FPI Overnight Brief: March 8, 2010

Iraq

Defying a sustained barrage of mortars and rockets in Baghdad and other cities, Iraqis went to the polls in strength on Sunday to choose a new Parliament meant to outlast the American military presence here.  “Iraqis are not afraid of bombs anymore,” said Maliq Bedawi, 45, defiantly waving his finger, stained with purple ink, to indicate he had voted, as he stood near the rubble of an apartment building in Baghdad hit by a huge rocket in the deadliest attack of the day.  Insurgents here vowed to disrupt the election, and the concerted wave of attacks — as many as 100 thunderous blasts in the capital alone starting just before the polls opened — did frighten voters away, but only initially.  The shrugging response of voters could signal a fundamental weakening of the insurgency’s potency. At least 38 people were killed in Baghdad. But by day’s end, turnout was higher than expected, and certainly higher than in the last parliamentary election in 2005, marred by a similar level of violence.  – New York Times

President Obama congratulated Iraqis who voted in national elections Sunday, saying that the apparently successful process will help his administration stick to its timetable to withdraw all American combat troops from the nation this summer. As Vice President Biden stood by his side in the Rose Garden, Obama said the strong turnout of Iraqi voters -- which occurred despite insurgent attacks on heavily guarded polling places that killed at least 38 people -- demonstrated that "the future of Iraq belongs to the people of Iraq." While acknowledging that the election "is the beginning, not the end of a long electoral and constitutional process" Obama called the election "an important milestone in Iraqi history." Iraq still must field and investigate complaints of voter fraud, choose its next prime minister, form a government and forge compromise, which Obama predicted would take months. – Washington Post

An up-and-coming Kurdish party expects to capture seats in Iraq's next parliament from entrenched rivals, its leader said after Sunday's national poll, threatening to upset the country's most cohesive bloc. A robust showing by the reformist Goran list could hurt the alliance of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) as they prepare to negotiate for a role in the next Iraqi government. Such an outcome could weaken their hand against the Arab-led government in bitter feuds over oil, land and power. The two parties warned they might not accept the election result. Preliminary results in the polls are not expected until Monday at the earliest, but the Goran, which means "Change" in the Kurdish language, predicted it could pick up at least 20 of Iraqi Kurdistan's seats in Iraq's 325-member parliament. "We are expecting to win a large number of seats that the Kurds will get in the Iraqi parliament," Goran leader Noshirwan Mustafa told Reuters in an interview. - Reuters

FPI Director Bill Kristol discussed the elections in Iraq on yesterday’s Fox News Sunday.

The droves of Sunni Arab residents casting ballots in towns like Falluja — the name itself synonymous with the cradle of the insurgency, where relatively few voted in the last election five years ago — promised to redraw Iraq’s political landscape. The turnout delivered Sunnis their most articulated voice yet on the national stage, seven years after the American-led invasion ended their dominance.  Yet the act of their empowerment Sunday may make that landscape even more combustible, possibly even risking a revival of sectarian conflict. The demands of Sunni voters, from securing the presidency for a Sunni to diluting Iran’s influence, could make the already formidable task in Iraq of forming a coalition government even more difficult.  At polling stations near cratered buildings, past blast walls that still bore the pockmarks of bullets, the sentiments of voters who largely boycotted Iraq’s national elections in 2005 illustrated that divide.  Even as many cast ballots for the slate of Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite and former prime minister, they condemned religious Shiite parties. With the invective once reserved for Americans, voters now attacked Iran, seen here as the patron of Iraq’s Shiite-led government. – New York Times

The War

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived on an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Monday morning to meet with President Hamid Karzai and NATO commanders, and to review plans for a major American-led offensive into the Taliban heartland of Kandahar.  Mr. Gates gave no date for the anticipated push into the city of Kandahar, which has a population of 900,000 and is the capital of Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan, but he said, “There is some very hard fighting, very hard days ahead.” Administration officials have said only that the campaign, a central mission for the 30,000 extra forces that President Obama has ordered to Afghanistan, will occur sometime this year.  Mr. Gates spoke to reporters on his plane en route to Kabul.  Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top NATO and American commander in Afghanistan, later told reporters in Kabul that the offensive in Kandahar would be different from the recent American-led campaign to largely rout the Taliban from Marja, a much smaller town in Helmand Province. While the Marja offensive began with a burst of forces into the area in the middle of the night, General McChrystal said the Kandahar offensive would unfold more slowly. – New York Times

