Video and Full Transcript of Obama-Abbas Meeting (28 May)

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After The Obama-Abbas Meeting: A Palestinian Stuck between Washington and Tel Aviv

Thursday's meeting between Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas, and President Obama focused on the conditions for a peace process with the goal of a two-state solution. Abbas restated his dedication to the obligations deriving from the principles of the US-UK-EU-Russia Quartet, along with his willingness to negotiate the permanent status issues of Jerusalem, refugees, borders, water, security and the release of all Palestinian prisoners, while President Obama underlined the significance of a freeze on Israeli settlements by warning Tel Aviv:

I have not put forward a specific timetable. But let me just point out, when I was campaigning for this office I said that one of the mistakes I would not make is to wait until the end of my first term, or the end of my second term, before we moved on this issue aggressively. And we’ve been true to that commitment.

The full transcript of the Abbas-Obama press conference follows the video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giaNfFH-vLQ[/youtube]

OBAMA: Hello, everybody. Well, it is a great pleasure to welcome President Abbas to the Oval Office. We had -- we just completed an extensive conversation, both privately as well as with our delegations, about how we can advance peace in the Middle East and how we can reaffirm some core principles that I think can result in Palestinians and Israelis living side by side in peace and security.

As I’ve said before, I’ve been a strong believer in a two-state solution that would provide the Israelis and Palestinians the peace and security that they need. I am very appreciative that President Abbas shares that view. And when Prime Minister Netanyahu was here last week I reiterated to him that the framework that’s been provided by the road map is one that can advance the interests of Israel, can advance the interests of the Palestinian people, and can also advance the interests of the United States.

We are a stalwart ally of Israel and it is in our interests to assure that Israel is safe and secure. It is our belief that the best way to achieve that is to create the conditions on the ground and set the stage for a Palestinian state as well. And so what I told Prime Minister Netanyahu was is that each party has obligations under the road map. On the Israeli side those obligations include stopping settlements. They include making sure that there is a viable potential Palestinian state.

On the Palestinian side it’s going to be important and necessary to continue to take the security steps on the West Bank that President Abbas has already begun to take, working with General Dayton. We’ve seen great progress in terms of security in the West Bank. Those security steps need to continue because Israel has to have some confidence that security in the West Bank is in place in order for us to advance this process.

And I also mentioned to President Abbas in a frank exchange that it was very important to continue to make progress in reducing the incitement and anti-Israel sentiments that are sometimes expressed in schools and mosques and in the public square, because all those things are impediments to peace.

The final point that I made was the importance of all countries internationally, but particularly the Arab states, to be supportive of a two-state solution.

And we discussed how important it is that the Arab states, building off of some of the recognition of the possibilities of the two-state solution that are contained in the Arab Peace Initiative continue to provide economic support, as well as political support, to President Abbas’s efforts as he moves the Palestinian Authority forward, as he continues to initiate the reforms that have taken place, and as he hopefully is going to be able to enter into constructive talks with the Israelis.

So, again, I want to thank President Abbas for his visit and a very constructive conversation. I am confident that we can move this process forward if all the parties are willing to take on the responsibilities and meet the obligations that they’ve already committed to, and if they keep in mind not just the short-term tactical issues that are involved, but the long-term strategic interests of both the Israelis and the Palestinians to live side by side in peace and security.

So, thank you again, Mr. President.

ABBAS (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Thank you very much, Mr. President, for receiving us here at the White House. We came here to tell you first of all that we congratulate you for the confidence that was expressed by the American people in electing you President of the United States. And we wish you all success in your mission.

Mr. President, you referred to the international commitment as we stipulated in the road map. I would like to take this opportunity to reaffirm to you that we are fully committed to all of our obligations under the road map, from A to Z.

And we believe, like you, Mr. President, that carrying out the obligations of all parties under the road map will be the only way to achieve the durable, comprehensive, and just peace that we need and desire in the Middle East.

Mr. President, I believe that the entire Arab world and the Islamic world, they are all committed to peace. We’ve seen that through the Arab League Peace Initiative that simply talks about land for peace as a principle. I believe that if the Israelis would withdraw from all occupied Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese land, the Arab world will be ready to have normal relationships with the state of Israel.

On our part, we are carrying our security and responsibility in the West Bank, and have law and order in that areas under our control because we believe that it is in our interest to have security. It’s in the interest of stability in the region. And here I would like to pay tribute and thank you to General Dayton and all those who work with him in helping and supporting and training our security organizations to carry out their duties and responsibilities.

