FPI Overnight Brief: February 17, 2010

The War

Kori Schake writes:  Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is now a detainee. And this is where the Obama administration's difficulties begin. Baradar is an Afghan citizen captured in Pakistan by Pakistani and American clandestine operatives. He is evidently being interrogated jointly by Pakistan and the United States, and has information both strategic and time-sensitive about planned attacks and operations, identities and locations of leaders, funding sources and outlays, training tactics. Is the administration permitting the Pakistani interrogators to employ harsh methods the administration has put off limits to American intelligence professionals?...Americans were involved in the capture; does permitting Pakistan's ISI to have possession constitute a rendition? Is the administration confident the procedures applied to other terrorists, say, Christmas bomber Abdulmutallab, are adequate to attain the information that could save lives? Will the rules not apply because of the high value of this particular individual? Will he seek to have him extradited to the United States for trial? Will he get offered a deal in return for information? - Shadow Government

U.S. and Afghan troops moved into two key parts of Marja on Tuesday in an effort to restart government services and confront Taliban holdouts who continue to shoot at coalition forces.  Facing little resistance, troops secured the central police station and the area where they hope to build a municipal building, moving west by foot on a mine-infested road to achieve a key objective of U.S. commanders. To the north, in the chockablock Koru Chreh bazaar area, where troops had been subjected to repeated small-arms fire and grenade attacks since they arrived Saturday, several hundred U.S. Marines conducted a day-long operation to target insurgent gunmen and sweep for makeshift bombs. A second Marine company was moved to the Koru Chreh area Monday because of the intensity of the fighting there.  The beefed-up presence led to a drop in attacks. Although there were several exchanges of gunfire, none of the engagements was significant. Commanders reported that Marine snipers killed five insurgents. – Washington Post

Pakistan’s arrest of the top Taliban military commander may be a tactical victory for the United States, but it is also potentially a strategic coup for Pakistan, officials and analysts here and in Afghanistan said. Pakistan has removed a key Taliban commander, enhanced cooperation with the United States and ensured a place for itself when parties explore a negotiated end to the Afghan war. – New York Times

Afghan and Coalition special operations forces killed a Taliban commander who works with foreign fighters and 10 Taliban and al Qaeda operatives during a raid in a region just outside the battle zone in Marja in Helmand province. During a raid in the district of Washir, the combined force targeted and killed Mullah Sarajudin, the Taliban commander, along with four al Qaeda operatives and six Taliban fighters. Washir lies just north of the district of Nad Ali, where Afghan and Coalition forces have launched a massive operation to take control of the city of Marja and the surrounding areas. – Long War Journal

Pakistan's capture of the Afghan Taliban's operational commander, in a joint operation with the CIA last week, reflects a markedly changed attitude toward an insurgent force that the country had allowed to operate with relative impunity for the past eight years.  As recently as last year, U.S. sources said, Pakistani intelligence officials were thought to be in direct contact with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, second only to Taliban leader Mohammad Omar in the insurgent hierarchy. One source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said midlevel Pakistani officials had attended meetings with Baradar. "His whereabouts, I think, were extremely well-known to the Pakistanis for a long time," said Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist and Taliban expert. – Washington Post

FPI Executive Director Jamie Fly writes:  [T]he arrest validates the Afghan strategy pursued by President Obama despite opposition from some in his administration, such as Vice President Joe Biden, who argued that the Taliban were not the real enemy and that we should limit U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and essentially cede parts of the country to their control. Baradar and his Taliban colleagues have the blood of Americans and innocent Afghans on their hands and should be treated accordingly. We will not be successful until the Taliban is defeated and the Afghan people spared the intimidating and medieval rule of the Taliban, and this capture will hopefully help make that happen. – The Corner

The United States has delivered a fleet of drone aircraft and billions of dollars in aid to coax Pakistan to do more to confront Afghan Taliban militants taking refuge in the country. But the Islamist group's second in command was captured in Karachi last week largely because the United States was also able to provide something else Pakistan has demanded for years: solid intelligence on where Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar could be found. U.S. and Pakistani officials said Tuesday that the capture of Baradar was driven by a rare intelligence break that enabled American spy agencies to pinpoint the Taliban military chief and help Pakistan's intelligence service organize on short notice a daring operation to arrest him. – Los Angeles Times

