bank settlements despite an agreement to halt the spread of Jewish communities in Palestinian territory, the watchdog group Peace Now said Wednesday.

A report by the group, which documented the construction of new homes with aerial photography and on-site visits, heated up the debate here over a key issue for the U.S.-sponsored peace summit planned by year’s end.

Israel wants to keep large blocks of settlements in a final peace accord, but the Palestinians demand the entire West Bank for a future state. Under a 2003 U.S.-backed plan known as the “road map,” Israel agreed to stop the expansion of settlements as a first step toward negotiations on final borders. [complete article]

NEWS: Displaced, bribed, killed without provocation, Iraqis look forward to economic surge

Report: 14 percent of Iraqis now displaced
McClatchy, November 6, 2007

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction offered a generally optimistic picture of security developments in Iraq in his quarterly report to Congress on Tuesday, but noted that while violence was down, one of every seven Iraqis — 14 percent of Iraq’s population — is now displaced by the war.

The report said that electricity production in Iraq reached its highest level since early 2003, in part because insurgent attacks on power-lines and repair crews have declined. Corruption, however, remains a major problem, the report said. [complete article]

Will ‘armloads’ of US cash buy tribal loyalty?
By Sam Dagher, Christian Science Monitor, November 8, 2007

Inside a stately guesthouse on the grounds of Saddam Hussein’s palace in Tikrit on the banks of the Tigris, sheikh Sabah al-Hassani jokes that the initials “SH” of the former dictator etched on the walls are his.

“I have a weakness for Cuban cigars, French cologne, and Spanish-made loafers,” he says with a wide grin.

Since June, Mr. Hassani, who claims to be one of the princes of the legendary Shammar tribe, which numbers nearly 7 million across the Arab world, says he has received at least $100,000 in cash and numerous perks from the US military and the Iraqi government.

With his help, at least $1 million has also been distributed to other tribal sheikhs who have joined his Salahaddin Province “support council,” according to US officers. Together, they have assembled an armed force of about 3,000 tribesmen dubbed the “sahwa [awakening] folks.”

All of these enticements serve one goal: To rally Sunni tribes and their multitude of followers to support coalition forces.

The payments are a drop in the bucket given the billions spent annually in Iraq by the United States. And paying tribes to keep the peace is nothing new. It was one of Mr. Hussein’s tools in his selective patronage system designed to weaken and control all institutions outside his Baath party. The British also tried it when they ruled Iraq last century. [complete article]

Militant group is out of Baghdad, U.S. says
By Damien Cave, New York Times, November 8, 2007

Soon, General Fil said, there will be fewer troops for the Iraqis to rely on. “Already we are at a point where we’ll see that as the surge forces depart the city, we’ll see a natural decline in numbers, and I’m very comfortable where that comes to,” he said.

With less than two months to go before his division heads home, General Fil offered a mixed vision of the military’s role for the coming year. He said that if 2007 was the year of security, 2008 would probably be “a year of reconstruction, a year of infrastructure repair, and a year of, if there’s going to be a surge, a year of the surge of the economy.” [complete article]

How Blackwater sniper fire felled 3 Iraqi guards
BySteve Fainaru, Washington Post, November 8, 2007

Last Feb. 7, a sniper employed by Blackwater USA, the private security company, opened fire from the roof of the Iraqi Justice Ministry. The bullet tore through the head of a 23-year-old guard for the state-funded Iraqi Media Network, who was standing on a balcony across an open traffic circle. Another guard rushed to his colleague’s side and was fatally shot in the neck. A third guard was found dead more than an hour later on the same balcony.

Eight people who responded to the shootings — including media network and Justice Ministry guards and an Iraqi army commander — and five network officials in the compound said none of the slain guards had fired on the Justice Ministry, where a U.S. diplomat was in a meeting. An Iraqi police report described the shootings as “an act of terrorism” and said Blackwater “caused the incident.” The media network concluded that the guards were killed “without any provocation.” [complete article]

OPINION: The crime of waterboarding

Waterboarding used to be a crime
By Evan Wallach, Washington Post, November 4, 2007

As a JAG in the Nevada National Guard, I used to lecture the soldiers of the 72nd Military Police Company every year about their legal obligations when they guarded prisoners. I’d always conclude by saying, “I know you won’t remember everything I told you today, but just remember what your mom told you: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” That’s a pretty good standard for life and for the law, and even though I left the unit in 1995, I like to think that some of my teaching had carried over when the 72nd refused to participate in misconduct at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

Sometimes, though, the questions we face about detainees and interrogation get more specific. One such set of questions relates to “waterboarding.”