Mr. President, I believe that time is of the essence. We should capitalize on every minute and every hour in order to move the peace process forward, in order to cement this process, in order to achieve the agreement that would lead to peace.

Thank you very much.

OBAMA: Thank you. We got time for a couple of questions.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. I’m going to ask you a question about your trip next week to Riyadh. Reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil is a cornerstone of your energy policy. And when you meet with Riyadh’s King Abdullah next week, what message will you take to him about U.S. energy policy, oil prices, output quotes, and the like?

OBAMA: Well, you know, Saudi Arabia has been an important strategic partner in providing us with our critical energy needs. We appreciate that. It’s a commercial relationship as well as a strategic relationship.

And I don’t think that it’s in Saudi Arabia’s interests or our interests to have a situation in which our economy is dependent, or better yet, is disrupted constantly by huge spikes in energy prices. And it’s in nobody’s interest, internationally, for us to continue to be so heavily dependent on fossil fuels that we continue to create the greenhouse gases that threaten the planet.

So in those discussions I’ll be very honest with King Abdullah, with whom I’ve developed a good relationship, indicating to him that we’re not going to be eliminating our need for oil imports in the immediate future; that’s not our goal. What our goal has to be is to advance the clean energy solutions in this country that can strengthen our economy, put people back to work, diversify our energy sources.

And, you know, interestingly enough, you’re seeing the Saudis make significant investments both in their own country and outside of their country in clean energy, as well, because I think they recognize that we’ve got finite -- we have a finite supply of oil. There are going to be a whole host of countries like China and India that have huge populations, need to develop rapidly.

If everybody is dependent solely on oil as opposed to energy sources like wind and solar, if we are not able to figure out ways to sequester carbon and that would allow us to use coal in a non- polluting way, if we don’t diversify our energy sources, then all of us are going to be in trouble. And so I don’t think that will be a difficult conversation to have.

QUESTION (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Mr. President, if Israel keeps declining to accept the two-state solution and to freeze the settlement activities, how the U.S. would intervene in the peace process?

OBAMA: We’ll, I think it’s important not to assume the worst, but to assume the best. And in my conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu I was very clear about the need to stop the settlements; to make sure that we are stopping the building of outposts; to work with the Palestinian Authority in order to alleviate some of the pressures that the Palestinian people are under in terms of travel and commerce, so that we can initiate some of the economic development plans that Prime Minister Netanyahu himself has said are so important on the ground.

And that conversation only took place last week. I think that we don’t have a moment to lose, but I also don’t make decisions based on just the conversation that we had last week because obviously Prime Minister Netanyahu has to work through these issues in his own government, in his own coalition, just as President Abbas has a whole host of issues that he has to deal with.

But I’m confident that if Israel looks long term -- looks at its long-term strategic interests, that it will recognize that a two-state solution is in the interests of the Israeli people as well as the Palestinians. And certainly, that’s how the United States views our long-term strategic interests -- a situation in which the Palestinians can prosper, they can start businesses, they can educate their children, they can send them to college, they can prosper economically. That kind of situation is good for Israel’s security. And I am confident that the majority of the Israeli people would see that as well.

Now, obviously the Israelis have good reason to be concerned about security, and that’s why it’s important that we continue to make progress on the security issues that so often end up disrupting peace talks between the two parties.

QUESTION (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): President Abbas, you’ve met with President Obama, and perhaps you shared some of your ideas about permanent status resolution. What was in these ideas, and what kind of appropriate mechanism that you have discussed to realize them and carry them out?

ABBAS: We have shared some ideas with the President, but all of them basically are embodied in the road map and the Arab League Initiative, without any change, without any modification.

Regarding the mechanism to carry it out, of course, there is a mechanism through the Quartet as well as the follow-up committee from the Arab nations. Such a proposal will need to be looked at, studied; then we’ll see where to go from here.

QUESTION: Mr. President, do you plan to unveil any part or all of your proposal for Mideast peace when you’re speaking in Cairo next week, or is it some other message you intend to deliver?

OBAMA: I want to use the occasion to deliver a broader message about how the United States can change for the better its relationship with the Muslim world. That will require, I think, a recognition on both the part of the United States as well as many majority Muslim countries about each other, a better sense of understanding, and I think possibilities to achieve common ground.

