FPI Overnight Brief: April 1, 2010

FPI Overnight Brief
April 1, 2010

Iran

After months of resisting the idea of new Security Council sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, the Chinese government appears to have taken a step closer to supporting them, agreeing to enter negotiations over the language of a new resolution to intensify international pressure on Iran. “They have agreed to start,” said Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, in an interview here. “Talking about the substance is a new step forward.”...Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that all the permanent members of the Security Council, which includes China and Russia, were now “unified” on the issue and that “a great deal of further consultation” would occur in the coming weeks. The agreement was reached on Wednesday in a conference call of political directors from the six-country group that negotiates with Iran: the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany. “There was substantive discussion of the elements of a resolution, for the first time today,” said a senior American official who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The next step, he said, would be when Chinese diplomats at the United Nations begin to hammer out a text. Mrs. Clinton suggested that the two approaches — sanctions and diplomacy — were not mutually exclusive. “Action in the Security Council is part of negotiation and diplomacy that perhaps can get the attention of the Iranian leadership,” she said. – New York Times

Mayzar Moldi and Charles Recknagel write: Ten months after the presidential election, observers describe Iran's political field ever more clearly as three distinct camps. Said Shahsavandi lists the camps as those of Ahmadinejad, of Rafsanjani, and of the Green Movement. Once a high-ranking member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, Shahsavandi later denounced the MKO and now works as an author and journalist in Germany. He says Ahmadinejad's camp -- which he calls the "military" camp for its close ties to the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps -- is trying to neutralize Rafsanjani. "The military camp is working to neutralize Mr. Rafsanjani, and the recent arrests of Mr. Rafsanjani's grandchild and his brother-in-law are not so irrelevant to this issue," Shahsavandi says. "They are going to tighten the ring surrounded around Mr. Rafsanjani." The reason, he says, is Rafsanjani's efforts to protect the Green Movement -- whose leaders are also prominent members of the establishment -- from being eliminated by Ahmadinejad's hard-line camp. "It is true that the leadership of the Green Movement has been in the hands of others, but Mr. Rafsanjani has been a shield for the Green Movement," Shahsavandi says. "If not for his own personal stature, the leaders of the Green Movement would be arrested by now." – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Mark Wallace writes: [G]overnment action alone has proven incapable of checking Iran’s leaders. That’s why the private sector has a vital role to play. By severing economic ties with Iran, Western companies can reinforce the international community’s efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program. And by insisting that companies fully disclose their interests in the Islamic Republic, investors can hold firms accountable for their dealings…They say sunlight is the best disinfectant. Nowhere is that truer than in Iran. We must have transparency from firms doing business in Iran. When confronted with the choice of admitting to their profiteering in the world’s major state sponsor of terror or pulling out, responsible firms will pull out. Economic pressure on Iran may be our last hope for preventing the country from developing nuclear weapons. – Atlanta Journal Constitution

Michael Rubin writes: What to do about Iran, especially now that the international community can no longer deny the nuclear ambitions of the theocratic state that has implicitly promised to destroy Israel? It appears that hopes for a self-generated revolution from below against the Islamic Republic have been dashed for now: the regime succeeded in containing massive protests planned for February 11, the anniversary of the 1979 revolution that brought it to power, and is proud of its methods, which included arresting student leaders and family members of prominent activists, “texting” warnings to the cell phones of Iranian activists, and blocking e-mail and multimedia messaging in order to prevent opposition coordination or handheld video of paramilitary abuse leaking to Western media. – Commentary Magazine (subscription required)

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Iraq

Followers of Moktada al-Sadr, the militant cleric whose militia was a major force in the Shiite insurgency against American forces, announced Wednesday that they were arranging a special vote to pick Iraq’s next prime minister. Mr. Sadr, who has been living in Iran, released a statement through his political office in Iraq that called for putting the “choice of prime minister into the hands of the Iraqi public through a referendum for all Iraqi people.” The move appeared to be part political gimmick and part public relations masterstroke. The referendum would have no legal authority, but would continue the political maturing of a movement that moved away from violence, embraced the democratic process, and solidified its political force in the March 7 parliamentary election. The group won as many as 40 of the 325 seats, possibly pushing it past Kurdish groups in talks on forming a government. At a news conference on Wednesday morning at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, several representatives of Mr. Sadr’s political movement announced that they would hold the referendum on Friday and Saturday to choose among five candidates for prime minister or write in a candidate. – New York Times

