A somber warning on Afghanistan

A somber warning on Afghanistan
By Alison Small, New York Times, September 14, 2009

Western powers now in Afghanistan run the risk of suffering the fate of the Soviet Union there if they cannot halt the growing insurgency and an Afghan perception that they are foreign invaders, according to Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former U.S. national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter.

In a speech opening a weekend gathering of military and foreign policy experts, Mr. Brzezinski, who was national security adviser when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in late 1979, endorsed a British and German call, backed by France, for a new international conference on the country. He also set the tone for a weekend of somber assessments of the situation.

He noted that it took about 300 U.S. Special Forces — fighting with Northern Alliance troops — to overthrow Taliban rule after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

Now, however, with about 100,000 U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan, those forces are increasingly perceived as foreign invaders, much as the Soviet troops were from the start, Mr. Brzezinski said. [continued…]

In Kandahar, a Taliban on the rise
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, September 14, 2009

The slow and quiet fall of Kandahar, the country’s second-largest city, poses a complex new challenge for the NATO effort to stabilize Afghanistan. It is factoring prominently into discussions between Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the overall U.S. and NATO commander, and his advisers about how many more troops to seek from Washington.

“Kandahar is at the top of the list,” one senior U.S. military official in Afghanistan said. “We simply do not have enough resources to address the challenges there.”

Kandahar in many ways is a microcosm of the challenges the United States faces in stabilizing Afghanistan. The city is filled with ineffective government officials and police officers whom the governor calls looters and kidnappers. Unemployment is rampant. Municipal services are nonexistent. Reconstruction projects have not changed many lives. A lack of NATO forces allowed militants free rein. [continued…]

Are US taxpayers funding the Taliban?
By Jean MacKenzie, GlobalPost, September 2, 2009

The United States Agency for International Development has opened an investigation into allegations that its funds for road and bridge construction in Afghanistan are ending up in the hands of the Taliban, through a protection racket for contractors.

And House Foreign Affairs Committee member, Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) vowed to hold hearings on the issue in the fall, saying: “The idea that American taxpayer dollars are ending up with the Taliban is a case for grave concern.”

U.S. officials confirmed that the preliminary investigation and the proposed hearings were sparked by a GlobalPost special report on the funding of the Taliban last month that uncovered a process that has been an open secret in Afghanistan for years among those in international aid organizations.

The report exposed that the Taliban takes a percentage of the billions of dollars in aid from U.S. and other international coalition members that goes to large organizations and their subcontractors for development projects, in exchange for protection in remote areas controlled by the insurgency. [continued…]

McChrystal: No major al-Qaida signs in Afghanistan
AP, September 11, 2009

The top commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan said Friday he sees no signs of a major al-Qaida presence in the country, but says the terror group still maintains close links to insurgents. [continued…]

Bin Laden calls Obama ‘powerless’ in Afghan war
AP, September 14, 2009

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden described President Barack Obama as “powerless” to stop the war in Afghanistan and threatened to step up guerrilla warfare there in a new audiotape released to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

In the 11-minute tape, addressed to the American people, bin Laden said Obama is only following the warlike policies of his predecessor George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and he urged Americans to “liberate” themselves from the influence of “neo-conservatives and the Israeli lobby.”

The tape was posted on Islamic militant Web sites two days after the eighth anniversary of the 2001 suicide plane hijackings. The terror leader usually addresses Americans in a message timed around the date of the attacks, which sparked the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan the same year, and then in Iraq two years later.

Bin Laden said Americans had failed to understand that al-Qaida carried out the attacks in retaliation for U.S. support for Israel. If America reconsiders its alliance with the Jewish state, al-Qaida will respond on “sound and just bases.” [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Obama’s squandered summer

Obama’s squandered summer
By Frank Rich, New York Times, September 13, 2009

… health care reform, while an overdue imperative, still is overshadowed in existential urgency by the legacies of the two devastating cataclysms of the Bush years, 9/11 and 9/15, both of whose anniversaries we now mark. The crucial matters left unresolved in the wake of New York’s two demolished capitalist icons, the World Trade Center and Lehman Brothers, are most likely to determine both this president’s and our country’s fate in the next few years. Both have been left to smolder in the silly summer of ’09.

As we approach the eighth anniversary of the war that 9/11 bequeathed us in Afghanistan, the endgame is still unknown and more troops are on their way. Though the rate of American casualties reached an all-time high last month, the war ranks at or near the bottom of polls tracking the issues important to the American public. Most of those who do have an opinion about the war oppose it (57 percent in the latest CNN poll released on Sept. 1) and oppose sending more combat troops (56 percent in the McClatchy-Ipsos survey, also released on Sept. 1). But the essential national debate about whether we really want to double down in Afghanistan — and make the heavy sacrifices that would be required — or look for a Plan B was punted by the White House this summer even as the situation drastically deteriorated.