I want to emphasize the importance of Muslim Americans in the United States and the tremendous contributions they make, something that I think oftentimes is missed in some of these discussions. But certainly the issue of Middle East peace is something that is going to need to be addressed. It is a critical factor in the minds of many Arabs in countries throughout the region and beyond the region. And I think that it would be inappropriate for me not to discuss those.

I’m not going to give you a preview right now, but it’s something that we’ll certainly discuss.

One thing that I didn’t mention earlier that I want to say I very much appreciate is that President Abbas I think has been under enormous pressure to bring about some sort of unity government and to negotiate with Hamas. And I am very impressed and appreciative of President Abbas’s willingness to steadfastly insist that any unity government would have to recognize the principles that have been laid by the Quartet. In the absence of a recognition of Israel and a commitment to peace, and a commitment to previous agreements that have already been made, it would be very hard to see any possibility of peace over the long term. And so I want to publicly commend President Abbas for taking that position because I think it’s a position that’s in the interest of the Palestinian people, in the interests of peace in the region, and it’s something that the United States very much agrees with.

QUESTION (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Mr. President, if I may, President Bush hoped that you would have a Palestinian state by the time he leaves office. It didn’t happen. Do you have a time frame when this Palestinian state is going to happen?

Are you talking about a timetable for negotiation?

QUESTION (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): The first question to President Abbas: Mr. President, did you receive any kind of clear-cut commitments from President Obama, or any pledges that would help you to strengthen your hands when you are dealing with the Palestinian public and opposition among Palestinians that this peace process activities could be viable and could be actually productive?

And the second question was, did President Obama ask you to have a meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu?

ABBAS: President Obama basically talked and reaffirmed the international commitments that we all agreed to, and they are all embodied in the road map. He talked about the necessity to have two states, he talked about the importance of stopping settlement activities, and he also talked about the importance of achieving peace through negotiating all permanent status issues.

Obviously without discussing and negotiating permanent status issues there will be no progress. We know that all the six issues of permanent status were discussed with the previous Israeli Prime Minister, Mr. Olmert, and what is needed right now is to resume the discussions with the current Israeli government.

OBAMA: And in terms of a timetable, I have not put forward a specific timetable. But let me just point out, when I was campaigning for this office I said that one of the mistakes I would not make is to wait until the end of my first term, or the end of my second term, before we moved on this issue aggressively. And we’ve been true to that commitment.

From the first week that I arrived in this office, I insisted that this is a critical issue to deal with, in part because it is in the United States’ interest to achieve peace; that the absence of peace between Palestinians and Israelis is a impediment to a whole host of other areas of increased cooperation and more stable security for people in the region, as well as the United States. And so I want to see progress made, and we will work very aggressively to achieve that.

I don’t want to put an artificial timetable, but I do share President Abbas’s feelings and I believe that many Israelis share the same view that time is of the essence, that we can’t continue with a (inaudible) with the increased fear and resentments on both sides, the sense of hopelessness around the situation that we’ve seen for many years now -- we need to get this thing back on track. And I will do everything I can, and my administration will do everything I can -- my special envoy, George Mitchell, is working as diligently as he can, as is my entire national security team, to make sure that we jumpstart this process and get it moving again.

All right.

Israel-Palestine: Obama's Two-Week Window

The Netanyahu Meeting: Obama Wins Battle, Loses War
Assessing Netanyahu-Obama: Israel, Iran, and Palestine
Video and Transcript : Obama-Netanyahu News Conference

The most interesting follow-up to Monday's meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Obama is in Ha'aretz. In contrast to the non-coverage in The New York Times and the puff pieces in The Washington Post (Howard Schneider: Netanyahu was fantastic; David Ignatius: Obama is fantastic), the Israeli newspaper has the important story:

The Obama Administration is scrambling, against a 4 June deadline, for something to offer the Arab world. And the prospects aren't looking good.

Aluf Benn and Barak Ravid open their article with the dramatic statement from an American official: "The United States expects Israel to make concrete concessions to the Palestinians before U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Cairo." It soon turns out that the concessions, though welcome, aren't that dramatic:Washington wants the Israeli Cabinet to agree on Sunday to "ease its restrictions on imports and exports of goods to Gaza...to ease restrictions on movement in the West Bank".

That is unlikely to be enough. American officials also told Benn and Ravid that "senior Saudi officials have so far rejected outright the idea of gradual normalization". Riyadh is insisting that the US must press for negotiations on "a detailed plan for an Israeli-Palestinian final-status agreement". The plan would include "an Israeli withdrawal from almost all of the West Bank, a division of Jerusalem, and a complex arrangement on the [Palestinian] refugees".

