FPI Overnight Brief: July 23, 2009

India

The Hindu reports that “Days before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani met in Egypt, the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence floated a suggestion that India deal not just with Pakistan’s civilian government but also directly with its Army and intelligence agency. Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha made the out-of-the-box overture during a meeting earlier this month with the three Indian defence advisers representing the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force attached to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad…”

Indonesia

The New York Times reports that “The Indonesian government’s crackdown on militant Islamic groups has been widely praised in recent years, particularly by the United States. Proof of its success rested in the fact that, after annual terrorist attacks earlier this decade, none had taken place in nearly four years. But as a clearer picture has begun emerging of Friday’s coordinated suicide bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels here, terrorism experts and some Indonesian officials are focusing on what they describe as weaknesses in Indonesia’s antiterrorism campaign. Although the authorities have arrested hundreds of militants and severely weakened Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian terrorist network, they have had much less success in uprooting the culture that breeds extremism.”

Bloomberg reports that “Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir blamed the Indonesian government’s policies for the suicide attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta and said terrorism won’t end until authorities respect the supremacy of Islamic law… Bashir, who is the alleged spiritual leader of Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah and lives in the grounds of an Islamic school in Java, refused to condemn the attacks and said violence was justified in the fight against non-Muslims, the newspaper said… Some terrorism analysts say the government must crack down on Bashir and other clerics in order to uproot Islamic extremism in the nation of 248 million people, the world’s most populous Muslim country. ‘If Indonesia is serious about fighting JI they must arrest and retry’ Bashir for ‘preaching hatred,’ Rohan Gunaratna, head of the Singapore-based International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, said this week.”

China

The AP reports that “The U.S. has largely prevailed in a trade dispute with China over restrictions on the sale there of U.S. CDs, DVDs, books and computer software, two officials familiar with the ruling said. The confidential verdict from the World Trade Organization comes as President Obama's administration is being pressed to be tough over trade rules with China, which many Democrats in Congress blame in part for soaring trade deficits and lost manufacturing jobs in the U.S.  The ruling in the case, filed before Obama took office, was released to Beijing and Washington last month but won't be made public until Aug. 12. It finds that Beijing is breaking commerce rules by forcing U.S.-made goods including magazines and video games to be sold through Chinese state-owned companies, the officials said.”

The New York Times reports that “A senior Chinese official said the government’s ethnic minority policies were ‘effective’ and were not the root cause of the deadly rioting that occurred on July 5, when ethnic Uighurs killed ethnic Han by the scores in Urumqi, the capital of the western Xinjiang region, the state news media reported on Wednesday. The statements were the most vocal defense by a government official since July 5 of the nation’s ethnic minority policies, which had been widely criticized by foreign scholars, exiled ethnic minority leaders and residents of ethnic minority regions even before the violence took place. About 10 percent of the 1.3 billion people in China are members of ethnic minorities, according to government statistics.”

Afghanistan

AFP reports that “Mongolia will send at least 150 soldiers to Afghanistan in its biggest contribution to the international coalition fighting Taliban militants there, the defense ministry said Thursday.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that “Afghanistan is expected to put its rough-edged new democracy on display in a televised debate between candidates vying to lead one of the world's poorest, most turbulent countries. But only three of the 41 presidential candidates were asked to appear for the event Thursday evening, and only one looked certain to show up, reflecting the disarray of a nascent system that still lacks political parties and general ground rules for debates. On Wednesday evening, a spokesman for the heavily favored incumbent, President Hamid Karzai, said the president wouldn't participate because he didn't have enough notice and more candidates weren't invited. Two former senior government officials were slated to take part: Abdullah, 49 years old, an ophthalmologist and former foreign minister, and Ashraf Ghani, a 60-year-old academic and ex-finance minister who has hired U.S. political strategist James Carville as an adviser.”

The Washington Post reports that “Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani on Wednesday called on the United States to provide real-time intelligence, unmanned aircraft technology and other military assistance to help his country combat the Taliban without relying on attacks from U.S. drones. Gillani raised the issue with Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, who is on his fourth visit here since becoming the U.S. envoy to the region, according to a statement from the prime minister's office. Pakistan has asked before for the capability to carry out its own drone strikes, so as to avoid the public outcry that regularly follows attacks by U.S. unmanned aircraft. The drone attacks in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan ‘have seriously impeded Pakistan's efforts towards rooting out militancy and terrorism from the area,’ the statement said. Pakistan has cooperated with the U.S. drone missions despite its public position against them, and many Pakistani officials privately say that the attacks are helpful.”

