Randeep Ramesh and Vikram Dodd in Mumbai, Jason Burke in Islamabad, and Peter Beaumont
Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated last night after it was claimed that the only terrorist to have survived three days of deadly battles in Mumbai was from Pakistan, and that his nine fellow Islamist militants were either from that country or had been trained there.
The claims about responsibility for the attack, in which almost 200 people were killed, came from leaked police accounts that gave details of the interrogation of Azam Amir Kasab, 21, said to have been the man pictured at Mumbai's main train station carrying an assault rifle and grenades.
According to the reports, which could not be independently verified, Kasab said that the operation was the responsibility of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a jihadist group based in Pakistan, and its aim was to 'kill as many as possible' in what was intended to be India's 9/11. The claims were made as Indian special forces ended the violent sieges around Mumbai with the killing of the final three terrorists holding out in the Taj Mahal Palace hotel - where British survivors had walked through rooms strewn with bodies and 'blood and guts' as they were led to safety.
The allegations about Pakistan emerged as India was confronted with the full horror of the past few days. Reporters were allowed into the wrecked and scorched remains of the Taj Mahal and Trident-Oberoi hotels, where scores of victims had been murdered.
Public anger in India has been mounting following allegations linking Pakistan to the attacks. They include:
• Kasab's claim that militants were trained in two camps run by Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan.
• Allegations that phones found on a trawler suspected of ferrying the gunmen to Mumbai had been used to contact Pakistan.
• The claim by India's minister of state for home affairs, Sri Prakash Jaiswal, that 'the investigation carried out so far has revealed the hand of Pakistan-based groups in the Mumbai attack'.
In response to the claim that the attackers were either Pakistanis or had been trained there, a senior Pakistani official said troops would be sent to the border if tensions continued to rise.
However, despite initial claims, it became increasingly certain that there was no involvement of British-based fundamentalists. Police forces across the UK denied they were investigating named individuals and Gordon Brown said there was no evidence linking any of the terrorist to the UK.
The escalating war of words between India and Pakistan has set alarm bells ringing in the United States, where President Bush convened an emergency meeting with senior security officials. President-elect Barack Obama, who has said that reconciliation between the nuclear-armed neighbours is essential to stabilise Afghanistan and defeat al-Qaeda, called Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday night to offer condolences.
The cold-blooded intent of the militants has shaken India. Officials said just 10 gunmen, with enough arms and ammunition 'to kill 5,000 people', had attacked the Taj, the Trident-Oberoi, the main railway station, a popular restaurant and a cinema. In the siege of a Jewish centre, which was retaken by security forces on Friday night, the militants had bound and shot five people, including a rabbi and his wife, before they were killed.
A handful of gunmen held out for almost three days, taking hundreds of people hostage, many of them Westerners. Twenty-two of those killed were foreigners. Last night emergency services raised the prospect that many - including three Britons - were still missing from the Taj.
The gunmen set the 105-year-old hotel ablaze as they evaded scores of India's best-trained commandos. They left bodies with grenades stuffed into their mouths.
The photograph of a baby-faced militant, whom newspaper reports claim is Kasab, wearing combat trousers and swinging an AK47 in Mumbai's main railway station, is the defining image of the rampage. His victims are said to include Mumbai's anti-terror squad chief Hemant Karkare, whose body was cremated yesterday.
Under questioning, Kasab is said to have admitted to being a resident of Faridkot in Pakistan's Punjab province. 'I was trained by Lashkar-e-Taiba and asked to cause maximum casualties in Mumbai,' he is alleged to have said, referring to an organisation which India says is sending armed militants into Kashmir. Kasab was arrested on Wednesday night after his partner, said to be Ismail Khan, was shot dead.
The duo's night began when they fired on commuters in the railway station and in two hospitals. Kasab told police that they had learnt about Mumbai's geography using Google Earth.
According to Indian media reports, the captured militant said that a room booked in the Taj had been used to store explosives and ammunition ahead of the attacks. This might explain how the squads of gunmen were able to reload their weapons over more than 50 hours and appeared to have an inexhaustible supply of grenades.
Asif Ali Zardari, the President of Pakistan, yesterday appeared on Indian television in an attempt to defuse tensions. 'As President of Pakistan, if any evidence comes of any individual or group in any part of my country, I shall take the swiftest action in the light of evidence and in front of the world,' he said.
Analysts said that the omens did not look good for the peace process between India and Pakistan. 'I expect a very difficult time ahead,' said Tariq Fatemi, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington. 'Anything short of a real and genuine effort to co-operate by Pakistan would send very, very bad signals - not just to India but to the US and to Europe too.'
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/30/mumbai-terror-attacks-india3
Monday, January 12, 2009
Mumbai: Behind the attacks lies a story of youth twisted by hate
Jason Burke
The pitted roads around Multan, the city of saints, stretch flat across the fields. They lead past rundown factories, workshops, shabby roadside teashops and mile after mile of flat fields broken only by the mud and brick houses of the villages of Pakistan's rural poor. One road leads south-east to the nearby city of Bahawalpur, the biggest recruiting base of the militant groups currently being blamed by India for the Mumbai attack; another leads north-west to Faridkot, the home village of Mohammad Ajmal Mohammad Amin Kasab, a 21-year-old Pakistan national named yesterday in the Indian media as the only gunman involved in last week's atrocity now alive and in custody.
Already a picture claimed by the Indian media to be Kasab, showing a young man dressed in combat trousers, carrying a backpack and an AK47, on his way to to Mumbai's main station to carry out his deadly work, has become an iconic image of the assault on the city.
