Palinwatch: Dinner With Obama

CNN reports that 2012 Republican Presidential nominee* Sarah Palin will attend the same dinner as President Obama this weekend as part of her visit to Washington:

Guess who's attending the same dinner this weekend?

President Barack Obama and Sarah Palin.

Both will be at the annual Alfalfa Club Dinner Saturday night here in the nation's capital. The club has a small exclusive membership, and a raucous annual black-tie dinner that’s technically off the record.

The Huffington Post has more on why Palin set up that PAC and what she's doing in DC.

*Possibly.

See also:

• Sarah Palin in 2012... maybe?


• The Sarah Palin in 2012 Dream/Nightmare

Obama on Top of the World: The Latest in US Foreign Policy (28 January)

Earlier Updates: Obama on Top of the World (27 January)
Latest Post: The Other Shoe Drops: Obama Prepares for War in Afghanistan

6 p.m. The Guardian of London: "President Barack Obama's administration is considering sending a letter to Iran aimed at unfreezing US-Iranian relations and opening the way for face-to-face talks." The letter would be in response to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter of congratulations to Obama on 6 November.

2:20 p.m. We've updated this morning's story on the Obama strategy for Afghanistan.

2:02 p.m. Reports that President Obama will visit Canada on 19 February.

2 p.m. The Dennis Ross saga, which has given us nightmares, continues. He still has not been officially named as the State Department envoy on Iranian matters but "United Against Nuclear Iran", the pressure group which includes as members Ross and State's envoy to Afghanistan/Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, either has outdated info or gives the game away:

United Against Nuclear Iran thanks Ambassadors Holbrooke and Ross for their commitment, service, and leadership and we congratulate them on their recent appointments to the Department of State.

1 p.m. Pick a Number, Any Number. A NATO spokesman claims that less than 100 Afghan civilians were killed in the organisation's military operations in 2008. That compares with an estimate in The New York Times of up to 4000 and by an Afghan human rights group, based on UN numbers, of almost 700.

11:30 a.m. On the Other Hand....Only two hours after we updated on Russia's cancellation of a deployment of missiles on the Polish border, thanks to the Obama Factor, another problem crops up:

NATO countries expressed concern on Wednesday about reports that Russia plans to set up bases in Russian-backed breakaway territories in Georgia, a NATO spokesman said.

The specific issue is Russia's announcement on Monday that it intends to build a naval base in Abkhazia, which was part of Georgia but which Russia recognised as "independent" after last August's Russian-Georgian war.

10:35 a.m. It's not all bad news in Afghanistan. The Taliban have praised, "Obama's move to close Guantanamo detention center is a positive step for peace and stability in the region and the world."

Unfortunately, the feel-good moment may be short-lived. The Taliban also insisted that, if the President wants "mutual respect" with Muslim communities, "He must completely withdraw all his forces from the two occupied Islamic countries (Afghanistan and Iraq), and to stop defending Israel against Islamic interests in the Middle East and the entire world." And, as for Afghanistan, Obama should not send additional US forces as "the use of force against the independent peoples of the world, has lost its effectiveness".

9:45 a.m. Score one diplomatic/victory for the Obama Factor.

An official from the Russian General Staff has told the Interfax news agency that Moscow will suspend deployment of missiles on the Polish border: "These plans have been suspended because the new US administration is not pushing ahead with the plans to deploy...the US missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic." The news follows a conversation between President Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on Monday.

There are other US-Russian exchanges to watch. The Russian Deputy Foreign Minister has told Iran that Moscow wants to broaden "political, trade, and economic cooperation". For the moment, however, the apparent rapprochement raises the question....

What exactly was the value of the Missile Defence pursued by the Bush Administration so relentlessly over the last eight years?

7:30 a.m. Is this for show for real? Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, contradicting the testimony of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates yesterday,  say they have no agreement with the Obama Administration allowing US missile strikes on Pakistani territory: ""There is no understanding between Pakistan and the United States on Predator attacks."

Of course, it could be the case that the American arrangement is with the Pakistani military and intelligence services, bypassing the Foreign Ministry. Alternatively, the Pakistani Government is trying to hold to the public line of "independence" while private accepting US operations.

6 a.m. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has given a challenging but cautious response to President Obama's suggestion of engagement. Speaking at an election rally in western Iran, Ahmadinejad said:

We welcome change but on condition that change is fundamental and on the right track. When they say "we want to make changes', change can happen in two ways. First is a fundamental and effective change ... The second ... is a change of tactics."