The New York Times reports that “Entering a debate that has stirred political tumult in Britain, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said in an interview broadcast Thursday that more coalition troops will die in Afghanistan but the war was ‘worth the effort.’ Speaking during a tour of Ukraine and Georgia, Mr. Biden told the BBC that the lawless region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was ‘a place that, if it doesn’t get straightened out, will continue to wreak havoc on Europe and the United States.’ His remarks have a particular resonance here at a time when the American-led coalition has recorded some of its worst casualties since the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001.”

Reuters reports that “U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke hailed on Thursday the return home of many of the 2.5 million people displaced by fighting in Pakistan's Swat valley despite pockets of Taliban resistance. Holbrooke described securing valleys, where the Pakistan army opened up an offensive against the militants more than three months ago, as the first priority.”

Burma

Reuters reports that “The United States urged [Burma] to implement a U.N. resolution imposing an arms embargo on North Korea in a face-to-face meeting, a senior U.S. State Department official said on Thursday. The official, who spoke on condition he not be named, said Washington's willingness to improve relations with the military-ruled former Burma will depend partly on the outcome of a trial against pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi… U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that the United States was worried about possible nuclear technology transfers from North Korea to [Burma].”

Iraq

The Los Angeles Times reports that “President Obama, hailing the transfer of authority in Iraq's cities to Iraqi military forces, acknowledged today that ‘differences in strategy’ remain to be resolved, but voiced satisfaction with the level of security in the war-torn nation. Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, in private meetings at the White House, also spoke of both the Obama administration's concern for speedier ethnic reconciliation inside Iraq and the Iraqi government's appetite for accelerated U.S. investment there.”

The New York Times reports that “President Obama welcomed Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq to the White House on Wednesday and said that despite occasional differences between the two nations’ military forces, the United States was on track for withdrawing combat forces from Iraq by the end of August 2010. In a joint appearance in the Rose Garden, the two leaders sidestepped some of the recent conflicts over details of the withdrawal and security, and they presented a positive portrait of the evolving relationship between the United States and Iraq. Although Mr. Obama conceded there would be ‘some tough days ahead,’ he said he remained confident that the Iraqi forces would ultimately be able to handle much of their own security so the United States could pull out its combat troops. The president also said he was committed to working with Iraq to persuade the United Nations to ease international sanctions imposed on Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf war.”

Western Europe

Vladamir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation writes: “In an open letter to the Obama administration, leading public figures from Central-Eastern Europe are calling in urgent terms for U.S. strategic re-engagement with that region, both directly and through NATO… [T]he open letter carries the signatures of more than 20 personalities including former heads of state and prime ministers, other statesmen and opinion-makers from Central-Eastern European countries. Some of the signatories--such as Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel--are emblematic of the region's democratic liberation while others led their countries into NATO and the European Union, with active U.S. support at that time. They write as ‘friends and allies of the United States’ who ‘care deeply about the future of the transatlantic relationship…’ The nine-page letter is suffused with concern over the eroding U.S. engagement in this part of the continent and in Europe's eastern neighborhood: ‘The U.S. should reaffirm its vocation as a European power and make clear that it plans to stay fully engaged.’ The document conveys the region's ‘growing sense of nervousness’ since last year's Russo-Georgian war.”

Ideas

Serge Schmemann writes in the New York Times that “Friday is the 50th anniversary of one of the more bizarre clashes of the cold war: the 'kitchen debate' between Richard Nixon, then 46 and Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice president, and Nikita Khrushchev, the cunning peasant who at 65 had just finished consolidating his position at the pinnacle of Soviet power. Unscripted and often raw, it was one of the few times Soviet and American leaders publicly vented at each other. After the brash and mercurial Khrushchev was ousted, summit meetings became choreographed shows.”