No less unsettling is the first-anniversary snapshot of 9/15: a rebound for Wall Street but not for the 26-million-plus Americans who are unemployed, no longer looking for jobs, or forced to settle for part-time work. Some 40 million Americans are living in poverty. While these economic body counts keep rising, tough regulatory reform for reckless financial institutions, too-big-to-fail and otherwise, seems more remote by the day. Last Sunday, Jenny Anderson of The Times exposed an example of Wall Street’s unashamed recidivism that takes gallows humor to a new high — or would were it in The Onion, not The Times. Some of the same banks that gambled their (and our) way to ruin by concocting exotic mortgage-backed securities now hope to bundle individual Americans’ life insurance policies into a new high-risk financial product built on this sure-fire algorithm: “The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return.”

When we look back on these months, we may come to realize that there were in fact “death panels” threatening Americans all along — but they were on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and on Wall Street, not in the fine print of a health care bill on Capitol Hill. Obama’s deliberative brand of wait-and-then-pounce leadership let him squeak — barely — through the summer. The real crises already gathering won’t wait for him to stand back and calculate the precise moment to spring the next Do-or-Die Speech. [continued…]

Quick impressions of the D.C. 9/12 protest
By Matt Welch, Reason, September 12, 2009

Big crowd. Do not believe any description that says “thousands.” If there weren’t at least a healthy six figures there, I will permanently revoke my head-counting license.

Nineteen out of 20 signs were hand-made. My favorite was “Stop spending our tacos. I love tacos.” The most popular were variations on “Don’t tread on me,” “You lie,” complaints about Obama’s “socialism,” warnings about the 2010 elections, references to the deficit or big spending, critiques of Obamacare, and (especially) cracks about various czars (including not a few that equated czars with Soviet Communism). Godwin’s Corollary was satisfied on multiple occasions, including “Hitler gave great speeches, too,” “the Nazis did national health care first,” and someone comparing Obama’s 2009 with Hitler’s 1939 (alas, we didn’t get to ask him whether America was about to invade Poland). Michael Moynihan did have a nice chat about George Marshall with the fellow holding a sign saying “McCarthy was right.” There was an “Obama bin lyin,” “Feds = treason,” “Birth certificate,” and “Glen Beck for president.” Greatly outnumbering such things were references to the constitution, taking our country back, and so forth. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — Claims that the tea-party turnout has been wildly exaggerated are, to my mind, a strange way of responding to a disturbing trend. Glenn Beck’s followers might be misinformed and delusional but they are not so marginal that they can be ignored. Let’s be blunt: he’s galvanized more support for his crazed movement than America’s antiwar movement brought together in opposition to the war in Iraq.

Should Obama respond and if so how?

Invite Glenn Beck, along with Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe from FreedomWorks, to The White House. Let these self-appointed leaders of the white people present their case to the president. I’d be surprised if they did not find some way of weaseling out of accepting the invitation, but if they did meet, I’d be fascinated to hear what they would actually have to say.

If a hundred thousand or more people (and yes, I think it would take that many to fill Pennsylvania Avenue), take the trouble of coming to Washington, they deserve to have their presence acknowledged and their grievances heard. After all, isn’t this a president who campaigned on his willingness to talk to his enemies? Frankly, I think Obama has everything to gain and nothing to lose by having such a meeting. His opponents on the other hand are much more comfortable shouting invective from a distance than they would be trying to muster some intelligence face-to-face with their nemesis.

Facebooktwittermail

Rethinking our Iran strategy

Rethinking our Iran strategy
By Robin Wright and Robert Litwak, Los Angeles Times, September 13, 2009

Three decades of assumptions about Iran — including the premises behind Washington’s recent outreach to Tehran — have been transformed by its stunning uprising. It’s time for a policy rethink.

The Obama administration’s offer to engage was the right idea. But the theocracy’s brutal crackdown on the opposition since the June 12 presidential election, followed by the purge of senior politicians in show trials and an alarming increase in general executions, marks a turning point for Iran’s revolution. U.S. policy now needs a broader approach. Recent history offers relevant guidelines.

