Afghan Journal

Happy New Year Mr President

U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed the Persian New Year (1390, which started on Monday) with a video message, as he has done every year of his presidency.

Nawroz festival (also spelt nowroz, nowruz and several other ways) falls on spring equinox and is celebrated across a wide swathe of Central Asia and surrounding areas — it is a public holiday in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kashmir and Kyrgyzstan, according to Wikipedia.

But Obama’s message was addressed almost entirely to Iranians. “This is a holiday for the Iranian people to spend time with friends and family,” Obama said, launching a discussion of the country’s past and future challenges, after just a briefest of  “best wishes to all who are celebrating Nowruz in the United States and around the world”.

His choice of words did not go unnoticed in Afghanistan, currently host to almost 100,000 U.S. troops. The popular holiday was once banned as “un-Islamic” by the hardline Taliban — who U.S. troops are fighting — and has been  celebrated enthusiastically again since their downfall in 2001 .

“President Obama’s Nawroz message was very discouraging not a single mention of Afghans. I hope he knows, Afghanistan celebrates,” said BBC journalist Bilal Sarwary in a tweet.

“So Obama thinks Nawroz is only celebrated in Iran? He bypassed Afghan, Tajik, Uzbek, Kazakh, Turkmen, Kyrgyz STANS & some other non-Stans” said another tweet from user AbasDaiyar.

‘alibomaye’ was even more direct. “Obama gave a Nowroz message to Iran but not Afghanistan and that’s so laaame”.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Academics, experts appeal to Obama to back Taliban talks

A group of academics, journalists and NGO workers have published an open letter to President Barack Obama appealing to him to support direct negotiations with the Taliban leadership.

The letter argues that the situation on the ground on Afghanistan is much worse than a year ago. "With Pakistan's active support for the Taliban, it is not realistic to bet on a military solution," it says.

"Like it or not, the Taliban are a long-term part of the Afghan political landscape, and we need to try and negotiate with them in order to reach a diplomatic settlement. The Taliban’s leadership has indicated its willingness to negotiate, and it is in our interests to talk to them. In fact, the Taliban are primarily concerned about the future of Afghanistan and not – contrary to what some may think -- a broader global Islamic jihad. Their links with Al-Qaeda – which is not, in any case, in Afghanistan any more -- are weak. We need to at least try to seriously explore the possibility of a political settlement in which the Taliban are part of the Afghan political system."

"The current contacts between the Karzai government and the Taliban are not enough. The United States must take the initiative to start negotiations with the insurgents and frame the discussion in such a way that American security interests are taken into account. In addition, from the point of view of Afghanistan’s most vulnerable populations – women and ethnic minorities, for instance – as well as with respect to the limited but real gains made since 2001, it is better to negotiate now rather than later, since the Taliban will likely be stronger next year."

"This is why we ask you to sanction and support a direct dialogue and negotiation with the Afghan Taliban leadership residing in Pakistan. A ceasefire and the return of the insurgency leadership in Afghanistan could be part of a de-escalation process leading to a coalition government. "

The United States, which is due to release a review of strategy in Afghanistan next week, has so far shown little inclination to engage in serious negotiations with the Taliban leadership, although it has accepted that ultimately there will have to a political solution to a war that cannot be won militarily.  There is also little sign it is about to change its stance of ramping up military operations -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates just returned from a trip to Afghanistan where he said the U.S. strategy was working.

The letter, however, is still worth reading and particular scrolling through the list of names of those who signed up to it.  If nothing else, it serves as a useful marker from regional experts that they believe the Taliban are willing to negotiate.

India, U.S. build ties, with an eye on China

In the end, Pakistan wasn’t the unspoken elephant in the room when U.S. President Barack Obama sat down for talks with Indian leaders. Far from tip-toeing around India’s Pakistan problem which complicates America’s own troubled war there and in Afghanistan, Obama spoke clearly and squarely.

Safe havens for militants in Pakistan wouldn’t be tolerated, he said, in what was music to Indian ears. But he also left nobody in doubt Washington wanted India to improve ties with Pakistan, saying New Delhi had the greatest stake in the troubled neighbour’s stability.

