US-Pakistan Negotiations: Hail to the General, No Room for Pakistani People

On Monday, I commented on recent negotiations happening in Afghanistan between President Karzai and representatives of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-i-Islami militia. However, these aren't the only negotiations on the AfPak war taking place this week. National Public Radio reports:

Senior U.S. and Pakistani officials meet Thursday in Washington for the second round of a so-called strategic dialogue aimed at a better long-term relationship.

Few people expected any big breakthroughs in the first round of talks between the two sides Wednesday. The nations' complicated relationship has been marked by a deep sense of mutual distrust for many years. Still, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is hosting the two-day event, said some headway was made — especially on security.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi is meeting with Secretary Clinton, but he's not the real leader of the Pakistani delegation. Sue Pleming tells us who is:

Pakistan’s foreign minister heads his country’s delegation to Washington this week for high-level talks, but there was no mistaking who was the star at a reception at the Pakistani Embassy on Tuesday night: Army General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

Guests crowded around Kayani at the annual Pakistani National Day party at the embassy, posing for photos and jostling for the military leader’s ear. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, also drew those eager for photographic souvenirs of the occasion, but not such a feeding frenzy as that around Kayani.

U.S. senators and Obama administration officials lined up to speak to the slim and dapper general, who Pakistani media say rules the roost back home but is also central to U.S. relations with Islamabad.

Our elected representatives are swooning over the Chief of the Pakistani Army, who supposedly "rules the roost back home". Great, another US-backed military dictator in Pakistan.

What about the civilian leaders? Our last pet general in Islamabad, Pervez Musharraf, was forced to resign and the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (N) were swept into power by popular vote in 2008. The PPP and PML-N formed a coalition government, with Yosaf Gillani as Prime Minister and Asif Ali Zardari as President. What happened to those guys?

As it turns out, they got to stay home and read the transcripts. UPI reports:

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said in Islamabad Thursday that he was confident about the outcome of strategic talks with U.S. officials in Washington.

He said he would address the nation to highlight the developments after the end of the dialogue, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reports.

Poor guy, he's got an electoral mandate and still all he gets to do is report back to the voters on what their own military leaders are up to in a foreign country.

But let's give Kayani the benefit of the doubt, maybe he's also looking out for Pakistani citizens. Mosharraf Zaidi explains for us:

Pakistan wants $400 million for Munda Dam, it wants $40 million for Gomal Zam Dam, it wants $70 million for the Natural Gas Production & Efficiency Project, it wants $10 million for Satpara Dam, it wants $27 million for the Wind Energy Project in Sindh, it wants $65 million to rehabilitate Mangla Dam, and it wants $35 million to upgrade Warsak Dam. Total cost of this dam wish-list? $647 million.

Wow, $650 million for water and energy projects, that Kayani sure seems like he's looking out for the Pakistani little guy. Only General Kayani wants more than just dams. Zaidi continues:

At roughly $40 million a pop, the still-pending delivery of 18 F-16 aircraft (from 2006) is a deal worth about $720 million. Instead of actually delivering these aircraft in June this year, as it plans to, the US government could tell the Pakistani government that it can choose. Either it can have a bunch of dams that will resolve the energy crisis, and save many hundreds, maybe thousands of lives in hospitals and clinics around the country. Or it can have a bunch of airplanes that are designed to kill people rather indiscriminately (meaning that not all of the victims of Pakistan’s F-16s will be terrorists that have been tried and convicted in a court of law).

As a Pakistani, my vote is for the dams. I suspect I wouldn’t be alone. But of course, the people of Pakistan don’t have very much say in the direction that Pakistan’s strategic dialogue takes in Washington DC.

While Kayani wants dams and jets, the people apparently just want the dams. Only the people aren't represented at the talks.

That wouldn't be so bad if Pakistan actually did get both the energy projects and the military weapons. But they won't be getting both. Amazingly, General Kayani, head of the Pakistani Army, will only get the military weapons, and probably not much on the civilian, infrastructure side. Remember that Secretary Clinton's statement above emphasized progress in security (that means items like drones and fighter jets) but cautioned against too much optimism on anything else.

