Shiva Gets His Nukes Back

Against the week's chaotic backdrop, a high-impact foreign policy decision was made without perceptible coverage or forbearance, one which signals a major shift in risk factors. Congress and the White House passed legislation allowing a nuclear deal with India, despite the latter's refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or allow transparent inspections of planned reactors. Under the deal, only civilian sites can be inspected, and India defines what "civilian" means at any time.

In other words as of today, India is an official sorcerer's apprentice to The Bomb, which will be made on their soil by United States nuclear engineers. Behind the kabuki screen, America's long, strained, ever-hopeful, ever-cynical relationship with Pakistan has been scrapped and there is a new backstop in the "Global War on Terror." India will be used to strike fear in the hearts of Pakistan's generals, and, it is hoped, as a way to split up an emerging BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) Bloc.

Proponents of the deal push it as enlightened self interest, pointing to its positive effects on energy, strategic alliance, and economy. Those hopeful positions give scant cover to the move's desperation in ending the 30-year ban on nuclear fuel and technology sales to India. Its successful tests in 1974 provided the major inspiration for having a Non-Proliferation Treaty in the first place, and for Pakistan to clandestinely develop its own Bomb. Given their acrimonious past, the circumstances surrounding the formation of Pakistan, and the incipient defeat of the West in Afghanistan, it's difficult to see how a nuclear incident between it and India can be long avoided.

Pakistan Minus Musharraf = Al-Qaedistan

The sourced rumors seem to be that Musharraf is set to quit. (WaPo, Reuters, AFP) His spokesman came out with a denial this morning, but resignation seems to be the direction it's going. (Via MikeVotes)

What's surprising is how long Musharraf has been able to hold on as America's advocate and ride herd on internally conflicting sets of stakeholders. As a measure of what "conflicting" means, he survived 6 known assassination attempts and uncounted plots. He finally ran out of magic, and sometime earlier this year Pakistan simply ceased to play its role as a payrolled ally in the Global War on Terror.

Even with an exceptional talent like Musharraf, Pakistan's value against al-Qaeda has always been precarious, and latent support for that movement is about to be expressed with much greater openness. Musharraf could feel the incoming tide, and was just buying time; he already was estate-shopping on the Chesapeake Bay last year. The reasons Pakistan implicitly supported AQ are quite simple: Pakistan exists because it won a war of self-determination, it is an Islamic-moderate nation, and, after a Mid-east fashion, it is a democracy.

Members of its intelligence service (the ISI) have long worked with al-Qaeda (the Islamic Foreign Legion), and while they maintain cordial relations with counterparts in Saudi Arabian services and the CIA, there is an emotional component missing in the latter relationships. The ISI is practiced at playing multiple ends against the middle, as their only enemy of real concern is India. But when the ISI sees al-Qaeda, they see people like they once were, people who are fighting for self-determination, who are trying to overthrow oppressive regimes and replace them with more equitable systems. They believe that if AQ succeeds, particularly against the Arabian regimes, that good will have been achieved.

The only way to guard against that fondness was to give them massive amounts of money. Now they see the milk has gone out of the cow, so they realize how tired they are of keeping the capricious, volatile idiots in the US happy, with the long subterfuge and denial of better selves that entailed. Indeed, many of the smartest ISI people already felt that way for quite some time, and although it is commonly accepted that the planning, staffing, and financing for 9/11 occurred in Afghanistan, it was happening in a far more powerful way in Islamabad.

Torkham Choke Point: Pakistan To Stop Supporting US Operations In Afghanistan

Torkham is just 5 klicks east of the summit of the Khyber Pass, right on what masquerades as a border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some clever chappie drew the Durand Line, more commonly known as the 'Zero Line,' on a map in 1893 as an attempt to keep the Khan's influence out of what was then British India. It never really worked. Jalalabad is to the west, Peshawar is to the east, and in between is al-Qaeda.

The 50,000 US & NATO troops in Afghanistan need about 700,000 gallons of fuel per day to maintain operations. 500,000 of that goes through Torkham, where 36 tankers were blown up in a customs parking lot one night in March. The Afghan National Army has difficulty securing supply columns from attack once past the gate, and the efforts of Pakistan's forces have become increasingly token since recent elections which effectively deposed the US-bankrolled Musharraf. The Taliban was able to close the supply route for at least 8 days in April, prompting an increasing number of Predator drone missile strikes inside Pakistan. "Truckers wanted, must have a love for adventure."