Two other militants have been named. Like Kasab, according to the Indian media reports, they are said to be from the Multan region, southern Punjab. They, too, are said to be members of the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure) and to have followed a five-month training period to prepare them for the attack. The charge of the group's involvement, denied by its spokesmen, has explosive political consequences for the volatile region and must be treated with caution. In the long-running contest between India and its neighbour, propaganda and misinformation is far from rare. But if the details now emerging are confirmed, the link to Pakistan may spark war.
For though it is widely acknowledged that Pakistan's civilian government has limited control over local militant groups, it is clear that Pakistan's military and security establishment does.
Lashkar-e-Taiba was originally founded with the support of the Pakistani military intelligence service, the ISI, to fight as 'deniable' proxies in the contested territory of Kashmir, part of a decades-old strategy by the militarily weaker Pakistan to 'bleed' its bigger rival. The ISI also has connections with Jaish-e-Mohammed, the second group that New Delhi security officials has accused of involvement in the Mumbai attacks.
For the moment little is known about the three men named yesterday or their accomplices. But their place of origin comes as no surprise to experts. Both Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed draw the majority of their recruits from the southern Punjab. Last week The Observer travelled to the twin towns of Multan and Bahawalpur, the centres of the region, to investigate the reality of the groups' power on the ground, their relations with the Pakistani intelligence services and the factors which drive young men, possibly including the Mumbai gunmen, to join them.
Trace a line from where US special forces battle Taliban fighters in the corner of empty desert where the Afghan, Pakistani and Iranian frontiers meet, follow it through the badlands of the Pakistani North West Frontier and on through the bomb-blasted cities of northern Pakistan and down through Delhi, attacked in September, to shell-shocked Mumbai, and one thing becomes clear: this zone has displaced the Middle East as the new central front in the struggle against Islamic militancy. The southern Punjab falls on the line's centre point. There may be doubt over the identity of the attackers, but there is none that Multan and Bahawalpur and villages such as Faridkot are in the Indians' sights.
For most militants in the region the story - and that of Azam Amir Kasab is unlikely to be very different - starts at school. The southern Punjab has one of the highest concentrations of religious schools or madrassas in south Asia. Most teach the ultra-conservative Deobandi strand of Islam that is also followed by the Afghan Taliban and, crucially in this desperately poor land, offers free classes, board and lodging to students.
In Bahawalpur the Jaish-e-Mohammed group, believed responsible for a string of brutal attacks across south Asia, including the murder of Jewish American journalist Daniel Pearl, has been linked to two such madrassas. One is the headquarters of the group - a semi-fortified and forbidding complex in the centre of the town. The other is the Dar-ul-Uloom Medina, where the brother-in-law of Rashid Rauf, the Bahawalpur-based suspected British militant thought to have been killed in an American missile attack eight days ago, is a teacher. Surrounded by some of the 700 students, he told The Observer that 'jihad' was the duty of all his young charges.
The pupils at the more radical Bahawalpur and Multan schools grow up soaked in extremist ideology. The most senior cleric in Bahawalpur, Maulana Riaz Chugti, said his students could only go 'for training or to fight' after their studies or when the schools were shut for the holy month of Ramadan.
'To fight in Afghanistan or Kashmir and to struggle against the forces who are against Islam is our religious duty,' Chugti, who oversees the education of 40,000 students, told The Observer.
In Bahawalpur both the effects and the limits of the recent reversal of policy by the ISI, the powerful Pakistani military intelligence service, are evident. A crackdown on the militant groups was launched after they were blamed for a bloody attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 which almost brought India and Pakistan to open war. The groups, previously seen as a strategic asset, were suddenly seen as, at least for the moment, a liability. When their operatives were linked to plots to assassinate the then President, and evidence of collusion with al-Qaeda itself became clear, the pressure mounted on the ISI to rein in their former protégés.
'The militants have had to lower their profile,' said one local security official. 'They are no longer recruiting or preaching or raising funds openly. Things are much more difficult for them. If they recruit at all they do it individual by individual, not en masse like before. There is no production line.'
But the groups - along with break-away outfits with their roots in sectarian Shia-Sunni violence in the region - still have a significant presence in the region, particularly in remote villages such as that of Azam Amir Kasab. 'They may be semi-retired, but in my village there are 300 men who have fought in Afghanistan and have training and can be activated with one phone call,' one local former militant said. That fighters for one operation should come from the same place was not surprising. 'When I went to Afghanistan I went with five guys who I knew from school,' he said.
The young men of the southern Punjab have been found across a broad swath of south Asia and even further afield. In Kabul in August, The Observer interviewed Abit, a 23-year-old from Bahawalpur who had surrendered to Afghan police seconds before he was supposed to blow himself up in a huge truck bomb. Other militants from the town have been found as far away as Bangladesh. Lashkar-e-Taiba members have even been located in Iraq.
The groups are also of great interest to British intelligence services, who fear their key role as intermediaries between young volunteers from the UK's Muslim community - such as Rauf - and al-Qaeda leaders based in the volatile tribal zones along Pakistan's western frontier. The groups, the sources say, have a UK support network to supply funding.
The groups' relationship with the intelligence services is complex. Front organisations for the groups have even put up candidates in recent elections and travel without fear throughout Pakistan. Earlier this year The Observer interviewed a representative of one group alleged to be linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba in the foyer of a luxury Lahore hotel.
Local politicians said groups in the region were still powerful enough to intimidate the local government and security forces and even to collect tax or mediate in legal disputes in some areas. Roshan Gilani, a Shia community leader in Bahawalpur, said music shops had received Taliban-style threats, telling them to close or risk violence. Prominent Shias have been told they are on a hit list.
Until the Mumbai attacks, the recent series of bombings in India had been attributed by most analysts to a home-grown militant outfit: the Indian Mujahideen. With many highly educated and middle-class recruits among its ranks, and led by a 36-year-old computer engineer, the group's members have a very different profile from the Pakistani groups' recruits. But though their paths may be very different, the militants' eventual destination - fanaticism, violence and hate - are the same.