The three most important revolutions of the 20th century — for their political innovation and impact — happened in the Soviet Union, China and Iran. At the peak of revolutionary paranoia, the Soviet Union and China witnessed turmoil similar to what is happening today in Iran. Soon afterward, however, Moscow and Beijing altered course. Both began the move from defiant revolutionary regime to a normal state willing to work within the international order and mended relations with the United States. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Dismantling the matrix of control

Dismantling the matrix of control
By Jeff Halper, MERIP, September 11, 2009

Many Palestinian, Israeli and international proponents of a just peace took heart in Obama’s early gestures. Beginning with the appointment of former Sen. George Mitchell as special envoy and continuing through the president’s June 4 speech in Cairo, these proponents allowed themselves, after years of disappointment and struggle, a cautious hopefulness. Some of the speech’s formulations, like the nods to the “pain of dislocation” felt by Palestinians and the “daily humiliations” of occupation, had been heard before. But one sentence had not been: Obama said that a two-state solution “is in Israel’s interest, Palestine’s interest, America’s interest and the world’s interest.” Obama seemed to “get it,” that is, he seemed to understand that the US is isolated politically by its unquestioning backing of Israel, which is seen as obstructing a solution to the conflict. And, for the first time, a US president actually said that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the vital national interest, not just a nice thing to do. These words significantly raise the bar. Framing the conflict in this way makes it easier for the administration to win Congressional support for tougher demands upon Israel while undermining the ability of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to mount an effective resistance, given American Jewish sensibilities about suspicions of dual loyalty.

Since the Cairo speech, however, fundamental doubts about US efforts have resurfaced. The only demand made by Obama upon Israel has been for a settlement “freeze,” a welcome symbolic gesture, to be sure, yet irrelevant to any peace process. Israel has enough settlement-cities in strategic “blocs” that it could in fact freeze all construction without compromising its control over the West Bank and “greater” Jerusalem, the Arab areas to the north, south and east of the city where Israel has planted its flag. Focusing on this one issue — which, months later, is still being haggled over — has provided Israel with a smokescreen behind which it can actively and freely pursue more significant and urgent construction that, when completed, will truly render the occupation irreversible. It is rushing to complete the separation barrier, which is already being presented as the new border, replacing the “Green Line,” the pre-June 1967 boundary to which Israel is supposed to withdraw, by the terms of UN Security Council resolutions, but on which even the most ardent two-staters have long since given up. Israel is demolishing homes, expelling Palestinian residents and permitting Jewish settlement throughout East Jerusalem, measurably advancing the “judaization” of the city. It is confiscating vast tracts of land in the West Bank and “greater” Jerusalem and pouring bypass road asphalt at a feverish pace so as to permanently redraw the map. It is laying track on Palestinian land for a light-rail line connecting the West Bank settlement-city of Pisgat Ze’ev to Israel. It is drying up the main agricultural areas of the West Bank, forcing thousands of people off their lands, while instituting visa restrictions that either keep visiting Palestinians and internationals out of the country altogether, or limit their movement to the truncated Palestinian enclaves of the West Bank.

“Quiet,” behind-the-scenes diplomacy is surely taking place, but the few details that have emerged are far from reassuring. The State Department has mocked as “fiction” a ten-point document given to the Arab press by Fatah figure Hasan Khreisheh that promises an “international presence” in parts of the West Bank and US backing for a Palestinian state by 2011. The component of this alleged plan that seems more likely is that the US wants a partial freeze on settlement activity from Israel in exchange for a pledge from Washington to push for more stringent sanctions upon Iran for its nuclear research. On August 25, the Guardian quoted “an official close to the negotiations” saying: “The message is: Iran is an existential threat to Israel; settlements are not.” By all indications, if the Obama administration does present a regional peace plan, which it is expected by many to do around the time of the UN General Assembly meeting on September 20, it will be nothing more than a “rough draft.” It is no exaggeration to say a two-state solution will rise or fall on the outlines of this draft — and may perhaps fall forever if no concrete plan is presented at all, which is also possible. Although the two-state solution has been eulogized many times in the past, Obama represents a best-case scenario. If he presents, in the end, a disappointing peace plan that offers no genuine breakthrough, then the shift to a one-state solution on the part of the Palestinian people and their international supporters will be inescapable. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Al-Qaida faces recruitment crisis, anti-terrorism experts say

Al-Qaida faces recruitment crisis, anti-terrorism experts say
By Ian Black and Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, September 10, 2009

Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida is under heavy pressure in its strongholds in Pakistan’s remote tribal areas and is finding it difficult to attract recruits or carry out spectacular operations in western countries, according to government and independent experts monitoring the organisation.

Speaking to the Guardian in advance of tomorrow’s eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, western counter-terrorism officials and specialists in the Muslim world said the organisation faced a crisis that was severely affecting its ability to find, inspire and train willing fighters.

Its activity is increasingly dispersed to “affiliates” or “franchises” in Yemen and North Africa, but the links of local or regional jihadi groups to the centre are tenuous; they enjoy little popular support and successes have been limited. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

‘I told the US to talk to the Taliban. They jailed me’

‘I told the US to talk to the Taliban. They jailed me’
By Kim Sengupta, The Independent, September 12, 2009

He was the man they called the mullah with a human face, the internet mullah, or the Rudolph Hess of the Taliban. Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil was the Taliban’s foreign minister. It was he who in October 2001, a month after 9/11 and weeks before the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, broke ranks with the hardline clerical leadership and tried to broker a peace deal with Washington.

