Daily Archives: February 4, 2008

CAMPAIGN 08: An Obama sweep?

An Obama sweep? What are the possibilities?
By John Nichols, The Nation, February 4, 2008

What would a sweep look like? Obama would not have to win every state or every delegate, but he would have to dominate the map in a manner that left no doubt that Democratic primary and caucus voters prefer his candidacy to that of the woman who not long ago was busy outlining her Democratic National Convention acceptance speech.

To do this, Obama would has to begin by winning California convincingly. That’s possible. He’s moved even or ahead most Golden State polls. Clinton is drawing huge crowds and working the state aggressively; and Obama’s decision to focus most of his campaigning elsewhere in the final days is risky. But if Obama gets California and reaps the benefits of the broader focus, he is on his way to the kind of day that could transform American politics. [complete article]

Raising Obama
By Todd Purdum, Vanity Fair, February 4, 2008

Obama’s good looks and soft-spoken willingness to ponder aloud some of the inanities of modern politics have masked the hard inner core and unyielding ambition that have long burned beneath the surface shimmer. He is not, and never has been, soft. He’s not laid-back. He’s not an accidental man. His friends and family may be surprised by the rapidity of his rise, but they’re not surprised by the fact of it. [complete article]

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ANALYSIS: The Pentagon’s $713 billion budget

What’s really in the U.S. military budget?
By Fred Kaplan, , February 4, 2008

… as the Pentagon’s budget documents note up front, in the “Summary Justification,” Congress has yet to approve $102 billion left over from the supplemental for FY 2008. And so—in terms of how much Congress is being asked to authorize this year—that brings us to $713 billion.

But let’s delve into the Pentagon’s base line figure—the $515.4 billion that has nothing directly to do with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What’s in there? Do the U.S. armed forces really need that much for the everyday maintenance of national security?

About a quarter of that sum—$125.2 billion—is for personnel costs: understandable. Another third—$180 billion—is for operations and maintenance of equipment (a bit more mysterious, since this is apart from the O&M costs brought on by the war). But a larger sum still—$184 billion—is for what the Pentagon calls “major weapons systems.”

This includes $45.6 billion for military aircraft, including $6.7 billion to buy 16 more F-35 stealth planes. The F-35 is still in its early stages; the Pentagon has, to date, spent only about one-tenth of what it estimates to be a $300 billion program. It’s not too late to ask if we need such a costly, sophisticated fighter jet, given that air-to-air combat is not likely to be a major element of future wars and, to the extent that it might be, we’re way ahead—in numbers and technology—of any prospective foe. Or let’s accept the proposition that China’s air force is going to be a formidable rival by the year 2020: Do we need to tear full-speed ahead on the F-35 now? Could we slow the program down and see how things shape up? [complete article]

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FEATURE: What did Israel bomb in Syria?

A strike in the dark
By Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, February 3, 2008

Shortly after the [Israeli] bombing [in Syria, last September], a Chinese envoy and one of the Bush Administration’s senior national-security officials met in Washington. The Chinese envoy had just returned from a visit to Tehran, a person familiar with the discussion told me, and he wanted the White House to know that there were moderates there who were interested in talks. The national-security official rejected that possibility and told the envoy, as the person familiar with the discussion recalled, “‘You are aware of the recent Israeli statements about Syria. The Israelis are extremely serious about Iran and its nuclear program, and I believe that, if the United States government is unsuccessful in its diplomatic dealings with Iran, the Israelis will take it out militarily.’ He then told the envoy that he wanted him to convey this to his government—that the Israelis were serious.

“He was telling the Chinese leadership that they’d better warn Iran that we can’t hold back Israel, and that the Iranians should look at Syria and see what’s coming next if diplomacy fails,” the person familiar with the discussion said. “His message was that the Syrian attack was in part aimed at Iran.” [complete article]

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NEWS & ANALYSIS: Iran’s permanent security headache and frail economy

Iran tries to make up lost ground
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi, Asia Times, February 5, 2008

The conventional wisdom, particularly in the United States, is that Iran has gained from the US’s invasion of Iran’s neighbors since the events of September 11, 2001. Yet, a careful reading of the changing security calculus caused by the exponential increase in the US’s military presence in Iran’s vicinity leads to the opposite conclusion.

Sure, Iran has gained from the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein and his dreaded Sunni Ba’athist regime in Iraq, yet the problem with the standard analyses, for example by the US’s ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, is that even though they are couched in the language of “balance of power”, nonetheless these analyses are tainted by a major gap. That is, forgetting the US superpower’s role in the equation that, on balance, has tipped the scales away from Iran, in a word, amounting to a net loss for the country.

Until now, no one in the US has questioned what has become an article of faith in the US media and a kind of self-evident truth to so many US politicians, such as former secretary of state Henry Kissinger and former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. [complete article]

A frail economy raises pressure on Iran’s rulers
By Michael Slackman, New York Times, February 3, 2008

In one of the coldest winters Iranians have experienced in recent memory, the government is failing to provide natural gas to tens of thousands of people across the country, leaving some for days or even weeks with no heat at all. Here in the capital, rolling blackouts every night for a month have left people without electricity, and heat, for hours at a time.