Intelligence agencies have done much research since 9/11 into how individuals become terrorist killers. Dehumanising the enemy is seen as key. Civilians are no longer seen as innocent but as complicit in a war waged by their governments against Islam. Group dynamics also play a huge role, particularly when teams of militants are isolated from normal society for long periods of time. Training camps - such as those in which Azam Amir Kasab is said to have spent months - are the perfect way of reinforcing solidarity and the new 'world view' which will allow them to execute murderous operations, such as killing diners in a hotel restaurant in cold blood.
Indian authorities believe local members of the Indian Mujahideen may have acted as scouts to prepare the ground and gather intelligence before the attack. Security services now recognise that militant groups looking to prepare attacks seek out resources and often enter into temporary coalitions with other outfits when necessary. Though criminal links to Islamic militants are rare, they are not unknown, and there are some suggestions that local underworld networks may have been exploited to get the attackers to the targets by sea.
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/30/mumbai-terror-attacks-india
The pitted roads around Multan, the city of saints, stretch flat across the fields. They lead past rundown factories, workshops, shabby roadside teashops and mile after mile of flat fields broken only by the mud and brick houses of the villages of Pakistan's rural poor. One road leads south-east to the nearby city of Bahawalpur, the biggest recruiting base of the militant groups currently being blamed by India for the Mumbai attack; another leads north-west to Faridkot, the home village of Mohammad Ajmal Mohammad Amin Kasab, a 21-year-old Pakistan national named yesterday in the Indian media as the only gunman involved in last week's atrocity now alive and in custody.
Already a picture claimed by the Indian media to be Kasab, showing a young man dressed in combat trousers, carrying a backpack and an AK47, on his way to to Mumbai's main station to carry out his deadly work, has become an iconic image of the assault on the city.
Two other militants have been named. Like Kasab, according to the Indian media reports, they are said to be from the Multan region, southern Punjab. They, too, are said to be members of the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure) and to have followed a five-month training period to prepare them for the attack. The charge of the group's involvement, denied by its spokesmen, has explosive political consequences for the volatile region and must be treated with caution. In the long-running contest between India and its neighbour, propaganda and misinformation is far from rare. But if the details now emerging are confirmed, the link to Pakistan may spark war.
For though it is widely acknowledged that Pakistan's civilian government has limited control over local militant groups, it is clear that Pakistan's military and security establishment does.
Lashkar-e-Taiba was originally founded with the support of the Pakistani military intelligence service, the ISI, to fight as 'deniable' proxies in the contested territory of Kashmir, part of a decades-old strategy by the militarily weaker Pakistan to 'bleed' its bigger rival. The ISI also has connections with Jaish-e-Mohammed, the second group that New Delhi security officials has accused of involvement in the Mumbai attacks.
For the moment little is known about the three men named yesterday or their accomplices. But their place of origin comes as no surprise to experts. Both Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed draw the majority of their recruits from the southern Punjab. Last week The Observer travelled to the twin towns of Multan and Bahawalpur, the centres of the region, to investigate the reality of the groups' power on the ground, their relations with the Pakistani intelligence services and the factors which drive young men, possibly including the Mumbai gunmen, to join them.
Trace a line from where US special forces battle Taliban fighters in the corner of empty desert where the Afghan, Pakistani and Iranian frontiers meet, follow it through the badlands of the Pakistani North West Frontier and on through the bomb-blasted cities of northern Pakistan and down through Delhi, attacked in September, to shell-shocked Mumbai, and one thing becomes clear: this zone has displaced the Middle East as the new central front in the struggle against Islamic militancy. The southern Punjab falls on the line's centre point. There may be doubt over the identity of the attackers, but there is none that Multan and Bahawalpur and villages such as Faridkot are in the Indians' sights.
For most militants in the region the story - and that of Azam Amir Kasab is unlikely to be very different - starts at school. The southern Punjab has one of the highest concentrations of religious schools or madrassas in south Asia. Most teach the ultra-conservative Deobandi strand of Islam that is also followed by the Afghan Taliban and, crucially in this desperately poor land, offers free classes, board and lodging to students.
In Bahawalpur the Jaish-e-Mohammed group, believed responsible for a string of brutal attacks across south Asia, including the murder of Jewish American journalist Daniel Pearl, has been linked to two such madrassas. One is the headquarters of the group - a semi-fortified and forbidding complex in the centre of the town. The other is the Dar-ul-Uloom Medina, where the brother-in-law of Rashid Rauf, the Bahawalpur-based suspected British militant thought to have been killed in an American missile attack eight days ago, is a teacher. Surrounded by some of the 700 students, he told The Observer that 'jihad' was the duty of all his young charges.
The pupils at the more radical Bahawalpur and Multan schools grow up soaked in extremist ideology. The most senior cleric in Bahawalpur, Maulana Riaz Chugti, said his students could only go 'for training or to fight' after their studies or when the schools were shut for the holy month of Ramadan.
'To fight in Afghanistan or Kashmir and to struggle against the forces who are against Islam is our religious duty,' Chugti, who oversees the education of 40,000 students, told The Observer.
In Bahawalpur both the effects and the limits of the recent reversal of policy by the ISI, the powerful Pakistani military intelligence service, are evident. A crackdown on the militant groups was launched after they were blamed for a bloody attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 which almost brought India and Pakistan to open war. The groups, previously seen as a strategic asset, were suddenly seen as, at least for the moment, a liability. When their operatives were linked to plots to assassinate the then President, and evidence of collusion with al-Qaeda itself became clear, the pressure mounted on the ISI to rein in their former protégés.
