Two quick pointers - Asia times and Obama's "sissy on steroids" option

First, yet another great piece by By M K Bhadrakumar in which he outlines the sequence of Kerry gaffes this week in an article entitled "Kerry becomes first war casualty".  I highly recommend it - great read!

Makes me wonder: what is "wrong" with the Asia Times?!  How can a corporate newspaper publish such top notch authors like M K Bhadrakumar and Pepe Escobar?!  Well, whatever the reason, may they live long and prosper \\//_

Then, I did not listen to Obama tonight.  He makes me sick.  But I read the transcript.  And I noticed this part:

I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria. I will not pursue an open-ended action like Iraq or Afghanistan. I will not pursue a prolonged air campaign like Libya or Kosovo. This would be a targeted strike to achieve a clear objective, deterring the use of chemical weapons and degrading Assad's capabilities.

Others have asked whether it's worth acting if we don't take out Assad. Now, some members of Congress have said there's no point in simply doing a pinprick strike in Syria.

Let me make something clear: The United States military doesn't do pinpricks. Even a limited strike will send a message to Assad that no other nation can deliver.

Interesting statement.  Besides the dumb macho "we don't do pinpricks" (which of course they have done many many times), I would summarize his words as follows: more then a single volley of missiles (as the "pinprick" attack on the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory), less than Libya or Kosovo.  Something like a "sissy option on steroids".  Typical Obama, no?  But the key thing is here: not a "regime change" attack, not a "civil war defining" attack, not even a "bailing out the insurgency attack".  That, in turn, means that the US does not have the stomach to take on Hezbollah and Iran.

Good.  Very good!

The Saker

US outed, and far from drawn down

By M K Bhadrakumar for the Asia Times

The United States-Pakistan relationship has reached a turning point reminiscent of the run-up to October 1958, when Washington encouraged General Ayub Khan's coup, apprehending the coming into power of an elected government in Pakistan that might have refused to collaborate as the US's Cold War ally against the Soviet Union.

An innocuous-looking thing happened on Sunday - Pakistan regained possession of the Shamsi air base in Balochistan near the border with Iran after evicting the US military presence from there. The base itself had been leased to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since 1992.

The event is at once symbolic and tactical, while at the same time highly strategic even as war clouds are on the horizon over Iran. Symbolic in the sense that it is an assertion of Pakistan's sovereignty; tactical because the US war strategy, which heavily depended on the drone attacks on North Waziristan, will now have to be reworked. Is the drone era in the Afghan war coming to a brusque end?

However, in all of this, what needs some careful analysis is why the US's eviction from Shamsi holds strategic implications.

A mild stimulus 
 
Washington initially viewed Islamabad's decision to expel the US personnel and drone systems from Shamsi with disbelief as a knee-jerk reaction by the Pakistani generals upset over the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) air strike on the border post at Salala in the Mohmand Agency on November 26, which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Thus, Washington pressed its ally the UAE into a mediatory role.

UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zeyed al-Nahyan met President Asif Ali Zardari to seek revocation of the Pakistani decision or at least an extension of the 15-day deadline, but returned empty-handed. On getting the bad news from the sheikh, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton phoned Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, which was followed by a call a day later by President Barack Obama to Zardari.

Both Clinton and Obama drew a blank and thereafter the Pentagon reluctantly began the evacuation from Shamsi.

Clearly, the US underestimated the downstream consequences of the November 26 attack on Pakistan. Pakistani director general of military operations, Major General Ashfaq Nadeem told the federal cabinet and the parliament's defense committee last week in a detailed briefing in Islamabad that the NATO attack bore the hallmark of a well-planned "plot" by the US and NATO command in Afghanistan.

