FPI Overnight Brief

FPI Overnight Brief August 12, 2010

Special Announcement

Thirty-seven former U.S. government officials, human rights and democracy advocates, and Russia experts warned Wednesday that the arrest of Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov at a demonstration on July 31 and other anti-democratic steps by the Russian government constitute an “alarming trend” and that continued abuses should have “serious consequences” for U.S.-Russian relations.

Afghanistan/Pakistan

American military officials are building a case to minimize the planned withdrawal of some troops from Afghanistan starting next summer, in an effort to counter growing pressure on President Obama from inside his own party to begin winding the war down quickly. – New York Times

Worsening insurgent violence in many parts of the country is raising concern about Afghanistan’s ability to hold a fair parliamentary election in little more than a month, a crucial test of President Hamid Karzai’s ability to deliver security and a legitimate government – New York Times

To the north of [Kandahar], U.S. soldiers are in the throes of an arduous operation to clear insurgents from lush vineyards and pomegranate groves. To the east, other newly arrived U.S. units are preparing for another wave of clearing operations. Not to be left out, Kandahar's feisty mayor has decided to do some clearing of his own: He recently ordered a bustling bazaar next to the governor's palace to be razed in the name of counterinsurgency. – Washington Post

The German military, long criticized by its allies as too passive in the face of a growing insurgency, plans to go on the offensive in Taliban strongholds in northern Afghanistan—despite the risk of a political backlash back home. Acting on instructions from Berlin, senior officers have ordered two 600-man German battalions to team up with Afghan soldiers in the coming months and clear Taliban fighters from districts the insurgents now dominate. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

U.S. and Afghan officials say they have found evidence that New Ansari [hawla exchange] was helping to launder profits from the illicit opium trade and moving money earned by the Taliban through extortion and drug trafficking. The officials also say they have found links between the money transfers and some of the most powerful political and business figures in the country, including relatives of Mr. Karzai. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

The recent execution-style slaying of 10 medical aid workers, six of them Americans, by the Taliban in Afghanistan will hurt poverty-stricken Afghans the most and underscores the vulnerability of humanitarian groups, charities working in the region say. – Washington Times

Two Royal Air Force Tornado jets are to be sent to Afghanistan, boosting air cover there by 25%, the defence secretary announced today. - Guardian

A combined Afghan and Coalition force targeted al Qaeda and Pakistani fighters during raids in the southeastern province of Zabul. Twenty suspected Taliban fighters were detained during the operations. – Long War Journal

Targeted strikes by U.S. special forces against insurgents around Kandahar are yielding results, but war planners expect tough fighting ahead and more casualties, a U.S. military official said on Wednesday - Reuters

The United Nations appealed on Wednesday for donations of nearly a half billion dollars to aid flood victims in Pakistan as the magnitude of the disaster widened, with about one-fifth of the country submerged and the annual monsoon season still potent. – New York Times

In a country of 170 million people where anti-American sentiment burns brightly, the United States may have won 84 friends Wednesday by scooping them up in the belly of a Chinook helicopter and ferrying them away from this flooded mountain town – Washington Post

Shuja Nawaz writes: To reconstruct damaged homes and infrastructure and help its people recover, Pakistan will require enormous aid -- not just from the United States and Europe but also from Muslim nations and its neighbors. Meanwhile, the battle against the homegrown insurgency and militancy that threaten Pakistan's polity rages on. Even as Washington focuses on leaving Afghanistan, it must not lose sight of Pakistan's long-term civil and military needs -- not just for short-term gain but in an effort to build a lasting relationship. – Washington Post

Russia/Georgia

Russia announced Wednesday that it had deployed an advanced surface-to-air missile system in the breakaway Georgian enclave of Abkhazia, a sign that Russian forces were becoming further entrenched in a disputed region at the focal point of Russia’s brief war with Georgia two years ago. – New York Times

As the Obama administration is touting the success of its "reset" in relations with Russia, America's former Cold War rival is challenging key U.S. policies. – Washington Times