'The militants have had to lower their profile,' said one local security official. 'They are no longer recruiting or preaching or raising funds openly. Things are much more difficult for them. If they recruit at all they do it individual by individual, not en masse like before. There is no production line.'
But the groups - along with break-away outfits with their roots in sectarian Shia-Sunni violence in the region - still have a significant presence in the region, particularly in remote villages such as that of Azam Amir Kasab. 'They may be semi-retired, but in my village there are 300 men who have fought in Afghanistan and have training and can be activated with one phone call,' one local former militant said. That fighters for one operation should come from the same place was not surprising. 'When I went to Afghanistan I went with five guys who I knew from school,' he said.
The young men of the southern Punjab have been found across a broad swath of south Asia and even further afield. In Kabul in August, The Observer interviewed Abit, a 23-year-old from Bahawalpur who had surrendered to Afghan police seconds before he was supposed to blow himself up in a huge truck bomb. Other militants from the town have been found as far away as Bangladesh. Lashkar-e-Taiba members have even been located in Iraq.
The groups are also of great interest to British intelligence services, who fear their key role as intermediaries between young volunteers from the UK's Muslim community - such as Rauf - and al-Qaeda leaders based in the volatile tribal zones along Pakistan's western frontier. The groups, the sources say, have a UK support network to supply funding.
The groups' relationship with the intelligence services is complex. Front organisations for the groups have even put up candidates in recent elections and travel without fear throughout Pakistan. Earlier this year The Observer interviewed a representative of one group alleged to be linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba in the foyer of a luxury Lahore hotel.
Local politicians said groups in the region were still powerful enough to intimidate the local government and security forces and even to collect tax or mediate in legal disputes in some areas. Roshan Gilani, a Shia community leader in Bahawalpur, said music shops had received Taliban-style threats, telling them to close or risk violence. Prominent Shias have been told they are on a hit list.
Until the Mumbai attacks, the recent series of bombings in India had been attributed by most analysts to a home-grown militant outfit: the Indian Mujahideen. With many highly educated and middle-class recruits among its ranks, and led by a 36-year-old computer engineer, the group's members have a very different profile from the Pakistani groups' recruits. But though their paths may be very different, the militants' eventual destination - fanaticism, violence and hate - are the same.
Intelligence agencies have done much research since 9/11 into how individuals become terrorist killers. Dehumanising the enemy is seen as key. Civilians are no longer seen as innocent but as complicit in a war waged by their governments against Islam. Group dynamics also play a huge role, particularly when teams of militants are isolated from normal society for long periods of time. Training camps - such as those in which Azam Amir Kasab is said to have spent months - are the perfect way of reinforcing solidarity and the new 'world view' which will allow them to execute murderous operations, such as killing diners in a hotel restaurant in cold blood.
Indian authorities believe local members of the Indian Mujahideen may have acted as scouts to prepare the ground and gather intelligence before the attack. Security services now recognise that militant groups looking to prepare attacks seek out resources and often enter into temporary coalitions with other outfits when necessary. Though criminal links to Islamic militants are rare, they are not unknown, and there are some suggestions that local underworld networks may have been exploited to get the attackers to the targets by sea.
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/30/mumbai-terror-attacks-india
Terrorists could mount nuclear or biological attack within 5 years, warns Congress inquiry
An investigation by the US Congress into weapons of mass destruction published yesterday made a chilling prediction of terrorists mounting an attack using biological or nuclear weapons within the next five years.
The six-month inquiry mentioned Pakistan as one of the likeliest sources of such an attack. The target could be the US or some other part of the world.
The report, by the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, said "unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013".
"Terrorists are more likely to be able to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon," it said.
George Bush said the report highlighted the greatest threat facing the US and was "dangerously real". He said that after the 9/11 attacks he had put in place policies tackling the threat and he was leaving a good foundation for his successor.
Barack Obama's incoming administration, which is to prioritise tackling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, was briefed on Capitol Hill yesterday about the findings in the 132-page report.
The commission, led by former Democratic senators Bob Graham and Jim Talent, was given six months to complete the report. It followed on from the work of the commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks.
Graham told reporters that a biological or nuclear attack within the next five years was not inevitable and the commission's reports included a series of recommendations which, if implemented, could diminish the threat. The recommendations included the creation of a White House post focusing on proliferation and more emphasis on diplomatic efforts.
The team's remit ranged from lack of security at biological labs in the US to the safety of nuclear stockpiles in Russia. It conducted 250 interviews with scientists, analysts, intelligence agencies and the military.
The report concluded that the risk from biological or nuclear weapons was higher than sceptical foreign policy and defence analysts have so far suggested. Those analysts had pointed to the complexity of transporting such weapons and the limitations of a nuclear "dirty" bomb, whose radius of damage is minimal compared with missile-delivered warheads.
The report disagreed, saying: "No mission could be timelier. The simple reality is that the risks that confront us today are evolving faster than our multi-layered responses.
"Many thousands of dedicated people across all agencies of our government are working hard to protect this country, and their efforts have had a positive impact. But the terrorists have been active, too - and in our judgment America's margin of safety is shrinking, not growing."
It added that much dangerous biological and nuclear material around the globe was "poorly secured - and thus vulnerable to theft by those who would put these materials to harmful use, or would sell them on the black market to potential terrorists".
As well as the threat from stateless militant groups, the commission expressed concern about the danger posed by proliferation of nuclear weapons in countries such as Iran, saying the Obama administration must stop Tehran acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.
It pointed to Pakistan, both at state level and among stateless groups, as one of the areas of most concern. "Were one to map terrorism and weapons of mass destruction today, all roads would intersect in Pakistan," the report said.
