Afghanistan: Karzai Talks Back to Washington

Morning Update (6:10 a.m. GMT; 1:10 a.m. Washington): Afghan President Hamid Karzai (pictured), trying to counter US Government criticism of his leadership, has offered a conciliatory line on CNN:

U.S. forces will not be able to leave soon in Afghanistan because the task is not over. We have to defeat terrorism. We'll have to enable Afghanistan to stand on its own feet. We'll have to enable Afghanistan to be able to defend itself and protect for its security.

Then, the United States can leave and, at that time, the Afghan people will give them plenty of flowers and gratitude and send them safely back home.

Beyond the headline, it should be noted that Karzai was less than effusive about the proposed US troop surge, "Any addition of troops must have a purposeful objective that the Afghan people would agree with." He said that the new American forces should be placed on the border and in the fields fighting the drug trade rather than in Afghan villages.

And Karzai maintained his criticism of the US military's killing of civilians:

These activities are seriously undermining the confidence of the Afghan people in the joint struggle we have against terrorism and undermining their hopeful future. We'll continue to be a friend. We'll continue to be an ally. But Afghanistan deserves respect and a better treatment.

The Afghan President played down any responsibility for corruption, which the Obama Administration has increasingly attributed to Karzai's negligence or misrule. ""Sure, corruption in the Afghan government is as much there as in any other Third World country," he said. ""Suddenly this country got so much money coming from the West, suddenly so many Afghans came from all over the world to participate. Suddenly there were projects -- suddenly there was this poverty that turned into some sort form of prosperity for this country."

Mr. Obama's World: Alerts in US Foreign Policy (12 February)

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Related Post: Obama v. The Military (Part 39): The Latest on the Afghanistan “Surge”



9:30 p.m. A relatively quiet foreign policy day, as domestic politics --- notably Republican Judd Gregg's withdrawal from his nomination as Commerce Secretary because of "irreconcilable policy differences" with President Obama --- occupy Washington.

One emerging story is a lawsuit by three human rights organisations --- Amnesty International USA, New York University's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and the Center for Constitutional Rights --- claiming that the Pentagon sought loopholes in the Geneva Conventions to hide "ghost deatinees" and that the Bush Administration delayed the release of Guantanamo Bay detainees to avoid negative publicity. We'll have more on this tomorrow.



4:30 p.m. We're off the clock for awhile on emergency business (dinner and a movie). Back with an Evening Update.

2:20 p.m. Eight Iraqi pilgrims have been killed and 18 wounded by a bomb less than 1/2 mile from the Imam Hussein Mosque in Karbala.

1:40 p.m. A couple of items of note from US envoy Richard Holbrooke's trip to Pakistan. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who met Holbrooke earlier today (see 6:45 a.m.), has issued a co-operative statement: ""There's a change in [US] approach towards Pakistan. They do give importance to the people of Pakistan and their emotions and that's the feeling that I got from today's meeting."

It is now being reported, as we projected in a separate entry, that Holbrooke and Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi will head a joint committee "improving intelligence sharing and strengthen security".

12 noon. Further violence in Iraq today. A car bomb in Mosul has killed four policemen and wounded five. Two senior Sunni politicians have been killed by gunmen in Mosul, and a former army officer has been killed in Khaldiya.

10:15 a.m.Of course, today's statement by Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik, admitting that "some part of the conspiracy" behind December's attacks in Mumbai was planned in Pakistan, has nothing to do whatsoever with the visit of US envoy Richard Holbrooke.

Morning Updates (6:45 a.m. GMT; 1:45 a.m. Washington): Quiet start this morning, after yesterday was dominated by news of bombings and violences in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will name Stephen Bosworth, the Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, as US envoy to North Korea. The move, accompanying yesterday's confirmation that a US delegation will attend the six-party talks in Moscow on North Korea next week, signals the Obama Administration's diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang. It is a far cry from the George W. Bush Administration, which shut down talks with North Korea soon after taking office in 2001.

In Pakistan, US envoy Richard Holbrooke has met former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. No details on the conversation, but it is a signal of a change in American strategy, reaching out to politicians that had not been favoured by the Bush Administration. Sharif was sent into exile by General Pervez Musharraf and only returned to Pakistan with the strong backing of Saudi Arabia. He had been seen by Washington as too sympathetic to "conservative" elements in Pakistan, both religious and political, to be an alternative to President Zardari.

