Isn't this NIE release is an attempt to absolve the US of coming aerial attacks on Iran from another country in the neighborhood? The NIE release just changes the pretext of the war. Now it would be to save our friend from the counter attack by Iran.

The Bush admin went to war against Joe Wilson and his wife to save face about their lies about Iraq and now the same admin is putting out an estimate that contradicts the President and the admin in a major way. What giveth?

Posted at December 5, 2007 7:46 PM in response to NeoCons Go Ballistic on Iran NIE

Why would the State department need an expert on Pakistan when the Pakistan policy is being run by Pentagon and the VP's office?

OTOH, what kind of expertise is needed to understand Pakistani issues. The US and Pakistan cooperation or at least the cooperation between the DoD and the Pak army goes as far back as 1954. By this time every Career officer in Pentagon or in the State dept must be expert on Pakistani affairs. So there really is no need for some specific expertise in following the Pakistan issues.

Pakistan has been under the microscope since 1998 after the nuke experiment. Post 9/11, the US policy in Pakistan has remained fairly consistent. Support Musharaf, support the Pak army to bring democracy in Pakistan and of course pak role in the war on terror have helped the Pak army and Musharaf to assume that the US cannot win the war of terror w/o Pakistan's help.

Musharaf is going to milk it but he really has lost all credibility in Pakistan on every issue. The US support is not going to last long. In the meantime, Musharaf will continue to hang to the power by a thread.

Thanks.

Posted at November 5, 2007 7:54 PM in response to Who Needs Knowledge?

artappraiser

Peter Bergen sometimes surprises me. His analysis is pretty close to the reality in Pakistan.
Removing Musharaf in Pakistan is not like removing Noriega. The US has initiated and supported the process to remove Musharaf in Pakistan and I hope they have figured out all the pitfalls.

Musharaf does not have much political support in Pakistan and that’s why he is looking more towards Benazir, a moderate Pakistani politician, to bail him out. It is not easy for Benazir when we consider that general population is completely disgusted with Musharaf and his policies. She is risking her popularity and the wrath of the liberal and moderate segments of the population by initiating talks with him.

By destabilizing Musharaf, the Bush admin has taken a path that most diplomats would tread on gingerly. I hope the Bush admin is watching the situation very carefully and keeping tabs on the day to day changing situation. That may just be a wishful thinking on my part considering the track record of the Bush admin.

Posted at August 4, 2007 4:28 PM in response to Pak Attack

artappraiser,

Musharaf is on his way out and perhaps will be replaced by a moderate civilian leadership in Pakistan. But to believe that a civilian, moderate or even a liberal, leadership in Pakistan would completely eliminate fundamentalism from the tribal areas would be naïve or I should say utterly ridiculous. Their aggression comes from thirty years of Pakistani state and the US sponsored fundamentalism in that area. No one can change that by just snapping fingers or showing how close their fingers are to nuke triggers.

It does not mean that militants are given a free reign. Both Pakistan and the US should continue to cooperate with each in dealing with the Pakistani or Afghani Taliban and other militants in that area. And the military cooperation should not be ruled out in that area. However, threatening to use nukes and military intervention in the area without the Pakistani government approval would be an unmitigated disaster.

The moderate politicians after replacing Musharaf will continue to rely on the Pakistan army to deal with the militants in the area. If the Pak army refuses to cooperate with the future civilian leaders in Pakistan, a situation might arise when the civilian leadership may have to request the US to help quash the militantancy in that area. That to me is the only scenario when the US army can enter Pakistan or its tribal areas. Still, the consequences of such an action would be far greater than what we can now fathom or anticipate.

Posted at August 4, 2007 12:01 PM in response to Pak Attack

The question is: why the US presidents and the Presidents wannabes pick Nukes as an option in pursuit of the US foreign policy goals. US is the strongest country in the world. It has more nukes than any country in the world and that fact perhaps has not escaped a majority of people in the world, then why is it important for the hopefuls and the Presidents to bring this up at the first opportunity?

Why should this question even be asked when talking about Foreign policy with the candidates? Have we heard any Russian journalist or the French Journalist or any common person there for that matter, posing the same question to their political leadership? Did any Soviet President or apparatchik ever announced to nuke Afghanistan because the Islamic mujahidins were killing the Russian soldiers there? Have we ever heard of any Russian leaders in the 70s or the 80s to bomb Muslim holy sites just because they were fighting Muslim warriors in Afghanistan? Haven’t Chechnya Isamic terrorists done enough damage in Russia?

There seem to be clearly some moral flaws and a tacit acceptance perhaps by the politicians in the US, that they cannot promote the foreign policy goals without the explicit threats.

Let us look at the Bin Laden situation. He reportedly has fewer than 10000 dedicated supporters spread all over the world. In Pakistan that number would be even less, why is it necessary to even bring up nukes when dealing with such a small group knowing fully well that the nuke would impact a far greater number of People in whatever area Bin Laden and his criminal clique is hiding.

It is not a question of Obama being naive or Hillary being super smart to not take the nuke option off the table. That option is very much understood. The point is: what is the weakness in the US politics or in Foreign policy goals that frustrates these leaders enough to take about the nuke options in public in the first place.

PS. So you liked Pak attack of MTV.

