The Dreyfuss Report

Karzai, the Pashtuns, and the Taliban

By Robert Dreyfuss

The prospects for Afghanistan's election on Thursday are murky, at best.

The Taliban are threatening to disrupt the vote in areas south and east of Kabul, where they are strong, and say that they will take reprisals against anyone who votes. "Afghans must boycott the deceitful American project and head for the trenches of holy war," said a communique from the Taliban. The Taliban, which is overwhelmingly Pashtun, is apparently counting on its ability to persuade or intimidate Pashtuns to stay away from the polls, which could doom or weaken Karzai. An excellent analysis in the New York Times by Dexter Filkins notes that the Pashtun vote is critical to Karzai's chances on Thursday:

"Five years ago, Mr. Karzai rode to an election victory on a wave of support from his fellow Pashtuns, who make up about 40 percent of Afghanistan's population."

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August 17, 2009

State Department: "Be Afraid! Be Very Afraid!"

By Robert Dreyfuss

President Obama, along with his adviser on counterterrorism, John Brennan, a White House deputy national security adviser, have tried to reorient US policy away from the nonsensical idea of a Global War on Terror. So far, so good.

But then something like this.

Below are some excerpts from a ludicrous, alarmist, and absolutely useless "worldwide caution" published last month by the State Department. It's too long to include the whole thing, but I've attached here some representative excerpts that show how the State Department shamelessly uses non-specific scare tactics to worry Americans about the threat of terrorism overseas.

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August 14, 2009

The Thirty Years' War

By Robert Dreyfuss

With great anticipation, I trucked over to the posh St. Regis Hotel, just north of the White House, to see Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and his team at an event sponsored by the Center for American Progress. I shouldn't have bothered.

The weird thing about the event is that in the room were literally hundreds of the Washington foreign policy elite, current and former officials, people with lots of experience in the Middle East and South Asia, and, of course, journalists, too. And Holbrooke brought with him literally his entire team, minus a few who couldn't be there: top regional experts such as Barnett Rubin and Vali Nasr, and about a dozen other members of Holbrooke's Af-Pak task force. But the session was boring, pedestrian, and so mind-numbingly simplistic that it seemed like Holbooke and Co. were talking to third graders.

And their goal was to convince us that the "civilians" involved in the Thirty Years' War in Afghanistan can rebuild that shattered nation from the ground up. They didn't convince me.

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August 12, 2009

White House Opening to Hezbollah, Hamas?

By Robert Dreyfuss

Last week, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, John Brennan, the White House's top adviser on terrorism, described the outlines of the Obama administration's new counterterrorism strategy. During his appearance, which drew several hundred people to the basement conference room at CSIS, I had a chance to ask Brennan about US policy toward Hezbollah and Hamas. In his response, Brennan opened the door a crack to the idea of a new US policy toward the two groups, and his comments stirred some unhappiness at the State Department. Here's are two transcripts, first, my exchange with Brennan and then the question-and-answer session at the State Department:

Q. Good morning, John. I'm Bob Dreyfuss from The Nation magazine. ... In between al-Qaida and general violent extremists, there are other organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, even the Taliban, that seem amenable to the kind of persuasion that you said that al-Qaida, the president believes, is not amenable to.

And we've discussed this in the past, and you've suggested that it might be possible to have a dialogue with Hamas and Hezbollah, and I think the president himself has said the Taliban. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about disaggregating these movements, which the Bush administration was so prone to rolling up into one, big Islamo-fascist ball of wax. Talk a little bit about how we could deal with some of the other formations that exist and whether or not it might be prudent to start talking to them, now.

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August 10, 2009

The Death of Mehsud

By Robert Dreyfuss

The death of Baitullah Mehsud, if true, is a good thing for all concerned, not least for the people of Waziristan. He was an oppressive thug and a terrorist with no redeeming social value. His death came, apparently, as the result of cooperation between local, on-the-ground spies and informants, Pakistan's intelligence service, and the CIA, which operates the killer drones. It is, to me, an example of counterterrorism done right: precise targeting, little collateral damage, and high-value targets.

It does not mean the end of the Pakistani Taliban, of course. Its effect on the war in Afghanistan will be minimal, since Mehsud was primarily operating within and against the state of Pakistan and its institutions, not in Afghanistan. But it gives Pakistan an opportunity to continue the military and political battle to re-take areas in FATA, the Swat Valley, and other districts that have fallen under Taliban control, whether it uses military means, diplomacy, or a combination of both. For months now, Pakistan has been tightening the noose on South Waziristan, threatening an invasion of the tribal area to clean out Mehsud's forces, reportedly 10,000 strong, and the allied remnants of Al Qaeda there. It's unclear now whether that attack will proceed, but at the very least the threat to Pakistan from Islamist extremists has been undercut and its leadership weakened. Various intelligence analysts have been quoted to the effect that the Pakistani Taliban's leadership will be divided, confused, and no doubt wondering who betrayed them. Says Pakistan's interior minister: "His loss means there will be confusion and total demoralization within their ranks. This is a window of opportunity that Pakistan has to take advantage of."