But the one elephant that the leaders of India and the United States didn’t name but which was written all over the flurry of announcements made during the three-day trip was China. Beginning with the headline-grabbing endorsement of India’s bid for a permanent place on the U.N. Security Council to maritime cooperation and a surprise partnership to promote food security in Africa, the United States seems to have gone the extra mile to bolster New Delhi’s credentials as a global player.

The one country that would be watching this most closely is China where some would see America’s deepening ties with India, a continent-size country with a billion-plus people, as aimed at countering its rise.

B.Raman, a  former head of India’s Research and Analysis wing, writes that the announcement by India and the United States  to work together for stability in the Indian Ocean region as well as the Pacific  will draw concern in Beijing, which has its own fears of U.S. encirclement.

“Thus, the partnership will seek to promote peace and security across Asia in general and in East and Central Asia in particular, strengthen maritime security and work for a peaceful settlement of maritime disputes. Though China has not been named, Beijing will have reasons to be concerned over the implications of this formulation.”

from India Insight:

India votes for Obama as storm clouds gather at home

U.S. President Barack Obama is facing a storm of voter discontent but in India where he travels three days after this week's huge congressional elections, he's already a winner. More than seven out of 10 Indians endorse his leadership, saying they believe he will do the right thing in world affairs, a Pew poll released in late October showed.

Contrast that with his approval ratings at home just as he heads into the critical midterm election. More people disapprove of his job performance (47 percent) than the number who approve (45 percent), according to the latest CBS news/New York Times opinion poll.

It's not just Obama who gets the thumbs-up. Indians are generally well-disposed toward America even when the rest of the world is less inclined to. According to the Pew poll, nearly two-thirds (66 percent) express a favourable opinion of the U.S., although this is down from 76 percent last year. By contrast, only 51 percent Indians  rate long-time ally Russia favourably, and even fewer feel this way about the EU (36 percent) or China (34 percent).  Indeed, Indians don't even share the common belief that the United States has increasingly been acting on its own. Some (83 percent) said the U.S. takes the interests of countries like India into account when it makes foreign policy decisions -- the highest percentage among the 21 nations surveyed outside the U.S.

Quite extraordinary, the unequivocal vote of confidence in America even though the Obama administration has been more measured toward India than its predecessor; the strategic warmth that marked the Bush years having cooled off a bit.  It's quite possible that Obama's trip this week may turn out to be a game changer, but at the moment  for every positive aspect of their relationship, you can find another such as trade, climate change where they are on opposite sides.

India, as the Pentagon famously put it not long ago,  is neither an adversary nor an ally. It should know; for the last three years as this story notes, the Pentagon has been trying to get a logistical support agreement that will allow U.S. military planes to refuel in India. But politicians have agonised over the decision, worried that it will drive the country deeper into America's embrace, even though ordinary Indians may not share those misgivings.

America's popularity in India is in stark contrast to its standing in next door Pakistan, a close ally where it is spending $7.5 billion in civilian aid, not to mention a $2 billion military package approved last week. A similar poll on attitudes in Pakistan conducted by Pew in July found that despite the billions of dollars in civil and military aid, the United States had a serious image problem there. Nearly 60 percent of those polled in Pakistan described the U.S. as an enemy, while just 11 percent saw it as a partner.  Obama, barely two years in office, is already deeply unpopular. Only 8 percent of Pakistanis thought that he will do the right thing in world affairs, his lowest rating among the 22 nations that Pew surveyed.

U.S. engagement with Pakistan has been far longer and deeper than India. It's now virtually involved in an undeclared war against al Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan that most people there see as a blatant violation of its rights as a sovereign nation. The results of the survey, in that sense, cannot be compared with India. But some people, at some point, may start asking if its really worth America's while to invest in Pakistan when it only seems to turn the country further against it.

WikiLeaks: shaking the foundations of U.S. policy toward Pakistan

A Pakistani security official stands near a burning vehicle after it was attacked in Chaman in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, along the Afghan border on May 19, 2010.

On the face of it, you could ask what’s new about the latest disclosures of Pakistani involvement in the Taliban insurgency while accepting massive U.S. aid to fight Islamic militancy of all hues. Hasn’t this been known all along — something that a succession of top U.S. officials and military leaders have often said, sometimes  couched in diplomatic speech and sometimes rather clearly?