Posted at August 4, 2007 11:05 AM in response to Pak Attack

Defining the situation in Iraq in terms of victory and defeat or win or loss is like taking extreme positions. Taking extreme positions diminishes the chance of developing any viable strategy, as all the options are lost in the debate.

Iraq is mired in a sectarian violence/civil war and it is true that the US army currently is not a deciding factor in Iraq, still, calling it a lost cause or sticking to stay until victory will not change a thing on the ground.

There are multiple factors that can still turn Iraq around without putting labels of victory or defeat on any solution.

It is apparent from all reports from Iraq that the Iraqis are not exactly pleased with the US army role in their country. At home, we are not pleased with the political/diplomatic handling of the situation by the Bush administration.

The ISG report has attempted to address both issues and it does provide a framework to build on it.

The role of the US army in Iraq needs to be redefined as the ISG reports suggests and diplomatically, the US should open itself to options that convey to Americans that the US still has the ability to change the course in Iraq.

I think the first step in Iraq would be to gradually remove the US armies from the combat situations as they have so far failed to insert effectively to stop the sectarian violence.

Move most of the troops to the Green Zone and allow the local administrators and forces, in whatever stage of training they are, to deal with their people as best they can. There is a strong possibility that this will lead to an upsurge in violence initially but once the Iraqis begin to deal with each other, communicate in the language they understand, the situation will improve gradually.

The tribal cultures are not all about revenge and annihilations or all religious conflicts lead to a complete destruction of all communication channels between the warring parties. The Iraqis, despite their religious/tribal differences, still communicate in the same language and still understand each other’s religion, culture, and priorities. They have more in common than the current situation portrays. Allow the intermediaries amongst the tribes and the religious factions to deal with the day-to-day situations.

At home, it is so obvious now that the ultimate goal of this administration, from the very beginning, was to stay in Iraq for as long as possible or build permanent bases there for a long haul. The strategy was clearly to allow some conflicts in Iraq to fester to justify the presence of the US forces there. Unfortunately, they handled the situation so poorly that the violence is now out of control and the US army personals have been exposed to some major causality risks.

The US administration instead of announcing a timetable right away, should first announce that it is rolling back its plans of a long-term stay or permanent bases in Iraq.

Let us not call the failure of a faulty policy as defeat in Iraq. It is a grim situation; we need to explore as many options as we can instead of taking extreme positions.

Posted at December 8, 2006 10:03 AM in response to The ISG’s False Hope

There appears to be a concerted effort to confuse people. Israeli goal is to clear civilian population from South Lebanon so that it can go against the Hezbollah fighters and eventually push them in Syria.

This war will end in Syria….
Thanks.

Posted at August 1, 2006 1:43 PM in response to Immediate Ceasefire in Everyone's Interests

There were two very important reasons for the US to go this war. First, it was clear that the sanctions that had destabilized and weakened Iraq, were collapsing and it appeared that they would not remain tenable for a long time.

But the second and the most important reason, the US admin never came out and made it in public, was the most compelling one for people who knew the stakes in Iraq.
There was a legitimate concern in two successive US administrations and in Europe that Iraq under Saddam was a likely candidate to fall under the terrorist influence.

The Bin Laden group had some great successes in Africa and the ME against the US in mid to late 90s. A terrorist group in isolation can be dealt with but if that group happens to have protection from some state, dealing with it becomes extremely difficult. (Check the number of terrorist attacks by Bin Laden group before and after they became a part of the Taliban regime.)

It was feared that since Saddam is weakening with every passing day and he was constantly in conflict with Saudi Arabia, he would end up making a deal with Anti Saudi terrorist led by Bin Laden to regain lost prestige in the Arab world and internal political strength. Once the terrorist had a state for support around the Middle East, both Saudi and Israeli would be under immediate threat.

The US wanted him out first, install a new regime, and then provide support for stability. Clinton Admin supported the idea of regime change in Iraq and would have certainly done something about it but its own problems and the Bosnia situation handcuffed the Clinton Admin.

The Bush admin knew that the stained dress had weakened the Clinton admin and it was unable to take extreme measures against the terrorism and Iraq. It became Bush’s task number one to find a way to get to Iraq as soon as possible. In this sense it was a preemptive strike and if I recall correctly, President Clinton supported preemptive strike against Iraq too. http://www.usembassy.it/file9801/alia/98121608.htm

911 provided that opportunity.

Now it was just a matter of selling the war against Iraq to the US public. That is where the Bush admin bungled. Instead of trying to invent the reason for the war, they should have made a better attempt in linking Iraq with the terrorism. I can understand the admin’s dilemma. This linkage was impossible in the absence of any hard links between Iraq and Bin Laden. There was no way the US public would have bought a war based on some postulations no matter how real they were for the US admin. Though, this theme was softly peddled to the US Public.

On top of all that the admin miscalculated in Iraq. The first and the biggest mistake was dismantling of the Iraqi army. The jobless army personnel provided the first wave of anti-US resistance and now it has been picked by several groups.

Posted at October 28, 2005 8:10 PM in response to So Why Did Bush Go to War?

Posted at September 16, 2005 3:30 PM in response to Meanwhile, In Afghanistan

So, If the numbers keep going south, would we see another "october surprise" in september?  Distraction...distraction...that is what is needed at this time...

Posted at September 15, 2005 10:39 PM in response to Bush From Jackson Square