Eight years on, as the West struggles to form a coherent policy on Afghanistan amid mounting domestic opposition to the war, Mullah Muttawakil has claimed that the West has repeatedly squandered chances for peace.

“We have seen a lot of fighting since then, a lot of blood has been spilt, all for what?” he asked. “They are saying now that they will talk to some of the Taliban. That is what I said to them just after the war. I offered to put them in touch with the relevant people. Their answer was to put me in jail.” [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

How Islamist gangs use internet to track, torture and kill Iraqi gays

How Islamist gangs use internet to track, torture and kill Iraqi gays
By Afif Sarhan and Jason Burke, The Observer, September 13, 2009

Sitting on the floor, wearing traditional Islamic clothes and holding an old notebook, Abu Hamizi, 22, spends at least six hours a day searching internet chatrooms linked to gay websites. He is not looking for new friends, but for victims.

“It is the easiest way to find those people who are destroying Islam and who want to dirty the reputation we took centuries to build up,” he said. When he finds them, Hamizi arranges for them to be attacked and sometimes killed.

Hamizi, a computer science graduate, is at the cutting edge of a new wave of violence against gay men in Iraq. Made up of hardline extremists, Hamizi’s group and others like it are believed to be responsible for the deaths of more than 130 gay Iraqi men since the beginning of the year alone.

The deputy leader of the group, which is based in Baghdad, explained its campaign using a stream of homophobic invective. “Animals deserve more pity than the dirty people who practise such sexual depraved acts,” he told the Observer. “We make sure they know why they are being held and give them the chance to ask God’s forgiveness before they are killed.”

The violence against Iraqi gays is a key test of the government’s ability to protect vulnerable minority groups after the Americans have gone.

Dr Toby Dodge, of London University’s Queen Mary College, believes that the violence may be a consequence of the success of the government of Nouri al-Maliki. “Militia groups whose raison d’être was security in their communities are seeing that function now fulfilled by the police. So their focus has shifted to the moral and cultural sphere, reverting to classic Islamist tactics of policing moral boundaries,” Dodge said. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

U.S. accepts offer from Tehran for broad talks

U.S. accepts offer from Tehran for broad talks
By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, September 12, 2009

The United States has decided to ignore Iran’s refusal to discuss its nuclear program and instead accept a vague Iranian plan for talks on security issues as the opening gambit to draw Tehran into real negotiation.

The effort to “test” Iran’s intentions, announced on Friday, came after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said his country is skeptical of the need for new sanctions on Iran, giving the Americans little choice but to treat seriously Iran’s latest offer.

Iran this week ruled out talks on its program, instead offering a five-page plan that it said would lay the groundwork for peace and stability in the region. The document, first posted Thursday on the Web site of ProPublica news service, made no reference to international demands that Iran suspend its efforts to enrich uranium, but did mention ending proliferation in nuclear weapons as well as a broad offer of dialogue. [continued…]

Why Washington should welcome Iran’s broadening of the agenda
By Trita Parsi, Huffington Post, September 11, 2009

The Iranian proposal is best understood not from the prism of the West’s focus on the nuclear program, but from the vantage point of Iran’s long standing objective to be recognized as a regional power with a permanent seat at the table of regional decision making. Iran believes it suffers from severe role deficit — though it is one of the most powerful countries in the region, its neighbors view it by and large as a disruptive, anti-status quo power and have consequently refrained from giving it access to recognized and institutionalized avenues of influence.

After all, the reigning order in the Middle East is one defined and upheld by the United States, which for the past thirty years has sought Iran’s isolation and exclusion, not its inclusion and rehabilitation. Breaking out of this isolation and forcing Washington and the regional capitols to grant Iran the role it craves have been overarching strategic goals of Iranian foreign policy for several decades now.

Iran believes that the nuclear stand-off provides it with an opportunity to achieve this objective. By broadening the agenda for negotiations, Iran takes the opportunity to discuss with the great powers matters where the views of the Iranian government hardly have been taken into account in the past. The broader aim is to institutionalize the great power’s recognition of Iran’s role and seat at the table.

Perhaps more importantly, the Iranians refuse to permit the P5 plus 1 to single-handedly set the parameters of the talks. By presenting its own proposal, Iran is introducing its own parameters. The Iranians are in essence negotiating about the shape of the table before negotiating matters of substance. This is hardly surprising. During the EU-Iranian negotiations on the nuclear issue, Tehran was immensely frustrated by Europe’s dismissal of several Iranian proposals and its insistence on solely discussing its own set of ideas and demands. By now, Iran seems determined not to let that happen again. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Iran’s Supreme Leader issues new warning

Iran’s Supreme Leader issues new warning
By Nazila Fathi, New York Times, September 11, 2009

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned opposition leaders Friday of a “harsh response” if they continued speaking out against the government, a move that analysts said opened the way for their possible arrest.

