FPI Overnight Brief: July 2, 2010

FPI Overnight Brief
July 2, 2010

Afghanistan/Pakistan

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has approved a plan intended to win over Taliban foot soldiers and low-level commanders, according to NATO officials and an aide to the Afghan official overseeing the effort at Taliban reintegration. – New York Times

Three suicide bombers struck a Sufi shrine in the eastern city of Lahore on Thursday night, killing at least 35 people and wounding more than 175, officials said. It was the second major attack in the city in a month. – Washington Post

The U.N.'s top official in Afghanistan says the Taliban are interested in a political solution because they know they cannot win the war against the U.S.-led coalition or the hearts of Afghans – Washington Times

Gen David Petraeus, Nato’s newly appointed commander of the Afghanistan war, briefed alliance officials [yesterday] about his plans for the escalating conflict. – The National

Afghan and international troops captured a Taliban district chief in a four-hour gunfight in the southern province of Helmand, Nato said [yesterday]. – The National

Pakistan is considering a controversial new law that would restrict media coverage of suicide bombings and could be used to quell criticism of the government and army on the country's private television networks. - Guardian

With a new commander in Afghanistan, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) sees a new opportunity for tackling the growing problem of improvised explosive device attacks there. - Politico

Pakistani authorities now believe a dangerous new militant group, out to avenge a deadly army assault on a mosque in Islamabad three years ago, has carried out several major bombings in the capital previously blamed on the Taliban. – Associated Press

Josh Rogin reports: Despite what you may have read, the top Afghanistan policymakers in the Obama administration are all working together constructively and are on the same page, according to Special Representative Richard Holbrooke.- The Cable
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Defense

The Obama administration is threatening to veto the war funding bill awaiting a vote in the House over provisions that would undermine the president's ability to conduct military operations in Afghanistan as commander-in-chief. – The Hill

Josh Rogin reports: Sarah Palin is waging a battle inside the Tea Party movement to exempt defense spending from the group's small-government, anti-deficit fervor. – The Cable

Sarah Palin says: Something has to be done urgently to stop the out of control Obama-Reid-Pelosi spending machine, and no government agency should be immune from budget scrutiny. We must make sure, however, that we do nothing to undermine the effectiveness of our military. If we lose wars, if we lose the ability to deter adversaries, if we lose the ability to provide security for ourselves and for our allies, we risk losing all that makes America great! That is a price we cannot afford to pay. - Facebook
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China/Taiwan/Tibet

Reincarnations of Tibetan spiritual leaders, including the Dalai Lama, must be approved by the Chinese central government, a senior Communist Party official said. The remarks were among the clearest indications yet that China will appoint a reincarnation of the Dalai Lama after the current Dalai Lama dies, setting off a struggle with exiled leaders of the Chinese territory over Tibetan Buddhism. – New York Times

The Xinhua News Agency, China’s dominant news service and the propaganda arm of the Communist Party, introduced a 24-hour English-language news channel and is preparing to open a prominent newsroom in Times Square, part of an expensive push to increase the reach and influence of the Chinese news media overseas – New York Times

Not even the elite of China's Communist Party can avoid the regime's tight-fisted edicts - or resist seeking redress with an old-fashioned lawsuit. The daughter of a Chinese Communist Party founder is struggling to keep her family's home from being seized by the government that gave the house to her father decades ago for his service under Mao Zedong – Washington Times

Fear that it brings Chinese sovereignty closer has made the ECFA bitterly divisive in Taiwan itself. Its critics point out that China has never ruled out the use of force to bring about unification, nor stopped adding to its battery of coastal missiles menacing the island. They regard the ECFA as war by another means; a Trojan horse that Taiwan should have shunned. These critics are right about China’s intentions—to win support in Taiwan. But there are still at least three good reasons why Taiwan (and the West) should welcome the deal. - Economist

For all its efforts to show goodwill, [China] has made no attempt to scale down its military deployments on the coast facing the island, where its missile build-up continues. A defence-ministry official in Taipei points to a map of the island and sweeps his arm around to its east to show where, in the past year or so, Chinese naval forces have begun to extend their war-gaming reach. China is still, he says, a “clear and present danger”. Greed for China’s market is good for the KMT’s electoral prospects; but fear of its long-term intentions can still boost the DPP. - Economist
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United Kingdom