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Russia

A former Chechen separatist who reinvented himself as a proponent of global jihad stepped out of the shadows on Wednesday to take responsibility for two suicide bombings on Moscow’s subway, and to offer himself as the face of an increasingly lethal pan-Caucasus insurgency. The separatist, Doku Umarov, last year revived a suicide battalion believed to be behind some of the most notorious attacks of the past decade, and then issued a warning in February that he was planning attacks in central Russia. In the recording released Wednesday, Mr. Umarov seemed to take pleasure in thrusting the bloody violence of the Caucasus upon the comfortable residents of the capital. “You Russians hear about the war on television and the radio,” Mr. Umarov said on the video, apparently made hours after the subway blasts. “I promise you the war will come to your streets, and you will feel it in your own lives and on your own skin.” In assuming a public role and taunting Russia with his pronouncements, Mr. Umarov seemingly played into the hands of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, offering evidence that the threat in the Caucasian republics was part of a broader Islamic insurgency that threatened Russia’s security. That may provide Mr. Putin with a fresh rationale to pursue a take-no-prisoners policy in the Caucasus. But the insurgents lacked a central figurehead, a role that Mr. Umarov now seems determined to seize for himself. – New York Times

The Chechen rebel leader who said he ordered the attack on Moscow's Metro can tap into an ample supply of would-be suicide bombers bent on revenge if he wants to make good on a pledge to strike Russia's heartland. After Monday's bombing, which killed 39 people, Doku Umarov is also well placed to deepen possibly lucrative ties to an admiring global community of Islamist radicals, analysts say. The attack by women suicide bombers thrilled online al Qaeda sympathizers. "The lionesses have roared, striking fear into the hearts of the unbelievers," ran one adulatory comment on the Arabic-language Ansar al-Mujahideen jihadist forum, according to the U.S.-based Site Intelligence Group monitoring company…A decade ago Chechnya was the destination of choice for footloose foreign militants, and Monday's attack is likely to have gone some way to restoring its attraction. But Umarov does not have to go overseas to recruit foot soldiers for his declared aim of creating a pan-Caucasus, sharia-based state separate from Russia. Drawing on a deep well of anger at home, the veteran field commander can call on would-be suicide bombers ready to make good on his threat to spread the insurgency to Russian cities. – Reuters

Police detained dozens of anti-Kremlin activists in Russia's second city on Wednesday after 300 gathered to protest restrictions on the constitutional right to free assembly. "Russia will be free," shouted activist Andrei Dmitriyev before police dragged him to a waiting bus in the center of Saint Petersburg. Around 30 activists were taken to a local police station. Russian opposition groups last year began to hold rallies on the last day of each month to defend article 31 of the constitution, which guarantees the right to free assembly. Activists say this gives them the right to hold protests without prior permission, which is regularly denied to opposition groups. Police routinely break up rallies not rubber-stamped by the authorities. Street protests are one of the few outlets available to anti-Kremlin activists, who are blocked from state media and often denied registration to stand in elections. At least a dozen people were arrested on Wednesday at a similar rally in Moscow attended by around 50 people. - Reuters