Talent told journalists: "It is the epicentre of a lot of these dangers." He said the report had been drawn up before the Mumbai attacks. The commission recommended that Pakistan be top priority for the Obama administration in terms of terrorism and proliferation.
Proposals include eliminating terrorist safe havens through military, economic, and diplomatic means, securing nuclear and biological materials in Pakistan, countering and defeating extremist ideology, and constraining a nascent nuclear arms race in Asia.
Other recommendations include strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and other international safeguards, creating a US national security force appropriate to the 21st century and developing a more coherent strategy for countering ideologies that lead to terrorism.
At home, the commission was disturbed by the apparent lack of security at laboratories dealing with dangerous biological materials.
Government investigators sent to check on the vulnerability of such research sites were able gain access to the outside of these buildings and then observe work inside.
It was fortunate that they were from the government and not al-Qaida as these were precisely the lethal trove that the terrorists have been seeking for years, the report said.
The investigators watched a pedestrian simply stroll into one of the buildings through an unguarded loading bay.
The commission recommended tighter oversight of the 400 research facilities and 15,000 staff engaged in such work.
Another recommendation was for the establishment of an anthrax preparedness strategy.
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/04/terrorism-nuclear-attack-congress-report
The six-month inquiry mentioned Pakistan as one of the likeliest sources of such an attack. The target could be the US or some other part of the world.
The report, by the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, said "unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013".
"Terrorists are more likely to be able to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon," it said.
George Bush said the report highlighted the greatest threat facing the US and was "dangerously real". He said that after the 9/11 attacks he had put in place policies tackling the threat and he was leaving a good foundation for his successor.
Barack Obama's incoming administration, which is to prioritise tackling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, was briefed on Capitol Hill yesterday about the findings in the 132-page report.
The commission, led by former Democratic senators Bob Graham and Jim Talent, was given six months to complete the report. It followed on from the work of the commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks.
Graham told reporters that a biological or nuclear attack within the next five years was not inevitable and the commission's reports included a series of recommendations which, if implemented, could diminish the threat. The recommendations included the creation of a White House post focusing on proliferation and more emphasis on diplomatic efforts.
The team's remit ranged from lack of security at biological labs in the US to the safety of nuclear stockpiles in Russia. It conducted 250 interviews with scientists, analysts, intelligence agencies and the military.
The report concluded that the risk from biological or nuclear weapons was higher than sceptical foreign policy and defence analysts have so far suggested. Those analysts had pointed to the complexity of transporting such weapons and the limitations of a nuclear "dirty" bomb, whose radius of damage is minimal compared with missile-delivered warheads.
The report disagreed, saying: "No mission could be timelier. The simple reality is that the risks that confront us today are evolving faster than our multi-layered responses.
"Many thousands of dedicated people across all agencies of our government are working hard to protect this country, and their efforts have had a positive impact. But the terrorists have been active, too - and in our judgment America's margin of safety is shrinking, not growing."
It added that much dangerous biological and nuclear material around the globe was "poorly secured - and thus vulnerable to theft by those who would put these materials to harmful use, or would sell them on the black market to potential terrorists".
As well as the threat from stateless militant groups, the commission expressed concern about the danger posed by proliferation of nuclear weapons in countries such as Iran, saying the Obama administration must stop Tehran acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.
It pointed to Pakistan, both at state level and among stateless groups, as one of the areas of most concern. "Were one to map terrorism and weapons of mass destruction today, all roads would intersect in Pakistan," the report said.
Talent told journalists: "It is the epicentre of a lot of these dangers." He said the report had been drawn up before the Mumbai attacks. The commission recommended that Pakistan be top priority for the Obama administration in terms of terrorism and proliferation.
Proposals include eliminating terrorist safe havens through military, economic, and diplomatic means, securing nuclear and biological materials in Pakistan, countering and defeating extremist ideology, and constraining a nascent nuclear arms race in Asia.
Other recommendations include strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and other international safeguards, creating a US national security force appropriate to the 21st century and developing a more coherent strategy for countering ideologies that lead to terrorism.
At home, the commission was disturbed by the apparent lack of security at laboratories dealing with dangerous biological materials.
Government investigators sent to check on the vulnerability of such research sites were able gain access to the outside of these buildings and then observe work inside.
It was fortunate that they were from the government and not al-Qaida as these were precisely the lethal trove that the terrorists have been seeking for years, the report said.
The investigators watched a pedestrian simply stroll into one of the buildings through an unguarded loading bay.
The commission recommended tighter oversight of the 400 research facilities and 15,000 staff engaged in such work.
Another recommendation was for the establishment of an anthrax preparedness strategy.