The heating crisis in this oil-exporting nation is adding to Iranians’ increasing awareness of the contrast between their growing influence abroad and frailty at home, according to government officials, diplomats and political analysts interviewed here.

From fundamentalists to reformists, people here are talking more loudly about the need for a more pragmatic approach, one that tones down the anti-Western rhetoric, at least a bit, and focuses more on improving management of the country and restoring Iran’s economic health. [complete article]

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OPINION: Pakistan’s history is suffering

Pakistan kicked me out. Others were less lucky
By Nicholas Schmidle, Washington Post, February 3, 2008

The police came for me on a cold, rainy Tuesday night last month. They stood in front of my home in Islamabad, four men with hoods pulled over their heads in the driving rain. The senior officer, a tall, clean-shaven man, and I recognized one another from recent protests and demonstrations. Awkwardly, almost apologetically, he handed me a notice ordering my immediate expulsion from Pakistan. Rain spilled off a nearby awning and fell loudly into puddles.

I asked, somewhat obtusely, what this meant. “I am here to take you to the airport,” the officer shrugged. “Tonight.”

The document he’d given me provided no explanation for my expulsion, but I immediately felt that there was some connection to the travels and reporting I had done for a story published two days earlier in the New York Times Magazine, about a dangerous new generation of Taliban in Pakistan. I had spent several months traveling throughout the troubled areas along the border with Afghanistan, including Quetta (in Baluchistan province) and Dera Ismail Khan, Peshawar and Swat (all in the North-West Frontier Province). My visa listed no travel restrictions, and less than a week earlier, President Pervez Musharraf had sat before a roomful of foreign journalists in Islamabad and told them that they could go anywhere they wanted in Pakistan.

The truth, however, is that foreign journalists are barred from almost half the country; in most cases, their visas are restricted to three cities — Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. In Baluchistan province, which covers 44 percent of Pakistan and where ethnic nationalists are fighting a low-level insurgency, the government requires prior notification and approval if you want to travel anywhere outside the capital of Quetta. Such permission is rarely given. And the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where the pro-Taliban militants are strong, are completely off-limits. Musharraf’s government says that journalists are kept out for their own security. But meanwhile, two conflicts go unreported in one of the world’s most vital — and misunderstood — countries. [complete article]

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NEWS ROUNDUP: February 4

Leak on cross-border chases from Iraq
American military forces in Iraq were authorized to pursue former members of Saddam Hussein’s government and terrorists across Iraq’s borders into Iran and Syria, according to a classified 2005 document that has been made public by an independent Web site. The document, which was disclosed by the organization Wikileaks and which American officials said appeared authentic, outlined the rules of engagement for the American division that was based in Baghdad and central Iraq that year.

In Iraq, three wars engage U.S.
Three separate but related wars are being waged in this country now, and the third one, against Shiite extremists, is the most worrisome, according to the commander and senior staff of the U.S. Army division patrolling Baghdad.

Libyans advance in Al Qaeda network
The death of Abu Laith al Libi, a Libyan Al Qaeda chief, has cast a spotlight on the rise of Libyan militants in a network dominated by Egyptians and Saudis, Western anti-terrorism investigators say. Al Libi was killed last week in an American missile strike on a hide-out in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, officials say. In addition to overseeing a paramilitary campaign in Afghanistan, Al Libi had become a top figure in a propaganda barrage on the Internet, according to experts.

Al-Qaeda commander moved freely in Pakistan
A Libyan al-Qaeda commander who was killed last week in northwestern Pakistan had lived there for years and, despite a $200,000 U.S. bounty on his head, felt secure enough to meet officials and visit hospitals, according to officials and residents of this city.

Insurgencies spread in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Islamic insurgents are expanding their numbers and reach in Afghanistan and Pakistan, spreading violence and disarray over a vast cross-border zone where al Qaida has rebuilt the sanctuary it lost when the United States invaded Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. There is little in the short term that the Bush administration or its allies can do to halt the bloodshed, which is spreading toward Pakistan’s heartland and threatening to destabilize the U.S.-backed governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Turkish jets bomb northern Iraq
Turkish fighter jets bombed targets in northern Iraq on Monday, the Turkish military said, the fifth major strike against Kurdish rebels this year. In a statement posted on its Web site, the Turkish military said it had struck 70 targets in the Avashin and Harkuk districts in a 12-hour bombing run that began at 3 a.m. The military did not give details on damage or deaths.

Bomber shot dead during suicide attack in town housing nuclear reactor
Police in Israel shot and killed a Palestinian suicide bomber yesterday after he and an accomplice launched the first suicide bomb attack inside Israel for more than a year, killing a woman and injuring 11 other people in an explosion at a shopping centre in the town of Dimona. Both bombers wore explosive belts packed with ball bearings but only one detonated. After the first bomber detonated his explosives the second bomber, whose belt failed to go off, survived for several minutes, as witnesseses tried to help him. When they discovered he was wearing an explosive belt an Israeli police officer fired several shots into his body and then shot him in the head.

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