May 11, 2012
Brian Knowlton

The Pentagon office with responsibilities for assisting US military and civilian overseas voters is issuing a new ballot-request form that requires civilian voters to make an all-or-none declaration either that they plan to return to the United States or have no intent of ever doing so.

Expatriate groups say the choice is confusing and unfair, carries potential tax ramifications and could depress voting in ways that might affect close elections in November.

The new form, the Federal Post Card Application, is issued by the Federal Voting Assistance Programme, the agency legally charged to assist all overseas voters. It resides in the Pentagon. The form is used to help voters abroad register and obtain ballots.

In the past, the form allowed a less absolute response – that the voter was either residing abroad “temporarily” or “indefinitely” – but the new form leaves civilian voters only these choices: “I am a US citizen residing outside the US, and I intend to return,” or “I am a US citizen residing outside the US, and I do not intend to return.”

The Pentagon office says it needs the information to help election officials decide whether to send out just federal ballots or federal and local ballots.

But expatriate groups say this forces people into a choice they do not want, and in some cases are unable, to make.

“I’m very afraid that it will either completely confuse or deter large numbers of would-be voters,” said Lucy Stensland Laederich of the Federation of Women’s Clubs Overseas, who has lived in France since 1970.

At least half the group’s 15,000 members, she said, are living abroad not “because we wanted to, but because of marriage, employment, studies, NGO or church work, etc.”

In a conference call with election officials and expat advocates last week, Bob Carey, director of the Federal Voting Assistance Programme, acknowledged that the changed wording had caused concerns and said that he hoped to add an explanatory preface on the organisation’s Web site. But he said it was almost certainly too late to change the choices.

Carey said he had changed the wording in response to requests from state election officials. Voters from some states, he said, receive federal, state and local ballots only if they indicate an intention to return – no matter when – while those who express no intention to return receive only federal ballots.

The old language on the form, Carey said, was “basically forcing the state or local election official to divine the voter’s intent to return.”

In response to a core concern of expatriate groups, Carey denied that the answers on the form might increase voters’ exposure to taxes. The US law that created his organisation stipulates as much, he said. Intent to return means nothing as far as taxes are concerned, he said.

Asked about the tax issue, Roland Crim, director of American Citizens Abroad, said: “Individual states look at many factors in determining whether persons overseas are subject to state tax. It is incorrect and dangerous to advise voters that tax liability depends solely on whether a state ballot is simply requested or actually cast.”

At least one group that works with overseas Americans, the Overseas Vote Foundation, said it would still post on its Web site an old version of the form with the more accommodating language. Carey said it would be accepted.

If voters refused to check either of the boxes about intent to return, state and local officials might react differently, Carey said. Some would forward the federal ballot, some might forward both sets and some might not send either.

In a year when polls show the presidential contest could be extremely close and where absentee ballots could make a difference, the matter has drawn attention in Congress.

Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York and chairwoman of the caucus for overseas Americans, sent a letter to Carey saying that the new form made it “more difficult and problematic to use for overseas civilians.”

Carey conceded that the original request for public comment did not spell out this change; it was added later, he said, after the need for change became clear.

The language has the potential to carry real impact in close elections.

© International Herald Tribune

May 22, 2012
Michael Medved

In looking ahead toward the November election, Republican strategists should take proactive steps to avoid a damaging, dangerous conclusion to the presidential race and to prevent the very real chance that Mitt Romney will win the Electoral College even while losing the popular vote badly to Barack Obama.

The problem stems from the lopsided margins President Obama will surely pile up in a few uncontested states with big populations, including California, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts. Romney, meanwhile, will likely prevail by comparable margins in only relatively small states: Utah, Idaho, the Dakotas, Alabama, and Alaska. The big states that offer Romney his most plausible path to Electoral College victory probably will be won by much smaller margins, leaving Obama with a clear popular-vote advantage.

All credible scenarios for a Romney victory with his “swing state” strategy begin with the presumptive GOP nominee holding all 22 states McCain carried, which are worth six additional electoral votes this time because of reapportionment. From this Republican base, Romney needs to implement a three/two/one trifecta: winning back the three traditionally Republican states (Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia) that Obama carried last time; seizing the two perennial battlegrounds that elected George W. Bush twice (Ohio and Florida); and then winning one more state — even a very small state — (New Hampshire is a likely candidate) to bring him the magic number of 270 electoral votes.

In order to accomplish this feat, Romney needs to add as few as 650,000 votes to McCain’s totals in just six decisive states to get an Electoral College victory with the bare minimum of 270 votes, even though Obama won in 2008 with a near-landslide margin of nearly nine million votes in the popular total — 18 times Al Gore’s popular-vote advantage over Bush.

A more likely outcome would give Romney wider margins of victory in swing states, while carrying a few other hotly contested states in the bargain.