Ahmadinejad, clearly picking up on Obama's campaign slogan of "change", added, "[The US] should apologise to the Iranian nation and try to make up for their dark background and the crimes they have committed against the Iranian nation."

This is a significant rhetorical position that has been taken up by Iranian leaders in the past. Indeed, I suspect US policymakers will immediately think that at the end of the Clinton Administration, they made such an apology, albeit belatedly, for the 1953 US-backed coup. It should also be noted that this is a campaign speech, with Ahmadinejad staking out his foreign-policy position to the Iranian electorate.

This said, Ahmadinejad gave an important signal in a reference to Washington stifling Iran's economic development since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Decoded, this may be indicating to Obama: if you want to engage, the US has to make a commitment --- possibly even in advance of negotiations --- to ease existing sanctions on Tehran.

3:50 a.m. Glimpse the Future. Just to highlight our top post this morning on Afghanistan and the problems of the Obama strategy: "American officers distributed $40,000 on Tuesday to relatives of 15 people killed Jan. 19 in a United States raid."

The US military wasn't exactly generous in its apology, holding to the claim that a "militant commander" died along with 14 civilians. While a colonel told villages, "If there was collateral damage, I’m very sorry about that,” a US military lawyers made clear that "he payments were not an admission that innocents had been killed".

3:30 a.m. We've just posted a separate entry highlighting the apparent White House strategy in Afghanistan: ramp up the military effort, leave nation-building to others, and ditch Afghan President Hamid Karzai if necessary.

Morning Update (1:45 a.m. Washington time): It looks the campaign, pursued by some in the Pentagon, to undermine the Obama plan to close Guantanamo Bay within a year has been checked. The New York Times and CNN began running a "backlash" story yesterday that the Saudi programme for rehabilitation of terrorists was actually very, very good with only nine participants, out of hundreds, returning to their evil ways. The significance? The original spin was that two ex-Gitmo detainees who had rejoined Yemeni terrorist cells may have gone through the Saudi programme.

Then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, testifying to Congressional committees, gave full support to the closure plan: ""I believe that if we did not have a deadline, we could kick that can down the road endlessly."

Obama on Top of the World: The Latest in US Foreign Policy (24 January)

Earlier Updates and Links to Stories: The Latest in US Foreign Policy (23 January)
Latest Post: Coming Next in Iran
Latest Post: Track Barack with the Obamameter

1:35 p.m. After a long and busy week, we're taking the night off. We'll be back in the morning with all the overnight developments fit to notice.

12:50 p.m. According to the German magazine Der Spiegel, France has drafted a plan for European countries to take 60 detainees from the Guantanamo Bay facility. The French Government has refused to comment on the report.

12:40 p.m. In Independent but Not-Quite-Independent Iraq, US troops have killed a couple and wounded their daughter in a raid on  the house of a former Iraqi Army officer in Kirkuk.

A US military spokesman claimed the incident occurred in a joint operation with Iraqi forces, but an Iraqi police general said no Iraqi troops were present.

11:15 a.m. India Snubs Barack and Hillary. Here's one we missed. All week we were identifying Richard Holbrooke as President Obama's special envoy for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. In fact, when the appointment was announced on Thursday, India had fallen off the title.

It wasn't an omission. According to a US official, "When the Indian government learned Holbrooke was going to do [Pakistan]-India, they swung into action and lobbied to have India excluded from his purview. And they succeeded. Holbrooke's account officially does not include India."

Daniel Markey of the Council on Foreign Relations offers an explanation for Delhi's resistance: "They [India] are the big fish [in the region]. They don't want to be grouped with the 'problem children' in the region, on Kashmir, on nuclear issues." Moreover, another US official added, "The Indians do not like Holbrooke because he has been very good on Pakistan... and has a very good feel for the place."



11 a.m. Hey, Barack, Look Over Here! United Press International reports:

North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency said that a special U.S. Department of Defense investigations committee "recently made public a report designating (North Korea) as a nuclear weapons state."

The news service said the Defense Department report said that North Korea not only has "several nuclear weapons but a missile system capable of delivering them."

At the same time, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is reportedly telling Chinese hosts, "The North Korean side will commit itself to the denuclearization of the North Korean peninsula, and hopes to co-exist peacefully with other involved parties."

9:45 a.m. Best Friends Forever Alert. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev made a big show on Friday of co-operation with the new Obama Administration, pointing to his country's permission for US transit of supplies to Afghanistan and offering to work with international efforts against drug-trafficking and terrorism in that country.