Iran

The confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program appeared to deepen Tuesday as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton escalated her verbal assault during a Persian Gulf visit and Russia joined the United States and France in bluntly questioning Iran’s ultimate intentions in enriching uranium.  Speaking in Jidda as she prepared to end a three-day regional visit, Mrs. Clinton said that it would create “quite dangerous” problems if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon, potentially setting off a nuclear arms race. Mrs. Clinton offered a list of Iranian actions that, she said, contradicted its protestations of peaceful intent, including the disclosure last year of a hitherto secret nuclear facility near Qum. “You have to ask yourself: why are they doing this?” Mrs. Clinton said. Referring to Iran’s insistence that it is not seeking nuclear weapons, she said, “The evidence doesn’t support that.” – New York Times

Analysis:  White House officials say the administration's outreach has paid important diplomatic dividends. With Iran seeking fuel for a nuclear reactor for medical purposes -- and intent on enriching uranium to obtain it -- the United States joined with Russia and France to craft a plan to replace the bulk of the uranium. Iran first agreed to a deal, then balked.  Its objections, meanwhile, have helped Russian officials shift toward tougher sanctions…China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, is still unconvinced that tougher sanctions are needed, but officials in Washington argue that the efforts to engage have helped show that the United States is serious about a diplomatic, not a military, approach.  It may be forever unclear whether the Iranian government would have been more amenable to Obama's entreaties had it not been struggling to contain the opposition movement that emerged after last June's disputed elections. The president's outstretched hand appeared to prompt real debate and dissension within the ruling elite. Iran was confronted with a choice -- whether to engage -- rather than facing a United States that had no interest in talking. – Washington Post

Abe Greenwald writes: While the internal balance of power of the Iranian regime is fluid, the essential fact remains that a brutal, theocratic machine is engaged in the violent crackdown of a pro-democracy movement. The more disturbing complication here is that America has taken every opportunity to align itself with the former party against the latter. Try to imagine what Iran’s democratic protesters hear when the American administration that gave them no support now urges the regime in Tehran to remain strong...Instead of supporting Khamenei and Ahmadinejad in hopes of negotiation, the U.S. should do everything in its power to turn Iran’s virtual democratic revolution into a real one. But that, alas, constitutes meddling. And we don’t do that anymore. This is how things end. Not with a bang but a Twitter. - Contentions

Russia, the U.S. and France have urged Iran to stop enriching uranium to higher levels and suggested the project reinforces suspicions that Tehran is seeking to make nuclear weapons. The joint statement, made public Tuesday, reflects unified Russian and Western opposition to Iran's increased enrichment. – Associated Press

Davis Lewin writes:  To call for regime change is neither simplistic nor imperial.  For those of us blessed with freedom, it is a mere resignation to hard truth in the face of oppressive evil.  For those Iranians with their throats under the boot of the Basij - the mothers, fathers and children choking on Khomeini's self-serving fantasies - it is bravery beyond what we could know.  No deal must be struck with the Mullahs.  The Islamic regime's hegemonic desires will not be allayed by treaty, and the West must never betray the people of Iran by legitimising the very leaders they are - in too many cases literally - dying to shake off. - Standpoint

If Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton seemed especially fired up in criticizing Iran during her visit to the Persian Gulf this week, there was good reason for it: President Obama’s Iran policy is beginning to look a lot like candidate Clinton’s Iran policy. With the administration’s efforts to reach out to Iran having failed to produce a response, it is shifting to a more confrontational strategy that is tailor-made for Mrs. Clinton, a longtime skeptic of the value of engaging with Tehran…It is a measure of how much things have changed that Mr. Obama, who clashed repeatedly with Mrs. Clinton about how to deal with Iran during the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, has assigned her to drum up international support for a package of United Nations sanctions against Iran. – New York Times

Iraq

The Iraqi official in charge of a commission that blocked more than 300 politicians from running in next month's elections is working closely with Iran's Quds Force, prompting the top U.S. general in Iraq to voice concerns about Tehran's meddling in Iraq's fragile democracy. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, in a speech, accused Ali Faisal al-Lami, the executive director of the Accountability and Justice Commission along with Ahmad Chalabi, the panel's chairman, of being "clearly influenced by Iran." Gen. Odierno said both men, according to intelligence reports, were in close contact with Abu-Mahdi al-Muhandis, the top Iraqi adviser to Iran's Quds Force commander. The Quds Force comprises Iran's unconventional military units, which have orchestrated anti-U.S. paramilitary and political operations in Iraq. – Washington Times

With the imminent departure of American forces and fierce competition for power ahead of general elections on March 7, many [in Iraq] say sectarian strife is reigniting.  But this time, there will be no outsider acting as a buffer between the warring sects. U.S. military officials acknowledge that as Iraq regains sovereignty, their influence is waning. A senior U.S. military official who has spent years in Iraq said he fears that as the drawdown begins, American forces are leaving behind many of the same conditions that preceded the sectarian war. "All we're doing is setting the clock back to 2005," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a stark assessment. "The militias are fully armed, and al-Qaeda in Iraq is trying to move back from the west. These are the conditions now, and we're sitting back looking at PowerPoint slides and whitewashing." – Washington Post

