FPI Overnight Brief: April 16, 2010

FPI Overnight Brief
April 16, 2010

Special Announcements

Videos, summaries, and transcripts of "Iran: Prospects for Regime Change are now available on FPI's website.

Kyrgyzstan

The ousted president of Kyrgyzstan left the country Thursday in a deal with the political coalition that seized power after violent protests last week, ending a long standoff and clearing the way for Washington to recognize and provide aid to the strategically located nation's new government. Kurmanbek Bakiyev had been holed up in a mountain village since fleeing the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, on April 7 after his security forces opened fire on demonstrators. He flew to a city in neighboring Kazakhstan, where the government said it had helped engineer his departure. The Kazakh government also credited the United States and Russia for what it called "an important step towards . . . the prevention of a civil war in Kyrgyzstan." In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the arrangements for Bakiyev to leave were worked out earlier this week during a meeting among President Obama, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Bakiyev submitted his resignation and left with only his wife and two small children, members of the new Kyrgyz government said, suggesting that the deposed autocrat had dropped demands that two of his brothers suspected of involvement in the killings of his critics and in last week's deadly shootings be allowed to go into exile as well. The brothers' whereabouts were unclear Thursday night, but the new government said it had launched an operation to detain them. Roza Otunbayeva, head of the interim administration, said that none of Bakiyev's allies had been allowed to leave the country and that those suspected of crimes would be brought to justice. At least 84 people were killed in the clashes last week. – Washington Post

Roza Otunbayeva says: A unique opportunity has opened up in Kyrgyzstan to deal with democracy. We started to go towards democracy, and it was interrupted. Now there is a chance to come back to democracy, and in half a year, my interim government should prepare elections -- open and transparent elections -- and we should pass a constitution based on political agreement between the parties. We have quite a task… Regarding corruption around the base, we should open up the facts, and then I will talk. I would say that we have been really unhappy that the U.S. Embassy here was absolutely not interested in the democratic situation in Kyrgyzstan. It was not paying attention to our difficulties over the last two years. We were not happy that they never had the time to meet with us. We concluded that the base is the most important agenda of the U.S., not our political development and the suffering of the opposition and the closing the papers and the beating of journalists. They turned a blind eye... We are now talking with the embassy and Mr. Blake, and they want to offer us as much support as possible, and they confessed that it was very difficult to work with the previous government. Now it sounds like the objectives of our governments are the same. They will help us. – Washington Post

Poland

For a few terrifying seconds before a Polish jet crashed in western Russia on Saturday, its crew members knew they were about to die, Poland’s chief prosecutor said on Thursday, as investigators in both countries analyzed the contents of the plane’s black boxes. “One could say that the crew was aware of the inevitability of the coming catastrophe, if only due to the plane shaking after the wings hit the trees, which we are certain happened,” the prosecutor, Andrzej Seremet, told a Polish radio station. The plane crashed in thick fog on Saturday, killing Poland’s president, Lech Kaczynski, and 95 others, including many top civilian and military officials. Russian officials said the crew had been strongly warned about the poor conditions, leading to speculation that the pilot was pressed to land so the dignitaries would not be late for a ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. That theory was bolstered by an episode from 2008, when Mr. Kaczynski ordered a pilot to land in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital. The pilot defied him, saying the conditions were too dangerous, and diverted to another airport. Mr. Seremet has said there is no evidence that the pilot flying to the Katyn ceremony was pressed, and an official with Russia’s investigative committee said data from the black box did not reflect that possibility. “The flight recorder, whose tapes are being deciphered, did not register any pressure on crew members,” said the official, in an interview with the Interfax news service on Thursday. The official said that the pilot was aware “well in advance” that he was headed to an airfield without a modern aerial navigation system. One possibility, he said, was that the pilot was not aware that the plane, a TU-154, loses altitude faster than usual when it is descending at more than 20 feet per second. – New York Times