GOP partisans may blithely dismiss such calculations as meaningless since the Constitution unequivocally declares that the candidate with the most electoral votes becomes the next president, and the national tally of popular votes means nothing in the eyes of the law.

It’s easy to imagine the national levels of rage, and impossible not to envision the president of the United States lending his voice to the angry chorus. Obama might even consider the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Between 2007 and 2011, eight deeply partisan Democratic states (Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Hawaii, Washington, Massachusetts, Vermont, and California) and the District of Columbia enacted legislation demanding that their electors cast their votes for the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of which candidate won the state. This provision would only take effect if enough states agreed to this compact to represent a majority of all electoral votes; in an emergency, Democrats might attempt to coerce the five wavering states they need to take action in time to make a difference.

Such action would raise a host of constitutional questions, but the Supreme Court might be unable to provide a final settlement of a disputed election as it did in 2000. For one thing, Obama has already made contempt for the court a hallmark of his presidency — as he did when he used the State of the Union address to openly condemn the Citizens United decision on corporate spending for political advertising.

If the court strikes down key elements of the Affordable Care Act in June, the president will no doubt display additional outrage. The element of race could give an especially dangerous edge to any protracted battle over a disputed election. How many Republicans would lose heart at the prospect of evicting the nation’s first black president on a “technicality” after a clear majority of his fellow citizens expressed support for renewing his White House lease?

What, then, could responsible politicians do to head off the most dire consequences of an inconclusive election?

For Republicans, the answer is easy: they must campaign vigorously in all large states, even those with no realistic possibility for statewide GOP victory. Though the Romney campaign will naturally resist investing precious resources on lost-cause states with hugely expensive media markets (California, New York, and Illinois), they should overcome their reluctance. With no super-heated statewide races in these population centers and no visible Republican drive for statewide victory, conservative voters might feel a natural inclination to stay home — allowing Obama to run up his margins. If Romney can hold Obama’s margin to 55–45 in some of these heavily Democratic big states, he should win the popular vote; if, however, Democrats run up the score past 60–40, then Obama will win a popular-vote majority even if he loses the Electoral College.

Of course, the ideal way to avoid a national crisis over a disputed electoral outcome would be for Romney to win an unexpectedly comfortable nationwide victory, sweeping to Reagan-like success even in states assumed to be solidly Democratic.

Failing that sort of unanticipated landslide, the best policy would be to compete fiercely in every major population center while recognising that in this unique election, even popular votes that seem theoretically irrelevant may play a role in averting catastrophe.

© Newsweek

May 28, 2012
By Uri Friedman

The prevailing political wisdom is that the economy — not foreign policy — will determine who becomes the next president of the United States. In a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll on what the single most important issue was for them in choosing a president, 52 per cent said jobs and the economy (and they’re evenly split on whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney would do a better job on the latter).

To put that figure in perspective, the second most-cited issue was “Health care/repealing Obamacare” at a mere 7 per cent, while foreign-policy issues such as terrorism and the war in Afghanistan each mustered a measly 1 per cent of responses.
But every politician lives in fear of that 3am phone call that can upend the best-laid campaign plans. Here are five global events that could send the US election careening along a very different path than the one it’s travelling down today.

A showdown with Iran: World powers are currently wrapping up a second round of contentious nuclear talks with Tehran, and the European Union is preparing to roll out an oil embargo on Iran in July. But if this diplomatic tack fails to wring meaningful concessions from Iran, there’s an outside chance that Israel — or, in a less likely scenario, the United States and its allies — will conclude before November that military action is the only way to halt Iran’s nuclear advances. Americans see Iran as the country that represents the greatest threat to the United States, and a recent Pew Research Centre poll found that 63 per cent of Americans are willing to go to war if necessary to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons — a measure that Romney has promoted more aggressively than Obama.

Some market analysts estimate that a military conflict with Iran could push petrol prices in the United States to between $5 (Dh18.35) and $6 per gallon, alienating voters and jeopardising the country’s fitful economic recovery. And there’s a reason why the National Journal’s Charlie Cook has dubbed Iran the “wild card” this campaign season: The last five times petrol prices have spiked during a US presidential campaign, the incumbent party has lost the election.

n A European nosedive: The prospect of a Greek anti-austerity party winning new elections in June has sparked widespread fear that Greece will default on its debt and exit the eurozone, which could spread contagion in southern Europe and plunge the global economy back into recession. But there’s a debate about the extent to which the European debt crisis will influence the US election.

If a Greek exit precipitates the collapse of the Eurozone, Brookings Institution scholar William Galston argues in the New Republic, it will be disastrous for Europe and the United States. But he adds that US GDP growth would probably slow and the unemployment rate would likely stagnate even if the European monetary union remains intact after Greece’s departure.

“These developments would make it harder for Obama to argue that we’re heading in the right direction, and … I suspect that economic growth at these depressed levels would mean victory for Mitt Romney,” he writes.