Netanyahu's suggestion to Obama "that the Arab states amend the Arab peace initiative to make it more attractive to Israel" was flatly rejected by the Saudis in private talks with the US. In particular, Saudi Arabia balked at any concessions on the rights of refugees.

On other issues, the US and Israeli delegations used the old tactic of "committees" to cover up differences and thus lack of movement. Because Netanyahu refused Obama's request to halt the expansion of Jewish settlements, that will now have a Working Group. So will Iran and "normalization with Arab states".

All of which is well and good to cover the non-results of the Obama-Netanyahu talks, but next to useless for the President's grand speech in 15 days. If Barack can offer no more than "working groups", and token shipments of goods across the Gaza border, he may want to consider what "hope" and "change" will mean to his audience.

The Netanyahu Meeting: Obama Wins Battle, Loses War

Latest Post: Israel-Palestine - Obama's Two-Week Window
Assessing Netanyahu-Obama: Israel, Iran, and Palestine
Video and Transcript : Obama-Netanyahu News Conference

Enduring America, 16 May: "What President Obama needs now is not an Iranian concession but an Israeli one. If Netanyahu holds fast and does not open up the possibility of “genuine” talks with the Palestinian Authority, including discussions of political status as well as economic development and security, then Obama’s message — launched on Inauguration Day — of a new day in the Middle East is looking shaky."

Obama didn't get it. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his high-profile visit and engaged in two hours of discussions with the President. And after those talks, there was no sign that Netanyahu had given any ground on the US showpiece demand: two-state negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

And Obama, or at least his advisors, may not get it. That very public refusal of the Israeli Prime Minister is likely to damage, if not sink, far more than the American position on Israel-Palestine. The bigger casualty may be Obama's strategy towards the Middle East and the Islamic world.

The outcome is the result both of flaws in the Administration's Palestine approach, which has never been comprehensive but rests on the narrower illusion that peace rests on an agreement between the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority and --- more importantly in the short term --- the tactical error of announcing an Obama talk from Cairo on 4 June.

Up to two weeks ago, the Administration was not suffering from an approach which was making little headway but still had the superficial gloss of "engagement". With little possibility of an Israel-Palestine breakthrough, Obama and Co. could do the minimum --- keep the Palestinian Authority's Mahmoud Abbas propped up and thus keep Hamas as arm's distance --- while maintaining the priority of the US policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Indeed, Obama's success yesterday was connected with "Af-Pak". By blocking Netanyahu's demand that Washington break off talks with Tehran, the President ensured that Iran was kept in play as the US sought co-operation for its military campaign in Afghanistan. He could wave good-bye to Bibi and return to the central crisis for his Administration.

The only problem is that by yesterday, in symbolism if not substance, Obama had given himself another Presidential talk: Get an Israel-Palestine Settlement, Save the World.

When Obama takes the podium in Egypt in two weeks' time, it will be the fourth time that he has put out his unclenched fist to the Arab and Islamic worlds. The Inaugural Address, the interview on Al-Arabiya, and the speech from Ankara were generally received as the since words of a US President who wanted to rebuild America's relations --- not just political but cultural and ideological --- with countries and peoples in the Middle East and beyond.

Now, however, almost five months have elapsed since the Gaza War, two since a new Israeli Government took office. Inevitably, the question emerges --- especially since the US is putting Palestine First back at Netanyahu's Israel First --- so what, in substance rather than rhetoric, is going to be done?

This isn't to say that Palestine is everyone's political priority. However, in part because of history, in part because of the Gaza War, and in large part because it has become a touchstone for justice and legitimacy, other Governments have to pay heed to it.

So, for example, up to December 2008, Syria was looking towards direct talks with Israel on political and economic issues. Then Tel Aviv chose to launch the Gaza attack. Now, although the Obama Administration has tried to restart the process with Damascus, Palestine stands in the way. Netanyahu has effectively said, Iran First, Then Palestine, Then Maybe Syria. Meanwhile, Damascus concentrates on bolstering its regional position after its withdrawal from Lebanon, building links not only in the Middle East but with Turkey and Iran.

Saudi Arabia, whose 2002 plan for Israel-Palestine talks was loudly rebuffed by the Bush Administration, also hangs back. Why, given internal instability and its interest in other conflicts such as the Pakistani situation, expend political capital when Washington has committed itself to leading the way?