Soon, Pakistan will conclude a new treaty with its tribes to heal enmities over past US support; losses through the Torkham line will likely steepen dramatically. Russia has been watching this devolving situation closely, and Vladimir Putin offered a supply line through Russia at the last NATO meeting, but certainly not for free. They didn't take him up on it (yet). US supplies going through Russia to fight al-Qaeda packs enough irony to prostrate intelligence services with howls of helpless laughter. The only people keeping straight faces are the grunts and the Bush Administration. Here's what the Pakis have to say about it:

Adm. Eric T. Olson, the commander of United States Special Operations Command, held a round-table discussion with a group of civilian Pakistani leaders to sound them out on the possibility of cross-border raids by American forces. He was told in no uncertain terms that from the Pakistani point of view it was a bad idea, said one of the participants.

Instead, Pakistani officials are trying to restore calm to their country, which was rattled by a record number of suicide attacks last year. Within days, they are expected to strike a peace accord with Pakistan’s own militants that makes no mention of stopping the infiltrations. In fact, Pakistani counterinsurgency operations have stopped during the new government’s negotiations with the militants.

“Pakistan will take care of its own problems, you take care of Afghanistan on your side,” said Owari Ghani, the governor of North-West Frontier Province, who is also President Pervez Musharraf’s representative in charge of the neighboring tribal areas.

Mr. Ghani, a key architect of the pending peace accord, believes along with many other Pakistani leaders that the United States is floundering in the war in Afghanistan. Pakistan, he said, should not be saddled with America’s mistakes, especially if a solution involved breaching Pakistan’s sovereignty, a delicate matter in a nation where sentiment against the Bush administration runs high.

“Pakistan is a sovereign state,” he said. “NATO is in Afghanistan; it’s time they did some soldiering.”

Pakistan's Dictator Urges Acceptance Of Election Results

Musharraf's party (the PML, or Pakistan Muslim League) took a beating at the polls today, and both the results and his response may serve to loosen the lid on Pakistan's pressure cooker. It appears he's going to peacefully hand over power, a decidedly rare event for a dictator. The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) appears set to take a majority in the National Assembly, making this a martyr's victory for the slain Benazir Bhutto. Despite fears of terrorist attacks at the polls, there was no major violence, and turnout was 42 percent. via Sify News:

"Instead of crying foul, we should all show magnanimity," he said during a programme on state-run TV. All parties "must accept the results gracefully", he said.

In the face of challenges like extremism and terrorism confronting the country, it is important for Pakistan to stand united and exhibit reconciliation instead of confrontation.

"The election is the voice of the nation and we all, including myself, should accept these results," he said, adding there is a need for political reconciliation to ensure a secure and stable democracy in the country.

He lauded the law enforcement agencies, Election Commission and other authorities for providing effective security to ensure that the elections were free, fair, transparent and peaceful.

The "Tribal Belt"

My friend Still Life Living alerted me to analysts on NPR who kept referring, in the kind of catchy-code from which surges are spun, to a "tribal belt" in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Perhaps by that phrasing we are meant to believe that pesky tribes, though poorer than Africans, are the problem. (Oops. Pardon me. Hang on a sec while I spray my office with Rant-B-Gone.....ok, it seems to be helping. Aaaah. Blood flow, good. Air, check. Al-righty, then.)

It would probably be best to simply look at a few maps. This is the most volatile border in the world, territory where our past sins, unknown as they may be, are manifold; clicking on any of the maps shows closer views. The conflict locus:


The tribe probably targeted most by the "tribal belt" descriptor, which is but one of more than thirty others in 'Afghakistan:'


The Federally Administrated (Unaided, Uncontrolled) Tribal Areas:

Pakistan is unwilling to let the tribal areas inside its borders go because of a deep love for denuded, arid mountains, increasingly hostile refugees, dust, and a bracing climate. (All maps courtesy of the helpful Jesus del Norte.)

