Newsflash Oct 22nd 2009

Another edition of the Newsflash.

USA - AFPAK

Gates is preparing to push NATO for more commitments regarding training of Afghans.

“Leaving aside the question of troop resources, General McChrystal has identified a number of needs in his assessment on which there is agreement,” Mr. Gates said.

He said there was no dissention on “the civilian aspect of the effort in Afghanistan,” or on “the need to expand the size and the training” of the army and police.

In comments during travels this week in Asia, Mr. Gates indicated that if Mr. Obama decided to commit more troops, then other NATO nations should do more as well.

“I think the thing to remember is that General McChrystal’s assessment and also his resource request is going up through the NATO chain of command as well as through our own chain of command,” Mr. Gates said.

The BBC meanwhile reports on the closing of schools after the attacks on Pakistan.


U.S. - Europe


US - ASIA

Robert Gates, while on tour in Asia, has discussed a re-shifting of troops with Japan.

"It is time to move on," Gates said at a news conference with Japanese Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa after they held talks on alliance issues. "This may not be the perfect alternative for anyone, but it is the best alternative for everyone."

Gates left a possible compromise open by saying minor changes to the proposed position of two U.S. Marine runways on the coast of the southern island of Okinawa were a matter for Japan to decide.

A broad plan to reorganize U.S. forces in Japan was agreed in 2006 with Japan's long-dominant conservative party after a 1996 deal failed to gain support of local residents, many of whom associate the bases with crime, noise, pollution and accidents.

Chinese and U.S. officials met and discussed polution levels, claiming to speed up climate strategy.

The calls for cooperation, led by Vice Premier Li Keqiang, came at a clean energy forum attended by nearly 200 of both nations’ leading experts on climate change issues and technologies. The forum’s primary goal is to devise new ways in which Chinese and American researchers, corporations and others can work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But with the Copenhagen conference barely 45 days away, one subtext was to build momentum for closer collaboration between the world’s two biggest producers of greenhouse gases. Negotiations toward a new global climate change agreement have been hobbled by disagreements between China and the United States over whether curbing climate change should be principally the developed world’s duty and how much money and technology rich nations should give developing nations to help them cut greenhouse gases.

U.S. - DOMESTIC

WP is reporting on Lockheed's profit this year, saying that while profits went up the company is careful.

The U.S. Senate allowed for transfer of detainess from Guantanamo to the U.S. for trial.

Newsflash Oct 21st 2009

And here's another entry telling you what's going on in transatlantic relations in general and U.S. foreign policy in particular.

U.S. - AFPAK

President Karzai has agreed to a run off vote, raising questions on the sincerity of the next round of the election

Mr. Karzai’s concession was a critical first step toward creating a credible Afghan government, coming after heavy pressure from European and American officials, including veiled threats that his actions could affect pending decisions about troops levels, according to one American official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter.

But diplomats immediately questioned whether a new vote could be arranged before the announced date of Nov. 7, and whether a second round of balloting would have more security or less fraud than the first, in which nearly a quarter of ballots were thrown out by international auditors. “There are huge constraints to delivering in the second round,” said one Western official. “Can you deliver a result that is any different from the one we’ve already got?”

Meanwhile Pakistan's Army is engaged in severe fighting in South Waziristan.

The BBC is asking for Pakistan's war aims in Waziristan.

The ground offensive that it launched in the region on Saturday is viewed by analysts as its most serious attempt so far to liquidate the militant network there.

This conclusion is based on the tactics the army has adopted so far.

Unlike previous operations which were invariably half-hearted, haphazard and abortive, it took its time to plan a thorough operation this time.

Meanwhile UN General Secretary is calling for half of the Afghan poll officials to be sacked.

World leaders have welcomed the acceptance by President Hamid Karzai that he had not won the poll outright.

It came after a UN-backed panel lowered Mr Karzai's vote share below 50%.

The UN investigation found evidence of vote-rigging on a massive scale in the August election.

The second round, between Mr Karzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, has been scheduled for 7 November.

The president said it was "time to move forward to stability and national unity".

The NYTimes has a great article on David Rohde, a NYTimes reporter being kidnapped by Taliban and held during March.

U.S. - EUROPE


Vice president Joe Bidenis in Warzaw to meet with Polish leaders to allegedly reassure the U.S. -polish ties in light of the cancelled missile defence program. Yesterday Poland accepted Obama's SM3 missile defence plan. In the next days Biden will tour more Eastern European countries.

Many Poles view Biden's trip as a way for the U.S. to reverse damage done by the U.S. administration's handling of its changes to the Bush-era missile defense system plan.

Last month, Obama scrapped Bush's plans to put missile defense interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic, a system that was intended to shoot down future long-range missiles from Iran.

The administration's planned replacement would instead be aimed against Iranian short- and intermediate-range missiles; the Obama administration says that makes more sense, in part because Iran doesn't yet have long-range capabilities.