It's a low-cost, low-risk strategy for Moscow. There is no great inconvenience giving Washington an alternative to its now-closed Khyber Pass route, and reduced drug production in Afghanistan could ease the flow of illegal narcotics into Russia. And Medvedev can even chide the now-departed Bush Administration, ""Let's hope the new U.S. administration will be more successful than the previous one in dealing with the Afghan settlement."

Russia can do so because it knows full well that, if Obama's military-first approach in Afghanistan fails, it won't be the Soviet Union of the 1980s but the US of the 21st century that takes the fall.

8:30 a.m. A quick tip of the hat to our little-brother site, The State of the United States, which continues to offer some of the most provocative and incisive analysis of US politics: "I'm sure all of us will see Obama's promises carried out soon; people are going to have to be patient. I ask, what is Obama going to promise next? An end to the death penalty?"

6:20 a.m. A suicide car bomb aimed at African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu, Somalia, has killed 15.

6:05 a.m. More (conflicting) details on the US attack in eastern Afghanistan overnight. The American military is still claiming that 15 militants, including a woman, were killed. Afghan official and a village elder say 21 or 22 civilians died. The elder added, "Their bodies are on the ground. If you (Afghan government) do not believe us, you have helicopters and you should come to the area and see that these are civilians."

5:20 a.m. A revealing pair of sentences in a New York Times summary of yesterday's US missile strikes on Pakistan, which killed at least 20 people:

The downside: "American officials in Washington said there were no immediate signs that the strikes on Friday had killed any senior Qaeda leaders."

The upside: "They said the attacks had dispelled for the moment any notion that Mr. Obama would rein in the Predator attacks."

Soon after the attacks, Obama convened his first National Security Council meeting devoted specifically to Pakistan and Afghanistan. We're searching for details of the discussions.

5:10 a.m. Completely helpful, non-sensational lead sentence in New York Times story on releasing detainees from Guantanamo Bay:

Is Khalid Sheikh Muhammed coming to a prison near you?

5 a.m. Five policeman have been killed and 13 people wounded in a suicide bomb attack northwest of Baghdad.

4:10 a.m. Interesting revelations in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. Obama envoy George Mitchell will arrive in the Middle East before 10 February. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has gone on the offensive and set out Israel's preconditions in any negotiations, telling US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Israel will "not open the Gaza crossings without progress toward the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit". (cross-posted from Israel-Palestine-Gaza Updates)

3:40 a.m. US officials claim 15 "militants" killed in American raid; villagers report civilians among dead.

Morning update (3 a.m. Washington time): CNN reports that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has reached out to allies by phoning "a slew of leaders since taking office on Thursday". OK, that's great. One question....

What's a slew?

Within 15 minutes, a reader responds by noting that "slew" is the past tense of "slay" and worries that the alliance may have something to do with killing.

For the record, the foreign leaders mentioned by the State Department were "Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan's King Abdullah and the foreign ministers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia".

Obama, the Pentagon, and the "Willy-Nilly" Battle Over Guantanamo Bay

Morning update (2:55 a.m. Washington time): Yesterday we spent some time on the dramatic New York Times story on the "emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee [Said Ali al-Shihri] as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch", noting that it appeared to be part of an effort by some military and Pentagon officials to undermine President Obama's plan to close the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Today CNN has returned to an earlier Pentagon report that "18 former detainees are confirmed to have participated in attacks, and 43 are suspected to have been involved in attacks". Peter Bergen, who has written extensively on Al Qa'eda, takes on the report:

1. "Of the 18 people the Pentagon says are confirmed to have engaged in terrorism, only a handful of names have been released."



2. Even if all 18 "confirmed" returned to association with illegal organisations, that is a recidivism rate of 4 percent, comparred with 65 percent for offenders released from US prisons.

3. Some Guantanamo detainees were not terrorists or involved with the Taliban but "were singled out by vengeful villagers who told U.S. authorities they were al Qaeda".

The Pentagon's response to a request for details that would verify their report? The classic intelligence response that "we could tell you but then we would have to shoot you". A spokesman snapped, ""We don't make these figures up -- they're not done willy-nilly."

Obama on Top of the World: The Latest in US Foreign Policy (23 January)

Latest Post: US Finally Joins Convention on Conventional Weapons
Latest Post: The Afghanistan Muddle
Latest Post: The President Bans Torture

Text of Order Closing Guantanamo Bay
President Obama’s Remarks to State Department Staff (22 January)

6:45 p.m. An intriguing development, but one which will need some detective work to assess its significance. President Obama "asked Saudi King Abdullah for support in halting weapons smuggling into Gaza and underscored the importance of U.S.-Saudi ties" in a Friday phone call.