The Latest on Israel-Gaza-Palestine (12 February)

9:35 p.m. A member of the Hamas negotiating team in Cairo says a cease-fire agreement with Israel will be announced within 72 hours. Israeli officials have offered no comment on the claim.

9:30 p.m. Evening Update: Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit says US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend an international donors' conference for Gaza next month in Cairo. Gheit met Clinton in Washington to urge a more "even-handed approach" to Israel and Palestine than that shown by the Bush Administration.

12:30 p.m. Interesting and little-noticed development in Cairo. High-ranking Fatah officials met the Hamas delegation on Tuesday, raising the possibility of a reconciliation. Hamas had earlier said that it would not attend a 22 February meeting in Cairo to discuss Palestinian unity, but Fatah's Azzam el-Ahmed says that the Gazan leadership is now considering attendance.



10:30 a.m. I Heart You from Tel Aviv: "Israel temporarily eased its blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Thursday to allow Palestinian flower growers to export 25,000 blooms to Europe ahead of Valentine's Day."

Morning Update (8 a.m. GMT; 10 a.m. Israel/Palestine): No significant movement overnight on either the formation of the new Israeli Government or the Israel-Gaza cease-fire talks. There could be some development in Cairo today, at least in Hamas' position, as its delegation is meeting Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.

Washington, after the high profile of the George Mitchell mission, is standing well back at the moment. Its token move yesterday was to welcome an Egyptian confernce on aid for Gaza, which will not take place until 2 March. Still, the US Government can't let go of its "Mahmoud Abbas Good, Hamas Bad" political approach: the US hopes the conference will "support the Palestinian Authority's plan for the reconstruction of Gaza as an integral part of a future Palestinian state".

Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Forces have carried out an airstrike against a target in southern Gaza.

Binyam Mohamed: Guantanamo Torture Evidence Hidden from Obama

From The Guardian:

Binyam Mohamed, the UK resident detained in Guantánamo Bay, is to be visited by British officials and could be returned to Britain shortly, the foreign secretary, David Miliband, signalled today. The US authorities have agreed to treat Mohamed's case as "a priority", the minister said, enabling Britain to work with Washington for "a swift resolution".

London and Washington may want to act quickly, because yet more embarrassing detail on the case has emerged today.

Clive Stafford-Smith, Mohamed's lawyer, claims the US Department of Defense is preventing President Obama from seeing evidence of Mohamed's alleged mistreatment and torture. He has written to Obama:

You, as commander in chief, are being denied access to material that would help prove that crimes have been committed by US personnel. This decision is being made by the very people who you command.

Pakistan to Obama: Change US Policy on Missile Strikes, Join Us in Ground Operations?

Update: It is now being reported that Holbrooke and Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi will head a joint committee "improving intelligence sharing and strengthen security".

As we noted yesterday, US envoy Richard Holbrooke is remaining tight-lipped on any impressions from his tour of Pakistan, which continues to Afghanistan today. Pakistani officials, however, are not so reticent: "Officials familiar with the conversations say Mr. Holbrooke was faced with universal opposition to the Predator strikes" that the US has been carrying out in northwest Pakistan.

So what to do? The Pakistan Government's line is that it wants a joint US-Pakistan review of the policy. At the same time, it is also complaining that the US is not doing enough to support the Pakistan Army's counterinsurgency operations.

Now, it may well be that the Obama Administration can simply buy the Zardari Government's acceptance of unilateral US airstrikes, as Islamabad is asking for billions of dollars in aid to be released. The money could prop up a shaky national government, which could in turn decide to treat the northwest Pakistan situation as an irritation but not a critical challenge. So Washington could have its occasional missile operations, and the Pakistani Army would carry out periodic but limited confrontations with local insurgents.

Yet, with the killings and unrest in the northwest becoming more frequent and more intense and with indications that high-profile attacks in Afghanistan such as yesterday's Kabul bombings are being carried out by Pakistan-based militants, an obvious dilemma --- and possible next step --- are emerging.

The logic of "more support" for Pakistani Army operations means US ground support and even involvement. Yet that involvement would be a huge political risk for the Zardari Government, which could even fall over the reaction to high-profile foreign intervention.

On the other hand, if that US participation in ground operations was portrayed as a Pakistani-led initiative, could the political risk be run?

Watch this space.