A Chinese economic slowdown: China’s slowing economic growth has prompted Chinese leaders to pledge new measures to stimulate domestic demand and commentators to warn of an impending economic crisis in the country. But when Beijing sneezes, does Washington catch a cold? China’s sluggish growth poses a “substantial risk” to the United States as the general election approaches, Campbell Harvey, a professor at Duke University, told CNN. “You don’t need a lot to knock us out of recovery.”
A domestic terrorist attack: The United States has not suffered a major terrorist attack during Obama’s presidency, and the administration has foiled several plots. The president has taken out several high-profile terrorists through drone strikes and touted the killing of Osama Bin Laden as one of his signal achievements — much to Mitt Romney’s chagrin.

But an attack on American soil could instantly shatter the armour Obama has built up on national security, reverse the public’s declining concern about terrorism, and transform the campaign. And such a scenario isn’t out of the question..
n The unknown unknown: There’s a reason we call the “October surprise” what we do — sometimes (though admittedly not often) we simply don’t know what will tilt the results of a race until Election Day is upon us. The term “October surprise” dates to 1972, when National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger declared less than two weeks before the presidential election that peace was “at hand” in Vietnam — comments that were credited with helping President Richard Nixon resoundingly defeat George McGovern (though in truth, Nixon didn’t need much help).

We have a way to go until November, and anything from security in Afghanistan to violence in Syria to elections in Venezuela (ominously scheduled for October) could emerge as a potential game-changer. When the 2008 presidential election got under way, everyone assumed that foreign policy — specifically the war in Iraq — would be the dominant issue in the campaign. And then the global financial crisis hit, propelling the economy to the top of the agenda. It’s too early to rule out the reverse happening in 2012.

Uri Friedman is an associate editor at Foreign Policy.
Courtesy: Washington Post

May 30, 2012
By Gordon Robison

An event last week quietly demonstrated just how much damage America’s position in the world has suffered at the hands of America’s political leaders over the last decade: the State Department released its annual survey of human rights conditions around the world. Fifteen or 20 years ago the publication of this annual report was a big deal. It was generally held to be well-researched and carried a kind of moral authority.

I vividly remember living in Cairo in the early 1990s and being approached by Egyptian colleagues who asked me, in those pre-internet days, to go to the American embassy to get them copies. They seemed amazed in equal parts by the fact that the US government compiled details of human rights abuses by a friendly government and that it then shared this information freely with anyone who cared to ask for a copy.

Over time the reports became an established part of the American political landscape. For countries receiving American aid the State Department is now required by law to produce them.

The reports were first published in 1977 — an early initiative of Jimmy Carter’s administration, and a centrepiece of its efforts to put human rights at the heart of American foreign policy. In the decades since they have grown in both number and scope.

Technology has made the entire project easily accessible to anyone with a computer and internet connection, even as the reports have become longer and longer. This year the total exceeds 7,000 pages.

The two most common criticisms of the reports are, first, that the State Department sometimes loses sight of the forest in its examination of individual trees (do we really need thousands of words on the human rights situation in Sweden or Australia?). Second, and more importantly, the reports do not address the US itself. On one level, this is understandable — the State Department is in charge of foreign policy, not domestic self-criticism. For many observers outside the US, however, that bureaucratic excuse rings hollow.

An unspoken, yet inevitable, truth haunts the human rights reports: after a decade in which torture (albeit cloaked in the ridiculous euphemism of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’) became official US government policy Washington’s moral standing when it comes to looking at other governments’ human rights failings is much-diminished.

Though the Bush administration made torture an accepted instrument of the US government and will be stained by that fact for many generations to come, the Obama administration also bears a degree of responsibility.

George W. Bush rationalised the indefensible, convincing himself and his administration, first, that torture was not torture and, second, that even if it was America’s use of it was somehow different.

Upon taking office Barack Obama made a great show of renouncing torture as an instrument of US policy. He also, however, opted not to hold anyone from the previous administration to account for their actions, and successfully discouraged Congressional efforts to do so.

This undoubtedly made political sense, but it also had the effect of deepening the moral hole first dug by the Bush administration.

More importantly, Obama quietly left in place the legal rationalisations through which Bush had conceived a presidential power to order torture.

For all the official talk about making the US once again a country that does not torture people — period, in today’s America torture is, to all intents and purposes, still permissible if the president judges it to be necessary. Obama changed the policy, but left in place the laws and executive orders allowing him, or any future president, to revive ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ if circumstances someday change.

One can argue, and many of my fellow Americans will, that a realistic approach to 21st dangers requires just this sort of flexibility, as well as the moral fuzziness that accompanies it.

A more honest reading might be that this is an example of Washington’s post-9/11 obsession with ‘security’ undermining other, less dramatic, attributes of national power.