That term is used to describe several interrogation techniques. The victim may be immersed in water, have water forced into the nose and mouth, or have water poured onto material placed over the face so that the liquid is inhaled or swallowed. The media usually characterize the practice as “simulated drowning.” That’s incorrect. To be effective, waterboarding is usually real drowning that simulates death. That is, the victim experiences the sensations of drowning: struggle, panic, breath-holding, swallowing, vomiting, taking water into the lungs and, eventually, the same feeling of not being able to breathe that one experiences after being punched in the gut. The main difference is that the drowning process is halted. According to those who have studied waterboarding’s effects, it can cause severe psychological trauma, such as panic attacks, for years. [complete article]

ANALYSIS: Christian conservatives are not of one mind

Social conservatives fracture as Robertson endorses Giuliani
By Steven Thomma and Matt Stearns | McClatchy, November 7, 2007

Televangelist Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Giuliani’s campaign Wednesday, a surprising embrace that underscored the divisions among Christian conservatives about the field of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.

By itself, Robertson’s support of the former New York mayor was an unusual partnership between a Christian conservative who once blamed the 2001 terrorist attacks on American sins such as abortion and a social liberal who supports abortion rights and gay rights.

But coming the same day that another prominent Christian conservative — Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas — endorsed Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and two days after influential conservative Paul Weyrich endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, it was a fresh sign that one of the most influential blocs of voters in the party remains splintered. [complete article]

OPINION & EDITOR’S COMMENT: A tyranical fear of terrorism

Pakistan’s general anarchy
By Mohammed Hanif, New York Times, November 7, 2007

For those who have never had to live under [Musharraf’s] regime, the general/president can come across as a rakish, daredevil figure. His résumé is impressive: here’s a man who can manage the frontline of the Western world’s war on terrorism, get rid of prime ministers at will, force his political opponents into exile and still find the time to write an autobiography. But ask the lawyers, judges, arts teachers and students behind bars about him, and one will find out he is your garden-variety dictator who, after having spent eight years in power, is asking why can’t he continue for another eight.

General Musharraf’s bond with his troops is not just ideological. Under his command Pakistan’s armed forces have become a hugely profitable empire. It’s the nation’s pre-eminent real estate dealer, it dominates the breakfast-cereal market, it runs banks and bakeries. Only last month Pakistan’s Navy, in an audacious move, set up a barbecue business on the banks of the Indus River about 400 miles away from the Arabian Sea it’s supposed to protect.

It’s a happy marriage between God and greed.

For now, the general’s weekend gamble seems to have paid off. From Washington and the European Union he heard regrets but no condemnation with teeth — exactly what he counted on.

General Musharraf has always tried to cultivate an impression in the West that he is the only one holding the country together, that after him we can only expect anarchy. But in a country where arts teachers and lawyers are behind bars and suicide bombers are allowed to go free, we definitely need to redefine anarchy. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — What Musharraf has done is to expose the lie embedded in the war on terrorism. The terror threat is so large, so ubiquitous, and so diabolical that it is supposedly worse than tyranny. In the 21st century, oppression has become a tolerable part of the landscape. Curious indeed it is that those among Musharraf’s allies who so frequently declare that terrorism is the greatest threat to our freedom, appear so blithely indifferent when they witness freedom being taken away. If they show some discomfort it is because they know that their own hypocrisy is now on full display.

In the heart of Pakistan, a deep sense of anxiety
By Emily Wax, Washington Post, November 7, 2007

Three days after President Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule, a deep sense of anxiety prevails among Pakistan’s students, rights activists and intellectuals, who say the mass arrests being carried out by the government mark an unprecedented assault on civil society.

When Musharraf suspended the constitution Saturday, he said he had been forced to act by rising extremism and judicial interference in his efforts to protect the country. But in Lahore, an ancient city that has long served as the cultural and intellectual heart of Pakistan, many government critics see a smoke screen being used to quash opposition.

Over the weekend, they note, an estimated 70 community leaders were arrested here during a cookies-and-tea meeting of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Those detained included a college dean, a well-known poet, an economics professor and a board member of the International Crisis Group. [complete article]

See also In Pakistan, echoes of Iran (David Ignatius).

NEWS, OPINION & EDITOR’S COMMENT: An American awakening?

Picking up after failed war on terror
By Andrew J. Bacevich, Los Angeles Times, November 6, 2007

Given that Bush’s version of global war has proved such a costly flop, what ought to replace it? Answering that question requires a new set of principles to guide U.S. policy. Here are five:

* Rather than squandering American power, husband it. As Iraq has shown, U.S. military strength is finite. The nation’s economic reserves and diplomatic clout also are limited. They badly need replenishment.