The Republic of Georgia's government voiced new worries on Wednesday that recent terrorist bombings in Moscow will be used as a pretext for renewed aggression by Russian forces against the country…In an interview with The Washington Times, Giga Bokeria, Georgia's deputy foreign minister, said he was concerned by recent comments from senior Russian officials suggesting that Georgia was behind the Moscow subway blasts carried out by two female suicide bombers who blew themselves up during the rush-hour attacks. "I hope it is not the case, but these allegations certainly raise alarms that Russia would use the subway attacks as a pretext to target Georgia," Mr. Bokeria said by telephone from Geneva. The deputy foreign minister referred specifically to comments from Nikolai Patrushev, the current secretary of Russia's national security council and the former chief of the Russian FSB, the domestic spy organization that replaced part of the former Soviet Union's KGB. On Wednesday, the Russian newspaper Kommersant published an interview with Mr. Patrushev, who said, "We have had information that individual members of Georgian special forces support contacts with terrorist organizations in the Russian North Caucasus. We must check this also in relation to the acts of terror in Moscow." – Washington Times

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Afghanistan

The lower house of the Afghan parliament on Wednesday resoundingly rejected President Hamid Karzai's bid to change the nation's elections law and to exert more control over the commission that investigates voting fraud. The vote represented a sharp rebuke of Karzai's effort this year to change the law by presidential decree while parliament was on recess, and a show of force by a legislature that has become increasingly willing to resist rubber-stamping presidential proposals. The decision comes after the parliament rejected many of Karzai's proposed cabinet nominees, creating an ongoing state of political limbo, and amid pressure on him by the United States to do more to fight pervasive corruption" This is a very important day for Afghanistan's democratic institutions," said Peter D. Lepsch, a senior legal adviser for Democracy International in Kabul. "The legislative branch has used its constitutional authority to stem presidential power. That's a big deal." The vote by the lower house, known as the Wolesi Jirga, does not appear to mean the end of Karzai's proposal to change the elections law. Afghan and Western officials said that the upper house must also vote on the decree. With parliamentary elections scheduled for September, some officials suggested that delaying long enough might allow the new law to survive. – Washington Post

Opium seizures in Afghanistan soared 924 percent last year because of better cooperation between Afghan and international forces, the top U.S. drug enforcement official said Thursday. The Taliban largely funds the insurgency by profits from the opium trade, making it a growing target of U.S. and Afghan anti-insurgency operations. Afghanistan produces the raw opium used to make 90 percent of the world's heroin. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration now has 96 agents in the country who joined with Afghan counterparts and NATO forces in more than 80 combined operations last year, acting DEA administrator Michelle Leonhart said at a news conference in Kabul. "That is the success of bringing the elements, civil, military Afghan partners together," Leonhart said. Leonhart did not give figures for total amounts of drugs seized but said the increase was 924 percent between 2008 and 2009. International groups estimate that only about 2 percent of Afghanistan's drug production was blocked from leaving the country in 2008 for markets in Central Asia and Europe. Leonhart said eradication efforts had already scored some success in the south, with opium cultivation down more than 30 percent in Helmand province that is responsible for half of Afghanistan's total production. She said the DEA was working with U.S. forces moving into the Taliban heartland, including "significant operations" in Helmand. – Associated Press

David Ignatius writes: Recognizing the severe gaps in their knowledge, U.S. commanders have adopted what might be described as "operational humility." They know they can make big mistakes if they aren't careful. Shaking up the power structure might put the United States on the side of the Pashtun man in the street, but it would open a power vacuum that could be exploited by the Taliban. Given the planned July 2011 start for withdrawal of U.S. troops, there isn't time for risky experiments in Kandahar. American officials worry, quite sensibly, about the law of unintended consequences. So commanders are opting instead for an approach that one calls "re-balancing" the Kandahar power elite. The idea is to open up political space to tribes and clans that have been left out of the spoils system…The tool that U.S. strategists hope to use to broaden the political base in Kandahar is the traditional Afghan forum known as the "shura." Officials are encouraging these gatherings regularly in the city and the surrounding districts, and urging local Afghan officials to make them more inclusive and a better forum for redressing grievances. They want to combine the shuras with better policing, aided by embedded U.S. trainers, and with new economic development projects. – Washington Post