Georgia

Mikhail Saakashvili writes: In recent years, as we rebuilt a functioning state and stepped up to our international responsibilities, we have played a significant role in efforts to combat the illegal sale of small arms, drug smuggling, human trafficking, money laundering, and more. We helped break up numerous uranium smuggling attempts. We have contributed nearly 1,000 troops to the multilateral war effort in Afghanistan. We aren't doing all this as a way to win points. We are doing this as an expression of our own values. All this may seem sensible and unexceptional -- a normal, responsible state expressing normal, responsible values. Yet for some states, these normal, responsible values are, indeed, profoundly threatening. Ideas of individual liberty, responsibility, and merit pose a real danger to any regime that maintains its power through repression, intimidation, and cronyism. As new histories show, that was the real reason for Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008 -- the fact that we were choosing to "go west" in how we govern ourselves and relate to the world. Our small state did not threaten any of our neighbors. But our far-reaching values did. Yet this is what Georgia has chosen to be -- a country that lives its values at home and abroad. Sometimes, this makes us a bit troublesome. But I would also suggest it is what makes us a reliable partner in the new efforts to build cooperation on crucial matters of global security. – Foreign Policy

President Saakashvili’s address to the Atlantic Council may be heard here.

Iran

Interview: Iran has one of the most draconian Internet censorship regimes in the world. But recently, the San Francisco-based Censorship Research Center says the U.S. government has approved the export of antifiltering software designed to help Iranians defy the censors. The center has developed "Haystack," software that lets web users access filtered websites such as Facebook and YouTube -- sites that have served as important communications tools for Iranians following last year's disputed presidential vote. Twenty-six-year-old Austin Heap, the director of the center, tells RFE/RL correspondent Golnaz Esfandiari that his organization has been distributing software to Iranians since March 19, when the license was issued. The group had to apply for the license because U.S. sanctions against Iran mean most exports to the country are banned unless they're approved by the Treasury Department – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Benjamin Weinthal writes: The Obama administration is squandering valuable time and resources in making extended overtures to Russia and China to join the West's crackdown on Iran's illegal atomic program. Secretary of State Clinton should instead turn to Europe - where leading economic powerhouses such as Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom are, after years of drowsiness, amenable to punishing Iran. Combined pressure from U.S. and European leaders is enough to ratchet up pressure on Tehran. If together they impose tough sanctions, it will be more effective than weakened measures agreed to simply in order to win the cooperation of China and Russia…The European Union's annual total trade relationship with Iran amounted to $35 billion in 2008. If the Obama administration genuinely seeks to force Iran to suspend its drive to develop nuclear warheads, it should walk away from Russia and China and turn to Europe as the decisive pressure point. Otherwise, we miss an amazing opportunity to capitalize on the continent's surprising enthusiasm for robust sanctions. – New York Daily News

The War
The Obama administration is for the first time drafting classified guidelines to help the government determine whether newly captured terrorism suspects will be prosecuted or held indefinitely without trial, senior U.S. officials said. The draft document envisions that a small number of suspected terrorists captured in the future could be detained and interrogated in an overseas prison, several of the officials said. At least in the short term, Bagram air base in Afghanistan would be the most likely prison to hold the suspects, they said. But approval of the guidelines is being delayed, primarily by State Department officials who are concerned that formalizing the rules will lead inevitably to greater use of long-term detention by the administration under conditions similar to those at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, which President Obama has pledged to close. The debate over the rules emerged from the task forces set up by Obama to study detainee issues after he signed executive orders last year abolishing many of the practices instituted during the George W. Bush administration. Officials crafting the replacement policies said the government has to rethink how to respond if a senior Al Qaeda member is captured overseas. "There's a process of working out procedures," a senior official said. The end product will probably be a secret document that "articulates that if tomorrow we capture a person, what do we do with him and how do we make that decision." The deliberations are also part of a larger internal fight over how far Obama will go in replicating detention practices used by President Bush, a trend that human rights groups and even some officials working in the Obama administration are attempting to halt. – Los Angeles Times