William Hague says: Put simply, the world has changed and if we do not change with it Britain’s role is set to decline with all that that means for our influence in world affairs, for our national security and for our economy. Achieving our foreign policy objectives has become harder and will become more so unless we are prepared to act differently. – Foreign Commonwealth Office
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Russian Spies

The alleged Russian secret agent who posed as a Canadian entrepreneur named Donald Heathfield claimed a former Clinton administration national security official was an adviser to his company. A 2008 version of the website for Mr. Heathfield's company, Future Map, lists Leon Fuerth, former Vice President Al Gore's top national security aide, as an adviser. – Wall Street Journal

A federal judge released a member of an alleged Russian spy ring on bail Thursday but ordered two others detained until trial after prosecutors said the Russian government would probably help them escape if they were freed. – Washington Post

There's no evidence for now that the deep Russian presence in Cyprus played a role in [Christopher Metsos’] release, but the Cypriot government is under pressure to explain the bewildering fumble involving a man wanted in the United States for reportedly operating a Russian spy ring there. – Washington Times

Former officials of Russia's spy agencies and analysts are heaping scorn on the alleged espionage operation in the United States rolled up this week by the FBI. What it showed more than anything, they said in interviews Thursday, is the pitiful state of spy craft in the Federal Security Service, the successor to the feared KGB. – Los Angeles Times

Juan Lazaro, one of the suspects in the Russian spy scandal has confessed to federal agents that he worked for Russia’s intelligence service, according to US prosecutors - Telegraph

MI5 is investigating whether a former KGB agent recruited his daughter, Anna Chapman, to work for the country’s secret services while living in London. - Telegraph

Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes write: We may never know the answer to how this counter-intelligence triumph took place. Russian intelligence is probably more worried about that question than the fates of its spies. Like in those old LeCarre novels, intelligence failures always open up the possibility that something is rotten in the organization. And somewhere in Moscow, there are no doubt a lot of people trying to figure out what went wrong. – Weekly Standard Blog
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Iran

President Barack Obama signed into law new sanctions on Iran that, for the first time, will bar from the American market foreign companies that work with Iranian businesses charged with aiding Tehran's nuclear program and the suppression of democracy. The law requires the Treasury Department to cut off from the U.S. financial system any foreign bank conducting transactions with Iranian entities blacklisted by the United Nations or the American government. – Wall Street Journal
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Ideas

Deterrence in cyber-warfare is more uncertain than, say, in nuclear strategy: there is no mutually assured destruction, the dividing line between criminality and war is blurred and identifying attacking computers, let alone the fingers on the keyboards, is difficult. Retaliation need not be confined to cyberspace; the one system that is certainly not linked to the public internet is America’s nuclear firing chain. Still, the more likely use of cyber-weapons is probably not to bring about electronic apocalypse, but as tools of limited warfare. - Economist

With 120 bloggers and citizen journalists locked up around the world, the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has decided to fight back by opening an "anticensorship shelter." At their headquarters in Paris, RSF and the communications security firm XeroBank have created a sort of Batcave of censorship-breaking technology – high-speed Internet with an anonymous IP address, encrypted e-mail, etc., all free of charge. - RFE/RL’s Watchdog blog

Josh Rogin reports: A House subcommittee cut $4 billion from the president's $56.7 billion request for State Department and foreign operations money in a bill unveiled yesterday, in another setback to the Obama administration's efforts to increase the funding available for diplomacy and development abroad.- The Cable
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Obama Administration/The War

Charles Krauthammer writes: Holder's avoidance of the obvious continues the absurd and embarrassing refusal of the Obama administration to acknowledge who out there is trying to kill Americans and why. In fact, it has banned from its official vocabulary the terms jihadist, Islamist and Islamic terrorism. – Washington Post
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Middle East

As the U.S. military draws down and Iraq opens up to foreign investment, China and a handful of other countries that weren't part of the "coalition of the willing" are poised to cash in. These countries are expanding their foothold beyond Iraq's oil reserves -- the world's third largest -- to areas such as construction, government services and even tourism, while American companies show little interest in investing here. – Washington Post

Syrian security officials have detained 400 people suspected of links to the Kurdish separatist group P.K.K., the state-run Anatolian news agency reported on Thursday. – New York Times

With the Syrian government poised to issue a new law on internet publishing, civil society groups, website administrators and journalists are hoping for increased legal rights but fear they will be straitjacketed by tight restrictions. – The National