An operative of Al Qaeda believed to be an American was arrested in the sprawling southern city of Karachi in recent days by Pakistani security officials, Pakistani officials said Sunday.  American and Pakistani officials said the man arrested was Abu Yahya Mujahdeen al-Adam, who was described as having been born in Pennsylvania and who was thought to be affiliated with the operations division of Al Qaeda, commanding fighters in Afghanistan.  One American official briefed on the arrest described the operative in custody as fair-skinned and someone who spoke both English and Pashto.  Little else was known about him, American officials said, and it was not immediately clear that American officials were involved in the arrest. There was no confirmation that the arrested man was in fact an American.  Initial reports seemed to have confused him with Adam Gadahn, a California native who has been a Qaeda spokesman and often appears on videos calling for strikes against targets in the United States.  Senior administration officials said on Sunday that they did not believe the arrest was of Mr. Gadahn. For hours, information was difficult to confirm from Pakistan. President Obama was briefed on news reports of the arrest, but later learned they were most likely not correct. – New York Times

A suicide car bomb attack on a police intelligence unit in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore killed at least 12 people and wounded about 65 during Monday's morning rush hour, officials said. The attack outside a federal police office bore all the hallmarks of an operation by al Qaeda-backed Pakistani Taliban militants seeking to topple the government. The city's top administrator, Sajjad Bhutta, said between 580-600 kgs of explosives were used in the attack…Suicide bombings have eased in recent weeks but it is not clear whether that is because security has improved after military gains against the Pakistani Taliban or if the insurgents are merely regrouping for more attacks. The violence may be a psychological setback for Pakistani authorities, who have won praise from Washington after capturing high-profile Afghan Taliban figures. - Reuters

Pakistani officials said Saturday that a top Taliban leader was probably killed in an airstrike in the northwest, dealing another blow to a militant group that fighters say has been leaderless since January. Maulvi Faqir Mohammed, an al-Qaeda-linked commander of the Pakistani Taliban, was almost certainly among a large group of insurgents killed Friday in a Pakistani helicopter gunship attack in the Mohmand region of the volatile tribal areas, Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters. Mohammed was the top leader in another tribal area, Bajaur agency, and a deputy leader of the broader Taliban organization in Pakistan. Analysts said Mohammed's death, coming amid stepped-up military operations and U.S. drone strikes, would help reduce the Pakistani Taliban to something more like the patchwork of local insurgencies that it was before it grew into a lethal umbrella group. Mohammed had been considered a candidate to lead the national organization. "They're shellshocked," Aftab Khan Sherpao, a former Pakistani interior minister, said of the Taliban. "Pakistan is on the front foot right now." – Washington Post

Fierce weekend fighting in the north of Afghanistan between Taliban forces and another militant Islamist group has left an estimated 50 people dead, and the clashes were continuing late Sunday night, according to reports from the area.  Local news reports quoted government and security officials from Baghlan province saying fighting erupted Saturday between the Taliban and fighters of the Hezb-e-Islami, a guerrilla faction under the command of longtime militia leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Mujahideen leader in the battle against the Soviet Union…News agency reports and Afghan media said the two sides were firing heavy weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades. Various government officials gave the total death toll at around 50 on both sides, but different officials gave wildly different breakdowns of the casualties. The Associated Press quoted a provincial police chief as saying more than 100 Hezb-e-Islami fighters pledged to switch sides and join government troops. – Washington Post

