Global News Journal

from Afghan Journal:

Standing by your friends:India, U.S. push ahead with nuclear deal

For all the hand-wringing in India over getting sidelined by the United States in its regional strategy,  the two countries have gone ahead and just completed an important deal on the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel from reactors to be built in India.

The agreement is a key step in the implementation of the India-U.S.  civil nuclear pact which grants India access to nuclear fuel and technology, even though it has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Under the agreement India can reprocess U.S.-originated nuclear material under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards which in itself is a symbolic concession, according to the Washington Post. It said that the Indians were a bit concerned about the idea of American officials running around their  nuclear reactors , a sort of  "a symbolic, sovereignty issue" as  a source in the U.S. nuclear industry said. They would rather submit to oversight by the IAEA, which thus far is a model the United States has only followed for nuclear collaboration with  Europe and Japan.

Considering that America has gone to war in Iraq on the grounds that it was building weapons of mass destruction and is at this time pushing for tougher sanctions against Iran for its nuclear programme, it is indeed a big deal. It can  also potentially reshape the strategic landscape in South Asia with the world virtually granting legitimacy to India as a nuclear weapons state while denying that to Pakistan.

Pushing the accord through in the U.S. has  been a "wrenching affair" as the Indian Express put it,  riding against the current of proliferation concerns worldwide. Why should the world be making an exception for India just as it is breathing down hard on Iran and North Korea to roll back their nuclear programmes ? Where, after all, is the iron-clad guarantee that India won't divert some of the  plutonium extracted from the imported spent fuel to its strategic weapons programme, the experts ask.  Blatant double standards, the Union of Concerned Scientists said.

No wonder Pakistan asked for a similar deal at high-level talks in Washington last week aimed at putting their tempestuous ties on a more even keel.

And so in that sense, the India-US nuclear deal, really the crown jewel of a strategic partnership, will be the elephant in the room as Washington, Islamabad, and New Delhi tackle a complicated three-way relationship in one of the world's most unstable regions.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

India and Pakistan: a personal view of the water wars

 It was so long in the making,  so utterly predictable, that the news that Pakistan and India are now arguing over water carries with it the dull ache of inevitability.

When I was living in Delhi, which I left in 2004, a few analysts were already warning that the next war between Pakistan and India would be over water, rather than over Kashmir.  The mountain glaciers which fed the rivers which are the lifeline of both countries were melting, they said, and sooner or later India and Pakistan would blame each other for climate change. I did not take it that seriously at the time. Not even after seeing first hand how far the Siachen glacier - the world's longest glacier - had receded.  

Nor indeed did it properly register after talking to an Indian sherpa who had led the first Indian military expedition to Siachen in 1978 in what India considers part of its own Ladakh region  At the time, Ladakh was much colder, he said, and the snow on the glacier came right down into the valley. It had receded in recent years because of global warming, exposing the black tracts of scree I had scrambled up during my trip there. “It was like a beautiful road coming right down from K2,”he said, , “black moraine on either side.” There was nothing, and nobody there.

From the records of the India Office of the British Library, I unearthed an account written by the American explorer Fanny Bullock-Workman of her own travels in Siachen in 1911-12 -- so little consulted nowadays that the pages of her book began to come away in my hands.  She suggested that Siachen had been receding back in her days too,  so I was able to put the ebb and flow of the glacier down to natural changes in the climate.

Then a few years ago,  I made the drive from Srinagar in Kashmir to Leh in Ladakh and -- dangerous as it is to extrapolate from one's own experiences - saw the impact of global warming first hand.

It is a two-day drive from Srinagar to Leh, with a stopover in Kargil where India and Pakistan fought an intense border war in 1999. It is a spectacular drive, but also one of the most precipitous and most terrifying. By the time you are nearing Leh, you are looking forward to a comfortable hotel bed and a bowl of thick Tibetan soup.

Not long before we reached Leh, we discovered that the road bridge had been swept away by heavy floods rushing down from the mountain glaciers. I met a local Ladakhi journalist I knew who was, like me, stranded on the wrong side of the broken bridge. He took one look at me, and though I had not seen him for three years or so, he shook my hand and said two words: "global warming".  Then, like all the other Ladakhis there, he disappeared over a precarious crossing which the locals had fashioned across the river -- which involved walking across the upturned root of  a tree and then somehow making it from branch to branch across a raging glacial torrent to the other side.

from Afghan Journal:

Obama’s secret trip to Afghanistan

For a leader who has come to own the Afghan war, U.S. President Barack Obama's first trip to Kabul and the military headquarters in  Bagram since he took office 15 months ago was remarkable for its secrecy and surprise.

