Pakistan Feature: US Preparing for a Curtailed "Post-9/11" Relationship With Islamabad? (Schmitt)

Schmitt cites a "senior United States official" who speaks of closing "the chapter on the post-9/11 period", trying to frame a decade of US actions guided by a necessary, perhaps even moral, campaign against terrorism.

The reality is murkier. Speaking of a "post-9/11 period" conveniently ignores not just the years after 2001 but the complications of decades before that, as it serves a US administration keen to bracket Bush-era foreign intervention as being exceptional, rather than business as usual. It is not as easy for the "post-9/11 period" to wash away the instability in the Pakistani system.

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Pakistan Feature: A "Crisis in Relations" After NATO Kills 26 Pakistani Soldiers in Airstrikes?

Pakistanis Protest after NATO AttacksReading and comparing the coverage from websites in Pakistan, the US, and Britain over Saturday's NATO airstrikes that killed 26 Pakistani troops....

Dawn (Pakistan)

The United States stressed the “importance” of its ties with Pakistan after up to 26 soldiers were killed in cross-border Nato air strikes Saturday, plunging already frosty relations into crisis.

In a joint statement, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered their “deepest condolences” and said they backed “Nato’s intention to investigate immediately.”

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US Politics Special: A Pizza-Based Foreign Policy Lesson for Herman Cain

Herman, if you must compare foreign policy to pizza-making...keep reading

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Israel and Palestine: Half and Half Pizza

It was supposed to be half and half, but someone mixed all the toppings up! Don’t try to separate them or you’ll burn your hands in the cheese. Let the toppings magically figure out how to migrate to their own side of the pizza before you get involved.

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The Latest from Iran (30 October): When Talking Tough Is Not Enough....

See also Iran Video Interview: Hillary Clinton with BBC Persian "The Unfortunate Decsion of the Green Movement"
The Latest from Iran (29 October): The Economy, Propaganda, and the IMF

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2130 GMT: Elections Watch. Leading reformist Ali Shakourirad has said it is too late for the regime to meet former President Khatami's conditions --- freeing of political prisoners, freedom for political parties and a free and fair electoral process, and adherence to the Constitution --- for reformists to participate in next March's Parliamentary elections. They should instead inform people of their demands and objections to the current system.

2030 GMT: Parliament v. President. Looks like the Parliamentary challenge to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declared over only a few days ago, is very much alive....

Mohammad Reza Bahonar, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, said the motion to interrogate Ahmadinejad now bears 74 signatures, one more than the minimum needed for consideration.

Last week, Iranian media reported that a number of MPs had withdrawn their support for the motion, but some have now reconsidered their withdrawal and one new MP joined the petition.

The motion will be sent to a Parliamentary commission for examination. It cites 10 irregularities on which the president needs to be questioned, such as his alleged refusal to carry out legislation for funding of the Tehran subway and his disputes with the Supreme Leader over the reinstatement of Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi.

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MediaFail Snapshot: How Fox News Replaced Pakistan with Iran In Its Threat Story

I knew I had heard this warning from Admiral Mike Mullen this week about attacks on US forces. So I did some research. Mullen said those very words, but the quote had absolutely nothing to do with Iran.

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US and the World: The Future is Bright, The Future is Drone Attacks (Finn)

The killing of terrorism suspects and insurgents by armed drones, controlled by pilots sitting in bases thousands of miles away in the western United States, has prompted criticism that the technology makes war too antiseptic. Questions also have been raised about the legality of drone strikes when employed in places such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, which are not at war with the United States. This debate will only intensify as technological advances enable what experts call lethal autonomy.

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Afghanistan Opinion: Why The Country is a Dimming "Light in the Distance" (Hamidi)

Casualty in Kabul Attack, 19 August>While the current situation in Afghanistan is not good, there is much that can be done to correct it.  However, if Washington and the regime in Kabul do not  address the serious problems built up rather than resolved over the last decade, President Obama’s “light in the distance” may fade into night forever.

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Pakistan Feature: Islamabad with Veto Power over US Drone Strikes?

Gareth Porter writes for InterPress Service:

Pakistani civilian and military leaders are insisting on an effective veto over which targets U.S. drone strikes hit, according to well-informed Pakistani military sources here.

The sources, who met with IPS on condition that they not be identified, said that such veto power over the conduct of the drone war is a central element in a new Pakistani demand for a formal government-to-government agreement on the terms under which the United States and Pakistan will cooperate against insurgents in Pakistan.

The basic government-to-government agreement now being demanded would be followed, the sources said, by more detailed agreements between U.S. and Pakistani military leaders and intelligence agencies.

The new Pakistani demand for equal say over drone strikes marks the culmination of a long evolution in the Pakistani military's attitude toward the drone war. Initially supportive of strikes that were targeting Al-Qaeda leaders, senior Pakistani military leaders soon came to realise that the drone war carried serious risks for Pakistan's war against the Pakistani Taliban.

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Pakistan Feature: US Government "Pakistani Intelligence Killed Journalist Saleem Shahzad"

Saleem ShahzadNew classified intelligence obtained before the May 29 disappearance of the journalist, Saleem Shahzad, 40, from the capital, Islamabad, and after the discovery of his mortally wounded body, showed that senior officials of the spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, directed the attack on him in an effort to silence criticism, two senior administration officials said.

The intelligence, which several administration officials said they believed was reliable and conclusive, showed that the actions of the ISI, as it is known, were “barbaric and unacceptable,” one of the officials said.

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Afghanistan Video and Transcript: Obama Announces "Withdrawal" of US Troops

OBAMA: Good evening. Nearly ten years ago, America suffered the worst attack on our shores since Pearl Harbor. This mass murder was planned by Usama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network in Afghanistan, and signaled a new threat to our security – one in which the targets were no longer soldiers on a battlefield, but innocent men, women and children going about their daily lives.

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