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/04/terrorism-nuclear-attack-congress-report
Finding Russia's place in Europe
Joschka Fischer
For 19 years, the west (America and Europe) has been putting off answering a critical strategic question: what role should post-Soviet Russia play globally and in the European order? Should it be treated as a difficult partner or a strategic adversary? Even when this choice became critically acute during the crisis of Russia's short war against Georgia last summer, the west didn't provide a conclusive answer to this question. If you follow most east Europeans, the UK and the Bush administration, the answer is "strategic adversary". But most west Europeans prefer "difficult partner". These seemingly mutually exclusive alternatives have one thing in common: neither of them has been thought through to the end.If you see Russia as a strategic adversary ? and the restoration of Great Russian power politics under Vladimir Putin, to the detriment of the rule of law in domestic and foreign policy, does indeed speak for it ? then the west should fundamentally change its agenda. While Russia is no longer the superpower it was in the Soviet era, militarily it is still a great power, at least in Europe and Asia. To address the numerous regional conflicts (Iran, Middle East, Afghanistan/Pakistan, central Asia, North Korea) and global challenges (climate protection, disarmament, arms control, nuclear anti-proliferation, energy security) that have high priority on the western agenda, co-operation with Russia is necessary. A strategic confrontation with Moscow, ie a new kind of "mini-cold war", would undermine this agenda, or at least complicate its implementation significantly. So the question is simply whether the threat emanating from Russia is so grave that this kind of strategic reorientation on the part of the west is required? I believe it is not. Putin's claim to great-power status and his great-power policies are structurally very vulnerable. This is especially true at times where the price of oil has fallen below $40 per barrel. And he knows that. Demographically, Russia is in a dramatic nosedive; it remains economically and socially backward; its infrastructure is underdeveloped, as are its investments in education and vocational training. Economically, it mainly relies on energy and commodity exports, and in its modernisation efforts it is largely dependent on the west, particularly Europe. Due to its geopolitical position and its potential, however, Russia will remain a permanent strategic factor in Europe and Asia that cannot be ignored. To integrate the country into a strategic partnership is therefore in the west's interest. But this would require a western policy based on long-term thinking and a self-confident and strong power position, because the Kremlin will perceive any sign of division and weakness as encouragement to return to Great Russian power politics.A few months ago, the Russian government came up with a proposal to negotiate a new European order within the framework of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Russia considers the agreements from the 1990s unjust, based as they were on its weakness at the time, and it wants to revise them. Moscow's main strategic objective is the weakening or even rollback of Nato as an anti-Russian military alliance and the re-establishment of its east European and central Asian zones of influence. But Putin is making a big mistake here, because all these aims are unacceptable for the west, and the Kremlin still doesn't seem to understand that the best and most effective guarantee of Nato's existence was, is, and will continue to be an aggressive Russian foreign policy. In the former mother country of Marxism-Leninism, the leaders still don't seem to understand dialectics. After all, if Russia's government really wanted to achieve a change in the post-Soviet status quo, it should, first and foremost, pursue a policy vis-a-vis its neighbours that reduces rather than increases fears. But this applies similarly, if in reverse, to the west: on the one hand, the principles of a new Europe as defined by the OSCE after 1989/90 don't allow decisions about alliances to be subject to the veto of a large neighbour. The same is true for free and secret elections and the inviolability of borders. On the other hand, the missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, and the prospect of Nato accession for Georgia and Ukraine, assume confrontation where this was not at all necessary. The west should not reject Russia's wish for new negotiations on a European security system. Instead, it should be viewed as an opportunity finally to answer the key question of Russia's place within Europe. Nato must play the central role here, because it is indispensable for the vast majority of Europeans and for America. The possible trade-off could be that the existing principles and institutions of the post-Soviet European order, including Nato, remain unchanged and are accepted and implemented by Russia, which would get a significantly enhanced role within Nato, including the perspective of full membership. The peripheral nature of the Nato-Russia Council was clearly not enough and did not work.But why not think about transforming Nato into a real European security system, including Russia? The rules of the game would be changed and a whole variety of strategic goals could be achieved ? European security, neighbourhood conflicts, energy security, arms reduction, anti-proliferation, etc. Yes, such a bold step would transform Nato. But it would transform Russia even more. If the west approaches these discussions with Russia without illusions, with a clear understanding of its own strategic interests and with new ideas for partnership and co-operation, the worst to be feared is failure. Of course, this approach presupposes two things that don't exist at the moment: a common transatlantic approach to dealing with Russia, and a European Union that acts in much greater unison and is therefore stronger. Nonetheless, the challenge posed by Russia does not allow any further procrastination. There is simply too much at stake. Joschka Fischer, a leading member of
Germany's Green party for almost 20 years, was Germany's foreign minister and vice chancellor from 1998 until 2005
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/11/russia-eu
For 19 years, the west (America and Europe) has been putting off answering a critical strategic question: what role should post-Soviet Russia play globally and in the European order? Should it be treated as a difficult partner or a strategic adversary? Even when this choice became critically acute during the crisis of Russia's short war against Georgia last summer, the west didn't provide a conclusive answer to this question. If you follow most east Europeans, the UK and the Bush administration, the answer is "strategic adversary". But most west Europeans prefer "difficult partner". These seemingly mutually exclusive alternatives have one thing in common: neither of them has been thought through to the end.If you see Russia as a strategic adversary ? and the restoration of Great Russian power politics under Vladimir Putin, to the detriment of the rule of law in domestic and foreign policy, does indeed speak for it ? then the west should fundamentally change its agenda. While Russia is no longer the superpower it was in the Soviet era, militarily it is still a great power, at least in Europe and Asia. To address the numerous regional conflicts (Iran, Middle East, Afghanistan/Pakistan, central Asia, North Korea) and global challenges (climate protection, disarmament, arms control, nuclear anti-proliferation, energy security) that have high priority on the western agenda, co-operation with Russia is necessary. A strategic confrontation with Moscow, ie a new kind of "mini-cold war", would undermine this agenda, or at least complicate its implementation significantly. So the question is simply whether the threat emanating from Russia is so grave that this kind of strategic reorientation on the part of the west is required? I believe it is not. Putin's