Afghanistan/Pakistan

The military government of then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf failed to fulfill its responsibility to protect former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in the hours leading up to her December 2007 assassination or to vigorously investigate her killing by a 15-year-old suicide bomber, according to a U.N. fact-finding commission report released Thursday. The three-member commission, headed by Chilean diplomat Heraldo Muñoz, also accused unnamed high-ranking Pakistani authorities of obstructing the commission's access to military and intelligence sources. The 65-page report -- which relied on interviews with 250 people -- provided a blistering account of government lapses that led to one of the most significant political assassinations in a generation. It said a police investigator deliberately sought to avoid solving the case out of fear of discovering the possible involvement of Pakistan's intelligence agencies. "Bhutto's assassination could have been prevented if adequate security measures had been taken," the report said. None of Pakistan's local or national security authorities "took the necessary measures to respond to the extraordinary, fresh and urgent security risks that they knew she faced."…The report also provides a damning account of the role of Bhutto's political party, Pakistan People's Party, in providing backup security for her. – Washington Post

President Obama, defending his troop surge strategy, said Thursday that things in Afghanistan are getting better, not worse, and his plans to start withdrawing U.S. forces next year are on track….Afghanistan is likely to be a key topic for discussion when he holds talks with leaders in Australia, which has some 1,500 troops in the country -- the largest single contingent outside NATO -- and has suffered 11 combat deaths. Mr. Obama said the war in Afghanistan remained a difficult task but that there had been positive trends recently…"I would dispute the notion that it is not getting better" in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in the interview, conducted in the White House and broadcast in evening prime time in Australia. "I do think that what we have seen is a blunting of the momentum of the Taliban, which had been building up in the year prior to me taking office," he said. Mr. Obama reiterated his plan to begin drawing down U.S. troops in 2011 and handing responsibility for security to domestic forces in Afghanistan. "We can't be there in perpetuity," he said. "Neither the American people nor the Australian people should be asked to carry that burden any longer than it needs to be carried." – Associated Press

Middle East

The Gaza Strip's Hamas-led government on Thursday executed two Palestinians convicted of aiding Israel in the assassination of Palestinian militants, a move that highlighted the deep divisions that endure between the two main Palestinian political factions. The executions -- carried out without the approval of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the West Bank and is part of the rival Fatah movement -- represented a direct rebuke of Abbas's authority amid stalled efforts at reconciliation. While Hamas controls Gaza, Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad govern the West Bank from Ramallah. The killings also came amid persistent tension in Gaza, where the Israeli army is continuing military operations to try to stop rocket fire into Israeli communities. They marked the first time the Hamas government has executed "collaborators" since the movement took control of Gaza in 2007. The two men were convicted in a military court of providing intelligence to Israel that led to the assassinations of wanted Palestinian militants Amr Abu Setta, Bakr Hamdan and Husam Hamdan between 2002 and 2006, according to the Hamas-run Interior Ministry. Naser Abu Freih, a 34-year-old former Palestinian police officer from the Jabalya area, also was convicted of collaborating with Israel since 1998, the ministry said. Freih and Muhamad Ibrahim Ismail, 36, of Rafah were killed by a firing squad early Thursday. – Washington Post

Jonathan Tobin writes: The significance of this false argument is that it not only seeks to wrongly put the onus on Israel for the lack of a peace agreement but that it also now attempts to paint any Israeli refusal to accede to Obama’s demands as a betrayal in which a selfish Israel is stabbing America in the back. The response from Obama to this will be, the Times predicts, “tougher policies toward Israel,” since it is, in this view, ignoring America’s interests and even costing American lives. The problem with this policy is that the basic premise behind it is false. Islamists may hate Israel, but that is not why they are fighting the United States. They are fighting America because they rightly see the West and its culture, values, and belief in democracy as antithetical to their own beliefs and a threat to its survival and growth as they seek to impose their medieval system everywhere they can. Americans are not dying because Israelis want to live in Jerusalem or even the West Bank or even because there is an Israel. If Israel were to disappear tomorrow, that catastrophe would certainly be cheered in the Arab and Islamic world, but it would not end the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, cause Iran to stop its nuclear program, or put al-Qaeda out of business. In fact, a defeat for a country allied with the United States would strengthen Iran and al-Qaeda. - Contentions