Kimberly and Frederick Kagan write:  [P]rogress in Iraq is not as inevitable as Mr. Biden suggests. Iraq faces a political and constitutional crisis weeks away from the most important election it will ever hold. People working on behalf of Iran are actively seeking to spoil this election. They want to exclude Sunni leaders from the next government, align Iraq's Shiites into a single political bloc, expel American forces, and create a government in Baghdad that is dependent on Tehran. Success remains possible, but only if the Obama administration abandons the campaign rhetoric of "end this war" and commits itself to helping Iraqis build a just, accountable, representative government. It needs to establish long-term security ties that will bind our two states together, including the continuing deployment of American military forces in Iraq if the Iraqis so desire. – Wall Street Journal

For women in Iraq, the coming national elections offer both a promise and a reminder of the difficulty of change in this male-dominated culture.  The Constitution calls for at least 25 percent of Parliament’s seats to go to women. But the first women elected in 2005 have had little effect, analysts and women who are members of Parliament say. Now, as the campaign begins for the country’s second post-invasion parliamentary vote, on March 7, some women say a new female political class is starting to emerge. In one sign of this development, 12 women from outside the political system have formed their own party, with a platform built on women’s rights and a jobs program for Iraq’s more than 700,000 widows. – New York Times

Georgia

Russia and the Georgian rebel region of Abkhazia signed a deal on Wednesday allowing Moscow to build a military base on its soil, increasing its dependence on its sponsor and stoking tensions with Tbilisi. The base will accommodate at least 3,000 Russian land troops, already stationed in the Black Sea territory, for at least 49 years, Abkhaz officials said. - Reuters

Tibet

President Obama's failure to meet the Dalai Lama last year set back the Tibetan cause, but a new meeting at the White House this week is a chance for the president to repair the damage, according to a top aide to the exiled leader…The new meeting is "an excellent opportunity for America as a nation and for Obama as an American president to really reinforce the values that you cherish," the Dalai Lama's special envoy, Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, said in an interview Tuesday. "You should be proud of that, not hesitant about that." For its part, the Obama administration seems to have planned the get-together in such a way as to both honor the Tibetan leader and avoid enraging Beijing. Although Obama won't meet the Dalai Lama in public -- as President George W. Bush did in 2008 when the Dalai Lama was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal -- he will host him in the West Wing, and not the White House's private quarters as President Bill Clinton used to do. – Washington Post

Korean Peninsula

North Korea's recent attempt at currency reforms, which produced rare social unrest in the totalitarian state, appears to have backfired, as Pyongyang on Tuesday celebrated the birthday of supreme leader Kim Jong-il with a call to end hostilities with the United States and South Korea. In stark contrast to the belligerent and threatening pronouncements that accompanied last year's celebration of Mr. Kim's birthday — he turned 68 on Tuesday — ruling party leaders and state officials used the occasion to reach out to Washington. Diplomats and analysts described the North's conciliatory rhetoric as a desperate attempt to ease the financial and economic isolation it has been suffering since last summer, when the United Nations imposed broad nuclear sanctions. Most countries have observed the sanctions more strictly than expected. – Washington Times

Sung-Yoon Lee writes:  [T]he United States has done little to prepare for life after Kim Jong Il. It's true that U.S. and South Korean officials have been quietly discussing a contingency plan for a drastic change in North Korea, dubbed OPLAN 5029 by the Pentagon. But beyond short-term emergency response measures such as securing the North's stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, maintaining public safety, controlling borders, and providing humanitarian aid to displaced North Koreans, making plans for dealing with an alternative post-Kim Korea over the long term is critical to protecting U.S. strategic interests in that vital region of the world. In view of America's political, economic, and human investment in South Korea and Northeast Asia over the past 65 years, it is also a moral imperative. - Foreign Policy

Americas

The self-described socialist revolution of Mr. Chávez notwithstanding, the prominence of these moguls was so well known it inspired a nickname — the Boligarchs — for their fast accumulation of wealth and their ties to the government, which reveres Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century aristocrat who won Venezuela’s freedom from Spain. But instead of dismissing the matter, the intelligence chief imprisoned Mr. Fernández last year and ordered agents to start detaining other pro-Chávez magnates. Some slipped into hiding abroad and are still being sought. Several others and their associates were arrested and put in cells adjacent to Mr. Fernández’s.  The purge has revealed a power struggle at the highest levels of government, leading to the fall of some of Mr. Chávez’s military comrades and reports of secret dossiers on businessmen compiled here by intelligence agents from Cuba, Venezuela’s top ally. – New York Times