He flew in late on Sunday night, the blinds lowered on Air Force One all the way from Washington, and left while it was still dark.

It tells you more about the state of the eight-year war than anything else in recent weeks. Imagine visiting a country in the dead of the night, calling on its president sometime soon after and then flying out before the sun rises.

Here's a Reuters story on how the six-hour trip was orchestrated.

One encouraging sign though: a Washington Post poll released just as Obama made the trip to the war-shattered nation showed that Afghanistan is still the one issue where Americans are behind  him.

Overall, 53 percent of those polled approved of the way he was dealing with the situation in Afghanistan with 35 percent expressing disapproval.

Japan’s “political deflation”

“Political deflation” – that’s how one quipster described the woes besetting Japan’s political sphere as support for both the new ruling party and its main conservative rival slips on concerns that neither side is capable of steering an economy plagued by falling prices, decades of lacklustre growth and a fast-ageing, shrinking population.

Six months after the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) swept to power  for the first time in a landslide election win that ended more than 50 years of almost unbroken rule by the conservative Liberal Democrats, support for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s government is only about half the exuberant 70 percent level enjoyed when he took office.

Pundits are predicting the DPJ will have trouble winning an outright majority in an election, expected to be held in July, for parliament’s less powerful upper house. The Democrats need a majority to break loose of a tiny coalition partner — outspoken banking minister Shizuka Kamei’s People’s New Party  – as well as another small partner, the Social Democrats, so they can avoid policy squabbles and pass bills smoothly. An outright ruling bloc loss threatens parliamentary deadlock.

A survey published in the Nikkei business daily on Monday showed support for Hatoyama’s cabinet has slid seven points to 36 percent and support for the DPJ  is down eight points at 33 percent.

Providing some comfort — albeit cold — for the struggling Democrats is the fact that the ousted Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is faring even worse. Even before last year’s election, former financial services minister Yoshimi Watanabe had bolted the party to form the small pro-reform Your Party, and since that defeat several other lawmakers have defected while some still in the LDP are publicly criticising their uncharismatic leader, Sadakazu Tanigaki, and mulling creating rival forces.

The LDP internal strife isn’t playing well with voters, who may be disappointed with the Democrats but appear to have little appetite for a comeback by the Liberal Democrats. Support for the LDP in the Nikkei poll dipped one point to 23 percent, while that for Your Party, by contrast, doubled  to 8 percent.

Australia’s “Ironman” opposition leader kicks off fitness debate

Move aside Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama.

Putin, Russia’s bare-chested macho man, and marathon fan Obama  are not anywhere near Australia’s new opposition leader Tony Abbott, who has entered the ranks of ultra iron men, kickstarting a debate about leadership and fitness in the process.

Abbott, 52, this weekend finished the Ironman Australia triathlon, swimming 3.8 kilometres (2.3 miles), cycling 180 kilometres and then running a 42-kilometre road marathon in just under 14 hours of extreme sporting prowess.

Fuelled by chocolate chip muesli bars, hot cross buns and smoked salmon and avocado sandwiches, as well as water and sports drinks, Abbott described the gruelling race and strong crowd support throughout as “exhilarating”.

“(Former prime minister) John Howard was described as a man of steel by George Bush. Margaret Thatcher was the iron lady of British politics. Why shouldn’t Australian politics have an ironman?” Abbott found the energy to quip afterwards.

But his entry into the event, and a planned nine-day charity bike ride from Melbourne to Sydney in just a few more weeks, has triggered a debate in his sport-obsessed homeland about how much fitness is a good thing for an aspiring political leader, or anyone else.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Iran’s role in Afghanistan

Iran has been hosting regional leaders, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai, to celebrate the Persian New Year, or Nowruz (a spring festival whose equivalent in Pakistan, incidentally, is frowned upon by its own religious conservatives).

The Nowruz celebrations, which also included the presidents of Iraq, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, are part of Iran's efforts to build regional ties and followed renewed debate over the kind of role Iran wants to play in Afghanistan. As discussed here, it has also been improving ties with Pakistan, and both countries may have worked together on the arrest last month of Abdolmalik Rigi, leader of the Jundollah rebel group.

Depending on who you listen to, Iran is either an unlikely potential ally of the United States in Afghanistan, with shared common interests in stabilising the country, or a spoiler ready to support its old enemies the Afghan Taliban in order to undermine Washington's position.  Others put it somewhere in between, like every other country in the region biding its time in order to make sense of the U.S. exit strategy from Afghanistan, while also picking its way through a showdown with the United States over its nuclear programme.