So instead the Arab point man for the Israeli-Palestinian, and indeed a supposed Arab-Israeli, detente is King Abdullah of Jordan. Whatever his altruism in serving this cause, it also repays the US for the aid necessary to prop up the Jordanian economy. Never mind that the grand notion of an Islamic agreement with Tel Aviv, especially the notion that Israel can be recognised while Palestine is not, is still in the realm of fantasy: someone has to go through the motions.

Meanwhile Hamas continues its slow entry from the cold. While its latest initiatives, such as Khalid Meshaal's restating of the offer of a 10-year truce and distancing from the 1988 Charter, are predictably being dismissed by many in the US, they are resonating in the Middle East. The organisation which, up to December 2008, was still being treated as a pariah by many other governments is now gaining acceptance. Grudging acceptance, but still an acceptance of political legitimacy.

The problem is that a lot of folks, maybe not in Middle Eastern Governments, but amongst populations in and beyond the region, are going to ask the Emperor if his clothes are real when Obama speaks in Cairo. And I can't see where the cloth is coming from. When Hosni Mubarak declares in Washington on 26 May that he is very happy with the Israel-Palestine process, most will recognise that the Egyptian leader --- now closer to Tel Aviv than to many Arab states --- is doing it for his position with Washington. And even if Palestinian Authority Abbas declares in Washington on 28 May that he's quite happy to sit down with Netanyahu, he will do so as a weak (if not illegitimate) leader.

Obama continues to impress with his day-to-day tactics, and he did so yesterday against another master tactician, but as strategists, he and his Administration have put themselve in a difficult position.

Where I come from, it's called a "hiding to nothing".

Beyond the Summit: Pepe Escobar on Obama-Bush in Afghanistan-Pakistan

Latest Post: Obama Fiddles, Afghanistan and Pakistan Burn
Related Post: Dan Froomkin on Afghanistan and Pakistan

Reprinted from Asia Times Online:

Obama does his Bush impression

The "lasting commitment" Washington war-time summit/photo-op between United States President Barack Obama and the AfPak twins, "Af" President Hamid Karzai and "Pak" President Asif Ali Zardari was far from being an urgent meeting to discuss ways to prevent the end of civilization as we know it. It has been all about the meticulous rebranding of the Pentagon's "Long War".

In Obama's own words, the "lasting commitment" is above all to "defeat al-Qaeda". As an afterthought, the president added, "But also to support the democratically elected, sovereign governments of both Pakistan and Afghanistan." To have George W Bush's man in Kabul and former premier Benazir Bhutto's widow defined as "sovereign", one would be excused for believing Bush is still in the White House.

In yet another deployment of his impeccable democratic credentials, Karzai has just picked as one of his vice presidential running mates none other than former Jamiat-e-Islami top commander and former first vice president Mohammad Fahim, a suspected drug warlord and armed militia-friendly veteran whom Human Rights Watch deplores as a systematic human-rights abuser. Faheem is Tajik; Karzai is Pashtun (from a minor tribe). Karzai badly needs the Tajiks to win a second presidential term in August.

Possibly moved by the obligatory "deep regret" expressed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Karzai refrained from throwing a tantrum in Washington concerning the latest "precise" US air strike in ultra-remote Farah province in western Afghanistan which, according to local sources, may have incinerated over 100 Afghans, 70% of them women and children. Context is key: it was the inept, corrupt, dysfunctional Karzai administration - monopolized by warlords and bandits - which made so much easier the return of the Taliban in full force.

Obama's opium war

By now it's clear that the upcoming, Pentagon-enabled, summer surge in the "Af" section of Obama's war in AfPak will be deployed essentially as Obama's new opium war. In a spicy historic reversal, the British Empire (which practically annexed Afghanistan) wanted the Chinese to be hooked on its opium, while now the American empire wants Afghans to stop cultivating it.

The strategy boils down to devastating the Pashtun-cultivated poppy fields in southern Helmand province - the opium capital of the world. In practice, this will be yet another indiscriminate war against Pashtun peasants, who have been cultivating poppies for centuries. Needless to say, thousands will migrate to the anti-occupation rainbow coalition/motley crew branded as "Taliban".

Destroying the only source of income for scores of poor Afghans means, in Pentagon spin, "to cut off the Taliban's main source of money", which also happens to be the "main source of money" for a collection of wily, US-friendly warlords who will not resign themselves to being left blowing in the wind.