claim to great-power status and his great-power policies are structurally very vulnerable. This is especially true at times where the price of oil has fallen below $40 per barrel. And he knows that. Demographically, Russia is in a dramatic nosedive; it remains economically and socially backward; its infrastructure is underdeveloped, as are its investments in education and vocational training. Economically, it mainly relies on energy and commodity exports, and in its modernisation efforts it is largely dependent on the west, particularly Europe. Due to its geopolitical position and its potential, however, Russia will remain a permanent strategic factor in Europe and Asia that cannot be ignored. To integrate the country into a strategic partnership is therefore in the west's interest. But this would require a western policy based on long-term thinking and a self-confident and strong power position, because the Kremlin will perceive any sign of division and weakness as encouragement to return to Great Russian power politics.A few months ago, the Russian government came up with a proposal to negotiate a new European order within the framework of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Russia considers the agreements from the 1990s unjust, based as they were on its weakness at the time, and it wants to revise them. Moscow's main strategic objective is the weakening or even rollback of Nato as an anti-Russian military alliance and the re-establishment of its east European and central Asian zones of influence. But Putin is making a big mistake here, because all these aims are unacceptable for the west, and the Kremlin still doesn't seem to understand that the best and most effective guarantee of Nato's existence was, is, and will continue to be an aggressive Russian foreign policy. In the former mother country of Marxism-Leninism, the leaders still don't seem to understand dialectics. After all, if Russia's government really wanted to achieve a change in the post-Soviet status quo, it should, first and foremost, pursue a policy vis-a-vis its neighbours that reduces rather than increases fears. But this applies similarly, if in reverse, to the west: on the one hand, the principles of a new Europe as defined by the OSCE after 1989/90 don't allow decisions about alliances to be subject to the veto of a large neighbour. The same is true for free and secret elections and the inviolability of borders. On the other hand, the missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, and the prospect of Nato accession for Georgia and Ukraine, assume confrontation where this was not at all necessary. The west should not reject Russia's wish for new negotiations on a European security system. Instead, it should be viewed as an opportunity finally to answer the key question of Russia's place within Europe. Nato must play the central role here, because it is indispensable for the vast majority of Europeans and for America. The possible trade-off could be that the existing principles and institutions of the post-Soviet European order, including Nato, remain unchanged and are accepted and implemented by Russia, which would get a significantly enhanced role within Nato, including the perspective of full membership. The peripheral nature of the Nato-Russia Council was clearly not enough and did not work.But why not think about transforming Nato into a real European security system, including Russia? The rules of the game would be changed and a whole variety of strategic goals could be achieved ? European security, neighbourhood conflicts, energy security, arms reduction, anti-proliferation, etc. Yes, such a bold step would transform Nato. But it would transform Russia even more. If the west approaches these discussions with Russia without illusions, with a clear understanding of its own strategic interests and with new ideas for partnership and co-operation, the worst to be feared is failure. Of course, this approach presupposes two things that don't exist at the moment: a common transatlantic approach to dealing with Russia, and a European Union that acts in much greater unison and is therefore stronger. Nonetheless, the challenge posed by Russia does not allow any further procrastination. There is simply too much at stake. Joschka Fischer, a leading member of
Germany's Green party for almost 20 years, was Germany's foreign minister and vice chancellor from 1998 until 2005
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/11/russia-eu
Why Iran Seeks Nuclear Weapons
Arch Roberts Jr.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FL: Expert observers of Iran hang on the latest reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency of how many centrifuges are running, how far the country must go to build a bomb, the latest inflammatory remarks from President Ahmedinejad, speculation about a lame-duck Bush administration military strike, or the same from Olmert’s Israel.
Iran’s decision on nuclear weapons was made at least two decades ago. Despite its professed peaceful intentions, nobody in their right mind would disagree with the notion that Iran maximizes its room for maneuver by all possible means, with nuclear arms or without. Tehran doesn’t mind foreign suspicions at all; rather, its strategic interest is to encourage them, if only to achieve the effect of nuclear deterrence before possessing a nuclear device. Iran’s policy has created a virtual deterrent, and its policies across the board, from the mullahs’ point of view, amount to “constructive irresponsibility.” Iran wants us to spend time guessing its next step.
The current conflict in Gaza provides an example of Iran’s strategic ambitions. Iran has long used Hamas and Hezbollah as proxies in pursuit of its interests. At arm’s length, these organizations support Iran’s long-term goals: tie down Israel’s actions in the short term, and frustrate all efforts at Middle East peace. Israel’s 2006 failure in Lebanon, chasing down Hezbollah, only served to embolden the mullahs in Tehran. The assault on Gaza, while it may stop rocket attacks on civilians, could be expected to achieve much the same result.
There’s no plausible peaceful explanation for Iran’s uranium enrichment program: The fuel for its first nuclear reactor at Bushehr will be provided by Russia, with a requirement that spent fuel, full of weapons-usable plutonium, will be returned to Russia. Plans for future reactor construction are well in the distance. So the non-bomb uranium Iran has produced to date has no purpose besides that of a nuclear “breakout” option: kick out the inspectors, run the uranium through the centrifuges several more times, work on missiles and other delivery means, and finish up with a couple of bombs. In the view of Iranian leaders, this posture improves Iran’s strategic military perspective.
Put yourself in Ahmedinejad’s, or more important, Khamenei’s, position. How could you not pursue the nuclear option? A proud and ancient nation, subject to a long history of Western meddling, a Persian oasis in a multitude of Arabs and others, a combatant in many bloody wars, must have insecurities that far outweigh the prospects of UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions. The flood of diplomats into Tehran over the last several years only increased the value that Iran’s leaders, and much of its public, place on the virtual deterrent option that’s a stockpile of uranium sufficient for a bomb.
Consider the current environment and the history that informs Iran's leaders. Iran has declared the United States its principal strategic threat for three decades; indeed, this enmity has been a central organizing principle for the government. Flirtations with more normal relations with the US have been frequent, from the end of the Carter Administration through Iran-Contra to the present consideration of opening an American Interests Section in Tehran. But the government of Iran has been divided in important ways since the revolution, with many observers noting its conflicting signals to the major powers, simultaneously conciliatory and defiant. This behavior only increased during the term of fiery Ahmadinejad.