Con Coughlin writes: Senior NATO military officers are confident they can destroy most of the Taliban's terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan this year. Yet this will prove to be a Pyrrhic victory unless a viable, effective and law-abiding administrative system is established in its place. Despite the billions of dollars Washington is spending on training a new cadre of police and civil servants, these Afghans are still many years away from having the ability to run the country effectively. Gen. Sir David Richards, the head of the British Army and the former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, has said it will take until 2015 before the Afghan police force is fully functional. As one senior NATO official told me in Kabul: "There is a massive disconnect between the pace of military operations and that of the reconstruction program. And for the NATO mission to succeed they need to be working in harmony, rather than in the disjointed fashion that currently prevails." – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

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Strategic Forces

Laura Rozen reports: The Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review is expected out early next week, before President Barack Obama heads to Prague to sign the new START treat with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday, April 8. It is likely to be the only nuclear posture review produced by the Obama administration, a non-proliferation expert who asked to speak anonymously said today. It will be only the third NPR to date, the previous ones issued by the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. It will not make a no-first-use declaration, as some progressives had hoped. Nor is it likely to assert that the U.S. would not use nuclear weapons to retaliate for a non-nuclear attack, in part to try to reassure allies that rely on the U.S. to provide deterrence capabilities. It is likely to assert that the U.S. sees the purpose of nuclear weapons being for deterrence. The administration also hopes to move to a posture that relies increasingly on non-nuclear deterrent capabilities, including its superior conventional capabilities. - Politico

Kori Schake writes: I'm tempted to cheer an arms control agreement that succeeds in increasing our latitude to retain what is already a small nuclear force, and to expand it modestly. We conservatives should commend the Obama administration for producing an advance in arms control agreements that no Republican president had achieved: An agreement that gives us more latitude than its predecessor! Except that there are two significant problems the Treaty doesn't deal with that our approach ought to address. – Shadow Government

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Missile Defense

Rebeccah Heinrichs writes: President Barack Obama has nominated an anti-missile defense adviser who may soon receive congressional approval — and put Americans in danger. [Phillip] Coyle, [the man Obama wants as his associate director of national security and international affairs in the Office of Science and Technology Policy,] may advise the administration to cancel some missile defense systems based on his belief that they don’t work; while arguing others should be banned by PAROS — because they do work. Coyle’s nomination is a mistake. So are his ideas. Missile defense is a national security necessity. It’s one that, as a poll shows, 88 percent of Americans support…One senator wary of Coyle’s opposition to missile defense has placed a hold on his nomination. This is wise. The advisory post should be held by a person marked by reason and objectivity, not dogmatism. Much like the case for missile defense itself. - Politico

Anders Fogh Rasmussen writes: We need a decision, by Natos next summit in November, that missile defence is an alliance mission, and that we will explore every opportunity to co-operate with Russia. But Russia also must decide to view missile defence as an opportunity, rather than a threat. If that happens, we can move forward to create a missile-defence system that not only defends the Euro-Atlantic community, but that also brings it together. The end of the cold war has given us an enormous opportunity to achieve our goal of a Europe whole, free, and at peace. We are not quite there, but we are getting there. Missile defence can be part of that positive trend. – Guardian

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South Asia

Dhurva Jaishankar writes: Whether or not it is widely appreciated, the United States and India do have converging long-term interests with regards to Pakistan. Both genuinely want Pakistan to evolve into a peaceful, prosperous and democratic state, not out of any sense of altruism, but out of self-interest. India’s leaders have been remarkably consistent in presenting the external conditions for sustained, rapid economic growth as the country’s top foreign policy priority. An adversarial relationship with Pakistan clearly undermines Indian efforts to attain that kind of economic success. Meanwhile, the prospect of an unstable Pakistan presents Washington with its worst nightmare: nuclear weapons in the hands of international terrorists. Clearly, both India and the US want to see Pakistan succeed by normalising ties with its neighbours, enhancing regional economic integration, and establishing a tradition of peaceful, democratic power transitions…But it is becoming increasingly clear that elements of Pakistan’s leadership — both military and civilian — do not share India and the United States’ desire to see the country secure itself, develop or prosper. Instead Pakistan’s leaders consistently demonstrate an unbecoming arrogance, a penchant for mendacity, and a willful disregard for the well-being of their people and country. – Indian Express