See, General Kayani has a bit of a problem with militarism. Even when the Pakistani people overwhelmingly support representatives like Zardari and Gillani who seek peace, Kayani can't stop thinking about war, war, war. Praveen Swami writes:

“India,” Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari famously said in an October 2008 interview, “has never been a threat to Pakistan.” In his first major interview, given just a month after taking office, he described jihadists in Jammu and Kashmir as “terrorists.” He imagined “Pakistani cement factories being constructed to provide for India's huge infrastructure needs, Pakistani textile mills meeting Indian demand for blue jeans, Pakistani ports being used to relieve the congestion at Indian ones.”

Early last month, Pakistan's army chief, General Pervez Ashfaq Kayani, outlined a rather different vision. In a presentation to the media, he asserted that the Pakistan army was an “India-centric institution,” adding this “reality will not change in any significant way until the Kashmir issue and water disputes are resolved.” His words were not dissimilar in substance from the language used by jihadists such as Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed in recent speeches.

It's no surprise that Kayani and Lashkar-e-Taiba sound the same, since the LeT are supported by the Pakistani Army and the ISI. The US supports Kayani who supports the LeT, because both Kayani and the LeT are batshit crazy for war with India. We know this already. Even Congress knows it, since Ashley J. Tellis explained it to them a few weeks ago:

While it is, therefore, tempting to treat LeT as the cause of the current crisis in Indo-Pakistani relations --- particularly in the aftermath of the Bombay attacks --- it should instead be understood as a manifestation. The real cause of the problems in Indo-Pakistani relations remains those political forces within Pakistan that profit from continued hostility with India, namely the Pakistani Army, ...the ISI, and their narrow bases of support among the general population. The civilian government in Pakistan...has a very different view of the bilateral relationship.... Cognizant of the fact that Pakistan will never be able to favorably resolve its disputes with India through force, Zardari has sought a non-confrontational affiliation with New Delhi that would set aside existing disputes, if not resolve them, while increasing economic opportunities....

Unfortunately...Zardari and his civilian cohort do not make national security policy in Islamabad. All such matters...remain very much the provenance of the Pakistani Army....[T]he necessity of sapping India’s strength through multiple kinds of warfare—economic closure, terrorist attacks, and nuclear competition—remains deeply entrenched in the Pakistani military psyche.

Echoing the cliche that the US hasn't picked a winning side since Churchill, America is pursuing its goals of economic cooperation, encouraging democracy, and counter-terrorism in Pakistan by supporting the military dictator who uses terrorists to fuel conflict with his neighbors. Great plan!

But now we're lost on some tangent about Lashkar-e-Taiba and F-16s. Let's not forget what this is all about: the US war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. ISAF and the Pakistani military are daily blasting away at Pashtun insurgents, Taliban elements in both Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan, from the Northwest Frontier Province all the way down to Balochistan. This is the so-called "Pashtun belt". Surely any Strategic Dialogue on this conflict must include the Pashtun themselves. Nope. Shahid Ilyas writes:

Talking is not a bad thing, but when it is done without the participation of those who are the subject of such talks, it will most likely result in a disaster. The Pakhtun and the turmoil on their lands — supposedly the theme of the dialogue — are reportedly not being represented in the upcoming Pak-US strategic dialogue. The delegation heading for the US does not include either the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP) led by Mahmud Khan Achakzai or the Awami National Party (ANP) led by Asfandyar Wali. These are the mainstream political parties of Pakhtunkhwa having a deep bearing on the events of their ethnic constituency. These parties represent the most influential and educated class of Pakhtun society. What benefit can a dialogue bring without the participation of the Pakhtun leadership and intelligentsia?

If indeed the purpose of the dialogue is the ongoing terrorism-related turmoil in Pakhtunkhwa, it can only be counterproductive without the participation of the Pakhtuns. Already, the prevailing thinking among them is that they are being ruled like a colony by the Punjab-dominated establishment in Rawalpindi-Islamabad. The Pakhtuns are increasingly complaining that the American opinion of them is formed by the establishment in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. They argue that under a well thought-out strategy, they are being presented to the world as terrorists through the media. The planned strategic dialogue without them will only reinforce their belief in their (perceived or real) exploitation by the bigger province. An added factor now will be that they will consider the US a co-culprit, responsible for their sufferings.