Although analysts have warned that arrests seemed imminent before, several of them said Friday that they took this warning more seriously because it was issued at Friday Prayer — an important political platform — and because it followed the forced shutdown of the offices of two of the opposition’s leaders this week, as well as the arrests of their top aides.

Those leaders, Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hussein Moussavi, have been leading a movement to try to invalidate the results of June’s presidential election, which they say was stolen. Both men ran in the election, and Mr. Moussavi, a former prime minister, was considered the chief rival to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose re-election was blessed by Ayatollah Khamenei despite massive street protests.

On Friday, a Web site linked to Mr. Moussavi, rahesabz.net, quoted Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an influential politician who sided with the opposition, as saying that Ayatollah Khamenei had already issued an order for Mr. Karroubi’s arrest. A person close to Mr. Rafsanjani, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the subject, confirmed the report, but said the order was issued at least two weeks ago. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Iran urges disposal of all nuclear arms

Iran urges disposal of all nuclear arms
By Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post, September 11, 2009

Iran is not prepared to discuss halting its uranium enrichment program in response to Western demands but is proposing instead a worldwide control system aimed at eliminating nuclear weapons, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s top political aide said in an interview Thursday.

In a set of proposals handed to the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany on Wednesday, Iran also offered to cooperate on solving problems in Afghanistan and fighting terrorism and to collaborate on oil and gas projects, Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi said. A longtime confidant of the president’s, Samareh Hashemi is reportedly being considered for the key post of first vice president in Ahmadinejad’s new government.

As described by Samareh Hashemi, Iran’s offer is similar to a call by President Obama in April to eliminate the world’s nuclear weapons. Later this month, Obama is scheduled to chair a special session of the U.N. General Assembly’s annual meeting aimed at seeking consensus on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, rather than targeting individual nations such as Iran and North Korea. Ahmadinejad is also scheduled to attend the U.N. meeting and has said he is ready to debate Obama publicly.

“It’s not really responsive to our greatest concern, which is obviously Iran’s nuclear program,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said of Tehran’s package of proposals. “Iran reiterated its view that as far as it is concerned, its nuclear file is closed. . . . That is certainly not the case. There are many outstanding issues.” [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — As usual, Iran’s position is portrayed as being one of intransigence, yet at the core of the conflict here is a dispute over whether one side can claim the “right” to dictate the parameters of engagement. The US and its allies are in effect saying: we are the ones who get to set the agenda.

Is 2009 a real change from 2008? I’m still waiting to spot the difference.

The specific nuclear clause in Iran’s proposal is this:

Promoting the universality of NPT mobilizing global resolve and putting into action real and fundamental programmes toward complete disarmament and preventing development and proliferation of nuclear, chemical and microbial weapons.

How serious a proposal is this?

In a way it’s clearly simply a rhetorical challenge. It’s a way of calling Obama’s bluff. Was his Prague declaration more than a piece of campaign-style fluff? A way of offering Europeans a feel-good moment that would make his tour Kennedyesque? Or was he serious?

If nuclear disarmament is ever going to reach the negotiating table then the Middle East’s sole nuclear power is first going to have to come out of the closet. And this goes to the heart of the current impasse: Iran’s opponents insist that the nuclear file cannot include discussion about Israel’s nuclear weapons. Iran must curtail its nuclear aspirations (even though we don’t actually know what they are) while Israel is at liberty to conceal its nuclear actualities.

“They’re baaaaack….”
By Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy, September 11, 2009

When I started blogging back in January, one of my early posts questioned the belief that Obama’s election had ended talk of military action against Iran. I thought this view was “almost certainly premature,” because I didn’t think a rapid diplomatic breakthrough was likely and I knew that advocates of a more forceful approach would soon come out of the woodwork and start pushing the new administration to get tough with Tehran.

Well, I hate to say I told you so, but … Right on cue, Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal had an op-ed from former Senators Dan Coats and Chuck Robb and retired Air Force general Chuck Wald, recommending that Obama “begin preparations for the use of military options” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. They argue that keeping the threat of force “on the table” is the only way to achieve a diplomatic solution, but they also make it clear that they favor bombing Iran if diplomacy fails. In their words, “making preparations now will enable the president, should all other measures fail to bring Tehran to the negotiating table, to use military force to retard Iran’s nuclear program.” [continued…]

Russia says sanctions against Iran are unlikely
By Clifford J Levy, New York Times, September 11, 2009

Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov on Thursday all but ruled out imposing new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, brushing aside growing Western concerns that Iran had made significant progress in recent months in a bid for nuclear weapons.

Mr. Lavrov said he believed that a new set of proposals that Iran gave to European nations on Wednesday offered a viable basis for negotiations to end the dispute. He said he did not believe that the United Nations Security Council would approve new sanctions against Iran, which could ban Iran from exporting oil or importing gasoline.