More Wag, Less Bark, And How To Beat Al-Qaeda

Happy 2008! Here's to looking forward to a change in direction by this November, one which will see the world's woes begin to mend. Far from being a utopian sentiment, it's still possible to defuse worse war to come by wise accommodation, application of Realpolitik, and perceptive leadership. As Machiavelli would say, "when my people yield I push, when my people push I yield."

BushCo and Al-Qaeda have a lot in common. They both are condemnatory of the West, and believe its institutions, philosophies, and societies are morally bankrupt, even doomed. Selling Western ideals short is tempting, but the world's future may well not boil down to a binary game of social darwinism vs. theocracy. I'd put my money on Plato over BushCo or even Osama Bin Laden any day, and honoring social contracts, treaties, and binding accords, if such can be accomplished with former friends and enemies, is a far more efficient repository for faith.

First, a state of the current affairs: Pakistan People's Party leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in the military fortress city of Rawalpindi in 2007, on a Wednesday evening in December, presumably by those who wish to re-establish a Muslim caliphate. For the past 10 years, the United States has fed a stunt-man in Pakistan billions of dollars to keep things like this from happening, and suddenly, it feels shortchanged. Predictably. Yet predictability is no consolation from having to witness more brutal ineptitude in the short-sheeted Global War On Terror (GWOT), US policies characterized by wooden-headedness, crash-and-burn ignorance, and unswerving arrogance.

"Muslim Domino Theory" analysts are now publicly defining Pakistan as the front line against Muslim extremism (can they say, "Duhhh?"), and the US is sending Special Forces units to train 'Frontier Corps' to keep the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in line. It should be obvious how viscerally sick about 75% of the 160 million Pakistanis are of the US, and how disastrous further efforts to violently meddle in their internal affairs will be. It's like putting out a campfire with gasoline, and the flare of Bhutto's death was the 'whoosh.' She shouldn't have been there in the first place, the assassination was nearly certain to occur, as was the violence and chaos which has followed.

The Bush Administration had brokered a "power-sharing arrangement" between Bhutto and dictator Pervez Musharraf, sending her back (to be greeted by a huge car bomb in Karachi) earlier this Fall. It appears Musharraf forcefully declined the shotgun marriage, and the Wahabist sympathies of his junior officers denote strong complicity. Like chess neophytes, BushCo led and imperiled their queen too early. Neither neo-cons nor realists have any viable option to regain a semblance of control, and they have no Plan B but to send in Negroponte and the death squads. To "bring the evil-doers to justice," as His Lowness monotonously observed, will be next to impossible in 'Afghakistan,' nothing like it was in El Salvador or Guatemala. Attempting to do so will fracture an already fissured country.

So how to prevail, in Pakistan and elsewhere? First, governments wishing to blunt the effects of a strong socio-religious movement would not wave red flags in front of its nose, and would not idiotically attempt to bomb, occupy, and torture its innumerable adherents into submission. Aside from morality, the sheer scale precludes effective use of force. A government or coalition wanting to win would follow a simpler, time-tested course:

1) Understand
2) Parlay
3) Bribe
4) Marginalize
5) Splinter

What is known as "Al-Qaeda" is simultaneously a very deep-rooted revivalist and nascent protestant movement. It was seeded by long Western occupations and militarization of the Mid-east, nurtured by Muslims reading and interpreting the Koran for themselves, and triggered by internet-age communications. In historical significance and effect, Al-Qaeda is akin to Luther in Leipzig when he kicked off Protestantism, hanging up broadsheets stating that commoners had a right to read and think about the Bible, the existing Church was corrupt and incorrect. Like Luther and his supporters, the Muslim reformers want a return to spiritual purity of thought to exist in their religion's original form, and to reject the grossly abusive, sclerotic theocracies which currently claim authority. Trying to repress these urges is like plugging a pressure cooker.

The Catholic church tried to force the genies of Lutheranism back into their pressure cooker, plunging Europe into a hundred raging years of "Long War" during which it suffered defeat. The Church could instead have chosen to co-opt Luther's movement, dilute his power, and wait for the internal inconsistencies of his philosophy to take hold. Given time, revolting bishops would interpret the Bible differently from Luther and each other, a hundred groups waiting to bicker, splinter, and war. Luther was no stand-in for the authority of a Pope, and the Catholic church might well have prevailed over the Reformation through mere patience. Instead, it hoisted itself, and many but not nearly enough heretics, on its own petard. As a new central spiritual authority and commoners reading the Bible were natural enemies then, so are a caliphate and commoners interpreting the Koran now. They will fall asunder, all the faster by granting them a measure of credence in the meantime.