* Align ends with means. Although Bush’s penchant for Wilsonian rhetoric may warm the cockles of neoconservative hearts, it raises expectations that cannot be met. Promise only the achievable.

* Let Islam be Islam. The United States possesses neither the capacity nor the wisdom required to liberate the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims, who just might entertain their own ideas about what genuine freedom entails. Islam will eventually accommodate itself to the modern world, but Muslims will have to work out the terms.

* Reinvent containment. The process of negotiating that accommodation will produce unwelcome fallout: anger, alienation, scapegoating and violence. In collaboration with its allies, the United States must insulate itself against Islamic radicalism. The imperative is not to wage global war, whether real or metaphorical, but to erect effective defenses, as the West did during the Cold War.

* Exemplify the ideals we profess. Rather than telling others how to live, Americans should devote themselves to repairing their own institutions. Our enfeebled democracy just might offer the place to start.

The essence of these principles can be expressed in a single word: realism, which implies seeing ourselves as we really are and the world as it actually is. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — “Seeing ourselves as we really are and the world as it actually is” — yes indeed, wouldn’t that be a welcome change? But it would also amount to a profound transformation in the American psyche.

Few people in the world have a realistic self-image — what distinguishes Americans is that their lack of self-understanding has such a destructive impact on others.

As occupants of a continent with vast oceans to either side, there is a geographic realism to America’s sense of isolation. The gulf that now needs to be crossed is psychological — it requires that Americans acquire the conviction that the world matters. Yet the world as “other” — as somewhere else — is something from which we have set ourselves apart. Having distasterously ventured into this other, discovered that we are often unwelcome and even reviled, the natural response is to retreat.

The pompous advocates of engagement assert that the world needs American leadership. The message that Americans and the world really need to hear is the reverse: America needs the world. We cannot afford to isolate ourselves. We cannot afford to remain ignorant. The world that seems other is simply a world in which we have yet to understand our place. It is a world in which we should neither assert preeminence nor project our fear.

Next president urged to fix global image
By Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, November 7, 2007

The next US president must expand American involvement in the United Nations and other international bodies and dramatically increase foreign aid – especially among Muslim countries – to reverse the steep decline in American influence and enhance national security, a bipartisan group of politicians, business executives, and academics said in a report yesterday.
more stories like this

The report, titled “A Smarter and Safer America,” also condemned what it called the American “exporting of fear” since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and criticized the use of “hard power,” military might, as the main component of US foreign policy instead of the “soft power” of positive US influences.

But the authors – including Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state under President Bush, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and Harvard professor Joseph S. Nye Jr. – said their recommendations, issued one year ahead of Election Day, is a foreign policy blueprint for Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls. [complete article]

ANALYSIS: The torture trail

CIA rendition: The smoking gun cable
By Stephen Grey, The Blotter, November 6, 2007

A Feb. 5 cable records that al Libi was told by a “foreign government service” (Egypt) that: “the next topic was al-Qa’ida’s connections with Iraq…This was a subject about which he said he knew nothing and had difficulty even coming up with a story.”

Al Libi indicated that his interrogators did not like his responses and then “placed him in a small box approximately 50cm X 50cm [20 inches x 20 inches].” He claimed he was held in the box for approximately 17 hours. When he was let out of the box, al Libi claims that he was given a last opportunity to “tell the truth.” When al Libi did not satisfy the interrogator, al Libi claimed that “he was knocked over with an arm thrust across his chest and he fell on his back.” Al Libi told CIA debriefers that he then “was punched for 15 minutes.”

Here was a cable then that informed Washington that one of the key pieces of evidence for the Iraq war — the al Qaeda/Iraq link — was not only false but extracted by effectively burying a prisoner alive.

Although there have been claims about torture inflicted on those rendered by the CIA to countries like Egypt, Syria, Morocco and Uzbekistan, this is the first clear example of such torture detailed in an official government document.

The information came almost one year before the president and other administration members first began to confirm the existence of the CIA rendition program, assuring the nation that “torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture.”

Last September, these red-hot CIA cables were declassified and published by the Senate Intelligence Committee, but in, a welter of other news, one of the most important documents in the history of rendition had passed almost without notice by the media. As far as I can tell, not a single newspaper reported details of the cable. [complete article]

See also, The agonizing truth about CIA renditions (Stephen Grey).