So, let's add this all up.

• The people of Pakistan, who support peace, are not represented at the Strategic Dialogue.


• The Pashtun people, with whom the US and Pakistani military are engaged in violent conflict, are not represented at the Strategic Dialogue.


• The US instead deals with General Kayani, un-elected warmonger obsessed with fighting India.


• The US earnestly gives in to Kayani's demands for more military weapons, but wavers on support for civilian water and energy projects.


• In addition to the Taliban and other militant groups, Kayani's military supports LeT, the al-Qa'eda affiliated group who carried out the Mumbai commando attacks, among countless other terrorist attacks against Indian and Pakistani citizens.

The whole Strategic Dialogue is a farce. We're not accomplishing any of our national security goals in the region, we're actually making our problems worse! But what are you supposed to do about this? Well, that's the good news: unlike the Pakistani people, ou actually are represented at this strategic dialogue. Let's go back to Tuesday's embassy party:

U.S. senators and Obama administration officials lined up to speak to the slim and dapper general, who Pakistani media say rules the roost back home but is also central to U.S. relations with Islamabad.

Senators and administration officials? Those are your elected representatives! You have a voice in this Strategic Dialogue. You can tell them how they need to be conducting this dialogue, and who they need to be conducting it with.

Tell them that celebrity they're snapping photos of with their cellphone is actually a terror-supporting thug, and they can read about it in their own Congressional Record. Tell them you want to talk to the actual leaders of the Pakistani people, the democratically elected government of Pakistan, as well as the Pashtun people. We can talk about water and energy projects, but not military weapons to be used against India and the Pakistanis themselves.

Don't forfeit your own opportunity to have a voice in this strategic dialogue. Congress, in particular has the power to stipulate how funds can be distributed in Pakistan, as we saw with the Kerry-Lugar bill last year. Contact your representatives, by e-mail, phone, Twitter, however you want. Show them that even if Pakistan is ruled by the military, democracy is alive and well in the US. Demand that the US engages in strategic dialogue with the peace makers and legitimate leaders in Pakistan. The current dialogue, as it stands, is totally unacceptable.

I am the Afghanistan Blogging Fellow for The Seminal and Brave New Foundation. You can read my work on The Seminal or at Rethink Afghanistan.

The Latest from Iran (25 March): Lying Low

2200 GMT: A Very Quiet Day. Little to report, with only ripples coming from references backs to earlier stories. Human Rights Watch, for example, has issued a statement declaring that "Iran's state-owned media, judiciary, and security forces have opened a coordinated attack on human rights groups in recent weeks".

NEW Iran: “We are Going to Make the Future Better”
UPDATED Iran Appeal: Japan’s Deportation of Jamal Saberi
UPDATED Iran: The Controversy over Neda’s “Fiance”
Iran: An Internet Strategy to Support the Greens? (Memarian)
The Latest from Iran (24 March): Regime Confidence, Regime Fear?

1730 GMT: Khabar Online is now also running the report on the supposed  Mousavi-Rafsanjani meeting.


1630 GMT: Rumour of the Day. According to Green Voice of Freedom, Farda News reports that Mir Hossein Mousavi met with Hashemi Rafsanjani on Sunday afternoon. The story comes from “news sources close to the government....This source, which is known for its support for [Ahmadinejad advisor Esfandair Rahim] Mashai, has spoken of the presence of Mousavi’s wife Zahra Rahnavard and a group of reformist leaders in this meeting.”

Hmm.... Neither the Mousavi nor Rafsanjani camps have released any word of such a meeting, nor have websites linked to the men offered any clue of this. The source is close to Rahim-Mashai, who is no friend of Mousavi and no fan of Rafsanjani.

I'll put my money on this as another arrow in the volley being fired at Rafsanjani by groups within the regime. Anyone --- including Mr Rahim-Mashai --- care to enlighten me?