The newly appointed top official in Marja, Abdul Zahir Aryan, is the Afghan face of the American-led military offensive. As the lone government representative in this town, he stands at the center of the next phase of the battle: the fight to build an Afghan government that is more attractive than Taliban rule. But Zahir, who goes by Haji Zahir, arrived at this position after a tumultuous personal history that American and Afghan officials have not publicly disclosed. During more than a decade living in Germany, Zahir, 60, served four years in prison for attempted murder after stabbing his stepson, according to U.S. officials.  Three top U.S. officials in Afghanistan and one senior administration official in Washington confirmed his German conviction, though none would speak on the record. They did not say if the Afghan or U.S. government had known of his criminal conviction before Afghan officials appointed him to his post.  U.S. officials in Afghanistan said Zahir's criminal conviction did not undermine their confidence in his ability to govern. "He served his time, so I suspect he will survive this," a U.S. military official said, adding though that the U.S. government had expressed concern to the Afghan government about this issue. – Washington Post

Iran

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday called the September 11 attacks on the United States a "big fabrication" that was used to justify the U.S. war on terrorism, the official IRNA news agency reported. Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West and Israel, made the comment in a meeting with Intelligence Ministry personnel…Ahmadinejad described the destruction of the twin towers in New York on September 11, 2001 as a "complicated intelligence scenario and act," IRNA reported. He added: "The September 11 incident was a big fabrication as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan." He did not elaborate. - Reuters

Diplomacy and energy are never far apart in the Persian Gulf. So, as American officials seek new international sanctions against Iran this week, it’s probably wise for them to remember how much the world’s global energy map has changed over the past decade.  Iran’s leaders certainly do, and they’ve been counting on their increased ties with Asian countries, especially China, as their trump card against efforts to hem in their nuclear program.  At the same time, the Iranians may want to reconsider just how much that trump card is worth. A number of experts say it is losing its value with each month that the stalemate over its nuclear program continues.  – New York Times

Iran announced Sunday that it has started a new production line of highly accurate, short-range cruise missiles, which would add a new element to the country's already imposing arsenal. Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi told Iranian state TV that the cruise missile, called Nasr 1, would be capable of destroying targets up to 3,000 tons in size. He said the missile can be fired from ground-based launchers as well as ships, but would eventually be modified to be fired from helicopters and submarines…Tehran frequently makes announcements about new advances in military technology that cannot be independently verified. Gen. Vahidi said the production of the cruise missiles, which took two years to develop, showed that sanctions on Iran have failed. He said the cruise missiles would strengthen Iran's naval power. – Associated Press

Ideas

Seeking to exploit the Internet’s potential for prying open closed societies, the Obama administration will permit technology companies to export online services like instant messaging, chat and photo sharing to Iran, Cuba and Sudan, a senior administration official said Sunday.  On Monday, he said, the Treasury Department will issue a general license for the export of free personal Internet services and software geared toward the populations in all three countries, allowing Microsoft, Yahoo and other providers to get around strict export restrictions. The companies had resisted offering such services for fear of violating existing sanctions. But there have been growing calls in Congress and elsewhere to lift the restrictions, particularly after the postelection protests in Iran illustrated the power of Internet-based services like Facebook and Twitter. “The more people have access to a range of Internet technology and services, the harder it’s going to be for the Iranian government to clamp down on their speech and free expression,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been made yet. – New York Times

Dr. Tahir ul Qadri writes:  I have been compelled to issue a fatwa – a comprehensive theological refutation of Islamist terrorism – because of what has been happening in Pakistan over the past year. Terrorists are bombing mosques during Friday prayers, they are burning schools, killing women. They are digging bodies out of graves, cutting off their heads and hanging the bodies from trees. My 600-page fatwa is based on all four schools of jurisprudence: Hanafi, Shafii, Hanbali and Maliki, and the Shia school of Jafari. I have consulted hundreds of classical Islamic texts, the scholars, fiqh and the Hadith. The main theme is this: any act of terrorism such as suicide bombing cannot be justified in any way. There are no conditions, no pretexts or exemptions. It is condemned by the Quran and the Sunna. Killing Muslims and non-Muslims through terrorist activities and using violent aggression to impose their mistaken and misplaced ideology is a fundamental rejection of faith. Such acts make the people carrying out the attacks unbelievers, or kufr. – The National