During the three years [that Doku] Umarov has led it, the [Chechen] insurgency has shifted from a movement for independence from Moscow to an embrace of global jihad, prompting the U.S. to join Russia in officially declaring him a terrorist. Terrorists have struck an average of once a day in Russia since Mr. Umarov took over, reaching into its heartland and killing more than 900 people. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

The Kremlin sacked the official responsible for police in southern Russia's volatile Dagestan province Wednesday after the region's leader pleaded for more help in battling a growing Islamist insurgency. - Reuters

Iran

Iran is greatly curbing its once-lofty ambitions to become a major liquefied natural-gas exporter, a reversal that energy executives and analysts tie to the country's difficulty accessing Western technology amid fresh international sanctions. – Wall Street Journal

Tougher sanctions against Iran appear to have halved the country’s petrol imports in July, according to the International Energy Agency. As a result Iran has been forced to pay a 25 per cent premium to market prices for its petrol deliveries as many companies shy away from supplying the country, the western countries’ oil watchdog said on Wednesday. – Financial Times

Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Gen James Jones, has indicated the President may be prepared to meet Mahmoud Ahmadinejad if the regime resumed negotiations over its nuclear programme. – Telegraph

Punitive international sanctions imposed on Iran have strengthened the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and assisted its post-election crackdown on the opposition Green movement, the leading reformist politician and former presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi has told the Guardian. - Guardian

In a harangue delivered to Iranian expatriates visiting Tehran last week, Mahmud Ahmadinejad resorted to an odd turn of phrase to describe the futility of Washington's use of threats and allegations against Iran. "The boogeyman snatched the boob," the Iranian president declared. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

An Iranian woman whose sentencing to death by stoning has sparked international outrage has apparently confessed to adultery and talked about her husband's killing in a state television interview. - Reuters

Russian oil giant LUKOIL has resumed gasoline sales into Iran together with China's state-run firm Zhuhai Zhenrong, even as the United States urges the global community to be tough with Tehran - Reuters

Turkey will support petrol sales by Turkish companies to Iran, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told Reuters Wednesday, despite U.S. sanctions that aim to squeeze the Islamic Republic's fuel imports. - Reuters

Michael Eisenstadt and David Crist write: President Barack Obama came into office committed to reducing tensions with Iran and transforming the troubled relationship between the two countries by offering an outstretched hand and an open dialogue with that country's leaders. These are, of course, laudable goals that remain on the table. Ironically, however, if diplomacy is to still have a chance and he is to achieve these goals, Obama will also have to convince Tehran that his outstretched hand can be formed into a fist. While continuing to pursue dialogue, Washington must act cautiously yet firmly with the Islamic Republic to succeed in managing tensions today and avoiding a larger confrontation in the future. – Foreign Policy

New START/Non-Proliferation

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Aug. 11 urged the Senate to move quickly to pass the new U.S.-Russian nuclear arms reduction treaty when it resumes debate next month. - AFP

Henry Sokolski writes: [P]ushing one nonproliferation policy for the Middle East and another for a “quiescent” Asia is delusional. More important, no one’s buying it: Middle Eastern officials resent the double standard, and the Chinese — who view Vietnam as a potentially hostile vassal state — are taking offense. – National Review Online

William Tobey adds: The larger significance of the matter is less about nonproliferation, and more about the administration's continuing foreign policy evolution. It is another in a series of issues in which reality beggars rhetoric, and oft-denigrated policy from the previous administration is demonstrated to be sensible and realistic. – Shadow Government

Middle East

Iraq will need U.S. military support for up to another decade to defend its borders because the Iraqi army won't be ready to guard the country when American troops leave at the end of 2011, according to U.S. and Iraqi commanders. – Los Angeles Times

U.S. officials gave an upbeat assessment of the situation in Iraq on Wednesday, despite Iraqi politicians' failure to form a government five months after elections and a sharp rise in civilian deaths in July. - Reuters

The Pentagon on Aug. 11 said it had notified Congress of a planned sale of Patriot missiles to Kuwait, which is looking to bolster its defenses against the threat from Iran. - AFP

The arrests of…dissidents fit into a pattern of highly effective repression by the government that has prevented any real political opposition from taking root in Syria, activists say. – The National