The strategy is also oblivious to the fact that the Taliban themselves receive scores of funding from pious Gulf petro-monarchy millionaires as well as from sections in Saudi Arabia - the same Saudi Arabia that Pentagon supremo Robert Gates is now actively courting to ... abandon the Taliban. Since the Obama inauguration in January, Washington's heavy pressure over Islamabad has been relentless: forget about your enemy India, we want you to fight "our" war against the Taliban and "al-Qaeda".

Thus, expect any Pashtun opium farmer or peasant who brandishes his ax, dagger, matchlock or rusty Lee-Enfield rifle at the ultra-high tech incoming US troops to be branded a "terrorist". Welcome to yet one more chapter of the indeed long Pentagon war against the world's poorest.

You're finished because I said so

As for the "Pak" component of AfPak, it is pure counter-insurgency (COIN). As such, His Master's Voice has got to be Central Command commander and surging General David "I'm always positioning myself for 2012" Petraeus.

Enter the Pentagon's relentless PR campaign. Last week, Gates warned the US Senate Appropriations Committee that without the approval of a US$400 million-worth Pakistan Counter-insurgency Capability Fund (itself part of a humongous, extra $83.5 billion Obama wants to continue prosecuting his wars), and under the "unique authority" of Petraeus, the Pakistani government itself could collapse. The State Department was in tune: Clinton said Pakistan might collapse within six months.

Anyone is excused for believing this tactic - just gimme the money and shut up - is still Bush "war on terror" territory; that's because it is (the same extraordinary powers, with the State Department duly bypassed, just as with the Bush administration). The final song, of course, remains the same: the Pentagon running the show, very tight with the Pakistani army.

For US domestic consumption purposes, Pentagon tactics are a mix of obfuscation and paranoia. For instance, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell says, about Pakistan, "This is not a war zone for the US military." But then Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - who's been to Pakistan twice in the past three weeks - says the Taliban in AfPak overall "threaten our national interests in the region and our safety here at home".

He was echoing both Clinton and Gates, who had said that the Taliban are an "existential threat" to Pakistan. Finally, Petraeus closes the scare tactics circle - stressing in a letter to the House Armed Services Committee that if the Pakistani Army does not prevail over the Taliban in two weeks, the Pakistani government may collapse.

That unveils the core of Pentagon's and David "COIN" Petraeus' thinking: they know that for long-term US designs what's best is yet another military dictatorship. Zardari's government is - rightfully - considered a sham (as Washington starts courting another dubious quantity, former premier Nawaz Sharif). Petraeus' "superior" man (his own word) couldn't be anyone but Army Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Kiani.

And that's exactly how Obama put it in his 100-day press conference last week, stressing the "strong military-to-military consultation and cooperation" and reducing Zardari to smithereens ("very fragile" government, lacking "the capacity to deliver basic services" and without "the support and the loyalty of their people"). Judging by his body language, Obama must have repeated the same litany to Zardari yesterday, live in Washington.

The money quote still is Obama's appraisal of Pakistan: "We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear-armed militant state."

Pakistani "sovereignty" is a joke; Pakistan is now openly being run from Washington. "We want to respect their sovereignty" does not mean "we" actually will. Obama and the Pentagon - which for all practical purposes treat Pakistan as a pitiful colony - would only be (relatively) comfortable with a new Pakistani military dictatorship. The fact that Pakistani public opinion overwhelmingly abhors the Taliban as much as it abhors yet another military dictatorship (see the recent, massive street demonstrations in favor of the Supreme Court justices) is dismissed as irrelevant.

The Swat class struggle

In this complex neo-colonial scenario Pakistan's "Talibanization" - the current craze in Washington - looks and feels more like a diversionary scare tactic. (Please see "The Myth of Talibanistan", Asia Times Online, May 1, 2009.) On the same topic, a report on the Pakistani daily Dawn about the specter of Talibanization of Karachi shows it has more to do with ethnic turbulence between Pashtuns and the Urdu-speaking, Indian-origin majority than about Karachi Pashtuns embracing the Taliban way.

The original Obama administration AfPak strategy, as everyone remembers, was essentially a drone war in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) coupled with a surge in Afghanistan. But the best and the brightest in Washington did not factor in an opportunist Taliban counter-surge.

The wily Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM - Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law), led by Sufi Muhammad, managed to regiment Swat valley landless peasants to fight for their rights and "economic redistribution" against the usual wealthy, greedy, feudal landlords who happened to double as local politicians and government officials.