Obama has promised Poland and the Czech Republic the right to host elements of the new system. In particular, the U.S. has offered Warsaw the chance to host SM-3 missiles -- the U.S. Navy's Standard Missile-3, an anti-ballistic missile that the Pentagon says is the most technically advanced and cost-effective way to counter Iran's anticipated arsenal.

U.S. - MIDDLE EAST


Iraq's prime Minister visited the White House on Tuesday.

U.S. and Iranian officials met directly on Tuesday in Vienna over the nuclear dispute.

A diplomat at the closed-door talks told The Associated Press that a deal was "close" but not yet sealed. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France - one of the nations negotiating with Iran - warned that it and its partners in the talks "won't back down" on insisting that Tehran export most of its enriched material.

Tuesday was the second day of talks in the Austrian capital between Iran and the United States, Russia and France over Iran's nuclear program. But the meeting convened only in the late evening after a day of backdoor negotiations, mediated in part by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei.

Tehran says it needs enriched uranium for nuclear fuel but the U.S. and other nations fear that could be used to make weapons. The U.S. says Iran is one to six years away from being able to do so.

Iran had signaled earlier that it might not meet Western demands for a deal under which it would ship most of its enriched material out of the country.

Meanwhile the BBC reports that the Iran nuclear talks are going slwoly.



U.S. - AFRICA
U.S. increasing aid to Mali.

U.S. - ASIA

Secretary of Defence Robert Gates claims North Korean military to be more lethal.

"America's long-term military commitment here [East Asia] recognizes that the peril posed by the North Korean regime remains, and in many ways has become even more lethal and destabilizing," Gates told U.S. and South Korean troops in Seoul.

Impoverished North Korea positions most of its 1.2 million soldiers near the border with the wealthy South, has thousands of artillery pieces trained on the Seoul area and hundreds of missiles that can hit all of the South and most of Japan.

It fired a barrage of short-range missiles last week that military officials in the South said showed greater accuracy and range than previous versions. Analysts said the launch was an attempt by Pyongyang to boost its bargaining leverage ahead of any nuclear talks.

The North has tested numerous missiles this year and has boosted the number of special force troops who are trained to invade the South, military officials in Seoul have said.

"There should be no mistaking that we do not today, nor will we ever, accept a North Korea with nuclear weapons," said Gates, who was in South Korea after visiting Japan.

Gates warned that North Korea poses a serious risk to global efforts to halt the proliferation of nuclear arms and ballistic missiles. "Everything they make, they seem willing to sell."

U.S. - domestic

The U.S. supreme court ccepted an appeal by Uighur Muslims (China) to be released from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

According to a "new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that support for a government-run health-care plan to compete with private insurers has rebounded from its summertime lows and wins clear majority support from the public."

Independents and senior citizens, two groups crucial to the debate, have warmed to the idea of a public option, and are particularly supportive if it would be administered by the states and limited to those without access to affordable private coverage.

But in a sign of the fragile coalition politics that influence the negotiations in Congress, Obama's approval ratings on health-care reform are slipping among his fellow Democrats even as they are solidifying among independents and seniors. Among Democrats, strong approval of his handling of the issue has dropped 15 percentage points since mid-September.

The White House issued a report claiming that the Stimulus package preserved education jobs.

Federal economic recovery aid has created or saved 250,000 education jobs, the Obama administration announced Monday, although states and school systems continue to face enormous fiscal pressures.

The report issued by the White House and the Education Department does not address how many education jobs have been cut this year because of the recession, nor does it project how many are in jeopardy in the coming year.

BLOGROLL:

Abu Muqawama on CNAS has a link to a paper looking at three possible scenarios for Afghanistan. The link to the paper is here.

His reports indicates that

The most likely scenario in Afghanistan, by contrast,
is one in which the United States and its allies
gradually tire of a costly counterinsurgency campaign
and transition to a more limited engagement
that, while not meeting many of the strategic goals
articulated by the president in March, allows the
United States and its allies to still influence affairs in
Central Asia and prevent a total return of the Taliban
and its allies to power in Afghanistan. [...]In this scenario, President Obama’s policy of not
allowing Afghanistan and Pakistan to be a safe
haven from which transnational terror groups can
plot attacks against the United States and other
Western states will likely not be realized.

The best case scenario for Afghanistan is a functioning
Afghan state inhospitable to transnational terror
groups. In this scenario, a government representing
all major factions in Afghanistan, however imperfectly,
would be essential.

At FP Austin Long is comparing COIN and Counter Terrorism as a response to Michael O 'Hanlon's claim that a reduced footprint in Afghanistan won't work. Exemplifying what a real Counter Terrorism strategy in Afghanistan would look like.

No one has attempted to put flesh on this skeleton in terms of numbers and locations of U.S. troops, so I'm proposing the following as a possible small footprint counterterrorism posture.

First, this posture would require maintaining bases and personnel in Afghanistan.
Three airfields would be sufficient: Bagram, north of Kabul, Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, and ideally Kandahar, in the insurgency-ridden south of the country.