1310 GMT: Meanwhile, in Local Government.... Outside Tehran, there's a claim of major fraud by city council in Mahabad in northwestern Iran, amounting to billion of tomans (millions of dollars), which has supposedly been reported to Ali Larijani. Peyke Iran claims a boycott of the last city council elections by the people, with the current council being backed by the Iranian Government.

1135 GMT: Mahmoud Says "Quit Your Fussing". And here is the latest on that Ahmadinejad nuclear policy, courtesy of a televised speech announcing the construction of a new dam in southwest Iran:

[Western powers] are saying we are worried that Iran may be building a bomb. But we are saying you have built it and even used it. So who should be worried? We or you? They are just making a fuss. They have ended up humiliating themselves.

Let me tell you, the era when they could hurt the Iranian nation is over. The Iranian nation is at such a height that their evil hands can't touch it. They want to stop, even for an hour, the fast speeding train of Iranian progress. But they will be unable to do it.

1125 GMT: Challenging Ahmadinejad on Nukes. Khabar Online offers space to Elaheh Koulaei, professor of political science at Tehran University and a member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, to denounce the President for his failure to protect national interests in his nuclear policy.

1120 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. RAHANA updates on Mousavi campaigner Mansour Miri-Kalanaki, who has been held incommunicado since 17 July.

1100 GMT: Mousavi Watch. So what has Mir Hossein Mousavi been up to? Well, he and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, visited journalist Azar Mansouri, who was recently released from detention after receiving a three-year suspended sentence from the Revolutionary Court. Rah-e-Sabz has the story and photographs.

Mousavi and Rahnavard also saw the family of Seyed Alireza Beheshti-Shirazi, a senior advisor of Mousavi who has been detained for more than three months.

Former President Mohammad Khatami has been doing his own visiting, spending time with released economist and journalist Saeed Laylaz.

0755 GMT: Parliament v. President. Khabar Online's English-language site headlines, "Ahmadinejad calls for referendum on subsidy plan execution".

It's a strange article, as there is nothing new beyond the President's appeal last Friday and the subsequent hostility from some members of Parliament, including Speaker Ali Larijani. The purpose seems to be to fire a warning shot: "It would be risky measurement [measure] taken by the head of the government since the first referendum led to the early retirement of...the head of the Iran Statistics Center who cooperated with the government on the plan."

Khabar is also featuring more criticisms from individual MPs, such as Sattar Hedayatkhah's declaration that the Government should forward its ideas about subsidy reductions "within legal boundaries".

0730 GMT: The Makan Controversy. As the concern and confusion over Caspian Makan, the purported "fiancé" of Neda Agha Soltan, increases (see separate entry), Josh Shahryar intervenes:

No one speaks for [Neda]....[So] does Caspian Makan speak for the Green Movement? The answer is again, no....

Let’s get over this.

0715 GMT: We begin the morning with an update on a human rights case, with a new protest at the Japanese Embassy in Washington over the attempted deportation to Iran of activist Jamal Saberi. And, with news slowing down from inside Iran on the state of the opposition, we counter pessimism with a note from a reader, "We Are Going to Make the Future Better".

On the international front, "5+1" talks (US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, China) resumed Wednesday on how to deal with Iran's nuclear programme. The Wall Street Journal offers evidence to back up our evaluation that the Obama Administration is downplaying tougher international sanctions against Tehran while pursuing bilateral discussions with countries and companies for withdrawal of investment:

The U.S. has backed away from pursuing a number of tough measures against Iran in order to win support from Russia and China for a new United Nations Security Council resolution on sanctions....Among provisions removed from the original draft resolution the U.S. sent to key allies last month were sanctions aimed at choking off Tehran's access to international banking services and capital markets, and closing international airspace and waters to Iran's national air cargo and shipping lines.

UPDATED Iran: The Controversy over Neda's "Fiance"

UPDATE 25 MARCH: Masih Alinejad has posted an update, apologising for mis-representing the relationship between Caspian Makan and Neda Agha Soltan.

UPDATE 2115 GMT: Developments tonight. BBC Persian is featuring an interview with Neda Agha Soltan's mother, Hajjar Rostami-Motlagh, who emphasises that Caspian Makan did not represent the Soltan family in his trip to Israel.