Israel's military chief testified Wednesday at an inquiry into a deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that although troops had been trained for a violent confrontation, the military had not anticipated the level of resistance it would meet and lacked intelligence about the activists on board. – Washington Post

Israel’s top military chief said Wednesday that activists on a Turkish ship were the first to open fire as Israeli naval commandos raided the vessel, part of a six-boat flotilla bound for Gaza, fomenting a bloody confrontation on board that left nine activists dead – New York Times

Lebanon criticized on Wednesday moves by U.S. lawmakers to block aid for the military over concerns it was working closely with militant Shi'ite Hezbollah, after a deadly cross-border clash between Lebanon and Israel. Defense Minister Elias al-Murr told reporters any party that wished to help the military had to do so without conditions - Reuters

Josh Rogin reports: The Obama administration has made it clear to the Lebanese government that it should do everything in its power to avoid another border skirmish with Israel and be careful about cozying up to Iran if they value their defense relationship with the United States. – The Cable

The War

The U.S. has been working with the Sudanese government to repatriate detainees from Guantanamo Bay, according to evidence presented Wednesday in the case of a Sudanese prisoner. – Wall Street Journal

Gleaning any information about the system of camps and military tribunals operating in the constitutional gray area that is Guantánamo Bay has always been difficult for the reporters and nongovernment observers working here – New York Times

The imam behind controversial plans for a mosque near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks is being sent by the State Department on a religious outreach trip to the Middle East, officials said Tuesday, in a move that drew criticism from conservative lawmakers. – Washington Post

A U.S. military tribunal on Wednesday sentenced Osama bin Laden's former cook and sometime driver to 14 years in prison. But the Sudanese captive, Ibrahim al Qosi, could serve far less time because his sentence is sharply limited in a plea agreement that remains secret. - Reuters

Alex Salmond is to reject renewed calls from a group of US senators to publish the full medical records of the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. - Guardian

John B. Bellinger writes: The Bush administration stumbled by straining to avoid application of the Geneva Conventions as a whole and refusing to adopt even the minimum international standards set forth in Common Article 3 and Article 75. But it is true that the Conventions, and even the Additional Protocols, do not provide clear guidance for countries engaged in conflicts with terrorist groups like al Qaeda, such as who qualifies as a combatant and what legal process should be given…The administration should use its considerable political capital in the international community to clarify and expand the international law applicable to modern warfare – Shadow Government

China/Tibet/India
The U.S. trade deficit with China in June hit its highest level in nearly two years and could spur congressional pressure on Beijing to revamp its currency policy. – Wall Street Journal

If Tragyal was surprised when the police showed up at his office in April, he did not show it, his co-workers say. If anything, he wondered what had taken them so long. It turns out that the public security bureau in the western province of Qinghai simply needed a full month to translate his Tibetan prose into Chinese. – New York Times

The devastating mudslide in north-west China that has killed more than 1,000 people this week was not a 'natural' disaster but the forseeable consequence of China's cavalier attitude to the local environment, experts have said. - Telegraph

The Indian Air Force has deployed a full squadron of Russian-made Sukhoi Su-30MKI multirole aircraft to an air base near the Chinese border. – Defense News

Cybersecurity

A founder of one of the world's most sophisticated Internet sites for trafficking stolen credit card information has been arrested by French police based on a U.S. criminal indictment unsealed Wednesday, the U.S. Secret Service and Justice Department announced. – Washington Post

Koreas

North Korea said on Wednesday it would return a South Korean pastor, who visited Pyongyang illegally, to his homeland through a rare crossing at a truce village that straddles the border. - Reuters

Kyrgyzstan
When the violence in Kyrgyzstan's southern city of Osh subsided in June, one thing was plain: whole neighborhoods of minority Uzbeks had been burned to the ground, while most buildings belonging to ethnic Kyrgyz remained standing. More than 350 people had been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. Now, as the city begins the slow task of rebuilding, Osh Mayor Melis Myrzakmatov says he wants to help prevent future violence by relocating residents into new neighborhoods that would include Uzbeks and Kyrgyz. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Several hundred demonstrators on Wednesday decried plans by Kyrgyzstan's interim government to admit OSCE police monitors to southern regions of the Central Asian republic ravaged by bloody ethnic clashes two months ago - Reuters

