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.
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