Second, In terms of special operations forces, this posture would rely on two squadrons of so-called "Tier 1" operators, one at each forward operating base. These could be drawn from U.S. special mission units or Allied units such as the British Special Air Service or Canada's Joint Task Force 2.

[...] Finally, my proposed posture would require additional staff, logistics, and support personnel (medical for instance), some but not all of which can be contractors, adding another 2,000 military personnel. This would be a total force of about 13,000 military personnel and some number of supporting intelligence community personnel and contractors.

more here.

News flash. Tuedsday Oct 20th

USA- AFPAK:

Pakistani forces are advancing in South Waziristan

Sounding a confident tone on the second day of the campaign against the forces of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, a senior military official said “the level of resistance from the militants is not very high.” Even so, said the official, who declined to be identified, the area was heavily mined and Pakistani forces encountered many homemade bombs.

But the Taliban said part of their strategy was to encourage the military to progress deeper into the militant enclave in the center of South Waziristan, and then tie the soldiers down with hit-and-run tactics that would keep the soldiers in a protracted campaign in the inhospitable terrain over the winter.

The government forces would be hit hard once they penetrated farther into the mountains, the favorite fighting areas for the militants, a Taliban organizer who is not involved in the current fighting said by telephone on Sunday from Wana, the capital of South Waziristan.

The WSJ is also reporting on the issue.

Karzai's team is still refusing UN claims of vote fraud. even with final results being published by the Afghanistans Electoral Commission today.

Initial results released last month gave Mr Karzai nearly 55% of votes, and his main rival Abdullah Abdullah 28%, suggesting the president had won outright.

But the ECC said that after fraudulent ballots were discounted, Mr Karzai's total was reduced to below 50%, indicating that a second round was needed. Mr Karzai has previously refused a run-off, insisting he won the election outright. He could also seek a power-sharing deal with Mr Abdullah.

Correspondents say there are concerns that a run-off could lead to further fraud, violence and ethnic strife.

There is also limited time available, as much of the north of the country becomes inaccessible in winter.

The US response presented is stalling and waiting for the results, until deciding whether to deploy more troops.

The CFR is weighing on on its webpage on the risks of delaying a decision on Afghan strategy.

The WP is reporting that even while attacks on training camps increase the number of terrorists training is increasing, especially westerners.

The gunman did not speak but wore military fatigues and waved his rifle as subtitles identified him as an American. The video contained a stream of threats against Germany if it did not withdraw its troops from the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan. Although the American's part in the film lasted only a few seconds, it has alarmed German and U.S. intelligence officials, who are still puzzling over his background, his real identity and how he became involved with the terrorist group.

U.S. and European counterterrorism officials say a rising number of Western recruits -- including Americans -- are traveling to Afghanistan and Pakistan to attend paramilitary training camps. The flow of recruits has continued unabated, officials said, in spite of an intensified campaign over the past year by the CIA to eliminate al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders in drone missile attacks.

USA - MIDDLE EAST

King Abdullah II of Jordan warning the U.S. on Middle East policy, and showing dissapointment by slow progress on Israel-Palestine issue.

He said the two sides have a window of opportunity over the next year to make progress on creating a two-state solution, after which point the possibility of a Palestinian state will disappear as more Arab land gets swallowed up by Jewish settlements.

"The window of opportunity will soon close," he was quoted as saying. "By the end of 2010, if Israel doesn't believe in the two-state solution, the possibility of a future Palestinian state will disappear because of geographic reasons: already the land is fragmented into cantons."

He urged Washington and the European Union to put pressure on Israel to sit down with the Palestinians to negotiate peace, even though he remains suspicious of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and somewhat disillusioned with the U.S. effort to date.

"I'll be sincere; I had expected more, sooner," he said of the U.S. efforts and the seven missions already conducted by the U.S. envoy George Mitchell.

"I believed in a decisive turn at the beginning of the summer, ahead of a true peace negotiation at the United Nations," he said. "But the question of Israeli settlements — which are illegal according to the international community — remains central."

The IAEA is commenting on the Iran nuclear talks. While not sending the nuclear chief negotiator and head of Security Council, the talks are claimed to be going well.



USA- DOMESTIC

Obama administration officials are critizing Wall St. companies, fixing to pay big bonuses.

"The bonuses are offensive," Obama senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday on ABC's "This Week," adding that banks must do more to support lending across the country and should stop their lobbying efforts aimed at blocking the passage of new financial regulations that are being prepared in Congress.

"They ought to think through what they are doing, and they ought to understand that a year ago a lot of these institutions were teetering on the brink, and the United States government and taxpayers came to their defense," Axelrod said. "They have responsibilities, and they ought to meet those responsibilities."

The Obama administration has defied popular opinion in backing huge government bailouts to try to rescue much of the nation's auto industry and stabilize the financial system, steps it saw as critical to fostering an economic recovery. At the same time, it has attempted to tap into popular anger at corporate America with outspoken criticism of bonuses, perks and other practices that have long been staples of big business.

Crude oil has reached highest level after reaching 79$/barrel.