Barbara Slavin writes:  Barack Obama entered office last year promising a sweeping reinvention of America's image in the world, most of all in the Middle East, where George W. Bush saw his ambitious agenda of democratic transformation meet with the reality of a region deeply suspicious of U.S. intentions and locked into stagnant authoritarian regimes.  As part of that reinvention, the Obama administration has changed the tone of U.S. interaction on the democracy front. Administration officials have espoused democratic principles in general -- as the president did in his eloquent June speech in Cairo, in which he pointedly criticized Arab regimes' lack of accountability to their people -- but shied away from direct confrontation. The question is whether this behind-the-scenes approach will be any more successful than Bush's in-your-face policy – Foreign Policy

Obama Administration

Jackson Diehl writes:  I recently asked several senior administration officials, separately, to name a foreign leader with whom Barack Obama has forged a strong personal relationship during his first year in office. A lot of hemming and hawing ensued…Finally, I was offered a name I didn't expect: Dmitry Medvedev. Obama, I was assured, has built a solid relationship with the Russian president during their several bilateral meetings, which have focused in part on a new nuclear arms control agreement that both could count as a distinctive achievement. But the deal hasn't been clinched -- maybe because Vladimir Putin, whom Obama has held at arm's length, doesn't like it. And could it really be that an American president has found his closest foreign partner in the Kremlin? The paradox here is that Obama remains hugely popular abroad -- from Germany and France to countries where anti-Americanism has recently been a problem, such as Turkey and Indonesia. His following means that, in democratic countries at least, leaders have a strong incentive to befriend him. And yet this president appears, so far, to have no genuine foreign friends. In this he is the opposite of George W. Bush, who was reviled among the foreign masses but who forged close ties with a host of leaders -- Aznar of Spain, Uribe of Colombia, Sharon and Olmert of Israel, Koizumi of Japan. – Washington Post

Defense

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday urged developing countries to embrace nuclear energy and rich lenders to help pay for it, but stood firmly against countries that "cheat" and use the technology to make weapons. "We need nuclear energy" to meet global goals for fighting and slowing climate change, Sarkozy said in opening an international conference in Paris on the future of nuclear power. He wants France, which is reliant on atomic reactors for a large majority of its electricity, to lead a global nuclear expansion. But amid fears of nuclear proliferation and questions about Iran's nuclear program, Sarkozy said the international community should be "steadfast in its opposition to those countries that violate the standards for collective security." – Associated Press

The U.S. Air Force is taking a long look down the road at buying and fielding new airplanes. Mandated by Congress, the "Aircraft Investment Plan" maps out how many planes the Air Force, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy plan to buy through 2020 and sets goals for 2021-2040. It does not include helicopters. The report calls for a joint approach to long-range strike and electronic warfare but does not drastically alter the Air Force's announced plans for its two main acquisitions this decade - the F-35 Lightning II and KC-X tanker. – Defense News

Middle East

Doyle McManus writes:  The Middle East has no shortage of conflicts to worry the rest of the world: the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the nuclear ambitions of Iran, the stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians. And now, add an old trouble spot to that list: Lebanon. On the one hand, Lebanon's economy grew by a dizzying 9% last year, the strongest pace of any country in the region. Its feuding religious and political factions have joined in a power-sharing agreement that seems stable. And it's even selling itself, with some success, as a chic destination for European and American tourists. But as I discovered on a visit to Beirut last month, the Lebanese are certain all this good fortune can't last. They're convinced -- not without reason -- that the confrontation between the U.S. and Iran will spill over into another war between Israel and Lebanon.  Just inside Lebanon's southern border, where Israel and the Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah went to war in 2006, Iran and its ally, Syria, have been helping Hezbollah rearm. The radical militia, which runs southern Lebanon as its own mini-state, reportedly has obtained Iranian-made missiles that can reach Tel Aviv, and Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, has promised to strike at Israel at a time and place of his choosing.  Israel isn't taking the threat lightly; its pugnacious foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, recently warned that Israel might use the next war to try to topple Syria's authoritarian regime. – Los Angeles Times