If the likely US intention was to "engage" the Pakistani military leadership with a mild stimulus of "shock and awe", it proved counter-productive. The civil-military leadership in Pakistan still continues to talk in the same voice. Gilani's "ex-post facto" endorsement of army chief General Ashfaq Kiani's decision to deploy the defense systems on the Afghan border to "detect any aircraft or helicopter and to shoot it down", at their meeting in Islamabad on Saturday is the latest evidence of this.

But the crux of the matter is that the Obama administration has once again ceded policy to the Pentagon. With the Central Intelligence Agency also headed by an army general, David Petraeus, the Pentagon is pushing through a long-term military presence in Afghanistan although a political solution is Obama's stated goal. The US military aims to step up the fighting. The "drawdown" strategy outlined by Obama last year is being conveniently reinterpreted for this purpose.

The US's most recent statements have shed the strategic ambiguity over the "drawdown" and it is now crystal clear that tens of thousands of American combat troops are after all going to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014 for an indeterminate future in addition to the trainers and advisers devoted to "capacity-building" of the Afghan armed forces.

The New York Times noted that Pentagon had been "quietly pushing" for this policy shift for some time. In essence, even as the negotiations over the US-Afghan strategic pact paving the way for the establishment of American military bases in Afghanistan have come to the final stage, the US is discarding the strategic ambiguity about the scope and nature of its long-term military presence.

Demand-driven partnership 
 
This shouldn't have come as a surprise. But Pakistan is facing a difficult situation. Contrary to Pakistan's line of thinking that the military path is futile, the US is sticking to the "fight-talk" approach, which is to go on fighting while exploring the scope for opening talks with a militarily degraded Taliban from a position of strength.

Two, the US is not willing to concede a central role for Pakistan in the peace talks and is non-committal about Pakistan's wish to have a "friendly" government in Kabul, because it seeks to choreograph a settlement that first and foremost would meet the needs of its regional strategies.

Three, paradoxical as it may seem, the continued fighting actually suits the US in the coming period, because it not only provides the justification for the long-term deployment of combat troops in Afghanistan despite regional (and Afghan) opposition but also gives the raison d'etre for the Northern Distribution Network (read US-NATO military presence in Central Asia), which Russia is showing signs of linking to the resolution of the dispute over the US's missile defense system and the dissipation of the US-Russia "reset".

Over and above all this, Obama's decision to keep a large force of combat troops in Afghanistan needs to be viewed against the backdrop of the growing tensions in the US-Iran relations. In the eventuality of any conflict with Iran in a near future, this sort of massive military presence on Iran's eastern flank would be a great strategic asset for the US and NATO.

Make no mistake, the US intends to use the military bases in Afghanistan as a springboard to invade eastern Iran if conflict erupts, no matter what President Hamid Karzai may think or say. By the way, Shamsi is also key air base close to the Iran border. Unsurprisingly, NATO is considering a "joint center" in the Persian Gulf region with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Thus, the US hopes to "box in" Iran militarily from the Persian Gulf on one side and Afghanistan on the other.

Indeed, NATO is fast transforming as a "smart alliance" based on a security partnership between the 28 members and the rest of the world, thanks to the military intervention in Libya. Ivo Daalder, the US ambassador to NATO, put it explicitly in a recent briefing:

The Libya operation was a logical outflow of the view that we need to have partnerships with countries around the world ... The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan and Morocco not only supported the operation, but also participated in it ... Lebanon was also a key in the operation, as it was president of the UN Security Council at that time and enacted the 1973 resolution ... This is a demand-driven partnership. A demand by Arab countries.

All in all, therefore, the "hidden agenda" of the Afghan war is out in the open. Pakistan finds itself between the devil and the deep blue sea. First of all, the Pakistani military distrusts the US's intentions behind such large-scale intelligence penetration of its security apparatus in the recent years under the pretext of the "war on terror", including the Inter-Services Intelligence and the military. In particular, the military leadership fears that the US harbors intentions of seizing Pakistan's nuclear assets at an opportune moment.

