FPI Overnight Brief: June 5, 2012

Middle East/North Africa

Iran
 
The top United Nations nuclear official announced new talks with Iran on Monday aimed at gaining access to restricted sites, and he expressed concern about satellite images taken last month that showed the Iranians had demolished buildings at one site that inspectors have been especially pressing to visit. – New York Times
 
U.S. war planners have developed “a viable contingency” for Iran that U.S. President Barack Obama will not hesitate to authorize if the military option is the only way to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, according to a former senior Pentagon official. – Defense News
 
An Obama administration official says that Israel is “supportive” of future U.S. sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program if negotiations between Tehran and six world powers fail. – DEFCON Hill
 
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) called on the Obama administration to keep up tough sanctions on Iran and not to ease up on them until the nation agrees to terminate its nuclear weapons program. – The Hill’s Floor Action Blog
 
Syria
 
Syrian opposition forces new cease fire-ending offensive will last at least several weeks, the latest sign the U.N.-brokered plan is dead, a rebel source says. - DOTMIL
 
Syrian rebels said on Monday they were no longer bound by a U.N.-backed truce because President Bashar al-Assad had failed to observe their Friday deadline to implement the ceasefire and had only attacked government forces to defend "our people". - Reuters
 
Syrian rebels killed at least 80 army soldiers at the weekend, an opposition watchdog said on Monday, in a surge of attacks that followed their threat to resume fighting if President Bashar al-Assad failed to observe a U.N.-backed ceasefire. - Reuters
 
Syrian activists on Monday announced a new rebel coalition that aims to overcome deep divisions within the opposition in its fight against the forces of President Bashar Assad. – Associated Press
 
Major powers must ensure that the peace plan for Syria is implemented by both sides, but for now international mediator Kofi Annan does not favor expanding the ceasefire monitoring mission, his spokesman said on Monday. - Reuters
 
The Arab League chief will travel to New York this week and will discuss the Syria crisis with the U.N. secretary-general and Security Council ambassadors, Cairo-based League officials said on Monday. - Reuters
 
James Rubin writes: With the veil of fear now lifted, the Syrian people are determined to fight for their freedom. America can and should help them -- and by doing so help Israel and help reduce the risk of a far more dangerous war between Israel and Iran. – Foreign Policy
 
Max Boot writes: There are risks in a post-Assad Syria, to be sure, but toppling him as swiftly as possible — something sanctions have shown no sign of achieving — holds out the promise of meeting significant strategic as well as humanitarian objectives. – Los Angeles Times
 
Egypt
 
The presidential candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood and two popular rivals eliminated before the runoff called on Monday for further street protests until Egypt’s current military rulers enforce legislation disqualifying the other remaining candidate, former President Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister, Ahmed Shafik. – New York Times
 
The defendants in a criminal case against U.S.-funded pro-democracy workers are due in a Cairo court Tuesday, a hearing expected to coincide with the Egyptian parliament’s first broad review of a draft law that would maintain stringent restrictions on nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign money. – Washington Post
 
Three candidates knocked out of Egypt's presidential election in the first round said on Monday that violations had rendered the result invalid, further challenging the legitimacy of the vote less than two weeks before the run-off. - Reuters
 
Editorial: Mr. Mubarak at least avoided the fate of Saddam Hussein, whose squalid execution followed an equally rushed and unsatisfactory trial. But his legal ordeal may not be over. The presidential candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood has promised to retry him if elected, and to keep him in jail “forever.” Arguably the author of decades of political repression deserves little better; but such political prosecutions only weaken the cause of a democratic rule of law in Egypt. – Washington Post
 
North Africa
 
Two dozen men from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were sentenced Monday to long prison terms in Libya for their work in support of the late Moammar Kadafi's regime, Russian news media reported. – LA Times’ World Now
 
A top Libyan official urged U.S. companies on Monday to help create jobs for former rebel fighters who still have not laid down their guns, by making investments that could transform the country into a peaceful tourist destination. - Reuters
 
Clashes broke out between rival Libyan militias at Tripoli's international airport on Monday after gunmen drove armed pickup trucks onto the tarmac and surrounded planes, forcing the airport to cancel flights. - Reuters
 
Aid should be cut off to states that help Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir evade arrest for war crimes to convince them to hand him over to the International Criminal Court if he visits those countries, prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said on Monday. - Reuters
 
Security agents confiscated the Monday edition of Sudan's most widely read newspaper after it blasted plans by the ruling party to end fuel subsidies, the paper's chairman, who wrote the critical column, said. - Reuters
 
Gulf States
 
Bahrain justified moves to ban a small Islamist group on Monday by saying a radical Shi'ite cleric based abroad was its spiritual leader, while the move was seen by some as a renewed warning to leading Shi'ite opposition party Wefaq. - Reuters
 