Soli Ozel writes:  What is happening in Turkey is a transformation of the old order and a radical shift in the balance of power from the military towards the civilians. The military, until recently, provided the backbone for the Turkish political system, and it was the custodian of the existing order as well as the provider of its ideology. Urban middle classes for far too long relied on the military to fight their secularist battles for them and abdicated their responsibilities. These days are over and the Turkish political system needs a new institutional arrangement and a new ideological framework. The fierceness of the battle reflects the magnitude of the stakes and the increasing mobilization of the civilian forces. This is no less than a battle for the soul and the identity of a new Turkish republic. Turkey passed an important threshold in the great power shift from the military to civilian authorities that started at the beginning of the decade. Whether this deepening civilianization will lead, as expected, to a rule-based democratic consolidation and finally finish the “second transition” from democratic government to democratic regime remains to be seen. – World Affairs Journal

Norman Stone writes:  In practice the Turks are being alienated, and will be encouraged to think that the West is doing another version of the Crusades, that “the only friend of the Turk is the Turk”, and other nationalist nonsense of a similar sort. Nowadays Turkey does not need the Western link as before: trade and investment have been switching towards Russia and Central Asia; the Chinese are quite active in Ankara. Is that what we want to achieve, in a country that is otherwise the best advertisement for the West that anyone could have imagined back in 1950? – Times of London

China

The blame for friction in Chinese-United States relations “does not lie with China,” and it is up to the United States to take steps to repair the frayed ties, China’s foreign minister repeated Sunday.  The minister, Yang Jiechi, said at a news conference that the administration of President Obama had seriously disrupted the relationship by announcing the sale of weapons to Taiwan and holding a White House meeting with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, in a three-week period this year.  China suspended military exchanges with Washington and threatened other reprisals after the American moves. American officials have expressed frustration with China’s trade policies, including its refusal to revalue its currency, and with Beijing’s reluctance to press Iran to open its nuclear program to international inspection.  Mr. Yang restated that reluctance on Sunday, saying that diplomacy with Iran was a better path than sanctions.  Two top American officials visited Beijing for talks on the relationship last week in what a State Department spokesman had called an attempt to “get back to business as quickly as possible.” But Chinese officials have yet to temper their public criticisms of American policies.  – New York Times

China's newly assertive diplomacy is an effort to safeguard its core interests and shouldn't be interpreted as combativeness, the country's foreign minister said Sunday. Questioned about foreign misunderstandings of China, Yang Jiechi said critics who label Beijing as "more and more tough" don't recognize it is just defending its sovereignty, security and development interests. "Sticking to one's principles and being 'tough' or not, are two completely different matters," Mr. Yang said at a press conference held on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, China's legislature.  In an apparent swipe at the United States, Mr. Yang said critics were accusing Beijing of being difficult, while "taking it for granted that the interests of other countries can be undermined." – Associated Press

Japan

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, his party flagging in polls ahead of a mid-year election, promised on Monday to find a way to regain public backing but said he was not considering a cabinet reshuffle now. Only one in four voters plan to cast their ballots for his Democratic Party in an upper house election expected in July, a Yomiuri newspaper survey showed on Monday, as funding scandals and doubts about the premier's leadership erode his support. The novice Democratic Party, which ousted the long-dominant Liberal Democrats last year, needs to win the election to avoid policy paralysis as Japan struggles to keep a fragile economic recovery on track and rein in its massive public debt. "The view is spreading among the people that nothing has changed from before," Hatoyama told reporters. - Reuters

Analysis:  Even as Japan’s new leaders have promised to transform the way the nation is governed, they have left one thing unchanged: the prime minister, like many before him, is backed by a shadowy leader who is widely seen as really running the country.  Now, at a time of turmoil in Washington’s ties with Tokyo, American officials are reaching out directly to that power behind the throne.  According to Japanese and American officials, diplomats have been quietly negotiating a visit to Washington as early as next month by Ichiro Ozawa, the secretary general of the governing Democratic Party and its widely acknowledged power broker. The possible visit, which could include a meeting with President Obama, was first suggested to Mr. Ozawa in February by Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell during a visit to Tokyo, said the officials, who asked not to be identified because the plan was still tentative. The officials said the informal invitation was a move by Washington to improve communications with a new Japanese leadership that has proclaimed it wants more independence from the United States. – New York Times