It's as if the very parochial Taliban had been paying attention to what goes on across South America ... Essentially, it was the appropriation of good old class struggle that led to the Taliban getting the upper hand. Islamabad was finally forced to agree on establishing Nizam-e-Adl (Islamic jurisprudence) in the Swat valley.

So what happened in Swat is that it moved beyond a - corrupt - state, and neo-colonial control. Washington's enemy suddenly swelled to part of the 1.3 million people in the area whose only means of protection are armed militias - what the West bundles up as "Taliban".

It's always crucial to remember that the "Taliban" have all sorts of agendas, from armed resistance to US occupation in Afghanistan to armed resistance to Pakistani army incursions. What they all want is basically the end of Washington's drone war, the end of Pakistan's support for the "war on terror" in AfPak, or at least for the inept, corrupt Pakistani state to leave them alone.

It's true that over the past few weeks Pakistani public opinion as a whole shot up to around 95% against the Taliban because Sufi Muhammad said democracy is an infidel thing; and because videos of Taliban floggings for the fist time were all over Pakistani media.

But the solution is obviously not a war in Swat. It would be, for instance, a concerted, long-term government policy to defuse the network of at least 45,000 madrassas (seminaries) with nearly 2 million students all over the country. And to defuse anti-democratic, sectarian outfits like Lashkar-e Toiba and Sipah-e Sahaba.

It won't happen. And Washington does not care. What matters for the Pentagon is that the minute any sectarian outfit or bandit gang decides to collude with the Pentagon, it's not "Taliban" anymore; it magically morphs into a "Concerned Local Citizens" outfit. By the same token any form of resistance to foreign interference or Predator hell from above bombing is inevitably branded "Taliban".

Left to its own devices, the Pentagon solution for Swat would probably be some form of ethnic cleansing. Predictably, what Obama and the Pentagon are in fact doing - part of their cozying up with the Pakistani army - is to side with the feudal landlords and force a return to the classic Pakistani status quo of immense social inequality. Thus virtually every local who has not become a refugee (as many as 5000,000 already did, leading to a huge humanitarian crisis) has been duly branded a "terrorist". Locals are caught between a rock (the Taliban) and a hard place (the US-supported Pakistani military).

The Pentagon does not do "collateral damage". The only consideration is the US Army becoming partially exposed in neighboring Afghanistan. After all, the key AfPak equation for the Pentagon is how to re-supply US troops involved in OCO ("overseas contingency operations").

The Swat tragedy is bound to get bloodier. As Steve Clemons from The Washington Note blog has learned in a conference in Doha, Obama and Petraeus are forcing the Pakistani army to crush Swat. Once again the imperial "fire on your own people" logic. Predictably, Zardari and the Pakistani army are still against it. But if they accept - that would be a tangible result from the Washington photo-op on Wednesday - the prize will be a lot of money and loads of precious helicopter gun ships.

Madmen on the loose

The Obama administration not only has rebranded the Bush "global war on terror" (GWOT) as the subtly Orwellian "overseas contingency operations" (OCO). The key component of OCO - the AfPak front - is now being actively rebranded, and sold, not as an American war but a Pakistani war.

Zardari plays his pitiful bit part; alongside Obama, the Pentagon and the State Department, he has been convincing Pakistani public opinion to fight Washington's OCO, defending the Predator bombing of Pashtun civilians in Pakistani land. It ain't easy: at least 20% of Pakistani army soldiers are Pashtun - now forced to fight their own Pashtun cousins.

As for the "Af" element of AfPak, the war against occupation in Afghanistan has "disappeared" from the narrative to the benefit of this Pakistani "holy war" against Talibanization. What has not disappeared, of course, is US bombing of Afghan peasants (with attached Hillary "regrets") plus the Predator war in FATA.

The question is: How far will the Obama, the Pentagon and Zardari collusion go in terms of wiping out any form of resistance to the US occupation of Afghanistan and the drone war against Pashtun peasants in FATA?

The relentless warnings on the collapse of Pakistan may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Were it to happen, the balkanization of Pakistan would do wonders for the Pentagon's long-term strategy in the "arc of instability".

From a Pentagon dream scenario point of view, the balkanization of Pakistan would mean dismantling a "Terrorist Central" capable of contaminating other parts of the Muslim world, from Indian Kashmir to the Central Asian "stans". It would "free" India from its enemy Pakistan so India can work very closely with Washington as an effective counter power to the relentless rise of China.