A Kuwaiti man was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday after he was convicted of endangering state security by insulting the Prophet Mohammad and the Sunni Muslim rulers of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on social media. - Reuters
 
Yemen
 
Hundreds of Yemeni troops backed by tanks advanced in a bid to retake a coastal town from al Qaeda-linked fighters on Monday, residents said, part of a U.S.-backed offensive in a country Washington sees as a frontline against Islamist militants. - Reuters
 
Arab Spring
 
Camille Pecastaing writes: The Muslim world is poised to grasp the benefits of its demographic dividend: a vast population of working age. If the Islamists really want power, they should understand that they are only as strong as the society over which they preside. It is time to put their reputation for hard work and probity to work in the pursuit of economic growth. – Policy Review
 
Iraq
 
The Central Intelligence Agency is preparing to cut its presence in Iraq to less than half of wartime levels, according to U.S. officials familiar with the planning, a move that is largely a result of challenges the CIA faces operating in a country that no longer welcomes a major U.S. presence. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
 
A controversy over control of a religious shrine where a 2006 bombing set off waves of sectarian killings took a new violent turn on Monday morning when a suicide car bomber struck an important Shiite religious office in central Baghdad, leaving at least 18 dead and nearly 125 wounded. – New York Times
 
Israel
 
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to step up efforts to deter, detain and deport illegal migrants to Israel, as tensions mount over an influx of asylum seekers from Africa. His pledge came a day before an early morning fire, apparently set by arsonists, ravaged an apartment occupied by about 10 Eritrean migrants on Monday. – New York Times
 
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced down opposition on Monday in his pro-settlement Likud party to implementing a Supreme Court ruling to remove five settler buildings erected on private Palestinian land. - Reuters
 
Turkey
 
An effort by the Turkish authorities to prosecute four former Israeli military commanders over a raid on a Turkish ship moved forward on Monday when an Istanbul court ordered that Israel be formally notified of the charges. – New York Times

Asia

South Asia
 
The fate of one of the United States’ most dedicated enemies was the subject of mounting speculation on Monday after a drone strike in Pakistan’s tribal belt was said to have targeted Abu Yahya al-Libi, the Qaeda commander who escaped American custody in 2005 and became the group’s deputy leader after Osama bin Laden’s death last year. – New York Times
 
The Supreme Court on Monday suspended the interior minister after he failed to provide proof that he had surrendered his British passport. The order was part of a wider court investigation into lawmakers who hold dual nationality with Western countries, including the United States. – New York Times
 
Pakistan’s military said it successfully test-fired a cruise missile on Tuesday, part of what analysts say is as part of a regional arms buildup with a focus on India. – New York Times
 
As the Pentagon and White House look to expand America's influence in Asia, China is looking to secure its strategic foothold in Afghanistan and the Middle East. – DEFCON Hill
 
NATO has concluded agreements with Central Asian nations allowing it to evacuate vehicles and other military equipment from Afghanistan and completely bypass Pakistan, which once provided the main supply route for coalition forces. – Associated Press
 
Pakistani authorities briefly questioned three American diplomats on Monday in the city of Peshawar after weapons were found in their vehicles, police said. - Reuters
 
China
 
China's Internet monitors have unleashed a broad clampdown on online discussion of the 23rd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, restricting even discussion of the nation's main stock market when the Shanghai Composite Index fell by 64.89 points—a number that made for an eerie allusion to the sensitive date: June 4, 1989. – Wall Street Journal
 
Russian President Vladimir V. Putin arrived in China on Tuesday, a visit that contrasted with his shunning of a summit of world leaders hosted by President Obama last month, and intended to drive home the existence of an alternative group, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, that excludes the United States. – New York Times
 
China's ballistic missile submarine force lacks the ability to mount a major counteroffensive following a potential nuclear strike against the nation, the Straits Times reported on Monday – Global Security Newswire
 
China's top newspapers warned on Tuesday that the United States' plans to bolster its naval presence in the Asia-Pacific region threaten to widen rifts between the two big powers. - Reuters
 
China said June 4 that a U.S. decision to shift the bulk of its naval fleet to the Pacific by 2020 was “untimely” and called on Washington to respect its interests in the region. - AFP
 
Rowena Xiaoqing He writes: Ya Weilin’s death reminds us that if something like the Tiananmen movement ever occurs again, it will not be out of trust and passion like that of 1989; it will explode from the mix of anger, frustration and grievance. – Washington Post
 
