Karzai channels Maliki
Afghanistan President Karzai, in an interview published this morning in the Washington Post, asks for a reduced U.S. military presence and an end to night-time raids on Afghan homes. He sounds a lot like Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki three years ago, but he has shown none of Maliki’s grit (remember the Iraqi attacks on Moqtada al Sadr’s people in Basra and Sadr City?). Karzai also blames corruption in Afghanistan on American contracting practices. Maybe we should cancel all those Afghanistan reports (as well as the December policy review) and leave Karzai to his own devices.
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Suu Kyi free–will it bring change?
Confident of its hold on power due to dubious elections November 7, the Burmese regime has freed dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi from many years of house arrest. Will she shake things up? Or has the election provided enough legitimacy to stabilize a notoriously repressive and feckless regime? Kyaw Zwa Moe, managing editor of Irrawaddy, was not expecting change from the elections alone. But Aung Zaw, Irrawaddy founder, thinks her release will make a BIG difference.
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A negotiated solution for Abyei?
Voter registration for the South Sudan referendum on independence January 9 starts Monday and extends until December 1. Preparations are reported to be adequate.
The problem is Abyei: there is no agreement yet on who can register there for the separate referendum on whether it goes north or south. That could spell trouble. The U.S. is telling the Security Council it wants a negotiated solution in Abyei, rather than a referendum. This is the classic “who does it belong to” problem. Remember Eastern Slavonia, Brcko, and Kirkuk?
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Flood of Afpak reports begins
Clear a shelf: the flood of reports on Afghanistan and Pakistan has only just begun. Earlier in the fall (it would be nice if they put dates on these reports!), the self-appointed Afghanistan Study Group (wish I had trademarked “study group” when I was executive director of the Iraq Study Group) has already recommended winding down and eventually out the military effort, while somehow increasing economic assistance and regional cooperation: A New Way Forward | Report of the Afghanistan Study Group.
Now the Council on Foreign Relations (Sandy Berger and Rich Armitage chairing) weigh in with a lukewarm endorsement of the current military and civilian “surge” approach, but only if it starts to show results by the time of the President’s December policy review. Absent that, they too advocate a drawdown and narrowing of the military effort to the fight against al Qaeda: U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan – Council on Foreign Relations.
At least two more due out soon. Center for American Progress should have a report out within a couple of weeks that focuses at least in part on the defects of the Karzai government and raises questions about whether it is worth supporting (as all the reports do, in one way or another). Century Foundation has got Tom Pickering and Lakhdar Brahimi working on another report that focuses at least in part on the prospects for “reconciling” some of the Taliban. Brahimi, remember, was the UN Special Representative who wanted to bring the Taliban into the political process, a move the Americans blocked.
The Administration has already let it be understood that the December presidential review is not expected to produce any dramatic policy moves, and Gates/Clinton have been anxious to let the Taliban and al Qaeda know that they expect the U.S. to still be militarily active in Afghanistan and Pakistan until 2014, when Karzai claims the Afghans will take over. But at the very least the reports already out suggest that there are profound doubts about the legitimacy, capability, honesty and efficacy of the Karzai government.
The CFR report defines a desirable end-state in Afghanistan this way: “An acceptable end state in Afghanistan would be one in which the Afghan people are secure and strong enough to prevent the rise of new terrorist safe havens inside Afghanistan and avert a return to civil war without relying upon U.S. or international military forces.” Can that be achieved with Karzai?
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Slo-mo train wreck
I’ve been hesitating to comment on the “Middle East peace process,” but I guess there comes a point at which you can’t ignore it any longer. When even President Obama has turned gloomy, you’ve got to wonder whether the time has come. So here goes:
Leverage in negotiations comes from having “BATNA”: a best alternative to a negotiated solution. The Israelis have one: they just keep on building settlements in the West Bank. The Ramallah Palestinians don’t really have one: Mahmoud Abbas doesn’t want to go back to the Intifada, and there is really nothing he can do to block the settlements. Hamas is trying out a new BATNA, as its last one (rockets into Israeli population centers) did not work so well. It is lying (relatively) low, figuring time is on its side.
The Israelis have got a BATNA, but what Netanyahu lacks is the ability to deliver Israel to a negotiated solution. His government is fractious, and he sees no need to take the political risks a negotiated solution would necessarily entail. Of course Mahmoud Abbas has a similar problem, only his government is just plain broken, since he doesn’t control what Hamas does or does not do. So neither side can deliver its own people to a negotiated peace.
Continuing to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank is making it hard to picture a viable two-state solution. Netanyahu says he wants the Arabs to accept Israel as a Jewish state, but his pursuit of his BATNA is putting the country into a demographic trap: the more settlements he builds, the harder it gets to picture a viable Palestinian state, which is an indispensable component of a two-state solution, and the more likely it gets that Israel/Palestine will end up as a single state, which eventually won’t have a Jewish majority.
So Israel and Palestine are careening towards an outcome neither wants, with leadership on the Israeli side that doesn’t want to take the risks required to prevent it and leadership on the Palestinian side that lacks any means to prevent it. Slo-mo train wreck.
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Still getting ready to sing
Anti-Kurd hardliner Osama al Nujaifi has been elected Speaker of the parliament in Baghdad, but then he and the rest of Iraqqiya walked out, apparently in protest against the treatment of some of its former Baathist members. Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani has been voted back into the Presidency, which however has lost the veto and is now almost entirely ceremonial. Its one substantial function is to designate a prime minister; Talabani almost immediately named Maliki, who gets a month to put together a government.
Allawi and Maliki reportedly sat together in parliament as a sign of solidarity, which won’t mean much in light of the subsequent walk-out.
Still no naming of ministers, or other devilish details like precisely what Allawi has been promised on the national security front.
No need yet to take your seats for the finale. The scruffily bearded guy won’t sing until the ministerial nominations are ready, which could still be weeks away.
Iraqi parliament convenes in 1st steps to new govt – Yahoo! News.
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