And most of all, this still has to do with the greatest prize - Balochistan, as we'll see in part 2 of this report on Friday. Desert Balochistan, in southwest Pakistan, is where Washington and Islamabad clash head on. From a Washington perspective, Balochistan has to be thrown into chaos. That's about the only way to stop the construction of the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline, also known as the "peace pipeline", which would traverses Balochistan.

In a dream Washington scenario of balkanization of Pakistan, the US could swiftly take over Balochistan's immense natural wealth, and promote the strategic port of Gwadar in Balochistan not to the benefit of the IPI pipeline, but the perennially troubled Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline - Caspian gas wealth flowing under US, and not Russian or Iranian, control.

As for the Taliban, whether in FATA or Swat or anywhere else, they are no threat to the US. Usman Khalid, secretary general of the Rifah party in Pakistan, has nailed it, "The population dread the Taliban-style rule but they dread being split into four countries and to go under Indian suzerainty even more. The Taliban appear to be the lesser evil just as they were in Afghanistan."

History once again does repeat itself as farce: in fact the only sticking point between the Taliban and Washington is still the same as in August 2001 - pipeline transit fees. Washington wouldn't give a damn about sharia law as long as the US could control pipelines crossing Afghanistan and Balochistan.

Yes, Pipelineistan rules. What's a few ragged Pashtun or Balochis in Washington's way when the New Great Game in Eurasia can offer so many opportunities?

Bye Bye Zardari (Again)? Washington Considers The Political Alternative in Pakistan

Latest Post: More on "Bye, Bye Zardari", Hello Pakistan Military

Enduring America, 18 March: "Having failed to get “stability” with Musharraf, having failed with Zardari, it is not hope that moves Washington but this question: Who or what can come next?

Soon after the Obama Administration took office, we concluded that its Pakistan policy was going around President Asif Ali Zardari, rather than working with him. Two weeks ago, we wrote that the US was behind a de facto military leadership of Pakistani policy, especially in the fight against insurgents in the northwest of the country.

Now Washington's idea of a political alternative is emerging. The New York Times revealed on Saturday that the US is trying to bring Zardari's long-time rival, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (pictured), into the Pakistani Government. Administration officials told the newspaper, "Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, have both urged Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif to look for ways to work together."

That in itself is not news. The Long March demonstrations in March exposed Zardari's political weakness and, conversely, elevated Sharif as leader of democratic opposition. During the protests, Clinton and Holbrooke talked to both men to avoid a violent showdown.

What is significant in the latest report is the open backing of Obama officials of Sharif, formerly seen as too close to "Islamist" (the shorthand for conservative religious groups, backed by Saudi Arabia) elements in Palistan. The simple reason? In the aftermath of the Long March, Sharif is seen as generally popular in contrast to widespread dislike for Zardari. An Obama official said bluntly, "The idea here is to tie Sharif’s popularity to things we think need to be done, like dealing with the militancy."

Washington's readiness to ditch Zardari, or at least push him to the side, was evident last week in statements by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and President Obama; however, it reached a new level in leaks from General David Petraeus, the head of the US Central Command. After Petraeus spoke with US Congressmen, Fox News claimed that the General asserted “the Pakistanis have run out of excuses” for their failure to confront the insurgency.Petraeus reportedly gave the Pakistani Government two weeks to take "concrete action to destroy the Taliban".

Zardari's allies have tried to push back, rather lamely, with claims that the President is already talking to Sharif about their co-operation in Government. As the Pakistani military reclaimed the town of Buner, 60 miles north of Islamabad, back from insurgents, the Pakistani Ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, used The Wall Street Journal --- the preferred outlet of Zardari's public-relations machine --- to counter-attack:

President Asif Zardari has repeatedly declared the war against them a war for Pakistan's soul.....Meanwhile, the change of administration in the U.S. has slowed the flow of assistance to Pakistan. Unfortunately, ordinary Pakistanis have begun to wonder if our alliance with the West is bringing any benefits at all.

It appears, however, that all this is too late to persuade Washington that Zardari is reliable. On Saturday, Petraeus was in all-day meetings with senior Administration officials on Afghanistan and Pakistan. It may be too early to decode the latest American moves --- Secretary of Defense Gates' interview with CNN, airing today, was recorded earlier in the week --- but here's a safe bet:

If Washington has its way, President Zardari will be pushing his chair to the back of the room.