Rostami-Motlagh, contradicting stories on websites, said that Makan and Neda were in a relationship at the time of her death and were on their way to marriage. However, saying that her daughter was not political, Rostami-Motlagh asked that her spirit be "left in peace".

The Soltan family rejected the claim that Makan was representing the Iranian people and said that he was "abusing the legacy" of Neda.

Makan contacted Masih Alinejad to discuss the original article about him. Alinejad has updated her editorial to include their conversation.

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Journalist Masih Alinejad, formerly of Etemade Melli daily and now the lead editorial writer for Rah-e-Sabz has published a denunciation of Caspian Makan. Makan is the man who has commonly been identified as the "fiancé" of Neda Agha Soltan, whose death on 20 June by a Basij gunshot has become a symbol of Iran's post-election conflict.

We make no comment on Alinejad's assertions but post them, translated by an EA correpondent, in the knowledge that Makan, who has just met the Israeli President Shimon Peres, is being mis-identified by some observers as "a leader of Iran's opposition":

How many times should Neda Agha Soltan die?

The Latest from Iran (24 March): Regime Confidence, Regime Fear?

In Iran is it only the government that kills the protestors?



Besides those who are sitting on the chair of power, is there any one else who might be able to kill young Iranians? Who else, besides the autocratic rules of Iran is willing or able to break the heart of a mother over and over again? Does death only mean that you should fall over the cobblestones of a street, with blood spilling out of your mouth, and a mother who would never see her beautiful daughter again?

If the answer is yes, how come Neda is being shot at every day?

This time round, Neda Agha Soltan is being killed through an imposter who introduces himself as Neda’s fiancé. Caspian Makan is shooting at Neda’s forehead, just because for a very short time Neda was sentimentally attached to this man. She did, however, separate from him very soon after the beginning of their relationship.

A man named AliReza (Caspian) Makan travels around the world under the name of Neda’s fiancé and defines himself as a representative of the people of Iran. In this capacity, he met with the president of Israel, Shimon Peres. Mr. Makan is free to do whatever he wants but it is a disaster that everyone knows him in conjunction with Neda, a girl whose family has no agenda in Iran. On the other hand, he claims to represent the dead girl and has become her "voice" throughout the world.

I wanted to publish this article a long time ago but I believed that Makan was very well aware that in the last days of Neda’s life he did not maintain a sentimental relationship with her. And I was under the belief that after she was gone, he would respect the privacy of a dead woman who cannot defend herself.

During the days when a British friend of mine was producing a documentary about Neda, I accessed a letter from her sister, but I thought I should not go public with the letter and insult Makan in this way. But today Makan is insulting the entire family of Neda along with an entire nation. I guess it is time for me to pull the curtain and let the world take a look at the reality behind the scenes.

Neda’s sister wrote in an email that “…Makan and Neda were separated, they were together for a very short time…. The picture of Neda with short dress was taken by him… Makan and Neda were not together anymore but after Neda was killed we were forced to witness Makan sending Neda’s pictures to the media…”

Makan is neither Neda’s fiancé nor a representative of people of Iran in Israel.

Throughout our life we meet many people, men and women. Makan was just a by-stander in Neda’s life, and Neda soon broke the relationship up. And now this question has constantly occupied my mind: why should anyone disrespect a person who once laid her head against his shoulder but the day after decided that those shoulders do not constitute solace for her any more? How can he buy himself fame while Neda’s picture was a keepsake when they were together? Is intruding upon her integrity not a good reason behind his real agenda to meet with Israel’s president? He does not even genuinely believe in green movement.

I never wanted to be disrespectful to Makan. But as a woman, if I didn’t stay with a man while I was alive, clearly I would never want him to climb on my corpse once I was dead. It hurts my soul as much as a policeman’s gunshot would hurt my body.

I am not Neda’s family’s spokesperson, but I know that these days Neda’s mother is enveloped in pain while she witnesses other people shooting her daughter in other ways. The mother of Neda is hurt. She is hurt from those who shot her daughter and herself once as well those who presently want to kill her soul.