Argentina announced that boats carrying goods to the U.K.-controlled Falkland Islands will need permission first if they cross Argentine waters.  Argentina's president issued a decree Tuesday requiring any boat carrying goods to the U.K.'s Falkland, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands to obtain the South American country's approval before crossing any "waters under Argentina's jurisdiction," Cabinet Chief Aníbal Fernández said. A permanent commission will be formed to implement the measures, he said. Getting permission is likely to cause difficulties for boats seeking to put in at Argentine ports before or after a stop by the Falkland Islands, which Argentina refers to as the Malvinas Islands. – Wall Street Journal

Yemen

David Schenker writes:  To date, little hard evidence of direct Iranian support to the Houthis has emerged. The Yemenis say they have proof they have shared with their Iranian counterparts, but they have not yet publicly presented their case against Iran. Nevertheless, for the past year, the Yemenis have relentlessly accused Tehran of aiding the Houthis…The preponderance of evidence suggests a significant relationship between Tehran and the Houthis. But even if Yemeni and Saudi claims of Iranian support to the rebels are overstated, given Tehran’s track record, it seems likely that Iran is playing some role in fanning the flames of insurgency in Yemen. – The Weekly Standard

Defense

Bill Sweetman reports:  The hitherto-classified Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel unmanned air vehicle (UAV), its existence disclosed after our enquiries in December, has been sighted outside Afghanistan. A Korean newspaper report - overlooked when it appeared in December - has now surfaced and states that the UAV had been flying for several months from a South Korean base - probably Osan, where the USAF currently operates U-2s - before it was disclosed.  This revelation points directly to an answer to one of the puzzling questions about the Beast:  why would you use a stealthy aircraft to spy on the Taliban? The answer is that you don't, but Afghanistan and South Korea have a common feature: they are next door to nations with missile development programs. - Ares

Pentagon officials on Feb. 16 confirmed Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn's announcement one day prior that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program will be delayed by about one year.  The Pentagon's No. 2 official said this week that the jet's development schedule would slip between 12 months and 13 months despite an aggressive restructuring of the program that was announced earlier this month….The delay is due to the integration of additional test aircraft that were mandated under the restructuring, which also extended system development and design (SDD) until 2015, according to a Pentagon official. – Defense News

The crisis began when college basketball fans downloaded a free March Madness application to their smart phones. The app hid spyware that stole passwords, intercepted e-mails and created havoc. Soon 60 million cellphones were dead. The Internet crashed, finance and commerce collapsed, and most of the nation's electric grid went dark. White House aides discussed putting the Army in American cities. That, spiced up with bombs and hurricanes, formed the doomsday scenario when 10 former White House advisors and other top officials joined forces Tuesday in a rare public cyber war game designed to highlight the potential vulnerability of the nation's digital infrastructure to crippling attack. The results were hardly reassuring. "We're in uncharted territory here," was the most common refrain during a three-hour simulated crisis meeting of the National Security Council, the crux of the Cyber Shockwave exercise. – Los Angeles Times

Democracy and Human Rights

At least 71 journalists were killed across the globe in 2009, the Committee to Protect Journalists announced Tuesday, the largest annual toll in the 30 years the group has been keeping track. Twenty-nine of those deaths came in a single, politically motivated massacre of reporters and others in the Philippines last November, the worst known episode for journalists, the committee said.  But there were other worrisome trends. The two nations with the highest number of journalists incarcerated — China had 24 journalists imprisoned at the end of 2009 and Iran had 23 — were particularly harsh in taking aim at bloggers and others using the Internet. The number jailed in Iran has since jumped to 47, the committee said. – New York Times

South Asia

Analysis:  In a part of the world better known for the interruption of democracy than its stubborn endurance, Sri Lanka has always been something of an oddity. A small country that suffered through one of the world’s nastiest recent wars, it nevertheless remained for the most part a vibrant multiparty democracy.  Last spring the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa decisively defeated the Tamil Tiger insurgency that had terrorized Sri Lanka for the better part of three decades. Last month, voters rewarded him with a landslide victory that gave him a new term.  So it is all the more surprising that his government decided to arrest the longtime ally who became his main rival for the presidency, Gen. Sarath Fonseka.  That arrest, and the harassment of journalists and opposition politicians and their supporters, are raising fears that Sri Lanka’s democracy is faltering just as the long-awaited peace begins. – New York Times