The State Department human rights reports have never been without an element of hypocrisy. On balance, however, they have historically been more admirable than not. At their best they represented a serious attempt to marry high policy to the country’s professed ideals. In short, the Country Reports on Human Rights (to give them their official name) are an effort to show the world that America’s government means what it says.

The problem is that in important ways what Washington says today is very different from what it used to say.

Watching from a distance, one can only wonder whether people inside the bubble of the State Department and the White House really understand how much has changed and what, in turn, has been lost.

Gordon Robison, a longtime Middle East journalist and US political analyst, teaches political science at the University of Vermont.

Source: Gulf News

June 2, 2012
By Seumus Milne,

More than a decade after George W. Bush launched it, the “war on terror” was supposed to be winding down. US military occupation of Iraq has ended and Nato is looking for a way out of Afghanistan, even as the carnage continues. But another war — the undeclared drone war that has already killed thousands — is now being relentlessly escalated.

From Pakistan to Somalia, CIA-controlled pilotless aircraft rain down Hellfire missiles on an ever-expanding hit list of terrorist suspects. They have already killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians in the process.

At least 15 drone strikes have been launched in Yemen this month, as many as in the whole of the past decade, killing dozens. In Pakistan, a string of US attacks has been launched against supposed “militant” targets in the past week, incinerating up to 35 people and hitting a mosque and a bakery.

The US’s decision to step up the drone war again in Pakistan, opposed by both government and parliament in Islamabad as illegal and a violation of sovereignty, reflects its fury at the jailing of a CIA agent involved in the Osama Bin Laden hunt and Pakistan’s refusal to reopen supply routes for Nato forces in Afghanistan. Those routes were closed in protest at the US killing 24 Pakistani soldiers last November, for which Washington still refuses to apologise.

Wajid Shamsul Hassan, Pakistan’s High Commissioner in London, described the latest US escalation as “punitive”. But then Predators and Reapers are Barack Obama’s weapons of choice and coercion, deployed only on the territory of US allies like Pakistan and Yemen — and the drone war is Obama’s war.

In his first two years in office, the US president more than tripled the number of attacks in Pakistan alone. For their US champions, drones have the advantage of involving no American casualties, while targeting the “bad guys” that Bush lost sight of in his enthusiasm to subjugate Iraq. Enthusiasts boast of their surgical accuracy and exhaustive surveillance, operated by all-seeing technicians from thousands of miles away in Nevada.

But that’s a computer-game fantasy of clinical war. Since 2004, between 2,464 and 3,145 people are reported to have been killed by US drone attacks in Pakistan, of whom up to 828 were civilians (535 under Obama) and 175 children. Some Pakistani estimates put the civilian death toll much higher — plausibly, given the tendency to claim as “militants” victims later demonstrated to be nothing of the sort.

The US president insisted recently that the civilian death toll was not a “huge number”. Not on the scale of Iraq, perhaps, where hundreds of thousands were killed; or Afghanistan, where tens of thousands have died. But they gruesomely include dozens killed in follow-up attacks after they had gone to help victims of earlier strikes — as well as teenagers like Tariq Khan, a 16-year-old Pakistani boy decapitated in a strike last October after he had travelled to Islamabad to protest drone attacks.

These killings are, in reality, summary executions and widely regarded as potential war crimes by international lawyers — including the UN’s special rapporteur on extra-judicial killings, Philip Alston. The CIA’s now-retired counsel, John Rizzo, who authorised drone attacks, himself talked about having been involved in “murder”.

A decade ago, the US criticised Israel for such “extra-judicial killings”, but now cites self-defence as the logic to justify the war against Al Qaida. However, these are attacks, routinely carried out on the basis of false intelligence in countries such as Pakistan where no war has been declared and without the consent of the elected government.

Lawyers representing victims’ families are now preparing legal action against the British government — which carries out its own drone attacks in Afghanistan. Parallel cases are also being brought against the Pakistani government and the drone manufacturer General Electric — whose slogan is “we bring good things to life”.

Of course, drone attacks are only one method by which the US and its allies deliver death and destruction in Afghanistan and the wider Middle East, from night raids and air attacks to killing-sprees on the ground. The day after the Al Houla massacre in Syria, eight members of one family were killed at home by a Nato air attack in eastern Afghanistan — one of many such atrocities barely registered in the western media.

While support for the war in Afghanistan has fallen to an all-time low in all Nato states, the drone war is popular in the US. That’s hardly surprising as it offers no danger to American forces — the ultimate asymmetric warfare — while supposedly “taking out” terrorists. But these hi-tech death squads are creating a dangerous global precedent which will do nothing for US security.

A decade ago, critics warned that the “war on terror” would spread terrorism rather than stamp it out. That is exactly what happened. Obama has now renamed the campaign “overseas contingency operations” and is switching the emphasis from boots on the ground to robots.

But, as the trouble in Pakistan and the growth of Al Qaida in Yemen shows, the impact remains the same. The drone war is a predatory war on the Muslim world, which is feeding hatred of the US — and fuelling terror, not fighting it.

Source: Gulf News

June 4, 2012
Muhammad Zubair

Drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal areas are one of the contentious issues in the current standoff between Pakistan and the United States. Pakistan is demanding a complete stop to drone attacks as part of the new terms of engagement with the US, terming the same as a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and resulting in the death of innocent civilians. On the other hand, the US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has recently responded to Pakistan’s demand by saying that the use of drones is essential for defending the Americans. One is doubtful whether Pakistan would press the demand if NATO agrees to a new price tag the former wants for overland deliveries of military supplies to Afghanistan.

However, it is time to rethink the myth and reality of drone attacks, presently clouded in the Pakistani rhetoric of sovereignty and civilian deaths. It is also important to make a comparative and objective analysis of drone attacks and the air campaign of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) in the tribal areas in terms of their numbers, effectiveness and its implications for the internal security situation. In this regard, it is imperative to hear the voice of tribal people that has been conveniently ignored so far.

Since 2004, 297 drone attacks have taken place in the tribal areas, mostly in South and North Wazristan (The Long War Journal). Undoubtedly, it has resulted in the elimination of the top al Qaeda leadership and weakening of its organisational structure and coordination capacities. It has also eliminated the most dreaded Pakistani militants like Baitullah Mehsud (leader and founder of the TTP), Qari Hussain (master of suicide bombers), Ilyas Kashmiri, and a score of other local and foreign militants. Many killed in drone attacks were involved in indiscriminate killing of thousands of innocent Pakistani civilians as well as attacks on the army, police and other law-enforcement organisations and their infrastructure.

On the other hand, Pakistan Air Chief Marshal (Retd) Rao Qamar Suleiman made a rare and startling revelation in his address to a conference of air chiefs in Dubai in November 2011. He claimed the PAF had flown 5,000 strike sorties and dropped 11,600 bombs on 4,600 targets in Pakistan’s troubled tribal areas since May 2008. While sharing the lessons learnt, the chief further revealed that until May 2009 when the PAF had acquired Goodrich DB110 electro-optical reconnaissance pods for its F-16s, it had to rely on Google Earth imagery for attacks against the militant targets.

Without having access to the tribal areas, print and electronic media in Pakistan has incessantly been giving high estimates of civilian casualties in drone attacks. In fact, no one from outside the tribal areas knows exactly the identity and number of those killed in such attacks. It is the standard operating procedure of militants to cordon off a targeted area after an attack, without allowing anyone to have access to the dead.

Quite contrary to the media’s unverifiable reports, the IDPs of South Waziristan and people of North Waziristan tell a different story about such attacks, albeit in whispers due to fear. The IDPs claim that drones did not disrupt their social life or cause infrastructural damage or killed innocent civilians because of the precise and targeted nature of their attacks. An old woman in the IDPs camp in D I Khan told me last year, “Son, bangbangane (local name for drones) go after the gunehgar (sinner) and not the innocent.” They recalled the dreaded, heavy and indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations and infrastructure by the heavy artillery of the Pakistan army and PAF jets and compared it with the targeted and precise attacks on individual militants by drones. They held the army/PAF responsible for turning thousands of their houses and hundreds of villages into rubble. Maybe, the use of Google Earth imagery by the PAF is responsible for that!

In comparison to the 297 drone attacks, taking out a significant number of the most dreaded terrorists, one might ask what is the result of 5,000 strike sorties and dropping of 11,600 bombs by the PAF? Why does not a single terrorist worth his name come to one’s mind having been eliminated by these operations? While parliament, the so-called free media and ghairat brigade of Pakistan keeps on shedding tears on the unverifiable killing of an unknown number of innocent civilians in drone attacks, do they have the courage to investigate honestly? How many innocent civilians have been killed? How many houses and villages have been destroyed in the army and PAF operations? Why are thousands of tribesmen, women and children languishing in settled areas as IDPs? Why has Pakistan failed to establish its writ in the tribal areas and provide security to common people with more than a hundred thousand troops on the ground?

The rhetoric of violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty by drones may be a luxury for those who enjoy the comforts of the big cities of Pakistan but it only extracts a wounded smile from the face of a tribesman. They ask a simple question: have the terrorists not violated Pakistan’s sovereignty by flocking into the tribal areas from all around the world, occupying their houses and making them live a miserable life of IDPs in their own country? They think the only effective weapons used against these foreign occupiers are the drone attacks.

By not cleansing the tribal areas of terrorists on the one hand, and by demonising the drone attacks as a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty on the other, we are only helping the terrorists have safe havens and perpetuating the miseries of the tribal people. It is also the height of ingratitude to the US for taking out terrorists like Baitullah Mehsud and others, who have the blood of thousands of innocent civilian Pakistanis on their hands. I am sure the US would not want to carry on a drone campaign if the military of Pakistan cleans the tribal areas once and for all as it did in Swat.

The writer is an assistant professor of Law at the University of Peshawar, Pakistan. Presently, he is a PhD scholar at the Maurer School of Law, Indiana University, Indiana, USA. He can be reached at zubairfata@yahoo.com and mzubair@indiana.edu
-Daily Times

June 4, 2012
By Peter Oborne

The theory and practice of warfare has evolved with amazing speed since Al Qaida’s attack on mainland America in September 2001. In less than 11 years it is already possible to discern three separate phases. First, we had the era of ground invasion followed by military occupation.

This concept, which feels terribly 20th century today, appeared at first to work well, with the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan followed by the easy destruction of Saddam Hussain in Iraq. But by 2005 it was obvious that the strategy was failing. The resurgence of the Taliban and the success of the Iraqi insurgencies led to an urgent reassessment. In desperation, the United States turned to the more sophisticated methodology once favoured by the British and before them the Romans — the elaboration of a system of alliances, otherwise known as “divide and rule”.

This was the second phase, the so-called “surge” of 2007, which made the reputation of General David Petraeus and rescued the second Bush presidency from disaster. Of greater significance than the temporary increase in troop numbers on the ground was the decision by the Western Iraqi tribes, encouraged by the payment of enormous bribes, to detach themselves, at least temporarily, from Al Qaida. The same tactics did not work, however, when duplicated two years later in Afghanistan — and so US policy has unobtrusively moved into a third phase: a new and as yet only partially understood doctrine of secret, unaccountable and illegal warfare. The guiding force has once again been General Petraeus, who is already being tipped as favourite to win the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential elections. Appointed director of the CIA last summer, he swiftly converted the intelligence agency into a paramilitary organisation. Conventional military forces are scarcely relevant: it is Petraeus who now masterminds what George W. Bush used to call the “war on terror” from the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President Barack Obama has reportedly allowed his CIA chief to direct Special Forces operation. If so, this is an unconstitutional move because these missions are no longer answerable to Congress. More important still, the CIA also masterminds and directs the drone strikes that have suddenly become the central element of US (and therefore British) military strategy.

Death and democracy
Even ten years ago, drones — remotely operated killing machines — were unthinkable because they seemed to spring direct from the imagination of a deranged science-fiction movie director. But today they dominate.

First of all, they can be deadly accurate. Tribal Afghans have been amazed not just that the car a Taliban leader was travelling in was precisely targeted — but that the missile went in through the door on the side he was sitting. The US claims drones have proved very effective at targeting and killing Taliban or Al Qaida leaders, but with the very minimum of civilian casualties. Second, US soldiers and airmen are not placed in harm’s way. This is very important in a democracy. In America, the killing of a dozen military personnel is a political event. The death of a dozen Afghan or Pakistani villages in a remote part of what used to be called the north-west frontier does not register, unless a US military spokesmen labels them “militants”, in which case it becomes a victory. There is no surprise, then — as the New York Times revealed in an important article on Tuesday — that Obama “has placed himself at the helm of a top secret ‘nominations’ process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical”. The least enviable task of an old-fashioned British home secretary was to sign the death warrant for convicted murderers.

According to the New York Times, the President has taken these exquisite agonies one stage further: “When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises, but his family is with him, it is the President who has reserved for himself the final moral calculation.” So, in the US, drone strikes are a good thing. In Pakistan, from where I write this, it is impossible to over-estimate the anger and distress they cause. Almost all Pakistanis feel they are personally under attack, and that America tramples on their precarious national sovereignty. There are good reasons for this. When, last year in Lahore, an out-of-control CIA operative shot dead two reportedly unarmed Pakistanis and his follow-up car ran over and killed a third, the American was spirited out of the country. Meanwhile, America refuses to apologise for killing 24 Pakistani servicemen in a botched ISAF operation. This is election year and Obama, having apologised already over Quran burning, may be nervous about a second apology, and has therefore confined himself to an expression of “regret”. I am told by a number of credible sources that this refusal to behave decently — allied to dismay at the use of drones as the weapon of default in tribal areas — is the reason for the unusual decision of the US ambassador in Islamabad, Cameron Munter, to step down after less than two years in his post.

According to a recent poll, more than two thirds of Pakistanis regard the US as an enemy. Britain used to be popular and respected in this part of the world for our wisdom and decency. Now, thanks to our refusal to challenge American military doctrine, the UK is hated, too.

Courtesy: The Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2012

Obama’s blatant partiality

Barack Obama’s first destination at the start of his second tenure was Israel. The US President was under fire during the election campaign for ignoring Israel. The powerful Israeli lobby in Washington is still pressurizing the administration to do more for Israel even if it implies further depriving the Palestinians of their rights. The visit was apparently aimed at reassuring the newly elected Benjamin Netanyahu who had supported Mitt Romney during the campaign that with Obama in power once again, Israel’s interests would be fully safeguarded. In what Netanyahu called a key development, the leaders announced new talks on extending US military assistance to Israel for another 10 years past the current agreement that expires in 2017.

Those who had hoped that the appointment of Chuck Hagel as Defence Secretary was reflective of a change in Obama administration’s policy towards the Middle East would be disappointed. Obama had nothing for Iran, Syria and Hezbollah except warnings and threats. For Israel were reserved approbation and rewards. The speech that Obama delivered before a youth gathering in Jerusalem was one part Zionist ideology and one part real talk, observed a British daily. While sharing Netanyahu’s concern about Iran’s nuclear activity, Obama endorsed Israel’s right to defend itself as it deemed fit. This was an encouragement to Israel’s aggressive designs. Obama has raised with Netanyahu the bogey of Syria’s chemical weapons. He has repeated warnings to the Syrian government to keep them off the battlefield and out of the hands of groups such as Hezbollah. On the issue of the illegal Israeli settlements Obama actually backtracked. During his first tenure he had required putting a freeze on the activity. This time he told the Palestinians not to make the issue a precondition for peace talks. This is in fact a hint to Israel to continue the activity.

Obama talked a lot about peace in the Middle East. The word actually occurs 22 times in the speech he delivered before the Israeli youth. But there was not a word about a new plan to bring Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table. Obama reiterated what he was doing for Israel, The security relationship between the two countries was never stronger, he observed. There were more exercises between the two militaries, more exchanges among their political, military and intelligence officials than ever before. The largest program to date to help Israel retain its qualitative military edge was already in place. Despite all the leverage that these measures provide it, Washington was not willing to put pressure on Israel to end the illegal settlements. Nothing was given to the Palestinians. They were however required to give concessions. This is thoroughly immoral.

The visit is likely to raise the anti-US sentiment in the Middle East. What is more, it would strengthen the extremists.

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013...nt-partiality/

Is Obama’s visit to Israel going to change history?

March 24, 2013

“Speaking as a politician, I can promise you this; political leaders will not take risks if the people do not demand that they do. You must create the change that you want to see.”

This was one of the highlights of Obama’s speech, who was addressing Israeli students and youth in Jerusalem, during his three day trip to the holy-land, his first as a US president, where he tried to reach out to the people of the region, rather than giving the spotlight to political leadership.

Although most parts of his speech came as expected, it also had chunks of surprises for the Israelis and the world media.

The visit, the statements, and finally the speech narrated the lessons Obama learnt from his mistakes during his 2009 speech in Cairo – where his praise for Muslims did not go well with his critics in the US and Israel.

Although praising the Israeli legacy and affirming the country’s importance in the global community, President Obama shockingly uttered the words that no American president had said before, he said,

“The need for justice for the Palestinians.”

A point worth taking from this statement was the US president’s reiteration of the need for Palestinian justice, meaning the stamping of the concept of the two-state theory, which Israel, on the other hand, is ignoring for years by expanding the Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas.

Such blunt remarks showed Obama’s political maturity.

He manoeuvred his speech well by initially lavishing praise on Israel and afterwards calling for a just solution to the Palestine issue. This, more diplomatic, strategy seemed to work well as his criticisms for Israeli settlements and actions were easily digested.

Another pivot to Obama’s speech was highlighting the security concerns of Israel and their usage as a primary factor for actions against the Palestinian authority. Such an approach, according to Obama, is not fruitful in order to reach a peaceful settlement among both the parties.

Using the term “fortress Israel” and how the country portrays itself as a stronghold under security threats from Palestine, Obama made clear that such a setup for the country would hardly be beneficial.

When it came to Iran, the president held a more rhetorical line of argument.

Most of his comments on Iran were tried and tested jargons of “Nuclear Iran is a threat to Israel and the world”, and “A nuclear Iran leads to terrorism in the region”.

Although he emphasised the possibility of having all the options on the table, there was a lack of focus on a diplomatic end to the deadlock between Israel, Iran and the US.

Obama’s trip as well as his speech marked a beginning of an era of public diplomacy. Even though, long before his trip, he played down its importance stating that the world should not expect much out of his visit, yet during his speech, his address to the youth indicated that he wanted to reach out to the people for a solution.

During his first term, he failed to initiate a peace process between both the parties and that is why he called upon the people to pressurise their leaders for peace.

After Israel, Obama’s next obvious destination was Palestine.

On his visit, he met with President Mahmud Abbas and also Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Even though both the Palestinian leaders have their explicit differences, Obama’s meeting with both conveyed a message of seriousness- the US administration is starting to solve the West Bank crisis under Obama.

By making such decisive statements and ignoring the reality of the Palestinian situation on ground means that peace reaching this holy land is still far from reality.

Moreover, until and unless there is no clear stance on Iran, the world will keep guessing whether the United States is serious on resolving the Iranian nuclear issue through a diplomatic channel or not. For that purpose, the United States has to decide whether it has to purse the Iranian issue solely for Israel or for the international community, especially the Middle East.

Palestine and its supporters could take heart from the fact that, this was the first time an American leader stressed upon the need for a solution on lines of a two-state system. Without making huge strides during the visit, Obama’s statements gave a glimmet of hope to Palestinians by taking a stand on establishment of a Sovereign Palestine. He made it clear to the Israelis that Israel’s international and democratic image could only be ensured through a sovereign Palestine’s establishment.

But even if he did so, was it a serious statement or just a comment by a presidential tourist on a ceremonial visit?


http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/16...ack-on-israel/

March 27, 2013
Hans Binnendijk

The new US Defence Secretary, Chuck Hagel, has asked the Pentagon to review US military strategy in light of budget cuts brought on by deficit reduction and sequestration.

That process will eventually draw in Secretary of State John Kerry and will bear the imprint of both new members of President Obama’s cabinet. The results will be incorporated into a new national security strategy due later this year that could yield greater burden-sharing for America’s allies and partners.
Kerry and Hagel both served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden. Both men were wounded in Vietnam and understand the cost of combat. Both have strong ties to Europe and an inclination to exploit diplomacy to the full extent before turning to military force. Their voices will be heard.

Some of the pieces of a new national security strategy are already on the table from Obama’s first term. Two US ground wars – in Iraq and Afghanistan – are or will be over, leaving a much smaller US footprint in the region. Al Qaeda is still active but in retreat. Re-sets with potential and real adversaries generally have not gone well but in most cases talks continue. A new strategic concept adopted by Nato has revitalised the alliance. Obama’s war strategy on Libya was derisively called “leading from behind,” but it worked. China remains a “frenemy”; its rise has triggered a US pivot to Asia.

To set the stage for a new strategy, the National Intelligence Council recently published “Global Trends 2030,” which envisions a world of diffused power shifting increasingly to the East and South; empowerment of new actors, some of whom will have access to disruptive technologies; and a neo-Malthusian mix of demographic trends and greater resource requirements that could make the world more dangerous. For the first time in the history of these reports, it includes the future US strategic posture as a potential global game changer.

A new strategy should not be budget-driven, but it will be budget-influenced. Savings from the termination of two wars are not being reinvested in the military; they will be a peace dividend. Sequestration may cut significantly below that peace dividend.

In short, the United States faces a more dangerous world with fewer national security resources. The new US strategy will either need to retrench and absorb greater risk or develop more robust global partnerships to pick up the slack.

Several prominent thinkers are proposing a strategy called offshore balancing, which involves a degree of retrenchment. It would exert US influence through regional powers and withdraw most US ground forces from Europe and the Middle East. Critics of offshore balancing argue that it would result in US disengagement and possible collapse of US alliances. An alternative approach more likely to capture the views of Kerry and Hagel is forward-partnering. Developed at the National Defence University, the approach would continue to stress US forward-force deployments but with a new purpose: to enable America’s global partners to operate together with US forces and to encourage partners to take the lead in their own neighbourhoods.

This fits with the flow of previous strategies: During the Cold War the United States “contained” enemies to protect partners; during the Clinton administration the US “enlarged” the number of democratic partners, and now the US would “enable” partners to help us maintain global stability.

The notion of enabled partnerships is taking hold in Washington. In Jakarta last week, Deputy Defence Secretary Ash Carter stressed the importance of revitalising defence partnerships as Washington pivots to Asia.

America’s partners in this strategy would be its traditional European and Asian allies, plus emerging democracies like Brazil, India and Indonesia. Regional organisations such as the African Union, the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council would form natural partnerships for regional operations. Forward-partnering would envision a global division of labor. Hagel’s Defence Department would focus on preparing for major combat operations, counterterrorism and special operations.

US forces would also work with partners to ensure maximum military interoperability and to provide military enablers such as air-to-air refueling that are unavailable to them.

Kerry’s State Department would seek to encourage partners to police their own neighbourhoods and to concentrate more on stabilisation operations. In exchange, partners would have a greater voice in global decision-making. This is not a mission improbable; the operations in Libya and Mali serve as models. Europe is also slashing defence budgets, so Nato “smart-defence” efforts to share weapons will need to be put on steroids. America’s Asian allies need to act more multilaterally. US military assistance and training for poorer partners would increase significantly. Free trade arrangements proposed for Asia and Europe would cement the forward-partnering strategy by bolstering political ties with like-minded partners and by strengthening their economies.

The United States needs to rebalance without retreating. Remaining in a forward posture in order to enable partners to share greater responsibilities meets that requirement.

(Hans Binnendijk drafted several national security strategies while serving as a senior director in the Clinton administration’s National Security Council)

http://www.thefrontierpost.com/article/213908/