Southeast Asia

A government commission examining Sri Lanka’s civil war opened yesterday with a former diplomat and peace negotiator saying the rebels were not serious about the 2002 peace talks and used them in an effort to counter international concerns about terrorism. – The National

After 40 years of conflict, Al Haj Murad Ebrahim hopes the new Philippine government of President Benigno Aquino will finally do what past presidents have failed to do – bring peace to this south-eastern corner of the Philippine archipelago by allowing the establishment of a Muslim homeland. But Mr Murad, leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), is unsure whether Mr Aquino and his government are interested in talking. – The National

Africa
A total of six Kenyan men accused in last month's bomb attacks on fans watching the soccer World Cup final in Kampala have been transferred to Uganda, while another suspect has been released on bail, Kenyan authorities said. – Los Angeles Times

Two days after President Paul Kagame was overwhelmingly re-elected, Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, was struck by a grenade attack on Wednesday night, rattling the calm that had prevailed during the voting. – New York Times
Moroccan security forces broke up a radical Islamist cell that was planning attacks in Morocco, including on foreign targets, official media quoted the interior ministry as saying on Wednesday - Reuters

Ethiopia may not need any food aid within five years thanks to an ambitious development plan that targets a heady average economic growth of 14.9 percent over the period, its prime minister said Wednesday. - Reuters

Mexico

The runaway drug violence has brought 10,000 soldiers and federal police officers to Juarez, but the influx has not resulted in security or a decline in the death toll. That has forced Mexican leaders and their U.S. advisers to try a new strategy to stop the killing in a city that once seemed like a model for U.S.-Mexico economic integration – Washington Post

Is the U.S.-backed drug war in Mexico working? By almost any account or any measure, the answer is no. Though high-ranking authorities on both sides of the border continue to support Mexico's military-led enforcement strategy against the country's powerful drug trafficking cartels, the facts remain stark, L.A. Times correspondents Tracy Wilkinson and Ken Ellingwood say in a special report published Sunday. – La Plaza
Announcements

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Events

Russia's Peacetime Demographic Crisis
Hudson Institute
August 12

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Young Professionals in Foreign Policy
August 16

The Next Phase in America's Relationship with Iraq
Center for a New American Security
August 17

Amb. Christopher Hill on the Next Chapter in Iraq
United States Institute of Peace
August 18

Homeland Security 2020: Maritime Security
Heritage Foundation
August 23

Homeland Security 2020: Science and Technology
Heritage Foundation
August 24

The Economic Element of National Power
Institute for National Security Studies
August 24-25

Homeland Security 2020: Working with the Private Sector
Heritage Foundation
August 25

Homeland Security 2020: Cybersecurity
Heritage Foundation
August 26

Homeland Security 2020: State and Local Efforts
Heritage Foundation
August 27

Empire for Liberty
Cato Institute
September 1

Recent Shifts in North American Relations
Hudson Institute
September 2

Advancing the Interests of Women and Girls
Center for Strategic and International Studies
September 7

The National Guard and Reserves
Center for a New American Security
September 7

Demography and Women's Empowerment
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
September 13

Previewing the September 26 Venezuelan Elections
Hudson Institute
September 15

Egypt at the Tipping Point
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
September 17

Governing the Far North
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
September 21

A Modern Narrative for Muslim Women in the Middle East
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
September 30

Canadian and US Power in the 21st Century
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
October 6

On the Trail of the DC Sniper: Fear and the Media
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
October 7

The Future of US-Indian Relations
Center for a New American Security
October 20

The Overnight Brief is a daily product of the Foreign Policy Initiative, which seeks to promote an active U.S. foreign policy committed to robust support for democratic allies, human rights, a strong American military equipped to meet the challenges of the 21st century, and strengthening America's global economic competitiveness. To submit comments or suggestions, email overnight@foreignpolicyi.org

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