Obama's unprecedented decision to promote Petraeus as the Central Intelligence Agency head rang alarm bells in the Pakistani mind. Second, US interests and priorities in Afghanistan are increasingly in conflict with Pakistan's. Third, Pakistan simply cannot afford to alienate China and Iran (or Russia for that matter). Finally, the US will sooner or later deploy its missile defense system in the region, which will threaten Pakistan's strategic capability.

Shaking the albatross 
 
The message of the US strike of November 26 was a test case intended to "soften up" the Pakistani military leadership and compel it to fall in line with the US's strategy. Sheikh Nahyan tried to talk some good sense into the minds of the Pakistani generals. But the Shamsi episode underscores that the contradiction in US-Pakistan relations is far too acute to be reconciled easily or in a near term.

The point is, it is turning out to be contradiction of a fundamental character. The implications are serious. Pakistan is "obstructing" the US's regional strategy. Put differently, Pakistan is a vital cog in the wheel of the US strategy.

Pakistan dissociated openly from the agenda of the recent Istanbul conference (November 2), which aimed at creating an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe-type regional security mechanism for Central and South Asia and launching the New Silk Road project aimed at rolling back Russian and Chinese influence in Central Asia. Pakistan also boycotted the Bonn conference (December 5) that was expected to legitimize the long-term US military presence in Afghanistan. To be sure, the two events floundered.

Washington is now left guessing whether Pakistan's strategic defiance is for real. Its historical experience is that the Pakistani elites eventually buckle under American pressure. But the "strategic defiance" over Shamsi would come as a surprise. Meanwhile, by ceding Afghan policy to the Pentagon (and CIA), Obama has taken the precaution of minimizing the scope of this problem area causing controversy during his re-election bid next year. Petraeus is also well liked by the Republicans.

This is an "Ayub-Khan moment" in the US-Pakistan relationship. Once again, popular opinion in Pakistan threatens to intrude into the relationship. But then, there are key differences, too. Kiani is far from the jovial Sandhurst-trained general Ayub Khan was, who was fond of his drink and all good things in life and was used to obeying orders.

Besides, China is not only not the Soviet Union or an adversary of Pakistan, but is in reality its one and only "all-weather friend". How can or why should Pakistan possibly collaborate with the US's containment strategy toward China?

The most important difference between 1958 and 2011, however, is, firstly, that Kiani's "nativist traditions" require him to act within the collegium of corps commanders who are acutely conscious of the mood within the armed forces, which is that Pakistan should shake off the albatross that was hung around its neck in late 2001.

Second, the Pakistani army is taking great and meticulous care that while traversing the shark-infested waters in the months ahead, it holds the hands of the country's civilian leadership at every stage, every moment.

The challenge facing the US is to locate an Ayub Khan, but it is an improbable challenge.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

Analysis: Russia Moves To Counter NATO

By M K Bhadrakumar for the Asia Times

Many people wouldn't know that former United States president Ronald Reagan's signature phrase "trust, but verify" is actually the translation of a Russian proverb - doveryai, no proveryai. Two decades into the post-Cold War era, Moscow wants to reclaim the self-contradictory phrase from the American repertoire and apply it to Russia's "reset" of ties with the United States.

The shellacking that US President Barack Obama received in the mid-term elections to congress, WikiLeaks disclosures about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) plans to defend against "possible Russian aggression", the announcement of the US decision to deploy an air force detachment at Lask Air Base in Poland, the belligerent speech last week by Senator John McCain calling into question the entire philosophy behind the reset with Russia - these have created a sense of disquiet in Moscow.

Unsurprisingly, the message that comes out of the summit meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Moscow on Saturday is that Moscow wants its own alliance to be further strengthened as a "key element in ensuring the security in the post-Soviet space" and its image to be enhanced globally. CSTO comprises Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The mid-term elections in the US would leave Russia, like many other countries, wondering whether pinning hopes on Obama's capacity to deliver on the "reset" isn't, in fact, supposing a lot. McCain's speech at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies last Friday signals that the reset is most certainly going to run into stiff opposition from the Republican-dominated congress.

McCain questioned the very need of reset when "Russia is becoming less and less capable of being a global, great power partner with the US"; when American and Russian interests mostly diverge; when they don't have any shared values; when the Russian political system is "unresponsive and predatory" presided over by a "quasi-criminal ruling syndicate" that "steals from, lies to, and assaults its own citizens with virtual immunity".

Citing continuing disagreements with Russia on missile defenses in Europe, Russia's overwhelming superiority in tactical nuclear weapons and differing approaches to open energy markets, McCain called on the Obama administration to be "more assertive in the defense of our interests and values" and to link Russia's admission to the World Trade Organization with its adherence to the rule of law.

The contrived bonhomie at the NATO summit in Lisbon last month has all but dissipated. Meanwhile, the WikiLeaks disclosures put a question mark on NATO's sincerity in a "reset" with Russia. According to US diplomatic cables, NATO drew up plans in January to defend the Baltic states against possible Russian military aggression and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wanted that the plans be kept secret from Moscow.

Moscow says these plans were approved at the Lisbon summit even as the alliance declared that it sought a "true strategic partnership" with Russia based on shared security interests and the need to address "common challenges, jointly identified".

Moscow is annoyed. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, "With one hand NATO... negotiated with us some important documents that were aimed at a joint partnership, and with the other hand took behind our backs decisions about the need for defense against us... We have posed these questions and we expect to get answers. I presume we have the right to do so."

Equally, following talks in Washington on Wednesday between Obama and visiting Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, the two countries announced an enhancement of their defense ties in the spirit of the 2008 US-Polish Declaration on Strategic Cooperation, which includes cooperation between the two air forces and the establishment of a US air detachment in Poland.

The Russian Foreign Ministry reacted, linking the US-Polish decision with the WikiLeaks disclosure and the deployment in 2009 of Patriot air defense systems in Poland, "The true purpose of which also raises questions." Ironically, Komorowski hosted Medvedev in Warsaw just before proceeding to Washington. That was the first visit by a Russian leader to Poland in 10 years and the Western media lauded it as an historic turnaround in European security.

Moscow said: "It seems we are witnessing an old reflex of NATO triggered to build up power to the detriment of other countries' security - all the more odd that all this happens after the positive outcome of the Russia-NATO council summit and the alliance's declarations that Russia is not regarded as an adversary... we [Russia] will be forced to consider the US-Polish plans as we implement our own programs for building armed forces and in work with our allies."

Thus, the CSTO summit in Moscow on Saturday took place against a complicated political backdrop. Originally, the agenda was to focus on improving the alliance's crisis response mechanism "in order to enhance the CSTO potential for responding to security threats and challenges".

Simply put, the CSTO was virtually prevented by Uzbekistan from intervening in the crisis in Kyrgyzstan in June and an informal summit of the alliance in Yerevan in August had mandated that changes should be made in the statutes of the CSTO "to improve the efficiency... in the field of emergency response". Interestingly, Moscow has met with success in persuading Tashkent to go along with the revision of the CSTO statutes and Uzbek President Islam Karimov attended the summit meeting on Saturday.

The summit endorsed a declaration on cooperation in the international arena. Moscow is clearly interested in enhancing the role of the CSTO at the international level as a counter to NATO's self-projection at its Lisbon summit as the only global security organization. It also decided on a collective peacekeeping force and on undertaking "out-of-area" operations on the pattern that NATO is doing in Afghanistan.

Thus, CSTO member countries have expressed a willingness to not only carry peacekeeping tasks but also "provide on certain terms, these collective peacekeeping forces for operations that are being conducted by decision of the UN Security Council". The Moscow summit put emphasis on "foreign policy coordination" among the CSTO member countries similar to NATO's system.

Clearly, the CSTO has factored in the outcome of NATO's Lisbon summit. Uzbekistan's participation in the summit on Saturday strengthens Moscow's hands. A distinct cooling is apparent in relations between Uzbekistan and the US. Clinton, during her visit to Tashkent on December 2, publicly rebuked the Uzbek government. She said Uzbekistan should "translate words into practice" to improve its human-rights situation.

Addressing a group of non-governmental organization leaders in Tashkent, Clinton said, "I urged him [Karimov] to demonstrate his commitment through a series of steps, to ensure that human rights and fundamental freedoms are truly protected in this country." Clinton revealed she took up with Karimov the issues of restrictions on religious freedom, torture and child labor in Uzbekistan. "We raise these issues... and will continue to make improvement of human rights in Uzbekistan an integral part of expanding our bilateral relationship."

Washington has reason to be displeased with Tashkent. Karimov teamed up with Russia to smother the US move to introduce the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as the provider of security in Central Asia. More important, Tashkent has turned openly critical of the US's war strategy in Afghanistan.

At the OSCE summit in Astana on December 1 (which Karimov failed to attend), Uzbek Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov lambasted the OSCE and its structures for a "failure to play a positive role in the prevention and neutralization of the bloody events" in Kyrgyzstan in June. It was an indictment of Washington's attempt to pitchfork the OSCE into Kyrgyzstan as a substitute for the CSTO in the region.

Even more direct was Norov's criticism of Obama's surge strategy. "It is becoming ever clearer that there is no military solution to the Afghan problem and that the settlement strategy chosen by the coalition forces is not rendering the expected results."

Norov reiterated Tashkent's proposal to find alternative solutions for a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan through multilateral talks under the UN aegis. He said: "The context of the Uzbek initiative is based on the recognition that internal Afghan affairs must be resolved by the Afghan people with assistance from countries whose security interests include bringing an end to the war and promoting stability in Afghanistan." He stressed that talks should be held with "all major opposing sides".

In sum, what emerges from the CSTO summit are the following. First, there is an unspoken but underlying suspicion in Moscow regarding NATO's intentions. This apprehension translates as a new determination to build up the CSTO as a rival organization that challenges NATO's bid to project itself into the post-Soviet space and its claim to be the sole global security organization.

Second, Central Asian countries are deeply concerned over the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and the failure of the US's war strategy. They look up to Moscow as a guarantor of regional security. This has translated as the readiness to beef up the CSTO's rapid deployment force and to streamline the decision-making processes within the alliance to meet emergencies or crisis situations.

Third, US's intentions in Afghanistan are far from transparent and an open-ended American military presence is in the cards. The picture remains hazy as to the exact ground situation developing on Afghanistan's border with Tajikistan. Indeed, US intelligence has had covert dealings with Central Asian militants operating out of Afghanistan and there is great wariness among Central Asia countries with regard to the US's democracy project in the region.

Fourth, the Moscow summit paid much attention to the CSTO's activities in the fields of law enforcement, border security and military policy. The CSTO's readiness to play a role in Afghanistan in the post-2014 scenario is self-evident. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is visiting Moscow next week. The CSTO is also moving in the direction of forging links with Pakistan with regard to countering drug trafficking.

Finally, the Moscow summit focused on enhancing the CSTO's foreign policy role. This has factored in US attempts to accentuate intra-Central Asian differences and play the role of a diplomatic spoiler to undercut the Moscow-led integration processes in the region. It becomes necessary for the CSTO member countries to coordinate their foreign policy if they are to undertake peacekeeping operations in global hotspots. The CSTO is emulating NATO's culture.

In sum, Russia trusts the need for a "reset" in ties with NATO, but is under compulsion to "verify" its sincerity. As Lavrov put it, "serious questions arise" out of the contradictory tendencies in NATO's posturing toward Russia. Moscow decided to keep the CSTO as an effective counter-alliance - just in case McCain's school of thinking gains ground in Washington.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.