Blowing up Mehsud doesn't contradict the policy of negotiating and deal-making with Taliban officials. (Indeed, if I were Mullah Omar, hiding in Quetta, Pakistan, I'd be thinking a lot more seriously about a deal with President Karzai right now.) Masood Sharif Khattak, a former top Pakistani intelligence official, suggested that the killing of Mehsud might provide a window for persuading leaders of the group to talk, telling the Los Angeles Times:

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August 8, 2009

Ahmadinejad II

By Robert Dreyfuss

A intensified crackdown in Iran in the next few weeks and months might make the post-election repression of Iran's opposition movement so far look mild. Now that President Ahmadinejad has been sworn in for a second, four-year term, it's widely expected that he'll unleash the full fury of the country's security forces, Islamic courts, and paramilitary groups against protesters and opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Khatami, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, and Mehdi Karroubi.

Last week, promising as much, Ahmadinejad made the threat explicit during a speech in Mashhad:

"Let the swearing-in ceremony occur. Then we will take them by the collar and slam their heads into the ceiling."

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August 6, 2009

Billion-Dollar Mystery in Iraq

By Robert Dreyfuss

A multi-billion dollar mystery is unfolding in Iraq, and it may reach to the highest levels of the Iraqi government.

It involves what the New York Times calls an "extremist Shiite group" that has now reconciled with Prime Minister Maliki and his regime. The group is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of five British contractors who, according to the Guardian, were installing a sophisticated financial tracking system in Iraq's ministry of finance in 2007.

The story so far:

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August 4, 2009

Show Trials in Tehran

By Robert Dreyfuss

As Roger Cohen's lengthy, analytical piece in the New York Times Sunday magazine described, the Obama administration hasn't quite figured out how to respond to the continuing turmoil in Iran.

Troubled we should be over the report, also in the New York Times (by David Sanger), that the Obama administration is actively considering the imposition of an embargo on gasoline and refined petroleum products for Iran if the regime doesn't accede to talks with the United States and the West by September:

The option of acting against companies around the world that supply Iran with 40 percent of its gasoline has been broached with European allies and Israel, officials from those countries said. Legislation that would give Mr. Obama that authority already has 71 sponsors in the Senate and similar legislation is expected to sail through the House.

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August 3, 2009

US Tells Israel: Iran Has Eight Weeks

By Robert Dreyfuss

Robert Gates, Jim Jones, and other US officials traipsing in and out of Israel this week have told Israeli officials to stop "ranting and raving" about Iran for, oh, about eight more weeks.

Eight weeks! According to Haaretz, the liberal Israeli daily, that's how much time they're willing to give Iran to start talking. Let's hope that Iran does start talking by then, but if they don't, well, then it'll take longer. But the Obama administration seems set on tougher sanctions after that.

Perhaps the most unintentionally hilarious part of the Haaretz report is that Jones and Co. told the Israelis about the progress of Joe Liberman-sponsored sanctions legislation in the US Senate. Said the paper:

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July 31, 2009

The Need for Strategic Patience on Iran

By Robert Dreyfuss

Does President Obama have the strategic patience he'll need to deal with Iran?

It isn't clear.

Things are exceedingly unsettled inside Iran, and it's not likely that Iranian leaders will respond any time soon to US overtures or to the multilateral effort to restart serious talks with Iran over its nuclear program. The opposition in Iran isn't going away. Yesterday, the leaders of the Green Movement called for a silent rally of mourning for the death of Neda Agha-Soltan on Thursday at Mosalla, the gigantic, half-finished prayer hall in central Tehran, and although permission for the event was denied, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and other leaders of the movement have called for it to take place anyway. Instead of Mosalla, Mousavi and Karroubi plan to hold the memorial at Tehran's main cemetery, which is heavy with symbolism because it was used in 1978-79 as a rallying point for the revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini. The Thursday protest is likely to result in new clashes between security forces and protesters. There've been scattered protests in Tehran recently, and the opposition movement is trying other, quieter tactics too, such as boycotts. Meanwhile, outrage is building over the treatment of those arrested, tortured, and killed by the regime's security forces. Some detainees (including one of the most prominent, Saeed Hajjarian, a key adviser and strategist for Mousavi) have been or will soon be freed, although hundreds (or thousands) remain in prison. And Iran's radical-right court system has announced plans to begin trials of protesters, charging, according to the BBC, that they committed crimes "including bombings, carrying weapons and attacking security forces." Outrage over the treatment of prisoners spans the Iranian political spectrum, from liberal reformists to hardliners to several outspoken clergy, including grand ayatollahs.

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July 29, 2009