The call takes on added significance because an influential member of the Saudi Royal Family, Prince Turki al-Feisal, launched an attack against the Bush Administration's "poisonous legacy" in a newspaper article on Friday morning, warning, "If the U.S. wants to continue playing a leadership role in the Middle East and keep its strategic alliances intact -- especially its 'special relationship' with Saudi Arabia -- it will have to drastically revise its policies vis-a-vis Israel and Palestine."

So the first message in Obama's call was not to get active Saudi participation in the naval blockade of Gaza but assurances that Riyadh would not try to undermine it by moving cash and material to Palestinian groups in the area. The second message, however, is more important and hard to decipher:

Do those US-Saudi ties mean that Obama will accept Saudi ideas for Israel-Palestinian negotiations, for example, a revival of the 2002 Mecca proposals that the Bush Administration flagrantly rebuffed? Or is Washington expecting the Saudis to follow the lead of a yet-seen approach that will be unveiled in the visit of George Mitchell to the region? (cross-posted from Israel-Palestine-Gaza Updates)



3:40 p.m. White House announces that President Obama has reversed Ronald Reagan's ban on funding of federally-supported groups who carry out abortions overseas.

3:30 p.m. Not So Fast, General Petraeus. Here's a curious story, unlike you're a fan of Kirghiz politics, that you might have missed. On Wednesday, General David Petraeus and the US military were telling anyone who would listen of their great triumph in securing land and air supply routes into Afghanistan (and trying to cover up the inconvenience that the main supply route over the Khyber Pass has been closed down).

Well, on Thursday the Government of Kyrgyzstan, where a major US airbase is located, decided that it wasn't ready to play the good guy quite yet: "Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev will make a decision on the future of a U.S. military base in Kyrgyzstan by next month, an official said Thursday."

Is Russia, which also has an airbase in Kyrgyzstan, having a bit of competitive fun with Washington? Or has the Kirghiz Government decided to get a higher price for their cooperation?

3:15 p.m. The Netherlands won't be joining the next US adventure in Afghanistan: "Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende ruled out on Friday the possibility of the Netherlands keeping its troops in Afghanistan past 2010 with a force comparable to its current deployment."

2:55 p.m. The Marines Show Their Hand. Marine Corps Commandant General James Conway says that up to 20,000 Marines could be deployed as part of the US military "surge" in Afghanistan. While Conway capped the number at 20,000, that indicates that an overall increase of 30,000 troops, which would include Army units, is still the military's preferred option.

At the same time, Conway seemed to offer support for President Obama's plans for withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq: "The time is right for Marines in general terms to leave Iraq. It's very much a nation-building kind of environment that's taking place there."

2:25 p.m. Facebook Message of the Day:

Dear World,

The United States of America, your quality supplier of ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for its 2001-2008 service outage. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service interruption has been located. Replacement components were ordered Tuesday, November 4th, 2008, and have begun arriving. Early test of the new equipment indicate that it is functioning correctly and we expect it to be fully operational by mid-January.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage and we look forward to resuming full service and hopefully even improving it in years to come. Thank you for your patience and understanding,

The USA

2 p.m. On his blog, CNN's Anderson Cooper posts a guest article by former interrogator Ken Robinson: "The truth is --- torture doesn't work."

Nice job, Anderson. Just one question: why didn't you put up such comments in 2003? 2004? 2005? At any point during the Bush Administration?

12:35 p.m. Al Jazeera: 19 killed in northwest Pakistan in two US missile strikes.

12:05 p.m. CNN website reporting 10 killed in US strike on northwest Pakistan, but CNN television is reporting two attacks.

10:10 a.m. The State Department's Twitterers pass on news of a US interception and two-day search of an Iranian-owned ship in the Red Sea.

No jackpot this time, however, in the quest to link Tehran and Hamas. The ship was carrying artillery shells, but the Gazan organisation doesn't use artillery.

9:30 a.m. White House officials are briefing that Obama later today will reverse Ronald Reagan's "Mexico City" order, which banned federally-funded non-government organizations from performing abortions overseas. Bill Clinton lifted the ban in his first week in office, only for George W. Bush to reinstate it in his first Presidential order.

8:20 a.m. The first application of Obama tough love in Pakistan. Reports are coming through that US missiles have killed five people in the northwest of the country. (9:45 a.m.: Death toll is now 9. Six members of a family are among the dead; intelligence officials claim "some foreign militants were also killed".)