Just as the Catholic Church was unwilling to accept less absolute control over Europe in exchange for continuing primacy, the US refuses to accept loss of control and pursue a multipolar future. Pakistan represents loss of control, and it will continue to thwart the empire's will. The welcome mat has been taken inside, and much of the islamic world will take its cues from that symbol. America can't stop the looming civil wars there, and can't stop any future national wars against Afghanistan, Iran, or India. Power vacuums get filled, and there's plenty of stuffing already in and around Pakistan.

Rather than fighting a 'Long War,' the US and the West should meet with the Taliban, should parlay with Al-Qaeda, and should make reparations. The Guantanamo detainees should be released, shown kindness, and their families should be lavishly compensated. Troops should get out of Iraq before it gets hot again. George W. Bush should be scapegoated and, at his blessed departure, take upon his head the blame shared by many others, be they Democratic, Independent, or Republican.

Yes, this clean slate approach is a "perfect world," but it is also strategically sound. Al-Qaeda's propellant isn't "hating us for our freedoms," but annoyance at having Western-made spiked cleats on their necks for a hundred years. Moving even conservatively in the direction of Jiu-Jitsu will erode Al-Qaeda's prime impetus, and that erosion spells victory for all sides.

Never Underestimate The Power Of Carefully Worded Nonsense

(Update: There's probably a Third Upside to Martial Law in Pakistan in addition to the two below...if the US and UK "distance themselves" from Pervez Musharraf, might this not be good for him domestically amongst certain, shall we say, "authority-minded people?" In other words give him more credibility amongst islamic fundamentalists, and thus more room for manoeuvre.)

The US and UK are maintaining shocked moues of disapproval re: Musharraf's Martial Law frolics. Does anyone seriously think Musharraf, who gets his military aid from (and has his personal wealth in) the United States, failed to inform the disapproving parties exactly what he was going to do, and when? Pakistan is claiming both the White House and Downing street sanctioned the crack-down. Hmm...whom ta believe?

Even if you're not a fan of dictatorships (might be time to bone up on them!), Musharraf is still one seriously smart, very effective guy. If he's pulling out the stops now, it should be telling us something. There are at least two immediate upsides, one obvious, one less:

1) keeps the lid on a Boiling Pot
2) distracts attention away from Iran

Pakistan Declares Martial Law

A year ago, exiled former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto began offering US leadership a magic bullet: if they helped her become Prime Minister of Pakistan, she could iron out all its problems. Musharraf was leaned on and was proffered a populist coalition government with Bhutto, an arrangement he eventually accepted. Last week, however, Bhutto's promises and populist appeal didn't last past the car bombs in Karachi.

Today, Musharraf declared martial law, deposed the head of Pakistan's Supreme Court, and suspended the constitution and elections slated for January. The US expressed disappointment, but has no other option but to support Musharraf. It will continue to press him to make war upon Pakistan's outlying tribes in an effort to salvage the 'NATO' effort in Afghanistan. This is not a pragmatic course. The Bush Administration is probably best known for its bungling of Iraq. By strategic comparison to Afghanistan and Pakistan, however, Iraq is probably a Safe House.

In the past months, Musharraf has sent tens of thousands of soldiers into areas bordering Afghanistan, with poor results. Sympathy for the Taliban there is strong, and hundreds (if not thousands) of government soldiers simply surrendered rather than fight. Throughout the rest of Pakistan there is sympathy for Islamic utopian ideals, and even more widespread disgust for Amerian objectives which, to the average observer, appear to be imperialist. Martial law will turn moderates into strange bedfellows with extremists.

The religious parties in Pakistan are very well organized. The more Musharraf tries to use his army against "extremists" (Islamic rebels), the more his generals will have to subvert his orders. They know the will of their troops, and know Pakistan is on the precipice of transformation. Transformation into what no one may know, but 'Islamic extremists' and supporters of democracy won't put up with martial law for long. Together, they are now the latent power in that land. Musharraf is known as a "hard man with a hard job," and he would not have made this move if he had other options. It's just buying time. How much time is anyone's guess, but Pakistan appears set to splinter.