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Turkey

An Istanbul court on Wednesday released nine military officers, including three admirals, who have been charged in an alleged plot to overthrow the government, the state-run Anatolian news agency said. The men, six of whom are currently serving in the military, were detained with nearly 70 other active and retired officers last month in a swoop that escalated tensions between Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government, which has roots in political Islam, and the secularist establishment and rattled financial markets. News channels earlier reported 10 suspects had been freed. The court had agreed with the officers' petition to be released, Anatolian cited one of their lawyers as saying. Twenty-five people remain in police custody in connection with the so-called Sledgehammer coup plot, NTV channel reported. Prosecutors are investigating allegations that the suspects conspired to bomb an historic mosque, shoot down a fighter jet and blame Greece and arrest hundreds of thousands of people to foment social unrest and destabilize Erdogan's government. The military denies such a plot, saying Sledgehammer was part of a war-games scenario used at a training seminar. The armed forces have overthrown three governments in outright coups since 1960 and pressured Turkey's first Islamist-led administration to resign in 1997. - Reuters

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Defense

In trying to speed 30,000 reinforcements into Afghanistan while reducing American forces in Iraq by 50,000, American commanders are orchestrating one of the largest movements of troops and matériel since World War II. Military officials say that transporting so many people and billions of dollars’ worth of equipment, weapons, housing, fuel and food in and out of both countries between now and an August deadline is as critical and difficult as what is occurring on the battlefield. Military officials, who called the start of the five-month logistics operation “March Madness,” say it is like trying to squeeze a basketball through a narrow pipe, particularly the supply route through the Khyber Pass linking Pakistan and Afghanistan. “Hannibal trying to move over the Alps had a tremendous logistics burden, but it was nothing like the complexity we are dealing with now,” said Lt. Gen. William G. Webster, the commander of the United States Third Army, using one of the extravagant historical parallels that commanders have deployed for the occasion. He spoke at a military base in the Kuwaiti desert before a vast sandscape upon which were armored trucks that had been driven out of Iraq and were waiting to be junked, sent home or taken on to Kabul, Afghanistan. The general is not moving elephants, but the scale and intricacy of the operation are staggering. The military says there are 3.1 million pieces of equipment in Iraq, from tanks to coffee makers, two-thirds of which are to leave the country. Of that, about half will go on to Afghanistan, where there are already severe strains on the system. – New York Times

Greg Grant reports: The Navy faces an operational “tipping point” where the demand for overseas presence will far exceed the number of ships, according to the influential Center for Naval Analyses…The military’s future unfolds in a world of constrained federal budgets and Navy budgets will not experience growth rates above inflation; “getting well” in future budgets is a myth, CNA says. Rising shipbuilding costs, ever increasing personnel and health care costs, and the need to fund ongoing operations will all exert serious downward pressure on ship numbers. If the Navy continues on the current shipbuilding course of about six or seven ships per year, the battle fleet will face a steady decline over the next two decades that will see it go from 286 ships today to around 230–240 ships from 2025 and out. What to do? The Navy must change its strategy. CNA offers five strategic options for the future Navy: Two Hubs; One Plus Hub; Shaping; Surge; and Status Quo Shrinks. Each option involves either a significantly reduced force structure or a significant change in strategy. – DoD Buzz

Daniel Goure writes: What is needed, at least in part, is a new strategic architecture that helps the states of interest along [the global Allied] periphery to defend themselves and simultaneously firmly demonstrates American commitment to their security. Given the many demands on this country’s armed forces, evidence of American commitment will rarely come in the form of deployment of military units. Instead, the commitment will be demonstrated first by the capabilities provided to those forward positioned friends and allies. These capabilities include integrated air and missile defenses, littoral sea control forces, local ISR and precision fires. The second way the U.S. will demonstrate its commitment is through the support of strategic enablers such as long-range ISR and C2 networks that will enhance the operation of regional military forces. Ultimately the security of the “global Allied periphery” will have to be under girded by a U.S. commitment to deploy its forces. – Early Warning