Evidence so far of its exact intentions on Afghanistan is sketchy. After initially supporting the United States following the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 -Shi'ite Iran has no natural sympathy with the hardline Sunni Taliban - it found itself branded by former president George W. Bush as part of the axis of evil in 2002, and then after 2003 squeezed between U.S. troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since then there have been regular unconfirmed reports of Iranian support for the Taliban, largely designed to queer the pitch for the Americans. In one of the more recent reports, Britain's Sunday Times newspaper provided what it said were details of Taliban fighters being trained in camps in Iran. In a follow-up, however Britain's Daily Telegraph quoted a senior diplomat as saying that there was intelligence that Iran was instead holding off support to the Taliban and had recently refused requests for arms. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates described Iranian support for the Taliban as "pretty limited"

At the same time, Iran is keen for stability in Afghanistan in part to help clamp down on a booming heroin trade which has left it with its own huge drug addiction problem. Nearly a year ago, it offered help in combating the Afghan drugs trade at a conference in The Hague attended by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Its police chief was quoted this month by Press TV as saying that, "in addition to hosting a large domestic consumption market for narcotics, Iran is the shortest drug trafficking route from Afghanistan to the world. Opium-based products such as morphine and heroin are usually transported to European countries and other products such as hashish are trafficked to other countries such as the Persian Gulf littoral countries. Given all of this, naturally Iran is the country suffering here."

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

India and Pakistan on the U.S. see-saw

Few who follow South Asia could miss the symbolism of two separate developments in the past week -  in one Pakistan was cosying up to the United States in a new "strategic dialogue"; in the other India was complaining to Washington about its failure to provide access to David Headley, the Chicago man accused of helping to plan the 2008 attack on Mumbai.

Ever since the London conference on Afghanistan in January signalled an exit strategy which could include reconciliation with the Taliban, it has been clear that Pakistan's star has been rising in Washington while India's has been falling. 

If the United States wants to force the Taliban to the negotiating table, it needs Pakistan's help. And Pakistan has shown by arresting Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar amongst others that it intends to keep control of any negotiations. In return for its cooperation, it expects Washington's help in securing Pakistan's own interests, including through a scaling back of India's involvement in Afghanistan.

By contrast, the relationship between India and the United States which blossomed under the Bush administration has been fading as Washington looks to China and Pakistan to help meet respectively its economic and security needs. An initial outpouring of sympathy and international support for India following the Mumbai attack  - which led to intense pressure on Pakistan to crack down on the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group blamed for the assault - has dissipated over time.

Nowadays the mantra in Washington is that India and Pakistan must talk to each other to resolve their differences. Pakistan, after initially cracking down on the Lashkar-e-Taiba, eased the pressure on the group in the second part of 2009. India suspects the Lashkar-e-Taiba is not only active again but may have been involved in last month's attack in Kabul which targeted Indian interests. If true, this would suggest that Lashkar-e-Taiba is acting in conformity with the interests of the Pakistan Army, which is deeply sensitive about India's growing presence in Afghanistan following the fall of the Pakistan-backed Taliban in 2001.

To rewind briefly, it has always been unclear how far the Pakistan Army and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency could go in dismantling the Punjab-based militant group it once nurtured to fight India in Kashmir. While few doubt it could shut down the Lashkar-e-Taiba if it chose to do so, the risk has been that action against an organisation which has been scrupulous in avoiding attacks within Pakistan itself would shatter it into splinter groups which would make common cause with al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. A raid on the Pakistan Army's own headquarters last October highlighted just how vulnerable the country could be to an alliance between militants in its tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and those based in its heartland Punjab province.

So the debate amongst analysts has been whether relative inaction against the Lashkar-e-Taiba has been driven by self-preservation or a desire on the part of the ISI to retain the group's operational capacity to use it against India. Islamabad is convinced India's own intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), is using Afghanistan as a base to destabilise Pakistan, particularly by funding separatists in its Baluchistan province.  Any evidence of Lashkar-e-Taiba's involvement in the Kabul attack would therefore reinforce suspicions that the Pakistan Army is still using it as part of a proxy war between the two countries' intelligence agencies. (Both countries deny the accusations levelled at each other's intelligence agencies.)

from Afghan Journal:

Burying the Powell doctrine in Afghanistan

A U.S. soldier in Helmand. Picture by Shamil Zhumatov)

Early this month Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered what military experts are saying was the final nail in the coffin of  the Powell doctrine, a set of principles that General Colin Powell during his tenure as chairman laid out for the use of military force. A key element was that the military plan should employ decisive and overwhelming force in order to achieve a rapid result. A clear exit strategy must be thought through right from the beginning and the use of force must only be a last resort, Powell said, the experience of Vietnam clearly weighing on him.