6:35 a.m. For those watching the Obama rollback of the Bush War on Terror, some interesting signals from Dennis Blair, Obama's nominee for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in his confirmation hearings yesterday.

Blair backed up the President's headline actions, telling Senators that torture "is not moral, legal or effective" and that "there will not be any waterboarding on my watch". However, the nominee also indicated that Obama might not hand back other executive orders resting on dubious legal ground, as he "hesitated to directly challenge as illegal the Bush administration's approach to interrogations and surveillance".

6:25 a.m. And, Barack, We've Been Talking to the Washington Post. Those waging the counter-offensive against the Obama plan for a 16-month withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq have gotten the ear of the editors of The Post. Their call in their lead editorial today for a slower withdrawal, bizarrely, rests on the argument that Iraq is rapidly becoming more secure:

Iraq's continuing improvement and the low and declining rate of U.S. casualties -- four soldiers have been killed in hostile action so far this month -- ought to decrease the urgency of a quick pullout. Pragmatism calls for working within the agreed U.S.-Iraqi plan, and for allowing adjustments based on positive and negative developments in Iraq, rather than on any fixed and arbitrary timetable.

6:10 a.m. The "New Diplomacy" of the Obama Administration? On Thursday, "the chargé d’affaires at the American Embassy, Krishna Urs, walked out of a speech in Bolivia’s Congress by President Evo Morales."

5;55 a.m. One Dissent is Annoying, Two is a Rebellion. Meanwhile, on the Iraq front, departing US Ambassador Ryan Crocker has also gone public to put brakes --- albeit in diplomatic phrasing on Obama's plan for withdrawal of combat troops in 16 months. Citing "a continuing need for our security support" despite the "enormous progress" of Iraqi security forces, Crocker asserted, “If it were to be a precipitous withdrawal, that could be very dangerous, but it’s clear that’s not the direction in which this is trending.”

Far from incidentally, Crocker was also involved in Wednesday's National Security meeting with military commanders, speaking by videophone from Baghdad.

5:30 a.m. Naughty, Naughty Pentagon. Do you recall that less than 24 hours ago the military started spinning against the President's plans for withdrawal from Iraq? Well, now they're taking aim at his intention to close Guantamo. Officials have fed the following story to Robert Worth of The New York Times:

The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

And it should be noted that this is not a sudden leak. The amount of information on the released detainee, Said Ali al-Shihri, and the contribution by four Times reporters to the story indicated that this "exclusive" was fed to them well before Obama became President.

Moreover, this is only the latest salvo in the campaign to undermine Obama's plans. Last month "Pentagon officials" began spreading the story that dozens of released detainees were rejoining Al Qa'eda and other terrorist organisations. The supposed information was discredited quickly by journalists who followed up the details --- as the New York Times notes, albeit well below its dramatic headline:

Although the Pentagon has said that dozens of released Guantánamo detainees have “returned to the fight,” its claim is difficult to document, and has been met with skepticism. In any case, few of the former detainees, if any, are thought to have become leaders of a major terrorist organization like Al Qaeda in Yemen, a mostly homegrown group that experts say has been reinforced by foreign fighters.

4:10 a.m. The excellent analyst Jim Lobe finds grounds for optimism both in the appointment of George Mitchell as President Obama's envoy to the Middle East and in Obama's statement yesterday.

3:15 a.m. We've posted separate blogs on Obama's order banning torture and on an apparent muddle over Afghanistan policy, highlighted by Administration statements yesterday.

2:30 a.m. The Guantanamo Bay Effect Reaches Afghanistan. An intriguing statement by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was quick off the mark to welcome President Barack Obama's order closing Camp X-Ray: "Closing this will have a good impact, a significant impact on the minds of Afghans here in Afghanistan. We see it as extremely important and timely and we appreciate the decision taken by the new administration."

Why pay special attention to Karzai's statement beyond the welcomes coming from around the world? Well, there's the small matter of more than 600 detainees, as compared to 245 at Guantanamo, in the US military's Camp Bagram in southern Afghanistan. Karzai is being pressed by Afghan campaigners to do something about unlimited detentions closer to home, so his statement on matters far away is a symbolic nod in their direction.

But will it mean the Afghan Government presses the Americans to bring the rule of law into Bagram? Karzai's spokesman was suitably cautious: "As we rebuild our justice system, as we rebuild our law enforcement capabilities and can ensure there will be due process provided, we do expect the detainees to be gradually and slowly transferred to Afghan custody by mutual agreement,"