NEWS ANALYSIS OPINION & EDITOR’S COMMENTS: Iran, war, prisoners, oil, nuclear advances

The Iranian challenge
By Trita Parsi, The Nation, November 19, 2007

Iran will be the top foreign policy challenge for the United States in the coming years. The Bush Administration’s policy (insistence on zero enrichment of uranium, regime change and isolation of Iran) and the policy of the radicals around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (unlimited civilian nuclear capability, selective inspections and replacing the United States as the region’s dominant power) have set the two countries on a collision course. Yet the mere retirement of George W. Bush’s neocons or Ahmadinejad’s radicals may not be sufficient to avoid the disaster of war.

The ill-informed foreign policy debate on Iran contributes to a paradigm of enmity between the United States and Iran, which limits the foreign policy options of future US administrations to various forms of confrontation while excluding more constructive approaches. These policies of collision are in no small part born of the erroneous assumptions we adopted about Iran back in the days when we could afford to ignore that country. But as America sinks deeper into the Iraqi quicksand, remaining in the dark about the realities of Iran and the actual policies of its decision-makers is no longer an option.

A successful policy on Iran must begin by reassessing some basic assumptions:

1. Iran is ripe for regime change.

Not true. Although the ruling clergy in Iran are very unpopular, they are not going anywhere anytime soon. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — At a moment when numerous contrasts and comparisons are being drawn between Iran and Pakistan, this is one among many that deserves underlining: non-nuclear Iran is more politically stable than nuclear Pakistan.

Noun + verb + 9/11 + Iran = Democrats’ defeat?
By Frank Rich, New York Times, November 4, 2007

… there is nonetheless a method to all the mad threats of war coming out of the White House. While the saber- rattling is reckless as foreign policy, it’s a proven winner as election-year Republican campaign strategy. The real point may be less to intimidate Iranians than to frighten Americans. Fear, the only remaining card this administration still knows how to play, may once more give a seemingly spent G.O.P. a crack at the White House in 2008.

Whatever happens in or to Iran, the American public will be carpet-bombed by apocalyptic propaganda for the 12 months to come. Mr. Bush has nothing to lose by once again using the specter of war to pillory the Democrats as soft on national security. The question for the Democrats is whether they’ll walk once more into this trap.

You’d think the same tired tactics wouldn’t work again after Iraq, a debacle now soundly rejected by a lopsided majority of voters. But even a lame-duck president can effectively wield the power of the bully pulpit. From Mr. Bush’s surge speech in January to Gen. David Petraeus’s Congressional testimony in September, the pivot toward Iran has been relentless. [complete article]

See also, Inexorable march toward war with Iran? (Joseph L. Galloway).

U.S. ‘to release’ Iranians in Iraq
BBC, November 6, 2007

The US military in Iraq says it intends to release nine Iranians being held there, including two detained on suspicion of helping Shia militias.

They were among five Iranians who Tehran insists are diplomats seized in the Kurdish city of Irbil in January.

The announcement came as Iran opened two consulates in northern Iraq to improve ties with the Kurdish region.

Iran’s ambassador said the detention of the five men was an “illegal act against Iraqi sovereignty”. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — Hmmm…. I wonder whether Centcom commander Admiral Fallon came back from Pakistan with word that this would be a good time to slip this one under the radar while Bush and Cheney were distracted?

US faces dilemma in targeting Iran’s oil
By Sebastian Abbot, AP, November 5, 2007

With oil above $95 a barrel, there are limits to how much pressure the U.S. is willing to place on Iran’s petroleum sector to influence a persistent nuclear standoff, analysts say.

The dilemma is pretty clear for the world’s largest energy consuming nation, which last week announced sanctions against several Iranian oil-services firms. Taking more aggressive action risks hurting America’s economy, while enriching Iran’s.

Washington is also limited by the reality that, even if it wanted to take a more bellicose stance, it can do little — short of military action — to hinder Iran’s oil sales at a time when global demand is bulging. [complete article]

See also, Oil passes $98 on weaker dollar (BBC).

Poll finds Americans split on taking military action in Iran
By Susan Page, USA Today, November 6, 2007

Americans are concerned about Iran’s nuclear program but split on whether military action should be undertaken if diplomacy and economic sanctions fail to stop it, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll.

The findings underscore public concern about an Iranian threat and a partisan divide over how to respond. Iran has emerged as a key issue in the presidential race, especially among Democrats.

While 46% of those surveyed say military action should be taken either now or if diplomacy fails, 45% rule it out in any case. Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to endorse taking military steps. [complete article]

Experts: No firm evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons
By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy, November 4, 2007

Despite President Bush’s claims that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons that could trigger “World War III,” experts in and out of government say there’s no conclusive evidence that Tehran has an active nuclear-weapons program.

Even his own administration appears divided about the immediacy of the threat. While Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney speak of an Iranian weapons program as a fact, Bush’s point man on Iran, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, has attempted to ratchet down the rhetoric.