Hidden Histories & The Bombing Of Benazhir Bhutto

[Caught in sensual music all neglect the monuments of unaging intellect. At night old friends and such as me ate sushi in a Boomtown restaurant. At one point we discussed the assassination attempt on Benazhir Bhutto.]

What a terrible thing, hundreds of people blown apart. How big that bomb must've been.

Terrible for us, too.

Really? How so?

It's so because as you know we caused atomic bombs to be given to ul-Haq, the general who killed Bhutto's father in '79. Who went to Berkeley, by the way.

Tsha! Berkeley. Hotbed for hippie socialists.

First, we didn't trust India and still don't. The Bomb was quid pro quo for setting the biggest CIA station ever up in Islamabad. The Saudi Foreign Legion loaded donkeys with weapons, the donkeys climbed with Stinger missiles through the Wazir passes. Russian boys same age as me back then were riding around in trucks so they could get ambushed. The missiles messed up the helicopters, shot down some generals. The soldiers and half Russia got messed up on smack. With the Bomb, the CIA and Foggy Bottom raised alarms and tried to stop it but they got trumped and stifled by the same guys who run this Tom Clancy shit right now.

C'mon, you're talking crazy we would never have done no such thing. Give the bomb away to a bunch of Islamic fascists? No way.

Weren't you just foretelling how thin the world's thread is hanging and how the stock market's life should be feared? Whatever. Believe what they tell you Sunday morning. Pakistan has the nukes, it's got the people who'll use them. The means to deliver them. Probably the same people who tried to off Bhutto's daughter. Musharraf is so desperate to keep the lid on that he's bringing her in to form a coalition. The whole thing depends on a few people staying alive. Kinda like the country formerly known as Yugoslavia, but with nukes.

Stop it, you're cheering us up. Maybe you should go on Meet the Press! Talking like you're some kind of expert.

Yeah right. Monuments to our magnificence. They press the meat so flat we can receive wisdom like pizzas. Sing, baby, sing. Well maybe the truth can't compete with the Kabuki. But when the spin is spun and forgotten the truth stays in the ground like veins of gold. They stay put, can't get rid of 'em. They're right there waiting on forensics like CSI. Even after a thousand years someone like Ed Gibbon comes along, digs 'em up and sings out to Byzantium. He was way into the Roman Empire because he was thinking so hard about his own.

So you're saying Pakistan's going to go up?

Yep. Not saying they'll nuke somebody for sure, but maybe. If it happens, it'll escalate. And all this Iran shit is just a scarecrow. They want to bomb the only stable thing on the whole damned yellow brick road. Crazy mother#&*%ers. That axis of evil they kept pushing, it's stuck smack dab into Pakistan. Strapped onto us like a suicide bomb. Hey, I hear they're making a movie about Afghanistan called Charlie Wilson's War. Tom Hanks is in it. He's doing fantastic stuff now.

Yeah. I loved Band of Brothers. Let's drink to that. To Bands of Brothers, and to America!

[Clink. Clink. Clink.]

The Threat To Our Credibility Is Extremely Serious

As reported by Pravda on the Potomac, "Bush Aides See Failure in Fight with Al-Qaeda in Pakistan:"

WASHINGTON, July 17— President Bush’s top counterterrorism advisers acknowledged today that the strategy for fighting Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan had failed, as the White House released a grim new intelligence assessment that has forced the administration to consider more aggressive measures inside Pakistan.

More aggressive? Yeah. Storming the Red Mosque and blowing it up was like the Marx Brothers were throwing custard pies. Time to get tough and bring in The Three Stooges. In secret:

In weighing how to deal with the Al Qaeda threat in Pakistan, American officials have been meeting in recent weeks to discuss what some said was emerging as an aggressive new strategy that would include both public and covert elements. They said that there was growing concern that pinprick attacks against Al Qaeda targets are not enough, but that some new American measures might have to remain secret to avoid embarrassing General Musharraf.