“Based on a brief review of the Iranian papers, my impression is there is something there to use,” Mr. Lavrov said at a gathering of experts on Russia. “The most important thing is Iran is ready for a comprehensive discussion of the situation, what positive role it can play in Iraq, Afghanistan and the region.” [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

To save Afghanistan, look to its past

To save Afghanistan, look to its past
By Ansar Rahel and Jon Krakauer, New York Times, September 11, 2009

No matter who is ultimately certified as the winner of Afghanistan’s presidential election, the vote was plagued by so much fraud and violence, and had such low turnout, that it is inconceivable the Afghan people will regard the victor as a legitimate leader. And if a majority of Afghans do not consider the president and his government to be legitimate, the military campaign now being waged by the United States and its allies is doomed to fail, regardless of the number of troops deployed.

Current discussions about cobbling together mistrustful factions into a new power-sharing government will produce neither enduring democracy nor short-term peace. The slate must be wiped clean. Afghans need to start again from scratch and choose their leader by a fresh process that restores legitimacy to the national government.

Fortunately, such a process already exists — one that is both highly respected by the Afghan people and recognized in the Afghan Constitution: the convening of an emergency loya jirga, or grand assembly. The loya jirga has been called in times of national crisis in Afghanistan for centuries. In 1747, such an assembly in Kandahar selected Ahmad Shah Durrani as the first king of Afghanistan, uniting a patchwork of contentious tribal entities into the modern Afghan state. The loya jirga, moreover, is not only deeply rooted in Pashtun tradition, but is also consistent with notions of Western representative democracy. [continued…]

Obama faces doubts from Democrats on Afghanistan
By Eric Schmitt and David E Sanger, New York Times, September 11, 2009

The leading Senate Democrat on military matters said Thursday that he was against sending more American combat troops to Afghanistan until the United States speeded up the training and equipping of more Afghan security forces.

The comments by the senator, Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who is the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, illustrate the growing skepticism President Obama is facing in his own party as the White House decides whether to commit more deeply to a war that has begun losing public support, even as American commanders acknowledge that the situation on the ground has deteriorated.

Senator Levin’s comments, made in an interview and in the draft of a speech he will deliver Friday, are significant because his stature on military matters gives him the ability to sway fellow lawmakers, and his pivotal committee position provides a platform for vetting Mr. Obama’s major decisions on troops. [continued…]

Pelosi sees support ebbing for Afghan war
By Yochi J Dreazen and Naftali Bendavid, Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2009

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she sees little congressional support for boosting troop levels in Afghanistan, putting the Democratic majority in Congress on a possible collision course with the Obama administration over the future conduct of the war there.

The remarks Thursday by Ms. Pelosi (D., Calif.) make her the highest-ranking Democrat to signal opposition to the administration’s handling of the Afghan war, a top national-security priority.

The remarks also underscored the increasingly complex political dynamics confronting President Barack Obama as he considers whether to send additional U.S. forces to Afghanistan. [continued…]

Afghan warlord General Atta Mohammad Nur warning raises fear of election violence
By Jerome Starkey and James Hider, The Times, September 11, 2009

One of Afghanistan’s most powerful warlords has defended the popular right to protest against the presidential election results, raising fears that the country could be engulfed by violence if supporters of the losing candidates reject the poll as being rigged.

General Atta Mohammad Nur, who broke ranks with the Government to support President Karzai’s main election rival, insisted: “It is the right of our people to defend their votes. Demonstrations, gatherings, strikes and protests against fraud being carried out by the current system are the absolute right of the people.”

Speaking on national television, he accused the country’s Interior Minister, Hanif Atmar, of “forcing people to keep silent”. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

How 9/11 should be remembered

How 9/11 should be remembered
By Rebecca Solnit, TomDispatch, September 10, 2009

Eight years ago, 2,600 people lost their lives in Manhattan, and then several million people lost their story. The al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers did not defeat New Yorkers. It destroyed the buildings, contaminated the region, killed thousands, and disrupted the global economy, but it most assuredly did not conquer the citizenry. They were only defeated when their resilience was stolen from them by clichés, by the invisibility of what they accomplished that extraordinary morning, and by the very word “terrorism,” which suggests that they, or we, were all terrified. The distortion, even obliteration, of what actually happened was a necessary precursor to launching the obscene response that culminated in a war on Iraq, a war we lost (even if some of us don’t know that yet), and the loss of civil liberties and democratic principles that went with it. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

The American leviathan

The American leviathan
By Stephen Glain, The Nation, September 9, 2009

News travels fast across the red desert bush of remote Djibouti. Even as US military reservists erect a field hospital around a cluster of tents and blockhouses near a desolate watering hole, dozens of tribespeople are waiting for treatment in orderly rows. They arrive with maladies of every sort: bad teeth, diarrhea, fevers, colds, arthritis. At the triage center, an elderly tribesman has had a thorn removed from his foot, a wound that had been infected for months. At the dental surgery station, Navy Lt. Bill Anderson, an orthodontist from Northfield, New Jersey, will over the next few hours extract a dozen rotting or impacted teeth using instruments that sparkle in the late-morning sun.