Perry Link writes: Even inside the Great Firewall, the Internet continues to bring people reliable sources of local news as well as platforms for their own public expression that they never had before. Liberal bloggers rightly see grounds for a certain optimism here. But China's transition toward a democratic system has been rocky, and will likely continue to be so. – Foreign Policy
 
Koreas
 
The Pentagon has replaced the commander of United States Special Forces in South Korea after a media report quoted him as saying American and South Korean troops have been parachuting into North Korea on spy missions, a statement denied by Washington and Seoul. – New York Times
 
[T]he North Korean state news agency (KCNA) published yet another threat of a “merciless sacred war” – whatever that means – and added a new level of detail: the longitude and latitude of the offices of several large newspapers in Seoul that are routinely critical of the North… Trouble is, the coordinates North Korea published were wrong. – WSJ’s Korea Real Time
 
A senior South Korean legislator from the ruling party on Sunday called for his country to develop the capacity to wield an independent strategic deterrent, the Dong-a-Ilbo newspaper reported – Global Security Newswire
 
The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief said on Monday it had become clear through recent contacts with North Korea that there was no immediate prospect of the Vienna-based atomic agency visiting the Asian state. - Reuters
 
Southeast Asia
 
The United States and Vietnam have agreed to deepen military ties between the two nations, the top defense officials from both countries said on Monday. – DEFCON Hill
 
Vietnam called on the U.S. to lift a ban on lethal weapons sales to the country so it could modernize and overhaul its dated military. – Defense News
 
Myanmar's defense chief on Saturday asserted his government had given up its ambitions to launch an atomic energy program, which he said never really got off the ground, and has curbed its formerly tight military relations with North Korea – Global Security Newswire
 
Cambodia's ruling party looks to have won a landslide win in local elections, putting authoritarian Prime Minister Hun Sen on course to remain one of the world's longest-serving leaders after parliamentary elections next year. - Reuters
 
The Vietnamese government gave on Monday a boost to the search for missing U.S. servicemen from the Vietnam War, telling visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta it would open three previously closed sites to permit excavation for remains. - Reuters
 
Philip Bowring writes: China is making brazen assertions that rewrite history and take no account of geography. Today's naval arguments won't come to an end until the region's largest disputant stops rewriting the past. – Wall Street Journal Asia (subscription required)
 
Mongolia
 
The corruption trial of Nambaryn Enkhbayar, Mongolia’s former president, has been postponed until June 12. – Financial Times

Security

Defense
 
The White House and a top Senate Republican signaled in recent days that the Pentagon's budget will be a bargaining chip for both parties as they seek to avoid a fiscal meltdown later this year. - DOTMIL
 
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is downplaying the prospect of so-called “sequestration” cuts to the Pentagon’s budget. – Aviation Week
 
It is said that the "P" in Pentagon stands for planning…So why is it, from the secretary of defense on down, there is nobody planning for a massive half-a-trillion dollars in potential cuts coming in about six months? Well, according to the secretary other senior DoD leaders, publicly they are not planning because they have not been given direction to do so. – CNN’s Security Clearance
 
In what is already shaping up to be a dramatic budget season in the U.S., one more variable has emerged amid the shrinking spending plans, partisan bickering, threats of sequestration and presidential election: congressional turnover. – Defense News
 
Disaster relief, medical assistance, and other humanitarian missions can provide a low-cost way for the military to build US influence in Asia and elsewhere, a key part of the administration's new national security strategy, but this "soft power" approach is complicated both by civilian aid groups' suspicion of the military and by looming budget cuts. – AOL Defense
 
A senior-level U.S. Air Force panel has approved a document that formally articulates the need for a new ground-based missile system to replace today’s nuclear-armed Minuteman 3 arsenal – Global Security Newswire
 
ICYMI, FPI Policy Director Robert Zarate and Policy Analyst Patrick Christy write: Prior to departing for his week-long trip to the Asia-Pacific, Secretary Panetta warned graduates at the U.S. Naval Academy that “China’s military is growing and modernizing,” and called them to action:  “We must be vigilant.  We must be strong.  We must be prepared to confront any challenge.”  Yet, with the sequester’s guillotine still hanging over America’s long-term national defense budget, it remains to be seen whether the Obama administration and lawmakers in Congress will show themselves willing to do the same. – Foreign Policy Initiative
 
The War
 
[I]n a rare rebuke to [Admiral McRaven] and his command, powerful House and Senate officials as well as the State Department, and ultimately the deputy cabinet-level aides who met at the White House on the issue on May 7, rejected the changes. They sent the admiral and his lawyers back to the drawing board with orders to use security assistance programs already in place, particularly one created last year by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the defense secretary at the time, Robert M. Gates, for just these types of issues. – New York Times
 
The following conversation with Sanger took place a couple of days before the June 5 publication date of Confront and Conceal. Interview by David Rothkopf – Foreign Policy
 