If Makan had a motivation to meet with Israeli President, he should have done it on his own. Standing on the corpse of a girl who long before her departure has ended her relationship with him is the pinnacle of scorn. The innocent girl who once put her hand on Makan’s shoulder trusted him and never thought that tomorrow their once private pictures will roll around the world from media to media, so that he can accomplish his plans. Neda had never contemplated that this man could take over as the representative of the people of Iran.

Neda Agha Soltan is a clear example of the ailment in Iran, from the days that the political and social leaders decided to ignore honor and moral. Instead they began to raise individuals from all layers of society who have an enormous talent of killing their countrymen despite being unarmed.

Neda was an unassuming girl. She, like many other girls, became the victim of the protests against this regime. But this is not the end. There are still people who are targeting at our long-gone sister. All those boys who derided Neda’s death and those women who made a cloth doll of Neda with the slogan “Satan’s martyr” are still shooting her. They broke her tombstone and….

I write in the hope for a day when morality comes back to the Iranian society and its members correct themselves first instead of using each other’s corpses for reaching fame and fortune. Their bodies stink of blood and betrayal.

Obama Health Care Follow-Up: Scott Lucas on BBC World Service

Since the House of Representatives passage of the health care bill earlier this week, there has been a technical hitch. Because of minor differences from the Senate version of the bill, there will have to be changes and another House vote. Some in the US media are playing this up as a dramatic development; I see little in the story beyond a short delay in final adoption of the legislation.

I discuss the issues with the BBC World Service's World Update (clip starts just before the 27:00 mark).

Israel: So What is This Government Crisis? (Carlstrom)

UPDATE 1345 GMT: Laura Rozen of Politico has just posted a different view of the Israeli Prime Minister:

Netanyahu departed Washington for Israel late Wednesday night, after what some sources described as a sometimes frantic last 24 hours of decision-making after a late night meeting with Obama at the White House Tuesday night.

Netanyahu was reported to have spent part of the day Wednesday in a secure room in the Israeli Embassy making calls back to advisors in Israel, after canceling a round of interviews he had been scheduled to have with the media Wednesday morning. He also met with Sen. George Mitchell and his advisors worked with Dennis Ross and Dan Shapiro to try to come to agreement on a written document of confidence building measures Netanyahu would agree to, but could not close the gap.

“Apparently Bibi is very nervous, frantically calling his ‘seven,’ trying to figure out what to do,” one Washington Middle East hand said Wednesday. “The word I heard most today was ‘panic.’"

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Gregg Carlstrom, writing for The Majlis, tells some home truths about the supposed crisis in the Netanyahu Government and its constraint on the Israeli Prime Minister:

Yedioth Ahronoth quotes a bunch of unnamed "commentators" -- every journalist's best friend! -- who think Netanyahu's coalition government is about to collapse. So does an unnamed minister from the Labor party, who thinks Bibi will have to replace right-wing parties like Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu with Kadima:

A Labor minister said Thursday that "the government in its current state may be in danger". But a senior Likud minister disagreed, saying that it was "too soon to assume that the composition of the coalition will change".

Israel Special: Obama-Netanyahu Meeting and the Settlement “Surprise”

I think the Likud minister gets it right. Coalitions don't just collapse, after all; Netanyahu would have to make some policy decision that causes the right-wing parties to withdraw.

Obviously we're talking about a settlement freeze in East Jerusalem -- a decision Bibi has shown no desire to make. He said this week that the Palestinian insistence on an East Jerusalem freeze would delay peace talks, calling it an "illogical and unreasonable demand." And Interior Minister Eli Yishai told a Shas-affiliated newspaper that construction will continue.

"I thank God I have been given the opportunity to be the minister who approves the construction of thousands of housing units in Jerusalem," Yishai said in an interview with ultra-Orthodox newspaper Yom Yom.

Daniel Hershkowitz, the science and technology minister (from the right-wing Habayit Hayehudi party) praised Netanyahu for standing up for (what he perceives as) Israel's interests; Silvan Shalom, the deputy prime minister, also commended Netanyahu for his response to "American pressure."

Doesn't seem like there's any crisis in this coalition right now. There will be, if Netanyahu freezes construction in East Jerusalem -- but that doesn't seem likely.