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Democracy and Human Rights

Anne Bayefsky writes: Many in the corridors of the [UN Human Rights] Council meeting mistakenly believe that the Obama contingent is some combination of naïve, idyllic, weak, and pathetic. I give the president more credit than that. The Council’s record was clear when Obama decided to join it, and any first grader is capable of doing the math that proves the inability of any Western government to change the Council’s course. Contributing to an aura of credibility surrounding this twisted and incorrigible institution is, therefore, a solid piece of evidence of President Obama’s priorities -- good relations with the Muslim world, poor relations with the state of Israel, and human rights be damned. – Commentary Magazine

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North Korea

North Korea's highest-ranking defector and former mentor to leader Kim Jong-il expressed skepticism on Wednesday that recently reported cracks in the country's Stalinist regime are significant enough to bring it down. Hwang Jang-yop also said during a visit to Washington that no group inside North Korea is "influential enough to cause a big dent" in Mr. Kim's iron fist, and the "military is the only force" that could stand up to him. Mr. Hwang responded to a recent report, based on interviews with 300 North Korean refugees, many of whom were not part of the ruling elite, that cell-phone usage and other modern technology, as well as black market cross-border trading, have begun to undermine support for the regime in Pyongyang. "Very few people have cell phones, and those who are found to be in possession of a cell phone [without permission] are penalized," he said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He suggested that a more effective way to shake Mr. Kim's rule is to secretly send North Korean refugees now living in South Korea to the communist country's mountains to wage "ideological warfare." That proved successful "during the Japanese occupation" in the last century, he said. – Washington Times

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Americas

The international community pledged $5.3 billion Wednesday for earthquake-shatteredHaiti over the next two years, launching an ambitious effort not just to rebuild the hemisphere's poorest nation but also to transform it into a modern state. The amount exceeded by more than $1 billion the goal set ahead of a conference co-sponsored by the United Nations and the U.S. government. In all, countries, development banks and nongovernmental groups pledged nearly $10 billion for Haiti in years to come…Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton noted that nearly 50 countries made pledges, twice as many as contributed to rebuilding the area hit by the 2004 tsunami in South Asia. She announced $1.15 billion in U.S. funds for the nation-building effort in Haiti. The reconstruction plan calls for building ports and hundreds of miles of new roads, resurrecting Haiti's withered agricultural sector, relocating people from the crowded capital and establishing an efficient bureaucracy in a country that never had one. Clinton warned that if the aid effort proves slow or uncoordinated, "the challenges that have plagued Haiti for years could erupt, with regional and global consequences." She evoked the possibilities of a stream of boat people, increased drug trafficking and the spread of drug-resistant diseases. – Washington Post

The economy of earthquake-ravaged Haiti could grow at an average rate of 8 percent in the coming years, provided the international community comes to its aid, the IMF chief said on Wednesday. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said the IMF believes "that it's possible to obtain over the coming five years an average rate of growth of 8 percent ... which will lead to a GDP (gross domestic product) per capita of $1,000." He said that estimate is around 50 percent higher than what the fund had forecast prior to the January 12 earthquake in the impoverished Caribbean country. The 7.0-magnitude quake killed as many 300,000 people and left another 1.2 million homeless. "That's possible, but condition one is to have the Haitian authorities really in the driver's seat," he told reporters after addressing a one-day conference that the United Nations hopes will raise nearly $4 billion for Haiti. Strauss-Kahn added that the Haitians would need immediate financial aid to plug a hole in their budget. - Reuters

Roger Noriega writes: As farm-state Congressmen are keeping themselves busy offering trade benefits to Fidel Castro, last week Canada's Parliament announced agreement on an accord with Colombia that could cost American farmers $1.7 billion in exports. Our farmers have a right to ask why some in Washington want to waste precious days on the legislative calendar to hand unilateral concessions to Cuba in the midst of brutal crackdown there while refusing to take the time to push trade accords with three of our staunchest allies. - Forbes

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