The reservists are attached to a Djibouti-based task force of some 1,800 soldiers, marines, sailors and Air Force personnel. Embedded with them is an aid specialist from the Agency for International Development, which provides guidance for the operation. She is reticent and refers questions to the agency’s country leader, Stephanie Funk. The next day, Funk acknowledges that USAID’s solitary representation on the triage mission is symptomatic of a new age in US foreign policy–one in which America, in peacetime as much as in war, is personified abroad more by soldiers than by civilians. “If we had the numbers and the money to do fieldwork, we would, but our budgets have been declining for years,” Funk said in her office on the US Embassy compound in Djibouti City. “The Pentagon has got both numbers and money. For every fifty of them, there’s only one of me.”

Quietly, gradually–and inevitably, given the weight of its colossal budget and imperial writ–the Pentagon has all but eclipsed the State Department at the center of US foreign policy-making. The process began with the dawn of America’s post-World War II global empire and deepened in the mid-1980s, with the expansion of worldwide combatant commands. It matured during the Clinton years, with the military’s migration into humanitarian aid and disaster relief work, and accelerated rapidly with George W. Bush’s declaration of endless conflict in the “global war on terror” and a near-doubling of military spending. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Iran’s supreme leader warns opposition figures

Iran’s supreme leader warns opposition figures
By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, September 11, 2009

Iran’s top spiritual and political authority urged opposition leaders to act within the rules of the Islamic Republic or face harsh scrutiny, and said his nation would withstand international pressure over its nuclear program.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also laid the groundwork for the possible arrest of key opposition leaders if they call for street protests or continue to allege massive vote-rigging in the June 12 reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“The system will not take action against anyone as long as they perform within the framework of the system, do not resort to violence, do not disturb the calm in society and do not carry out unlawful actions such as spreading lies and rumors,” he said during Friday prayers before a crowd of Islamic Republic luminaries and supporters at Tehran University. [continued…]

IRGC commander acknowledges military involvement in election politics
By Dr. Farideh Farhi, NIAC, September 7, 2009

Islamic Revolution’s Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari’s speech on September 2, delivered in front of early military leaders of the Iran-Iraq War is significant for several reasons. First, it is noteworthy for his public acknowledgment of IRGC’s direct involvement in the elections and the crackdown. This acknowledgment came in reference to a February 2009 statement by former president Mohammad Khatami According to Jafari, Khatami said, “If in this election Ahmadinejad falls, then rahbari [office of the leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] will be effectively eliminated…through the defeat of principlists, we must contain the power of rahbari.” [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Netanyahu’s secret Moscow visit was part of campaign against missile sales to Iran

Netanyahu’s secret Moscow visit was part of campaign against missile sales to Iran
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz, September 10, 2009

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Moscow on Monday was part of quiet diplomacy between Russia and Israel over Russia’s plan to supply S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran, Haaretz has learned.

A senior government source in Jerusalem confirmed yesterday that Netanyahu was in Russia for talks on security issues, particularly the sale of Russian weapons to Iran.

The missiles could help Iran protect its nuclear facilities from attack.

The purpose of the prime minister’s trip, disclosed to only a few government officials, was to persuade senior officials in Russia’s government and security establishment not to move ahead on a deal to give Iran the missiles.

The discussion also dealt with Russia’s refusal to back more sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Continue reading →

Facebooktwittermail

‘Israel link’ in Arctic Sea case

‘Israel link’ in Arctic Sea case
BBC News, September 9, 2009

Israel was linked to the interception of the missing cargo ship Arctic Sea last month, a senior figure close to Israeli intelligence has told the BBC.

The source said Israel had told Moscow it knew the ship was secretly carrying a Russian air defence system for Iran.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has dismissed speculation that S-300 missiles were on board the ship. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

US Jewish leaders push Obama to act on Iran

US Jewish leaders push Obama to act on Iran
By Hilary Leila Kreiger, Jerusalem Post, September 10, 2009

Several hundred Jewish leaders and activists are planning to arrive here Thursday to urge top Obama administration officials and US congressmen to take action on Iran.

They are pushing for Congress to quickly pass an Iran sanctions bill sponsored by US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman and otherwise take serious economic and diplomatic steps to pressure Iran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear capabilities that threaten Israel.

“Congress is back, legislation is on the agenda, and this is September, when at some level decisions are being made in connection with Iran,” Anti-Defamation League Washington Director Jess Hordes said of the planning of the event.