“Iran is seeking a nuclear capability … that some people fear might lead to a nuclear-weapons capability,” Burns said in an interview Oct. 25 on PBS.

“I don’t think that anyone right today thinks they’re working on a bomb,” said another U.S. official, who requested anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. Outside experts say the operative words are “right today.” They say Iran may have been actively seeking to create a nuclear-weapons capacity in the past and still could break out of its current uranium-enrichment program and start a weapons program. They too lack definitive proof, but cite a great deal of circumstantial evidence. Bush’s rhetoric seems hyperbolic compared with the measured statements by his senior aides and outside experts. [complete article]

Defiant Iran reaches key nuclear target
AFP, November 7, 2007

Iran has reached a key target of 3,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday, vowing to ignore UN resolutions calling for a halt to Tehran’s sensitive nuclear work.

“We have now reached 3,000 machines,” a defiant Ahmadinejad told a rally in the northeastern city of Birjand.

It was not the first time that the president had boasted that Iran had 3,000 centrifuges up and running. [complete article]

NEWS: The Taliban continues to advance

Taliban stage a coup of their own
By Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times, November 8, 2007

While the world’s attention focused on the troubles of President General Pervez Musharraf following his declaration of a state of emergency in Pakistan at the weekend, the Taliban have launched a coup of their own in Afghanistan and the Pashtun areas of Pakistan.

Pakistani troops had prevented the Taliban from launching their planned post-Ramadan (Muslim holy month) offensive into Afghanistan by invading the Pakistani North Waziristan and South Waziristan tribal areas on October 7.

The Taliban managed to set up a counter engagement by stirring their network in the Swat Valley in North-West Frontier Province, which took the pressure off the Waziristans. The November 4 declaration of an emergency and the preparations before it was enforced distracted the military. As a result, several villages and towns in the Swat Valley, only a drive of four hours from Islamabad, have fallen to the Taliban without a single bullet being fired – fearful Pakistani security forces simply surrendered their weapons. [complete article]

See also, Afghan suicide blast ‘kills 40’ (BBC).

OPINION: America and Britain’s failure in Iraq

The enemy within
By William J. Astore, TomDispatch, November 6, 2007

The world’s finest military launches a highly coordinated shock-and-awe attack that shows enormous initial progress. There’s talk of the victorious troops being home for Christmas. But the war unexpectedly drags on. As fighting persists into a third, and then a fourth year, voices are heard calling for negotiations, even “peace without victory.” Dismissing such peaceniks and critics as defeatists, a conservative and expansionist regime — led by a figurehead who often resorts to simplistic slogans and his Machiavellian sidekick who is considered the brains behind the throne — calls for one last surge to victory. Unbeknownst to the people on the home front, however, this duo has already prepared a seductive and self-exculpatory myth in case the surge fails.

The United States in 2007? No, Wilhelmine Germany in 1917 and 1918, as its military dictators, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and his loyal second, General Erich Ludendorff, pushed Germany toward defeat and revolution in a relentless pursuit of victory in World War I. Having failed with their surge strategy on the Western Front in 1918, they nevertheless succeeded in deploying a stab-in-the-back myth, or Dolchstoßlegende, that shifted blame for defeat from themselves and Rightist politicians to Social Democrats and others allegedly responsible for losing the war by their failure to support the troops at home.

The German Army knew it was militarily defeated in 1918. But this was an inconvenient truth for Hindenburg and the Right, so they crafted a new “truth”: that the troops were “unvanquished in the field.” So powerful did these words become that they would be engraved in stone on many a German war memorial. [complete article]

Britain’s failure in Iraq
By David Wearing, Le Monde diplomatique, November, 2007

Last month’s announcement of substantial withdrawals of British troops from southern Iraq is a useful vantage point from which to review Britain’s part in the occupation. The role of the United States has been the more important, and is far better documented and understood. But Britain’s role has not been insignificant, especially for the people of southern Iraq.

In 2003, Britain promised a post-Saddam Iraq that would be “a stable, united and law-abiding state providing effective representative government to its own people.” That those ambitions have not been realised is now widely acknowledged even within the political establishment. A recent report by Michael Knights and Ed Williams described Iraq’s deep south, the area for which Britain is responsible, as “a kleptocracy” where “well armed political-criminal mafiosi have locked both the central government and the people out of power”.

Britain’s official goals have now been significantly downgraded to keeping violence at a manageable level, and leaving local administrators and security services to deal with the situation. Even this is far from being achieved, and Britain faces these problems in near isolation from the international community. British policymakers and analysts will be asking themselves what went wrong for many years to come. [complete article]