China

A series of severe earthquakes in a remote Tibetan district of western China killed hundreds of people Wednesday and triggered a major rescue operation that highlighted the growing power of public opinion in a country that was once slow to acknowledge such calamities. As temperatures in Qinghai province dipped below freezing, Chinese soldiers and paramilitary forces poured into the impoverished region to join rescue efforts and keep order. The death toll rose Thursday to 760, with 243 people still missing, according to authorities in Qinghai. More than 11,470 people have been injured. The strongest quake hit at 7:49 local time Wednesday morning, flattening homes, offices, a hotel and parts of at least two schools in Jiegu Town, a settlement of about 70,000 people high on the Tibetan Plateau. Most of the residents in the town, located 1,200 miles from Beijing, are ethnic Tibetans who revere the exiled Dalai Lama, a native of Qinghai. – Washington Post

A Chinese court jailed three people Friday who posted material on the Internet to help an illiterate woman pressure authorities to reinvestigate her daughter's death, one defendant's lawyer said, in a trial that attracted scores of supporters. The court in southern Fuzhou city found the Internet activists guilty of slander, sentencing to jail self-taught legal expert Fan Yanqiong for two years. Two others, You Jingyou and Wu Huaying, were each handed one-year sentences, said You's attorney Liu Xiaoyuan, in a phone interview. The court did not name individuals allegedly slandered by the three, saying instead that this was a matter that seriously affected the interest of the state. The three defendants posted information and videos online in a bid to help Lin Xiuying, a woman who believed her daughter died after being gang-raped two years ago by a group of thugs with links to the police in Fujian province's Mingqin county. Police had ruled that the 25-year-old woman died from an abnormal pregnancy. It is the latest example of Chinese Internet users being targeted for their budding grass-roots activism — ordinary people spreading word of grievances from every corner of the country with postings on Twitter, microblogs and other Web sites. – Associated Press

Nuclear Weapons

Kim Holmes writes: The biggest problem with the new treaty is how lopsided it is in Russia’s favor. Because of financial constraints and outdated nuclear systems, Russias nuclear arsenal was already going down, especially its aging launchers and delivery systems. It would have likely been forced to make the reductions codified in this treaty whether or not the U.S. reduced its weapons. And yet if the treaty is ratified, we will have locked ourselves into reductions that cannot be changed. Were we ever to want to increase our nuclear arsenal — say, because China or some other country threatens us — doing so would put ourselves in violation of international law. The new START also will give better protection to Russians than Americans. Once it is fully in force, we have to cut 151 of our delivery vehicles and launchers, while Russia could actually add 134 and still be under the limit of 700. The only side that’s disarming on this score, then, will be the U.S. Yes, the Russians may have to cut 190 nuclear warheads; but even there, we are disadvantaged; we could have to cut 265 to get to the treaty’s limit of 1,550 (though warhead accounting rules for bombers make the actual numbers uncertain). This is not only unfair. It actually lessens Russia’s exposure to America’s nuclear weapons more than it reduces America’s exposure to Russia’s weapons. Who cares, you ask, since we know that our biggest threat is not from Russians, but from Iranians? Well, if that is so, then why are we making such a big deal of an arms agreement with the Russians as if the Cold War had never ended? Why are we constraining our nuclear options in other areas just to get this modest reduction from a country that the administration otherwise seems to believe is a “reset” strategic partner? – The Foundry

Charles Krauthammer writes: The appropriate venue for such minor loose-nuke agreements is a meeting of experts in Geneva who, after working out the details, get their foreign ministers to sign off. Which made this parade of world leaders in Washington an exercise in misdirection -- distracting attention from the looming threat from Iran, regarding which Obama's 15 months of terminally naive "engagement" has achieved nothing but the loss of 15 months. Indeed, the Washington summit was part of a larger misdirection play -- Obama's "nuclear spring." Last week: a START treaty, redolent of precisely the kind of Cold War obsolescence Obama routinely decries. The number of warheads in Russia's aging and decaying nuclear stockpile is an irrelevancy now that the existential U.S.-Soviet struggle is over. One major achievement of the treaty, from the point of view of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, is that it could freeze deployment of U.S. missile defenses -- thus constraining the single greatest anti-nuclear breakthrough of our time. This followed a softening of the U.S. nuclear deterrent posture (sparing non-proliferation compliant states from U.S. nuclear retaliation if they launch a biochemical attack against us) -- a change so bizarre and literally unbelievable that even Hillary Clinton couldn't get straight what retaliatory threat remains on the table. – Washington Post