Law of the Sea Treaty
 
Ed Meese writes: To secure navigational freedom, territorial rights and all national and international interests addressed in LOST, we must maintain the strength of the U.S. Navy, not look to an anachronistic pact that is intent on advancing a one-world agenda. – Los Angeles Times
 
Cybersecurity
 
Symposium: By pursuing cyberattacks against foreign nations, is the United States protecting itself or risking far greater danger? – New York Times
 
Nuclear Weapons
 
A study funded by the anti-nuclear activist group Ploughshares Fund says the U.S. government is spending too much on nuclear weapons. – Washington Free Beacon
 
The United States as of March 1 held 1,737 strategic nuclear warheads fielded on 812 active ICBMs, submarines-based missiles and bombers, a cut of 53 deployed bombs and 10 launch-ready delivery vehicles since last September, the U.S. State Department indicated in data released on Friday – Global Security Newswire
 
The world's nuclear-armed states are adopting increasingly advanced atomic armaments and do not appear not to be moving toward nuclear abolition, though the total quantity of such weapon systems has fallen internationally, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said in an annual report published on Monday – Global Security Newswire
 
Missile Defense
 
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday demanded an enforceable pledge that a ballistic missile defense system being constructed in Europe by NATO and the United States would not be aimed at his nation's nuclear weapons, Interfax reported – Global Security Newswire

Russia/Europe

Russia
 
Mikhail Prokhorov, the billionaire and New Jersey Nets owner who ran a notably mild and thoroughly hopeless campaign for the Russian presidency earlier this year, on Monday launched a political party for people who don’t belong to a party — and don’t want to belong to one. – Washington Post
 
The House Foreign Affairs Committee this week will become the first panel to vote on human-rights legislation that lawmakers of both parties say is a precondition to normalizing trade relations with Russia. – The Hill’s Global Affairs
 
Russian police have arrested some 20 activists denouncing a bill that would dramatically increase fines on protesters. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
 
Dmitry Medvedev defended his authority as prime minister on Monday, insisting he would play more than a “technical” role and playing down suggestions of a disagreement over cabinet appointees. – Financial Times
 
Under pressure from the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday defended his country’s human rights record, claiming that Russia has no political prisoners and dismissing criticism of a draconian bill that hikes fines for unsanctioned street rallies – Associated Press
 
Europe
 
A court here convicted four men on Monday of planning a terrorist attack in December 2010 against the offices of a Danish newspaper. The four men, who denied the charges, were sentenced to 12 years in prison. – New York Times
 
Ukraine's parliament moved towards granting equal rights for the Russian language on Tuesday when the ruling party rushed a contentious draft law through its first reading after forming a protective cordon around the speaker. - Reuters

Americas

United States of America
 
In between his defense of secret prisons, coercive interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects and the shredding of highly sensitive videotapes, former CIA spymaster Jose A. Rodriguez Jr. makes room in his memoir “Hard Measures” to talk about the competition: other CIA memoirists. – Washington Post
 
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) was headed back to the U.S. Monday afternoon after a multi-country tour that has taken him to Israel, Jordan, Abu Dhabi and Afghanistan. – The Hill’s Global Affairs
 
Latin America
 
Argentina's federal government said Monday it is taking legal action against five U.K.-listed oil companies operating in the waters surrounding the disputed Falkland Islands. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
 
Karin Deutsch Karlekar writes: The recent declines in this region, which had previously seen such broad advances in media freedom, are a stark reminder that such freedoms are fragile and must be nurtured and defended when they come under attack….Given that the bulk of the countries in Latin America are still in the middle range of possible press freedom scores, it is not too late to reverse the current trends and ensure that truly repressive media environments remain the exception in the region, rather than the norm. – Freedom House’s Freedom at Issue

Africa

West Africa
 
Analysis: [T]he Tuaregs' struggle for an independent homeland has been hijacked by better-armed Islamists from Mali and abroad, creating a safe haven for militants in the Sahara that is already being compared to similar bastions elsewhere. - Reuters
 
East Africa
 
Oil-producing South Sudan is seeking to recover at least $4 billion allegedly stolen by government officials in the past few years as the newly independent nation steps up efforts to bolster its cash reserves, threatened by the recent closure of oil production, the country's presidency said Monday. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
 
Sudan and South Sudan held high-level talks Monday seeking to resolve disputes over oil revenues and their shared border, the first negotiations since a dangerous slide toward war in April. – LA Times’ World Now
 
About 35,000 Sudanese refugees fleeing fighting between the army and rebels have crossed into South Sudan in the past three weeks, stretching water and aid resources to their limits, the United Nations said on Monday. - Reuters