Hamas and Hezbollah, groups that have long battled Israel with violent tactics, have begun to embrace civil disobedience, protest marches, lawsuits and boycotts—tactics they once dismissed. – Wall Street Journal

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, made a rare effort to reach out directly to the Israeli public, calling on Israel’s leadership to step up peace efforts while suggesting that his people were growing weary waiting for a state. – New York Times

Under pressure from a snowballing public campaign by parents of an Israeli soldier held captive for four years by Hamas in Gaza, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu went on national television on Thursday to assert that Israel would not "pay any price" for his freedom. – Washington Post

US attempts to broker a détente between Israel and Turkey misfired after secret talks between the two states yielded little but a new domestic crisis for Benjamin Netanyahu - Telegraph

Russia will soon deliver 50 armored personnel carriers to the Palestinians, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced on July 1. – Defense News

Martin Indyk writes: The current sturm und drang in U.S.-Israel relations cloaks a surprising development: President Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu are beginning to develop a constructive working relationship sensitive to the legitimate concerns of the other – Washington Post
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Russia/Europe

The controversy spawned by a single road repair project shot to the highest levels of Russian power on Thursday, when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered subordinates to ease traffic jams near a major Moscow airport. – Washington Post

Three months ago, Viktor Kondrashov's election as mayor of this sprawling Siberian city was widely seen as a humiliating defeat for United Russia, which backed another candidate. Today, United Russia says he's theirs. – Moscow Times

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said Wednesday that his country continues to reject Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence, even as the International Court of Justice prepares to rule on the matter. – Washington Times

France's defense ministry will slash spending by 3.5 billion euros between 2011 and 2013 to contribute to government efforts to rein in the public deficit, an official close to the issue said Thursday. - AFP

Europe's "opposite twins," as Mr. Sarkozy sometimes calls his country and Germany, are on different sides of crucial issues in Europe's debate over its economic future, from how best to encourage growth to how to tackle rising public debts. – Wall Street Journal

The wobble over the presidency has done more damage to Mrs Merkel’s position as leader of the CDU than as head of government, reckons Richard Stöss, a political scientist at Berlin’s Free University. Even so, Mr Wulff’s election neatly sidelines the chancellor’s last serious rival within the party. Mrs Merkel’s allies are not satisfied but, for now at least, are probably stuck with her. German voters may well feel the same. - Economist

For those who think Hungary needs a radical break with the sleaze and statism of the past eight years, change is welcome. But others worry about Mr Orban’s impulsive and headstrong habits. His first month in power suggests concern is justified. - Economist
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Kyrgyzstan

Dozens of Uzbek community, religious and political leaders have been arrested recently by the local police and accused of inciting ethnic violence, rights groups say. They were detained as part of an investigation into the unrest that raged through ethnic Uzbek neighborhoods here last month in which thousands of people, most of them Uzbeks, were thought to have died. – New York Times
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Africa

The world’s newest common market was created Thursday when a regional bloc of five east African countries freed up the movement of people, products and capital across borders, furthering East Africa’s dream of broad political unification – New York Times

Somali and African Union troops launched a long-promised battle Thursday against an al-Qaeda backed group in the capital, Mogadishu, seeking to push back Islamic militants that have left the government all but powerless to rule the chaotic eastern African country. In fighting that began early Thursday morning, 16 people died and 45 were wounded in the neighborhood of Karan, in the north of Mogadishu, hospital and ambulance workers said – Wall Street Journal

Dressed in camouflage and hunkering among his soldiers, Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed appeared on the front lines Thursday in an offensive against Islamic militants in his country's shattered capital of Mogadishu, witnesses and government officials said. – Los Angeles Times
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Americas

Nearly two dozen people were killed in a Mexican border area on Thursday during a fierce gun battle between suspected members of rival drug gangs, Mexican authorities said. – New York Times

Brazilians thus face a choice in October. Mr Serra would provide them with a strong but lean state, that would make room for more private investment and initiative and would tax its citizens less. Ms Rousseff’s advisers think that Brazil has time to bring down interest rates and taxes gradually, and that the state should promote industrial development and redistribute income. After 16 years of stability and policy continuity under Mr Cardoso and Lula, neither candidate offers a radical change of course. What is at stake is the speed of the country’s progress. - Economist

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