It was only last week that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said there must be somebody in the Pakistani government who knew Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts. Coming from America’s top diplomat, it couldn’t be more blunt.

Then why is a trove of over 90,000 classified military documents released by WikiLeaks on the war in Afghanistan causing so much consternation? Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, says  it is now much more difficult to deny or dodge the truths that everyone has been aware of:

Government officials can always deflect news stories simply by crossing their fingers and waiting for the story to sink in a haze of oil spills and Lindsay Lohan extravaganzas. Now, however, “proof” is there in the black-and-white of secret U.S. documents, compliments of anti-war WikiLeaks. Even if one does not believe that the information contained in every one of these reports is accurate (some do sound rather bizarre), and even if little in the reports can be corroborated independently, the very volume of the “secret” material is overwhelming and plausible—and yes, seductively “secret.”

The White House condemned the leak, saying it could threaten national security and endanger the lives of Americans. Islamabad said leaking unprocessed reports from the battlefield was irresponsible and added that Pakistan had paid in blood fighting militants.

from India Insight:

India and the U.S. – strategic or symbolic partners?

With initial euphoria over last week's U.S.-India talks on the wane, it may be time to take a long, hard look at what New  Delhi actually gained from the first official "strategic dialogue" between the two sides.

The timing was just right as Washington implements its AfPak plan, the correct gestures were made and U.S. officials went out of their way to convince the Indian media all was fine between the world's two biggest democracies.

And while it is true that India-U.S. relations are now at their best, the June 2 talks between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and India's Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna showed that though the two may have made progress on important but second-tier issues such as trade, agriculture and technology, there remains a disconnect on a strategic level.

Many in India seem worried the talks did not produce the deliverables New Delhi was looking for -- even though President Obama has backed India's $1.2 billion development initiatives in Afghanistan, Washington may not have been able to convince New Delhi it was balancing India's interest in the war-torn country vital to its security.

Neither was there any talk of pushing Pakistan to go after the men India has persistently blamed for attacks on Indian cities, including Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed.

Of course there are things the United States wants India to do: ratify the nuclear liability bill to open India’s $150 billion nuclear power market to American firms, scale down its public support for Iran, open up the economy and expedite the award of contracts for 126 fighter jets in which U.S. companies are a strong contender for the multi-billion deal.

Both sides have acknowledged the lingering doubts they have about each other. Clinton admitted to unresolved problems as India frets that the Obama administration does not accord it the importance it received under the preceding government of George Bush.

Afghanistan’s violent summer: 400 attacks in a week

U.S. Central Command chief General David Petraeus last month warned residents of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar of a violent summer ahead as his troops prepared to take full control of the southern province (with the same name) from the Taliban.  He spoke of  the insurgents  taking “horrific action” to stop the military advance into their spiritual centre.

Some of it may already be unfolding although the offensive is still thought to be weeks away. In one week alone toward the end of April there were 400 attacks , 60 percent of them roadside bombs. Which makes it 57 attacks in a day, telling you more than anything else the deteriorating military situation in the country.

Juan Cole, a commentator on Middle East and South Asia issues, writes on his blog Informed Comment that this level of violence is what characterised Iraq in March 2005 before the Sunni-Shiite war. “The year 2005 was a bloody year in Iraq, and nobody but then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld doubted we were mired in a vicious guerrilla war,” he says.

There were 1,000 roadside bomb attacks in April 2010, twice as many as in April the previous year. Last weekend the Taliban announced they would launch an offensive against U.S. and NATO troops beginning Monday, the day Afghan President Hamid Karzai began meetings in Washington to repair ties clouded by mutual recriminations.

The promised offensive hasn’t materialised, at least not on the scale the insurgents seemed to suggest,  but the level of ordinary violence is itself is higher than at any point in the recent past.

Guest Column: Getting Obama’s Afghan policy back on track

(C. Uday Bhaskar is a New Delhi-based strategic analyst. The views expressed in the column are his own).

By C. Uday Bhaskar

The May 12 summit meeting in the White House between visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his host, U.S. President Barack Obama comes against the backdrop of the mercifully aborted May 1 terrorist bombing incident in New York’s Times Square.