Ideas

Christian Caryl reports: Many Muslim scholars before Qadri, of course, have denounced terrorism. What makes him significant is the uncompromising rigor of his vision, which deploys a vast array of classical Islamic sources to support the case that those who commit terrorist acts are absolutely beyond the pale. He's especially keen on targeting the coming generation, younger members of the global ummah (the community of believers) who -- he contends -- have lost their bearings in the roiled post-9/11 world. Qadri's fatwa aims to establish a bit of healthy clarity. His finding, which builds its argument around a meticulous reading of the Quran and the hadith (collections of oral statements attributed to the Prophet Mohammed), makes the case that terrorist acts run completely counter to Islamic teaching. While quite a few scholars before have condemned terrorism as haram (forbidden), the new fatwa categorically declares it to be no less than kufr (acts of disbelief). "There was a need," says Qadri, "to address this issue authentically, with full authority, with all relevant Quranic authority -- so that [the terrorists] realize that whatever they've been taught is absolutely wrong and that they're going to hellfire. They're not going to have paradise, and they're not going to have 72 virgins in heaven. They're totally on the wrong side." – Foreign Policy

Michael Rubin writes: The age of autocracy should pass. The representatives of dictators should not be toasted in the West, even if they are wealthy with oil. Diplomats and policymakers should not dismiss the notion that men and women around the globe are entitled to the benefits of democracy, despite the rejoicing of Iraqis, and the growing chorus of Iranians, Lebanese, and Palestinians demanding freedom. For too long, European Commission officials, self-righteous non-governmental organizations, and self-described peace groups have subverted human-rights standards for narrow political agendas. They have done irreparable harm to those suffering at the hands of dictators and terrorists. When ordinary civilians suffer at the hands of repressive regimes, the West should not be embarrassed to substitute all manner of coercion for empty rhetoric. The cost of pretending that engagement with dictatorship is successful is often far higher than a broader strategy with transformative diplomacy at its core and democratization as its goal. - Verratene Freiheit

North Korea

Andrei Lankov writes: A decade ago North Korea went through a man-made social disaster which exceeds everything East Asia has experienced since Mao's ill-conceived experiments of the 1960s. An estimated 600,000-900,000 people perished in the 1990s famine, which was largely a product of the government's unwillingness to reform the economy. The social and economic structure of a Stalinist society collapsed. Antiquated iron mills and power plants ground to a halt, and the rationing system did not provide enough food for the average citizen to survive. Facing this challenge, North Korean society reacted in an unusual way: It rediscovered the market economy. Unlike China, where capitalism was re-introduced from above by Deng Xiaoping and his fellow reformers, in North Korea its growth has been largely spontaneous. Nonetheless, by 2000 market exchange, both illegal and semilegal, came to play a decisive role in the lives of North Koreans. This worried the Kim regime's leaders, who understand full well how the marketplace undermines their political control. In recent years they launched a number of policies aimed at undermining markets. The recent currency reform was meant to deliver another blow to the markets by annihilating the capital of private businesses. It backfired, though, and the economic situation worsened considerably. However, the nemesis of the regime, the market vendors of North Korea, are by no means the kind of street toughs one might encounter in the black markets of other countries. North Korea's "new capitalism" of dirty marketplaces, ancient charcoal trucks and badly dressed vendors has a distinctly female face. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