Ms. Townsend declined to describe what may be alternative strategies for dealing with Al Qaeda’s threat in Pakistan, but acknowledged frustration that Al Qaeda had succeeding in rebuilding its infrastructure and its links to affiliates, while keeping Mr. bin Laden and his top lieutenants alive for nearly six years since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Finding a world-famous, wealthy six-foot-six Muslim trailing his kidney dialysis machine from hovel to hovel in one the poorest, most mountainous regions of the world? Who's also the spitting image of the Shroud of Turin? No wonder they can't find him. I have a little suggestion for Ms. Townsend: try looking for him in Riyadh. Right under the declination of your mendacious nose.

The Dance Of The Seven Realignments

To know, know, know her is to love, love, love her. Condi Rice just laid out the most transparent, nakedly comprehensive foreign policy since Andrew Jackson told Kit Carson to go West and kill every Indian he saw.* Writer David Ignatius has a chat with her and surfaces some quotes from it. Not to put too fine a point on it, Ignatius is a transmission device for national intelligence, and in "Rice's Strategic Reset," he gives her room to unwind and bask in the effects of her recent policy efforts. Bottom line, Condi is feeling pretty good about how the Mid-East is shaping up, and is ready for her Nobel Peace Prize.

There does appear to be progress at first glance. The US has been breathlessly explaining the threat posed by Iran to nations in the region, and has pimped the benefits of forming a coalition of NATO, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Israel to contain Khomeini's Islamic Revolution. Choosing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as the primary battering ram is natural, since it has been expanding membership steadily eastwards over the last decade to keep Russia in its place. Now NATO is conducting joint operations with Israel and Pakistan, and the US wants to induct both as full knights of the realm, even though they're a looong way from the North Atlantic. NATO as the security apparatus explains why there are British and German naval vessels presently patrolling off Beirut backing a Christian politician in Lebanon. Here is why Condi finally had a good hair day:

The administration's tougher stance against Iran arguably has already produced some results. Iran's firebrand president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, appears to be in political trouble with the ruling mullahs, in part because his reckless talk alienated other Muslims. But the strongest leverage against Iran appears to be the West's unified diplomatic coalition. "The Security Council resolution [condemning Iran's nuclear program and mandating mild sanctions] has had more of an effect than I thought it would," Rice said.

The UN Security Council Resolution against Iran's nuclear ambitions was a Dance of the Seven Veils, useful for amusement and distraction. Much as I love Condi, if she thinks China or Russia will enforce any of the Resolution's specifics, her head's not right. Iran has reined in the rhetoric of its President because it wins by waiting. Allow me to translate Condi's Miss Universe acceptance speech: by promising to maintain the status quo and apportioning future slices of the oil pie, the US feels it can move natural enemies to rapprochement and contain the Persian Plague they all hate. The State Department took the basic building block defined by the Iraq Study Group and started off by saying, "We can all agree that the specter of Iran with nukes is a bad idea, right?"

Well...no. The "we" in question can't agree, not even on that. This realignment, reset, whatever you want to call it (regurgitation?) is built on flimsy, flammable gauze because it ignores one key ISG recommendation, one uncomfortable reality, and one looming, incredibly telling and stupid contradiction.

First, the ISG recommendation it ignores is the necessity to engage Syria and Iran. Here is Her Bad Self on the subject:

The Bush administration's thinking about realignment helps explain why it has resisted engaging Syria and Iran, as recommended by the Baker-Hamilton report. As Rice put it, "You have a 'pan' movement, across the region. The war in Lebanon crystallized it for everyone. You can't just leave it there. . . . If you concentrate on engaging Syria and Iran, you may lose the chance to do the realignment."

In other words, the US blames Iran and Syria for Israel's defeat in Lebanon. This is funny-ha-ha. Didn't Israel first invade Lebanon, then get its ass kicked? It's not like Iran gave Hezbollah fighter planes to bomb Tel Aviv. Condi's plan assumes that Sunnis hate Shiites enough to be divided and conquered along an Iranian fault line. But the US is supporting Sunnis against Shiites, and vice-versa. Pitting tribal peoples against one another is a proven method for disuniting them, true, but the US is supporting Sunnis against Shiites in Lebanon and Afghanistan, then simultaneously supporting Shiites against Sunnis in Iraq. If I can notice the forked tongue flicking, the Saudis and the Pakis can, too. The "Reset" also ignores the fundamentally important fact that Iranian-style self-determination offers a better political solution to the peoples of the Mid-east than we do. It offers a way to balance Islam, parliamentary nationalism, and social modernism. They've got a better formula. That's why they're winning.