From the barrage of news and commentary that floods various media outlets here in Washington DC, it is evident that the Obama Af-Pak policy unveiled with considerable fanfare last year will be in for detailed and contested policy review.

Immediate U.S. interests apart – including the Obama second term, the stakes for the long-term stability of the entire southern Asian region and the troubled Muslim populace in the scattered diaspora ranging from North America to west Europe are immense and complex.

Afghanistan came into global focus with the tragic enormity of September 11, 2001 when it was under the control of the Taliban and the obscurantist, anti-liberal ideology espoused by this group had earlier impacted India’s security interests in the December 1999 aircraft hijacking episode.

Karzai, the West and the diplomatic marriage from hell

One of my Kabul press corps colleagues once described covering President Hamid Karzai’s government and the Western diplomats who are supposed to be supporting it as a lot like being friends with a couple while they go through a savage divorce. We reporters hop back and forth, from cocktail party to quiet lunch to private briefing, listening to charming Afghans and Westerners -– many of whom we personally like very much — say outrageously nasty things about each other. Usually, the invective is whispered “off the record” by both sides, so you, dear reader, miss out on the opportunity to learn just how dysfunctional one of the world’s most important diplomatic relationships has become.

Over the past few weeks, the secret got out. Karzai — in a speech that was described as an outburst but which palace insiders say was carefully planned — said in public what his allies have been muttering in private for months: that Western diplomats orchestrated the notorious election debacle last year that saw a third of his votes thrown out for fraud. The White House and State Department were apoplectic: “disturbing”, “untrue”, “preposterous” they called it. Peter Galbraith, the U.S. diplomat who was the number two U.N. official in Kabul during last year’s election, went on TV and said he thought Karzai might be crazy or on drugs. Karzai’s camp’s response: Who’s being preposterous now?

Then, like every good marital fight, it was suddenly over. There were Hillary Clinton and Bob Gates assuring Americans that Karzai is, in fact a “reliable partner”. Karzai, without taking back a word of his speech, let it be known that he held no grudges. On Saturday, the Afghan president and the United Nations sealed the deal by agreeing new rules for the next election.

Readers can be forgiven for wondering what on earth is the matter with some of these people.

For the record: I’m no doctor, but I think the Afghan president is probably not a mentally ill drug addict. Nor do I think Western officials were trying to overthrow him by engineering ballot fraud last year. I do think both sides are doing themselves real harm by shouting at each other.

There are still a few diplomats that Karzai likes, and some who like Karzai. And this is Afghanistan, after all, a country where “enemies” are often just the people you are trying to kill until they become your friends. Karzai is a master at working with people he distrusts: many of the members of his cabinet belong to groups that were –- literally — at war with each other at various times. His first vice president was once a rival faction’s security boss who threw him in jail.

While Karzai and the West dueled, Afghans lost

While Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his American backers were having a very public row, 170 people were killed in political violence in Afghanistan last week, foreign affairs expert Juan Cole points out on his blog Informed Comment.

There were 117 incidents according to the Afghan interior ministry, four times the number for the previous week. Most of the violence was in the south casting a shadow over supposed U.S. gains in the region, Cole says. Indeed residents in Marjah, the site of a major military offensive against the Taliban, are complaining of lack of security, he quotes a report by the local Pajwhok news agency as saying.

Residents say there is poor security, that civilians are caught in the cross-fire between U.S./Afghanistan National Army troops and the Taliban, and that it is dangerous to work their fields (Marjah is a set of agricultural villages and scattered farm houses).

They say that the Afghanistan police have not provided even the level of security that the Taliban once had, the report says. Security for villagers remains precarious in Marjah, Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson who led the Marine assault told the Los Angeles Times in an interview this week. The Taliban were still planting explosives and intimidating people.

And all this while Karzai and U.S. officials were having a go at each other with the Afghan leader even threatening to join the Taliban if the West didn’t back off. (It’s another question that the Taliban may not admit him to their ranks straightaway, might put him on trial instead).

Karzai is getting support from an unlikely quarter though. Liz Cheney has attacked President Barack Obama for his cooling relationship with Karzai.