Americas

The task of knocking down, smashing apart and hauling away the mountain range of rubble left by the Jan. 12 [Haiti] earthquake will take years and cost as much as $1 billion, according to some estimates. "I have heard the president say that based on what the engineers tell him, it will take 1,000 dump trucks working for 1,000 days to clear away the debris, and I am not sure even the experts know how big is the pile," said Leslie Voltaire, an architect and diplomat who is leading the effort to plan Haiti's reconstruction. What the experts do know is that the rubble is very heavy and very much in the way. U.N. rapid assessment teams estimate that the 245,000 ruined or hopelessly damaged structures in Haiti will produce 30 million to 78 million cubic yards of broken blocks, twisted metal and pulverized concrete -- enough to fill the Louisiana Superdome, from playing field to roof, up to 17 times. – Washington Post

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for Latin America to fight drug corruption in a regional swing that ended Friday in Guatemala, days after that country's drug czar and national police chief were jailed on suspicion of leading a police ring that stole cocaine from drug traffickers. The arrests underscored Guatemala's vulnerability to traffickers, whose billions of dollars in profits and bribes are undermining a fragile country still recovering from years of military rule and civil war. "Organized crime has infiltrated all aspects of the Guatemalan state, and now rivals it in terms of power and influence," said Andrew Hudson, senior associate at Human Rights First in New York. Drug czar Nelly Bonilla was arrested Tuesday, along with Police Chief Baltazar Gómez. They were accused of leading a criminal police gang that stole 1,500 pounds of cocaine.  They were the latest in a string of police officers alleged to have crumbled before the lure of drug profits. – Washington Post

Burma

Myanmar’s military government has quietly begun the largest sell-off of state assets in the country’s history, including more than 100 government buildings, port facilities and a large stake in the national airline, diplomats and businessmen here say.  The sell-off, analysts say, appears to be part of a political transition as the government introduces elections for the first time in 20 years and a new Constitution under which the military seems likely to perpetuate its rule, though more from behind the scenes. Diplomats and businessmen say that the sales may allow ruling generals to build up cash for election campaigns to the new Parliament, where they will hold 25 percent of seats, or to pay for salary increases for civil servants and other populist measures. Many of the assets are being sold to businessmen allied with the military, reinforcing the strength of a class of oligarchs and military cronies.  But the privatizations could also have the effect of injecting some competition into what is an almost Soviet-style economic system, and some analysts here say they may herald a shift in direction. Reformers in the government, they say, may be hoping to follow a path similar to that of China or Vietnam, where the economies have been liberalized but the ruling party has remained firmly in charge and has tolerated little dissent.  – New York Times

Africa

Dozens of villagers in central Nigeria were killed early Sunday, victims of apparent reprisal attacks over recent clashes between Christians and Muslims. A government spokesman said there were more than 300 dead, but that figure that could not be independently verified.  The killings took place near the city of Jos, for years a hotbed of ethnic and religious violence near the dividing line between the country’s mainly Christian south and Muslim north. Hundreds on both sides were killed as recently as January, though the victims this time were Christians, according to the information commissioner for Plateau State, Gregory Yenlong, and a local human rights organization.  Many appeared to have been cut down with machetes after being driven from homes set ablaze by attackers in the predawn darkness, said Shamaki Gad Peter of the League for Human Rights, a Nigerian group.  Mr. Yenlong said the attackers were “hoodlums, Fulani herdsmen” — Muslims from a neighboring state, Bauchi, who were going after Christian members of Plateau’s leading ethnic group, the Berom, in the villages of Ratt and Dogona Hauwa.  “They attacked those villages and killed well over 300 people, mostly women, children and the aged,” Mr. Yenlong said. “They killed them unprovoked. Innocent people were massacred.”  - New York Times