His organization will be joining the United Jewish Communities, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the National Conference of Soviet Jewry and several other groups as part of the effort. [continued…]

U.S. says Iran could expedite nuclear bomb
By David E. Sanger, New York Times, September 10, 2009

American intelligence agencies have concluded in recent months that Iran has created enough nuclear fuel to make a rapid, if risky, sprint for a nuclear weapon. But new intelligence reports delivered to the White House say that the country has deliberately stopped short of the critical last steps to make a bomb.

In the first public acknowledgment of the intelligence findings, the American ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency declared on Wednesday that Iran now had what he called a “possible breakout capacity” if it decided to enrich its stockpile of uranium, converting it to bomb-grade material.

The statement by the ambassador, Glyn Davies, was intended to put pressure on American allies to move toward far more severe sanctions against Iran this month, perhaps including a cutoff of gasoline to the country, if it failed to take up President Obama’s invitation for serious negotiations. But it could also complicate the administration’s efforts to persuade an increasingly impatient Israeli government to give diplomacy more time to work, and hold off from a military strike against Iran’s facilities. [continued…]

Iran dims hopes for diplomacy
By Farnaz Fassihi and Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, September 10, 2009

ran rejected any compromise with the West over its nuclear program Wednesday, as blunt comments from the Obama administration over Tehran’s bomb-making capability suggested that the two sides were headed toward a renewed diplomatic crisis.

Iran offered Western officials a long-awaited package of proposals to restart negotiations over its nuclear program. But diplomats who viewed the offer Wednesday said the document of fewer than 10 pages essentially ignored questions over Iran’s production of nuclear fuel and instead focused broadly on other international issues.

It made no mention of Tehran’s willingness to suspend its uranium-enrichment activities or to enter into substantive talks about the future of its nuclear program, they said. [continued…]

Russia ‘delivers SAMs to Syria’
UPI, September 4, 2009

Russia has begun deliveries of Pantsir S1 air-defense missiles to Syria, some of which are expected to be passed on to Iran, Syria’s strategic ally that has largely bankrolled the deal, according to the Interfax-AVN military news agency.

Interfax quoted Yuriy Savenkov, deputy director general of the Instrument Design Bureau, or KBP, as saying that deliveries started several weeks ago. KBP produces the Pantsir and other high-precision weapons.

Meantime, Kommersant quoted Alexei Fedorov, head of Russia’s United Aircraft Corp., as confirming the existence of a 2007 contract with Syria for eight twin-engined MiG-31E interceptors.

This aircraft, NATO codename Foxhound, can fly at three times the speed of sound and engage several targets at a range of up to 110 miles simultaneously. [continued…]

Taking Iran seriously
By Daniel R Coats, Charles S Robb and Charles Wald, Wall Street Journal, September 10, 2009

Given Iran’s shortening nuclear timetable and diplomatic challenges for forging an international consensus on sanctions, we urge Mr. Obama simultaneously to begin preparations for the use of military options. Now is the time for the president to reinforce his commitment to “use all elements of American power to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon,” as he stated in February. We believe only a credible U.S. military threat can make possible a peaceful solution.

By showing that he has not taken the military option off the table, Mr. Obama may also be able to convince Israel to forgo a unilateral military strike while forcing Tehran to recognize the costs of its nuclear defiance. Furthermore, making preparations now will enable the president, should all other measures fail to bring Tehran to the negotiating table, to use military force to retard Iran’s nuclear program. We do not downplay the risks of this option and recognize its complications, but we do believe it to be a feasible option of last resort. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

President procrastinator

President procrastinator
By Daniel Dombey, Financial Times, September 7, 2009

Brzezinski has argued that negotiations with Taliban elements, not an increased war effort and grand goals of military victory, may be the key to a more stable Afghanistan. He says: “I would have to be convinced that we were going to be driven out or defeated if we don’t increase forces – but if the increase in forces is designed to achieve some sort of a victory, then I think it is the wrong path … Is becoming more and more deeply engaged in a conflict which involves not just Afghanistan but Pakistan in the long range interests of the US?”

On Iran, Mr Brzezinski worries that the negotiations currently being considered by the US are unlikely to prosper because they are too focused on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear status, to the exclusion of Iran’s concerns.

“If we refuse to discuss other issues that the Iranians wish to discuss, we will encourage the Iranians to refuse to discuss the issues that we want to discuss,” he says. “It’s as simple and basic as that. And we cannot engage the Iranians in serious negotiations if we at the same time publicly discuss more severe sanctions, not to mention that other options [by which he means military force] are on the table.”

As for the administration’s efforts on Middle East peace, Mr Brzezinski’s frustration is all too clear. “So much time has been spent diddling around,” he says, arguing that an “evasive compromise” on settlements will do little to advance a final agreement. “I haven’t given up hope, but hope isn’t everlasting,” he says, mournfully. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail