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  • johnpi 8:51 am on January 24, 2010 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , Robert Gates, US foreign policy

    US Defense Secretary Robert Gates current trip to Pakistan has been a total disaster.

    The message his mission inadvertently sent was that the US is now increasingly tilting to India and wants to put it in charge of Afghanistan security; that Pakistan is isolated; that he is pressuring Pakistan to take on further counter-insurgency operations against Taliban in the Northwest, which the country flatly lacks the resources to do; and that Pakistani conspiracy theories about Blackwater were perfectly correct and he had admitted it.

    In baseball terms, Gates struck out. In cricket terms, Gates was out in the most embarrassing way a batsman can be out, that is, leg before wicket.

     

  • johnpi 9:32 am on January 22, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: military aid, , , US foreign policy,

    One of the bloggers at Waq al-Waq has been testifying at a US Senate hearing about Yemen. His co-blogger has been live-blogging it. A sample:

    Daniel Benjamin, Coordinator for Counterterrorism US state dept: we have very specific conditions on the end use of whatever [military aid] we give them [Yemen], with mechanisms to check how they do so. I like this, and it seems that we learned from Musharraf. If US bombs or bullets are used against the Huthis or in the south, we might as well just depose Salih ourselves and say “have at it, Qaeda!”

    To be clear, that would be a bad idea.

    No doubt.

     

  • johnpi 11:33 pm on January 17, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , US foreign policy,

    Elite US troops ready to combat Pakistani nuclear hijacks.

    The US army is training a crack unit to seal off and snatch back Pakistani nuclear weapons in the event that militants, possibly from inside the country’s security apparatus, get their hands on a nuclear device or materials that could make one.

    The specialised unit would be charged with recovering the nuclear materials and securing them.

    The move follows growing anti-Americanism in Pakistan’s military, a series of attacks on sensitive installations over the past two years, several of which housed nuclear facilities, and rising tension that has seen a series of official complaints by US authorities to Islamabad in the past fortnight.

    “What you have in Pakistan is nuclear weapons mixed with the highest density of extremists in the world, so we have a right to be concerned,” said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA officer who used to run the US energy department’s intelligence unit. “There have been attacks on army bases which stored nuclear weapons and there have been breaches and infiltrations by terrorists into military facilities.”

     

  • johnpi 9:45 am on January 1, 2010 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , US foreign policy

    Pakistan asks coalition not to leave Afghanistan in haste.

    Pakistan warned the US-led coalition on Thursday against a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan, expressing renewed concern about growing instability on its militant-infested border.

    “The decision to leave Afghanistan should be taken when it is able to look after itself effectively,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit told a press briefing.

    “Coalition forces should not leave Afghanistan in haste,” Basit said.

    And here I thought Pakistani leadership was impatient for NATO to bug out so it could go back to establishing Pax Pakistania in Central Asia with easily controlled Taliban canon fodder. I guess there really has been a change in thinking, at least among some.

     

  • johnpi 8:13 am on December 22, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , US foreign policy

    A lot of money changes hands as Cambodia sends Uighurs back to China.

    Visiting Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping thanked Cambodia on Monday for deporting 20 Muslim asylum-seekers while handing the country $1.2 billion in aid , the government spokesman said.
    The 20 ethnic Uighurs deported Saturday were sought by China in connection with violent anti-government protests. Human rights activists are concerned that they will face persecution in China.
    The United States said Sunday it was “deeply disturbed” by the forcible deportations. State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said the incident would affect Cambodia’s relationship with the United States and its international standing.

     

  • johnpi 10:58 am on December 18, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 'coalition of the willing', , , , , nauru, palau, , , taiwan, US foreign policy

    When the US wanted to put together a phony ‘coalition of the willing’ it turned to tiny rent-a-nations like Palau. When the Russians wanted to do the same thing with the piece they carved out of Georgia, they trot out sovereign entities such as the island nation of Nauru.

    Impoverished Nauru, all 21 square kilometers of it, used to make its money from selling phosphates derived from sea bird droppings. When fossilised guano ran low, it established itself as a tax haven and dabbled in money-laundering. More recently, it has earned money by acting as a detention centre for refugee ‘boat people’ making the perilous journey across the Pacific to seek asylum in Australia.

    Struggling to stave off total destitution, Nauru has also developed its own special form of ‘guano diplomacy’. In 2002, it derecognised Taiwan in return for a $150 million ‘aid’ package from China. This week, it recognised both Abkhazia and South Ossetia after reportedly securing some $50 million of Russian ‘aid’.

     

  • johnpi 7:16 pm on December 14, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , US foreign policy,

    Refreshing honesty from the Pakistani military.

    Demands by the United States for Pakistan to crack down on the strongest Taliban warrior in Afghanistan, Siraj Haqqani, whose fighters pose the biggest threat to American forces, have been rebuffed by the Pakistani military, according to Pakistani military officials and diplomats.

    The Obama administration wants Pakistan to turn on Mr. Haqqani, a longtime asset of Pakistan’s spy agency who uses the tribal area of North Waziristan as his sanctuary. But, the officials said, Pakistan views the entreaties as contrary to its interests in Afghanistan beyond the timetable of President Obama’s surge, which envisions drawing down American forces beginning in mid-2011.
    ….

    The demands have been accompanied by strong suggestions that if the Pakistanis cannot take care of the problem, including dismantling the Taliban leadership based in Quetta, Pakistan, then the Americans will by resorting to broader and more frequent drone strikes in Pakistan.

    But the Pakistanis have greeted the refrain with official public silence and private anger, illustrating the widening gulf between the allies over the Afghan war.

    Because the Pakistani military would like to have their own proxy, easily controllable government in Afghanistan – but for some reason we don’t call Pakistani meddling in Afghanistan foreign interference.

     

  • johnpi 10:01 am on December 12, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , US foreign policy

    There has recently been many approving comments in the media about the US raising the salary it pays to Afghan army soldiers, and that the rate may be higher than what the ‘Taliban’ pays its conscripts. A response from somebody who is in Afghanistan:

    Is it just me or is this reasoning barely fit for a tenth-grade debating society? Sure, many insurgents are paid for their activities (planting IED’s, launching indirect or direct attacks, etc.), but they are hardly salaried fighters in the same sense that the members of the Afghan security forces are. It’s not as if they see competing ads in the paper for jobs with the ANA and with the “Taliban” and since the latter pay more they go ahead and sign up for the black turban crew. Come on people, this is just intellectually lazy! When someone decides to take part in the insurgency, there are a range of motivating factors, but even if the ANA was paying more money that’s not to say that people would be flocking to fight for a government that is seen as incompetent at best and hostile to the Pashtuns at worst.

    The mood in the West now sounds like everyone is out to find the quick and easy key to victory in A’stan. Yes, that includes you Mr. Obama and your short-sighted “18-month” statement (I don’t care how it gets spun, people here on the ground just heard; “we will start to leave in 18 months,” and they started rethinking their long term personal strategies).

    The only thing that comes quickly in a counterinsurgency is defeat.

     

  • johnpi 11:18 am on December 6, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , Saudi intelligence agency, , US foreign policy,

    US in back-channel negotiations with the Afghan Taliban.

    The ISI and Saudi intelligence agency are facilitating.

     

  • johnpi 10:48 am on December 5, 2009 | 10 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , US foreign policy,

    New Pew center survey on American views about foreign policy: Pakistan has an enormously bad reputation with the US public now.

    Only 16% of the public has a favorable view of Pakistan, our essential partner in the new AfPak strategy — barely more than have a favorable view of Iran (11%) — and unfavorable views of Pakistan have gone from 39% to 68% since last year. Yikes.

     

  • johnpi 9:52 am on December 1, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , US foreign policy,

    Bad sign: Pakistani criticism of US troop deployment shows the country is still not a partner in effort to rein in miilitants.

    Pakistani Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani says that the US’s decision to send thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan may destabilize his country.

    Gilani, in an interview with DPA, said in Islamabad on Sunday that an increase in US troops in Afghanistan is likely to lead to a spill over of militants inside Pakistan.

    The Pakistani premier’s comments are nonsensical, on a par with George W Bush for divorce from reality. Here’s what happened last month when US forces pulled out of Nuristan.

    The United States has withdrawn its troops from its four key bases in Nuristan, on the border with Pakistan, leaving the northeastern province as a safe haven for the Taliban-led insurgency to orchestrate its regional battles.
    ….

    In a telephone conversation on Wednesday, a militant linked to Rahman said that now that they had control of Nuristan, the militants are “marching towards Mohmand and Bajaur to help their fellow Taliban fighting against Pakistani troops”, referring to two tribal agencies across the border.

    NATO and the Afghans will never succeed in getting Afghanistan out of failed-state status as long as some segment of the Pakistani military and intelligence community believes militants are serving the country’s long-term security objectives.

    Pakistani military thinkers believe a Taliban state will provide them with ’strategic depth’ against India. In fact, it is Pakistan that has provided ’strategic depth’ to the Afghan Taliban against NATO.

     

  • johnpi 8:10 pm on November 30, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , US foreign policy

    Obama’s new policy toward Pakistan was outlined to President Zardari and the Pakistani military earlier this month in a two-page letter delivered by Obama’s national security adviser James Jones.

    Obama’s speech Tuesday night at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., will address primarily the Afghanistan aspects of the strategy. But despite the public and political attention focused on the number of new troops, Pakistan has been the hot core of the months-long strategy review. The long-term consequences of failure there, the review concluded, far outweigh those in Afghanistan.

    “We can’t succeed without Pakistan,” a senior administration official involved in the White House review said. “You have to differentiate between public statements and reality. There is nobody who is under any illusions about this.”

    One problem has been double-dealing with violent extremists that has long made Pakistan a state sponsor of these groups, and it appears Obama has called them out on this, a marked difference from the Bush administration where Musharraf was favored by Dick Cheney who would not allow any criticism:

    (More …)

     

  • johnpi 6:57 am on November 13, 2009 | 29 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , US foreign policy,

    Afghanistan women leaders – business owners, politicians, educators, school teachers, service providers – unanimously do not want NATO forces to pull out of the country.

    While Afghans wait to hear whether President Obama will indeed decide to send more troops to their soil, one group is watching especially closely: the nation’s women leaders, who worry about what comes next—and whether they will be able to hold on to the gains they have made since the international community flooded Afghanistan with dollars and development programs seven years ago. While they are not certain that additional boots on the ground are the answer to the grave problems facing their nation, these women say they are eager to see the Americans renew – rather than retreat from – their commitment to Afghanistan.
    ….

    Even while some political activists and pundits in Washington and London sound the call for a full troop withdrawal, women here argue that a complete pullback would only exacerbate the battery of formidable problems plaguing their struggling nation. Though nearly all say the international community could have done a far better job in securing a teetering Afghanistan, where practically every citizen can now rattle off a personal tale of corruption, few women say they believe foreign forces should go.

    In a series of conversations with a dozen women leaders spanning a range of sectors, from health care to business to politics, some of whom rarely speak to journalists, the consensus was that existing troops must stay for now—if only because things would be far worse were they to leave. Insecurity would rise, the Taliban would gain power, and women and girls would immediately lose ground.

     

  • johnpi 2:15 pm on November 11, 2009 | 14 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 'Islam under siege', , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , US foreign policy, , , ,

    Pakistani magazine article: The Saudi-isation of Pakistan.

    Soldiers, policemen, factory and hospital workers, mourners at funerals and ordinary people praying in mosques have all been reduced to globs of flesh and fragments of bones. But, perhaps paradoxically, in spite of the fact that the dead bodies and shattered lives are almost all Muslim ones, few Pakistanis speak out against these atrocities. Nor do they approve of the army operation against the cruel perpetrators of these acts because they believe that they are Islamic warriors fighting for Islam and against American occupation. Political leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan have no words of solace for those who have suffered at the hands of Islamic extremists. Their tears are reserved exclusively for the victims of Predator drones, even if they are those who committed grave crimes against their own people. Terrorism, by definition, is an act only the Americans can commit.
    ….

    Villages have changed drastically; this transformation has been driven, in part, by Pakistani workers returning from Arab countries. Many village mosques are now giant madrassas that propagate hard-line Salafi and Deobandi beliefs through oversized loudspeakers. They are bitterly opposed to Barelvis, Shias and other sects, who they do not regard as Muslims. The Punjabis, who were far more liberal towards women than the Pukhtuns, are now beginning to take a line resembling that of the Taliban. Hanafi law has begun to prevail over tradition and civil law, as is evident from the recent decisions of the Lahore High Court.
    ….

    Pakistan’s self-inflicted suffering comes from an education system that, like Saudi Arabia’s system, provides an ideological foundation for violence and future jihadists. It demands that Islam be understood as a complete code of life, and creates in the mind of a school-going child a sense of siege and embattlement by stressing that Islam is under threat everywhere.

     

  • johnpi 12:37 pm on November 10, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , US foreign policy

    The Obama administration has picked a new diplomat to be the senior Iran official at the State Department. His name is John Limbert, and he is being hailed by advocates of improved relations with Iran as a great choice. Limbert sits on the advisory board of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). Limbert is familiar with and has a lot contact with Iranian Americans like Trita Parsi. he was also one of the Iranian hostages who was held for over a year in 1979-1980.

    He replaces Dennis Ross, a deeply compromised individual with strong ties to Israel and a warmongering attitude toward Iran.

    I await the analysis of people whose opinion I respect (like Richard Silverstein, Jim Lobe, Eli Clifton, etc.) to explain what significance this is to the cause of peace and preventing American involvement in yet another war in the Middle East.

    Predictably, this has inflamed the usual right-wing warmongers in the United States.

     

  • johnpi 12:03 pm on October 29, 2009 | 10 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , US foreign policy

    Clinton: ‘Hard to believe’ Pakistan can’t find al-Qaida.

    U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s said on Thursday it was “hard to believe” that no one in Pakistan’s government knew where al Qaeda leaders were hiding, striking a new tone on a trip where Washington’s credibility has come under attack.

     

  • johnpi 9:32 pm on October 17, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , US foreign policy

    Israeli PM vows to “delegitimize” UN Gaza report.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a lengthy diplomatic battle to “delegitimize” the United Nations charges that Israel committed war crimes in its deadly bombardment of the Gaza Strip, an official said on Saturday.

    The U.N. Human Rights Council singled out the Jewish state for censure in a resolution on Friday, while endorsing a report by South African jurist Richard Goldstone which condemned both Israeli and Hamas actions in a war last December and January.

    Netanyahu, who has said the Goldstone report could undermine U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace moves, was quoted as saying Israel would wage a protracted struggle against the criticism.

    Abu Aardvark had the best response to this: “If Netanyahu decided to walk away from peace talks, how would anyone be able to tell the difference?”

     

  • johnpi 7:27 am on October 16, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , US foreign policy

    US spy agencies considering rewriting threat assessment of Iran’s nuclear program.

    The original report reversed earlier findings that Iran was pursuing a nuclear-weapons program.

    It found with “high confidence” that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, and with “moderate confidence” that it hadn’t been restarted as of mid-2007.

    So far, intelligence officials are not “ready to declare that invalid,” a senior U.S. intelligence official told the Journal, emphasizing the judgment covered the 2003-2007 time frame only. That leaves room for a reassessment of the period since the December 2007 report was completed, the official suggested.

    A new assessment might be useful in racheting up the war effort against Iran.

     

  • johnpi 8:04 pm on October 14, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , US foreign policy,

    United States to send ‘up to 45,000 more troops to Afghanistan.’

    President Barack Obama’s administration is understood to have told the British government that it could announce, as early as next week, the substantial increase to its 65,000 troops already serving there.
    ….

    White House press secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed the claims, after President Obama met with his war council for the fifth time to map out a new strategy in Afghanistan.

    “I would not put any weight behind the fact that a decision has been made, when the President has yet to make a decision,” he told reporters in Washington.

    “I’ve seen the report. It’s not true, either generally or specifically. The president has not made a decision.”

    This looks like a trial balloon rather than a leak.

     

  • johnpi 6:44 pm on October 13, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , US foreign policy,

    A new poll shows a substantial majority of Americans have resigned themselves to the reality of our nation’s perpetual foreign wars.

    They don’t like it, but they see it happening and know there is nothing they can do about it. The poll, conducted by Clarus Research Group, showed that 68 percent of us agree with idea that we won’t either win or lose the war in Afghanistan, now eight years long, but will instead just remain there.

     

  • johnpi 5:08 am on October 13, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , US foreign policy

    Obama approves 13,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

    In an unannounced move, President Barack Obama is dispatching an additional 13,000 US troops to Afghanistan beyond the 21,000 he announced publicly in March, The Washington Post reported.

    The additional forces are primarily support forces — such as engineers, medical personnel, intelligence experts and military police — the Post said, bringing the total buildup Obama has approved for the war-torn nation to 34,000.

    “Obama authorized the whole thing. The only thing you saw announced in a press release was the 21,000,” a defense official familiar with the troop-approval process told the daily.

     

  • johnpi 10:01 pm on October 9, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , US foreign policy

    An interview with Osman Bakhach, a deputy chairman of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Lebanon. The reporter is Mahan Abedin.

    MA: But surely you can’t deny the fact that the Americans wish nothing but ill-will towards Hezbollah. They would like nothing better than to see the group disarmed and, better still, disbanded altogether.

    OB: The Americans will have no problem in disarming Hezbollah when the group’s mission expires. For now and until further notice, Hezbollah is a useful instrument in the hands of the Iranian and Syrian regimes and ultimately the Americans’ requirement to balance Israeli hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East.

    If a lethal high-tech, spare-no-expense modern military could disarm Hezbollah, the Israelis would have already done so. I was also surprised to see the assertion – one that had not occurred to me – that America is seeking ‘balance’ and perhaps containment of Israel, rather than being assumed complicit in expansionist Israeli projects.

    (More …)

     

  • johnpi 6:51 am on October 9, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , US foreign policy

    Taliban have issued a communique declaring they are no threat to the international community.

    Juan Cole’s thoughts:

    Actually, I think the Taliban have all along been a local Pashtun puritanical movement with no particular international implications. Afghan Taliban have almost never been involved in international terrorist operations in Europe or elsewhere, as Marc Sage showed in his Understanding Terrorist Networks. (Kashmiris are similar– they commit violence in Kashmir about Kashmir but have seldom taken their struggle international). Middle class anti-American Pashtuns such as Najibullah Zazi are a separate and post-Taliban development arising from the US and NATO military presence in Afghanistan.

    Moreover, some of the groups called ‘Taliban’ in the West aren’t even actually seminary students or connected to madrasahs, and are just the same warlord groups that used to fight the Soviet Union and get praised for it by the Evangelicals and by Ronald Reagan in the US.

     

  • johnpi 7:32 pm on October 7, 2009 | 6 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , US foreign policy

    An alleged secret memorandum drawn up by Israel’s foreign ministry and obtained by an Israeli daily says the Jewish state will move away from “lone dependence” on the United States as a strategic ally and will instead refocus its policy towards the developing world.

    Here’s an immensely important insight:

    The memo also says Israel would move away from US dependence.

    “There is no replacement for Israel’s special relations with the United States, without a doubt Israel’s best friend in the world,” said the memo, prepared at the request of Lieberman in recent weeks.

    “But, the lone dependence on the United States is unhealthy for either side and presents difficulties for the US. Israel must build coalitions with other states on the basis of shared interests. In this way, it will expand and strengthen the circle of support, something which will be a relief for the US as well.”

    Speaking as American, here’s the message to Israel: Grow up! Learn how to practice statecraft. Stop sticking your finger in everyone’s face and expecting America to ward off the consequences.

     

  • johnpi 10:25 pm on September 27, 2009 | 5 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , cotton, US foreign policy,

    In defense of uzbek cotton pickers…

    US Senator Tom Harkin denounces:

    From now through the end of November, instead of attending classes, 2 million Uzbek children ages 6 to 15 will be forced to spend their days picking cotton.

    A response:

    What is it, exactly, that the senator wants? Does he envision a bright future wherein Uzbek children become like their “more fortunate” and “happier” American counterparts, with bicycles and playstations, getting toys in their happy meals, and living from one ABC After School Special to the next? One hopes not. I assume he is only taking issue with the concept of making a profit from the labor of children.

    My final point, then, is this. Is this not a cultural problem, as much as an issue of tyranny and exploitation of children by their President? In other words, if Karimov is unable to stop the child labor in Uzbekistan, might it be because he isn’t the only one who feels that it’s not that bad? If Karimov was replaced with the average ex-cotton-picking graduate of the Uzbekistani educational system, would they, too, allow the practice to continue? I think that, yes, it’s probable that this is unlikely to end any time soon.

    And this:

    At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, is it beyond the realm of doubt to suggest that American or Western cotton concerns are actually the driving force behind this new drive to end “child labor” in Uzbekistan?

     

  • johnpi 8:02 pm on September 18, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , US foreign policy,

    US ambassador: Pakistan not backing U.S. goals on Taliban.

    Pakistan’s position explained:

    Underlying Pakistan’s concerns in Afghanistan is the grave doubt that top Pakistani military and civilian officials harbor — which Mullen acknowledged in his testimony — about the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan, amid growing public opposition to the war there.

    “What happens if America leaves? What would Pakistan’s situation be the day after?” said Hasan Askari Rizvi, an analyst based in Lahore. “If we pick a fight with every group in the tribal area and Afghanistan, after the Americans leave, everybody would pounce on Pakistan.”

     

  • johnpi 6:18 pm on August 31, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , US foreign policy,

    Top conservative columnist in the US George Will calls for Afghanistan pullout.

    (More …)

     

  • johnpi 8:08 pm on August 27, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: US foreign policy,

    Message to Muslim world gets a Pentagon critique.

    The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has written a searing critique of government efforts at “strategic communication” with the Muslim world, saying that no amount of public relations will establish credibility if American behavior overseas is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting.

    The critique by the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, comes as the United States is widely believed to be losing ground in the war of ideas against extremist Islamist ideology. The issue is particularly relevant as the Obama administration orders fresh efforts to counter militant propaganda, part of its broader strategy to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    “To put it simply, we need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate,” Admiral Mullen wrote in the critique, an essay to be published Friday by Joint Force Quarterly, an official military journal.

     

  • johnpi 5:06 am on August 1, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , US foreign policy

    Most Muslim nations immune to Obamamania, says survey.

    In Egypt and Jordan there has been a slight rise in favourable views about the US since 2008. But in Pakistan, Turkey and the Palestinian territories, America continues to be viewed as negatively as in the final years of the presidency of George Bush whose wars in Iraq and Afghanistan antagonised Muslim nations.

    “Although a new team is now in the White House, much of the distrust persists. For example, the 2009 poll finds that in predominantly Muslim nations, there is generally little support for US-led anti-terrorism efforts,” said Wike.

    According to the survey, the American disapproval ratings are as high as 64 percent in Pakistan and 77 percent in the Palestinian territories.

    Majorities in six of the seven Muslim nations surveyed feel the US is a military threat to their country.

    Though respondents in most countries thought Obama will take a multilateral approach to foreign policy and be fair in his dealings with the Israelis and Palestinians, Muslim nations thought otherwise.

    It’s the policy, stupid, not the personality.

     

  • johnpi 2:29 pm on July 31, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , US foreign policy

    Israeli violence against Iran: This is how war begins.

    There is a gradual process underway within Israeli military, intelligence and political circles which will lead to war with Iran. The war will either be Israeli or American in origin. I say war, because I believe that a series of attacks against Iran will set the stage for a long conflict between various sets of players in the west and Arab world. In effect, this will become a war.

    Such hostilities will not break out tomorrow or next week. The groundwork has not yet been laid for such an attack. That is why it is important to read the hasbara planted (and I mean this term deliberately) in Israeli and U.S. newspapers about the Iranian threat; why it is important to follow Congressional legislation introduced that would punish Iran just as the Bush administration instituted sanctions against Iraq before it invaded that country; why it is important to note the bellicose threats, rants and sloganeering coming from Israeli politicians, generals and their U.S. counterparts. This is how war begins.

    Richard goes on to talk about Israeli efforts to wage a perception management campaign against Iran, such as by having Israeli consular officials urge American Jewish communities locally to introduce Iran divestment initiatives, and urging US Jewish groups to hold conferences of various war hawks declaring Iran to be the greatest threat the world has ever known.

    Richare also proposes a solution:

    Let’s leave aside the sheer lunacy of the thinking behind this plan and state in no uncertain terms that all progressives must unalterably oppose sanctions against Iran. Even if we believe that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, we must oppose sanctions because it is Israel’s road to war. We must not allow Israel to hijack the west on behalf of this insane military adventure. We must say “No.” We’ve tried eight years of military adventurism in the Middle East and it didn’t work.

     

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