Thailand

Thai commandos staged a raid on Friday to capture some leaders of the anti-government protests that have gridlocked parts of Bangkok for more than a month, a senior government official said. The official, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, said on national television that a special forces unit had surrounded the SC Park Hotel in downtown Bangkok, where some of the leaders have been staying. It was the first military action since a failed attempt to disperse the demonstrators last Saturday resulted in 24 deaths and hundreds of other casualties. Initial reports from the government and from protest spokesmen on Friday indicated that some of the leaders had been captured while others had escaped, one by sliding down a rope from the hotel. “As I am speaking, the government’s special team is surrounding the SC Park Hotel where we have learned that there are terrorists and some of their leaders hiding,” said Mr. Suthep, who is in charge of security. “Innocent people should leave the protests because the authorities have to take decisive measures against terrorists,” he said, adding that Prime Minster Abhisit Vejjajiva has taken refuge in a military camp. He said Mr. Abhisit would address the nation on Friday afternoon after five days of silence. The protesters, widely known as the Red Shirts, had expanded their sit-in on Thursday, turning Bangkok’s central shopping area into a tent city and vowing to make it their “final battleground” in an attempt to force Mr. Abhisit’s government to resign and hold new elections. – New York Times

Cybersecurity

For the 140 computer network specialists, law enforcement agents and diplomats from eight countries who met in this German ski resort this week for a Russian-sponsored conference on Internet security, the biggest challenge was finding a common ground to discuss their differences. The barrier was not the variety of native languages but deep differences in how governments view cyberspace, according to many of the specialists there. That challenge was underscored by a sharp rift between the United States and Russia. Americans speak about computer security and cyberwarfare; the Russians have a different emphasis, describing cyberspace in a broader framework they refer to as information security. “The Russians have a dramatically different definition of information security than we do; it’s a broader notion, and they really mean state security,” said George Sadowsky, a United States representative to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, the closest thing to a governing body for the global network. What has changed, however, is the Obama administration’s decision this year to begin actively discussing these differences with the Russians. While last year only a single American academic computer security specialist attended the conference, this year more than a dozen Americans attended, including Christopher Painter, the second-ranking White House official on cybersecurity, and Judith Strotz, the director of the State Department’s Office of Cyber Affairs. The two nations, according to Russian officials, have agreed to renew bilateral discussions that began last November in Washington. – New York Times

Defense

The U.S. Army wants its existing helicopters to be able to fly without pilots - to be "optionally manned," in the parlance of the service's new road map for unmanned aircraft systems. Released April 15 at the Army Aviation Association of America conference here, the 140-page document is meant to help industry understand what the service wants, said Col. Christopher Carlile, who directs the Army's Unmanned Aircraft Systems Center of Excellence at Fort Rucker, Ala. The Army would prefer to upgrade its helicopters to perform UAV missions rather than buy expensive new aircraft, Carlile said. The AH-64D Apache Longbow, the CH-47F Chinook and UH-60M Blackhawk already have most of the necessary electronics on board, while Sikorsky plans to autonomously fly the UH-60M by year's end, he said. Now, the Army needs to do a cost-benefit analysis for where it wants to introduce unmanned or optionally piloted aircraft, Carlile said. If flying the helicopters autonomously does not introduce savings, then it won't make sense to pursue it, he said. – Defense News

Americas

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates voiced support Thursday for a U.S. free trade agreement with Colombia, a treaty considered a critical reward for one of Washington's strongest allies in the region. The proposed agreement, first signed during the George W. Bush administration, has long been supported by U.S. businesses but opposed by labor and human rights groups because of Bogota's history of harsh intolerance of labor activism. Defense Department officials have favored the pact as a way to reward Colombia for its successful effort at beating back drug trafficking and the country's insurgency. At a news conference in Bogota, the Colombian capital, Gates said he met this week with James L. Jones, the White House national security advisor, to discuss an administration push for congressional ratification of the accord. "I would hope we would be in a position to make a renewed effort to get ratification of the free trade agreement," Gates said. "It is a good deal for Colombia; it is also a good deal for the United States." President Obama was skeptical about the agreement as a senator and during his presidential campaign, citing Colombia's record of labor crackdowns. But after meeting last year with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Obama said Bogota had made progress on human rights issues and ordered U.S. trade officials to move ahead on the deal. Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva said Bogota was pleased by the Obama administration's growing support for the accord. "This agreement will help further consolidate security in Colombia," Silva said. – Los Angeles Times

Sunday Shows

As of the Overnight Brief’s compilation, CBS’s Face the Nation announced that Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) will be appearing on its program this Sunday, while ABC’s This Week will feature former President Bill Clinton.

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