Second, the uncomfortable reality of Israel pollutes everything in the Mid-east. As the article states, the plan relies on peace between Palestine and Israel...later. Israel isn't getting out of Palestine. There is not even the slightest demonstration of an Israeli quid pro quo, and from Detroit to Jakarta, Palestine is a potent symbol for the West's oppression of Arabs and muslims. So you have to wonder where the optimism...oh, right...there is civil war blossoming amongst "the natives" in Lebanon and Palestine, and Condi can pat herself on the back for just having given billions of dollars to sow them (Sinoria and the Sunnis vs. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas vs. Fatah in Palestine). So there's the old colonial divide-and-conquer fallback, but there are limits to how much to rely on that tendency. If I recall correctly, Saudis and Pakis were dancing in the streets when Israel was beaten in Lebanon. Of course, I could be wrong, because staunch allies would never do that.

Finally, there is an internal contradiction which shoots this plan through the head like a 7.62mm AK-47 bullet: if democracy spreads in the region any further, the administration might have to turn it into a parking lot to make it cooperate. When Islamic people vote, they elect Islamic democracies. Get it, Condi? That's where the trouble is coming from in Lebanon, and Palestine, and Iraq! It's BECAUSE they held elections, you preposterous fools!!

And elsewhere, where Islamic people can't vote, they're losing patience faster than they would've if the region had remained democracy-free. Getting very grumpy, in fact. For example, the Musharraf regime in Pakistan will be lucky to last another year before it falls to the generals, whose troops are largely Taliban sympathizers. When Taliban fighters cross the Pakistan border and head into Afghanistan to make attacks, they go through the border checkpoints manned by Pakistani soldiers, and these soldiers lift the gates and say, "Happy hunting, brothers! Bring us the head of an English-man!" Inviting Pakistan into NATO makes about as much sense as inviting Osama bin Laden to sleep in Lincoln's Bedroom. But then maybe that would make sense, because if Pakistan or Saudi Arabia have democratic elections, they'd both elect Osama as President.

Honestly, I think Condi is doing pretty well with a bad hand and doing a glorious job (as usual) of lying her ass off. The Realignment makes perfect sense within the philosophically institutional straitjacket of the Bush Administration. All the US can do is forestall its eclipse in the region for an intermission. The Faisal royal family will soon retreat from Saudi Arabia into cushioned exile, and the Bin Laden family will openly rule what it already runs: a pan-Arabic Islamic coalition. And then Iran, because its social revolution offers a better template for livable, prosperous compromise between Islam and modernism, will become dominant in the region over Saudi wahabism, which, socially, represents a return to medieval feudalism. Iran has already won politically, and the US would be far more effective in its diplomacy and its wars if it recognized that fact. Apparently, it would rather back unsteady allies propped athwart failing regimes, give them a make-over, strut, and hope for the best.

Ku Klux Karma

Pakistani secret police beat up a New York Times reporter and seized her laptop and notes. Carlotta Gall was planning on interviewing sources in Western Pakistan near the Afghan border, i.e., places the Taliban control. Here are some of the responses on the ABC news blotter chastising the reporter for her nosiness:

Liberalism is a mental disorder. The New York Times and the Anti-American culture they've developed within their shameful organization is proof. They are NOT on our side. I believe they are traitors hiding behind our sacred Constitution.

Posted by: B. Smith | Dec 26, 2006 2:53:17 PM

This reporter got what was comming to her, and she can whine and cry all she wants, but there is no ACLU to save her over there, the Pakastani government does not engage in liberal politically correct games.

Posted by: james bell | Dec 26, 2006 3:00:27 PM

Trying to muster some sympathy here..
Uhhhgh...nope can't do it. Couldn't have happened to a nicer 'news' source. Lucky you still have your stupid head.

Posted by: Toddam Baad | Dec 26, 2006 3:05:47 PM

Well, dust off the red arm bands and call me Herr Gauleiter. Umm, a little recap here: Western Pakistan is where 9/11 was hatched. On the Paki side of the border. I'll look up a few old sources and follow up.