The War

AFP reports that “One of Osama bin Laden's sons may have been killed by a U.S. missile strike in Pakistan earlier this year, National Public Radio reported. Saad bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader's third-oldest son, is ‘believed’ to have been killed by Hellfire missiles fired from a U.S. Predator drone ‘sometime this year,’ the U.S. broadcaster said on its website. The United States has put Pakistan at the heart of the fight against Al-Qaeda. The U.S. military and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are the only forces that deploy drones to the region. U.S. spy agencies are ‘80 to 85 percent’ sure that Saad bin Laden is dead, a senior counterterrorism official told NPR, while acknowledging that it was difficult to be completely sure without a body on which DNA tests could be conducted.”

Defense

Human Events reports that “The ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee says the battle to fund more than 187 F-22 stealth fighters is not over, even though pro-Raptor forces suffered a stinging defeat in the Senate this week. Rep. Howard ‘Buck’ McKeon of California told HUMAN EVENTS the next F-22 war zone is a House-Senate committee conference on defense spending. There, as ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, McKeon will fight to preserve final bill language to provide for 12 more jets, as the House approved. ‘We have a House bill that passed on the floor,’ he said. ‘We have appropriators [in a second committee] that have followed the same thing. We will have a conference. That's how we normally do things here.’”

Obama Administration

USA Today asks, “Heard about the latest intelligence ‘scandal’ in Washington? You know, the one about whether an administration that's no longer in office failed to tell Congress about a CIA program that no longer exists, the purpose of which was to kill top terrorists? If that doesn't sound like much of a scandal to you, you're right. But some key House Democrats seem to think otherwise. Last week, they went ballistic and began an investigation into the defunct program. Based on what's known, it's hard to see what the CIA did wrong here; it appears to have carefully assessed the program and shelved it when it was deemed unworkable. And it's hard to think of a better way for Congress to dash hopes of improved relations with the intelligence agencies.”

Laura Rozen writes in the Cable that “James Inhofe (R-OK) is joining the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Oklahoma Republican and noted global-warming skeptic is ‘taking the GOP seat [that was] long held vacant on the [Republican] hopes that Norm Coleman would prevail,’ a Hill foreign-policy hand said. ‘Inhofe will become the ranking member on the East Asian and Pacific Affairs subcommittee,’ a press release on Inhofe's Senate Web site says. Inhofe is cochair of the Senate Taiwan caucus, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. He identified Asian democracy and African issues as two key areas he will focus on.”

Iran

VOA reports that “The chairman of a key U.S. House of Representatives committee has signaled his intention to move ahead with sanctions legislation targeting Iran's refined petroleum sector, if Iran does not take up the U.S offer of direct talks on its uranium enrichment program. The statement by Democratic Representative Howard Berman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee came amid other steps in Congress to increase pressure on Iran. Congressman Berman's statement came during a hearing on Iran, and refers to his Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act (IRPSA) which now has 260 sponsors in the House of Representatives.”

VOA reports that “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday the United States may offer a ‘defense umbrella’ for U.S. allies in the Gulf, to deter Iran if it acquires nuclear weapons. Clinton, in Thailand for a regional dialogue with ASEAN foreign ministers, also says the United States is concerned about possible North Korean nuclear aid for Burma.”

The Los Angeles Times reports that “Iran's political crisis intensified Wednesday when the nation's main opposition figure announced that he would create a political organization to ‘lay the groundwork for a large-scale social movement’ stemming from his disputed election loss to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Many supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi had feared the announcement would amount to a disavowal of the civil disobedience campaign that has sprung up since the June election in which the government has been accused of massive vote fraud. Instead, Mousavi explicitly praised the protest movement as a cornerstone for change in Iran.”

North Korea

The Washington Post reports that “The war of words between North Korea and the United States escalated Thursday, with North Korea's Foreign Ministry lashing out at Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in unusually personal terms for "vulgar remarks" that it said demonstrated ‘she is by no means intelligent’… ‘The six-party talks are over,’ [North Korean] spokesman Ri Hung Sik said, because of the ‘deep-rooted anti-North Korean policy’ of the United States. North Korea rarely holds media events, so the decision to speak to reporters is significant.”

The Financial Times reports that “Italy has blocked the sale of two luxury yachts to North Korea because it suspects they were destined for Kim Jong-il, the country’s ailing dictator, in a potential breach of international sanctions against Pyongyang.”

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