U.S. military involvement overseas has deviated far from those principles since then but Mullen finally finished it off, according to Robert Haddick in this piece for Foreign Policy. The United States is faced with low-level warfare and the public must accept it as a way of life. The question no longer is whether to use military force; America's enemies whether in Afghanistan or Iraq or Yemen have settled that issue, ensuring it remains engaged in conflict. The question is how should it use its vast power.

The nature of the threat from irregular warfare is such that it would often make more sense for the United States to turn to use of military force as a first option, according to the new Mullen doctrine. And you don't need to assemble an armada before going in, as Powell did for Operation Desert Storm. You need to be precise and principled.

Last week another one of Powell's principles came under withering attack and this goes directly to the heart of the issue of nation-building that the United States has been faced with in Afghanistan and Iraq after invading these countries.  Powell said America had a  moral obligation to countries it got militarily involved in, a sort of a "Pottery Barn rule" which meant  "you break it, you own it."

Bernard Finel, a senior fellow at the America Security Project, rejects the Pottery Barn rule saying that while the U.S. must launch quick decisive operations in third countries,  it must not get subsequently involved in an open-ended military occupation.  In short, the U.S. military  must play to its strengths and not fight the asymmetric war that its adversaries want it to, as it has discovered in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Australian voters worming to PM Rudd

    If Australia’s election worm has its way, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will be re-elected in a landslide victory later in 2010.     Rudd on Tuesday won the first of three televised debates, say political analysts, kick starting what will likely be a drawn-out eight-month campaign ahead of elections tipped for November. Conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott had the killer lines, but it was the PM’s bookish, technocrat style which struck a chord with voters watching the debate.     Two commercial television networks which broadcast the debate used a controversial opinion “worm”, a moving line that dips and rises into negative or positive territory according to so-called “wormologist” viewer reactions as each politican spoke.     Almost everytime Rudd opened his mouth, the worm soared upwards, before diving to earth the moment camera’s switched to the otherwise telegenic Abbott.     It seemed pugnacious Abbott’s straight-talking style could make no dent against Rudd, whose popularity in major opinion surveys has been sliding dramatically in recent months, although he remains on course for victory.     “I’m at a terrible disavantage in this debate because I’m not capable of waffling for two minutes the way the prime minister is,” quipped Abbott to live audience laughter.     Dip, on both networks.     Most political analysts had opined ahead of the debate that taking part in a debate was a brave move for Rudd, who has been accused of lacking courage to push forcefully for many of the key reform promises that spearheaded his victory two years ago.     “Some Labor hardheads firmly believe Rudd may have made a strategic mistake,” said senior journalist Lenore Taylor in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.     But by the end of the debate, and with the worm attempting to crawl off the charts into positive territory, Rudd’s decision looks like a masterstroke that could restore momentum on health, climate, tax and education reform.     “Verdict:  Rudd the winner.  Abbott probably won the debate but was too punchy and negative,” wrote columnist Mark Kenny in the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper.     At one stage it seemed political attack and “negativity” was the problem for Abbott, with viewers punishing anything aggressive. But even Rudd’s rare aggressive forays and straying from his favoured facts seemed to go in his direction. “Okay, finished with the worm.  It’s clearly in love with Rudd,” said political radio network journalist Latika Bourke.     The lesson of the worm seems that surveys aside, Rudd’s stellar popularity may still be as strong as ever.

from MacroScope:

Frustrated Greeks

The Greek debt crisis appears to be entering a new phase, in which the country is no longer just waiting to get needed help but getting concerned that others -- including euro zone powerhouse Germany -- may actually be making it hard for them to recover.

First, there is Prime Minister George Papandreou (right in photo). His concern is that speculators are pushing  the cost of borrowing so high that it is undermining the plans he has put in place  for deficit reduction.  Papandreou is known for being a mild-mannered sort, so any kind of irritability is worth noting.

But Theodoros Pangalos (left), the deputy prime minister and once foreign minister, has no such reputation to hold him back.   He has launched an attack on Germany, saying that a) it is allowing its banks to mess around with Greek bonds and b) that it suits Berlin in any case to let the euro fall.

Pangalos is famous for his undiplomatic outbursts. He once referred to Germany as a giant with a child's brain. Another time he suggested that the then -French president was essentially belly-dancing in front of the Turks to get their business.

So perhaps a pinch of salt should be taken re Pangalos. But put together, the two bouts of finger-pointing do suggest that at the very least the Greeks are getting frustrated with the substance-less expressions of support they keep getting.