Footnote #59: Nailing The Failing

I've been reading Rory Stewart's travelogue of his 2002 winter walk through Afghanistan, "The Places in Between." It's not just a dynamite book of its kind, it's the only book. In it he makes a point which should be ever-obvious about the Prozac Policies of this generation of Western governments, and comes close to nailing why we're failing. We want the benefits of colonies without the responsibilities, yet our systems deny the inclination, imagination, and the persistence required to understand the cultures underlying the regimes we've changed:

Critics have accused this new breed of administrators of neocolonialism. But in fact their approach is not that of a nineteenth-century colonial officer. Colonial administrations may have been racist and exploitative, but they did at least work seriously at the business of understanding the people they were governing. They recruited people prepared to spend their entire careers in dangerous provinces of a single alien nation. They invested in teaching administrators and military officers of the local language. They established effective departments of state, trained a local elite, and continued in the countless academic studies of their subjects through institutes and museums, royal geographical societies, and royal botanical gardens. They balanced the local budget and generated fiscal revenue because if they didn't their home government would rarely bail them out. If they failed to govern fairly, the population would mutiny. Postconflict experts have got the prestige without the effort or the stigma of imperialism. Their implicit denial of the difference between cultures is the new mass brand of international intervention. Their policy fails but no one notices. There are no credible monitoring bodies and there is no one to take formal responsibility. Individual officers are never in any one place and rarely in any one organization long enough to be adequately assessed. The colonial enterprise could be judged by the security or revenue it delivered, but neocolonialists have no such performance criteria. In fact their very uselessness benefits them. By avoiding any serious action or judgement they, unlike their colonial predecessors, are able to escape accusations of racism, exploitation, and oppression. Perhaps it is because no one requires more than a charming illusion of action in the developing world. If the policy makers know little about the Afghans, the public knows even less, and few care about policy failure when the effects are felt only in Afghanistan.

In reading his on-the-ground experiences while simply trying to make it across the country alive, the primary conflict in Afghanistan emerges naturally; a conflict not between Coalition Forces and insurgents but one between a social revolution sponsored by Iran (represented by Ismail Khan), and an ancient Islamic feudal system in the process of being co-opted by the Taliban (sponsored by oil-rich Sunni families). Both have widespread popular support and deep cultural sympathies, and both see Hamid Karzai as a clownish American puppet unworthy of annoyance. But Rory's wrong about one thing in his 59th Footnote above: the effects of failure in Afghanistan will be felt far beyond its borders. Today Pakistan announced the acceptance of a Taliban mini-state in Waziristan after a four-year war and several recent treaties have failed to mitigate its influence.

What Passeth Beyond All Understanding

The level of uncertainty is now at maximum. We who hold our ears down to the iron horse's rail like Tonto can't tell what's coming because the vibrations are so long and strong we've never heard anything like them before, and can only resort for comparison to legends our grandmothers told us. For example, I feared and predicted the US would attack across the borders of Afghanistan into Pakistan, and yesterday, its fighter-bombers did. Both targets were religious schools, mashrams, where children are taught in seminary to regard the West as the enemy. Our armies, bureaucrats, and politicians consider these schools to be sources of the Taliban, the safe harbors of al-Qaeda, but our leaders are deaf to the groans, creaks, and shrieks I hear coming through the tracks. Against what's coming, there is no witch's spell which can be spoken, no guided missile which can keep our myths from being broken.

In the islamic world, these schools are part of a Great Reformation every bit as profound as what happened after Martin Luther said Christians were free to read the Bible for themselves. A hundred years of war and more were fought over that proposition, and our country is acting as if it's the Catholic Church of the 1500s. The number of dead at the schools were said to be 18 and 80, respectively, most of them children. The Western Press claimed that Pakistani jets carried out the attacks. Every Pakistani source denies that, but in the end, it doesn't matter which. This I know, the dead children's teeth were white as snow and their blood was as red as my son's. Pakistan is about to go up in Protestant coup d'etat. In my self-appointed role as Tonto, I must lift my ear and tell the Lone Ranger that what's coming is horrible and big, big, big, Ki-mo-saa-bei.

(Source for the bombing information was Mary-Louise Kelly's dispatch from Pakistan.)