According to the Federation of American Scientists, Israel has had nuclear-capable missiles since 1966 – perhaps the most significant political driver of Iran's national policy. But there are many others as well: Saddam Hussein's Iraq, using chemical weapons and pursuing nuclear ones, waged a punishing war against Iran for a decade after the 1979 revolution. The US has had a considerable military presence on Iran's land borders since 2001, a continuous and significant naval presence in the Gulf for longer, and it shot down an Iranian airliner during the Reagan administration.
In Kenneth Pollack's excellent book, "The Persian Puzzle," he relates the tension among Iranian policymakers between transparency and concealment regarding the nuclear option. Concealment was the policy for 20 years until the revelations of 2002. Once revealed, the public face of Iran’s policy changed to one of declarations of capability and denials of intent to build a nuclear weapon. On this question, Iran has many models to consider. Israel, as late as 2006, famously stated it would not be the first country to "introduce" nuclear weapons into the Middle East, a contrived ambiguity that has served its national interests, but leaves no confusion about its intent. Ironically, this Israeli policy is perhaps most consistent with Iran's current posture. The mere possibility of an Iranian nuclear weapon approximates its actual possession.
Another mature nuclear power in the neighborhood, India, has pursued a similar approach to Iran’s. After its first nuclear test in 1974, India tried to persuade the world that the test was for peaceful purposes, with little success and few penalties. North Korea conducted a nuclear test in 2006, in the midst of the Six-Party talks on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, another virtual deterrent.
The model Iran may follow is China, which pursues a policy best described by Jeffrey Lewis and others as "minimum deterrence." Apart from fielding the largest army in the world, China maintains perhaps 200 nuclear weapons and declares a no-first-use policy. China enjoys a level of respect and consideration Iran's leaders have never enjoyed, but to which they logically aspire.
Let’s go back to the box in which Iran’s policymakers have placed themselves: After at least two decades, Iran got caught, publicly, in 2002, and had to submit to inspections of items never declared to the IAEA. Libya renounced its nuclear program around the same time. If you’re the Supreme Leader in Iran, what do you do? You pretend to cooperate with inspectors, work your Non-Aligned Movement allies in the UN system and slow-roll the slow-response mechanisms of the UN – all the while not compromising the strategic decision made decades ago. This is predictable, not radical behavior. Iran can always hang opposition to its actions from the US and others on outsiders and “Zionist tendencies,” and pin IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei’s technical statements on the fact that he’s an Egyptian, and therefore suspect. (Nobel Peace Prize winner ElBaradei must have the patience of Job.)
So what’s to be done? The only way out of this mess is more of the same: call a high-level Middle East peace conference; think creatively about the kind of no-first-use nuclear policies that have served China well; include Israel while protecting its strategic interests; find ways to guarantee Israeli and Iranian borders; and, most important, focus on nuclear issues before it's too late.
No one can doubt the commitment of the US to Israel’s security, nor should anyone question the value of a prospective region-wide commitment to security behind currently-agreed borders. Israel might even rethink its own nuclear posture in light of such developments.
Iran would likely participate in any regional conference devoted to Middle East peace. Such a meeting would mark its undeniable influence in the region and perhaps mitigate the toxic relations existing with the US since 1979. It might just reduce the nuclear impulses that Iran cultivates as a counteraction to US and Israeli military power, as well as those they may harbor in a long-range analysis of a nuclear Turkey or Saudi Arabia. Why not? Absent an acceptable, overarching alternative, accepting Iran’s ambiguous nuclear power may all we’re left with.
Arch Roberts Jr. is a consultant on international affairs, formerly a staff member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and elsewhere in the United Nations system. These views are his own.
Yale Global Online
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=11793
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FL: Expert observers of Iran hang on the latest reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency of how many centrifuges are running, how far the country must go to build a bomb, the latest inflammatory remarks from President Ahmedinejad, speculation about a lame-duck Bush administration military strike, or the same from Olmert’s Israel.
Iran’s decision on nuclear weapons was made at least two decades ago. Despite its professed peaceful intentions, nobody in their right mind would disagree with the notion that Iran maximizes its room for maneuver by all possible means, with nuclear arms or without. Tehran doesn’t mind foreign suspicions at all; rather, its strategic interest is to encourage them, if only to achieve the effect of nuclear deterrence before possessing a nuclear device. Iran’s policy has created a virtual deterrent, and its policies across the board, from the mullahs’ point of view, amount to “constructive irresponsibility.” Iran wants us to spend time guessing its next step.
The current conflict in Gaza provides an example of Iran’s strategic ambitions. Iran has long used Hamas and Hezbollah as proxies in pursuit of its interests. At arm’s length, these organizations support Iran’s long-term goals: tie down Israel’s actions in the short term, and frustrate all efforts at Middle East peace. Israel’s 2006 failure in Lebanon, chasing down Hezbollah, only served to embolden the mullahs in Tehran. The assault on Gaza, while it may stop rocket attacks on civilians, could be expected to achieve much the same result.
There’s no plausible peaceful explanation for Iran’s uranium enrichment program: The fuel for its first nuclear reactor at Bushehr will be provided by Russia, with a requirement that spent fuel, full of weapons-usable plutonium, will be returned to Russia. Plans for future reactor construction are well in the distance. So the non-bomb uranium Iran has produced to date has no purpose besides that of a nuclear “breakout” option: kick out the inspectors, run the uranium through the centrifuges several more times, work on missiles and other delivery means, and finish up with a couple of bombs. In the view of Iranian leaders, this posture improves Iran’s strategic military perspective.
Put yourself in Ahmedinejad’s, or more important, Khamenei’s, position. How could you not pursue the nuclear option? A proud and ancient nation, subject to a long history of Western meddling, a Persian oasis in a multitude of Arabs and others, a combatant in many bloody wars, must have insecurities that far outweigh the prospects of UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions. The flood of diplomats into Tehran over the last several years only increased the value that Iran’s leaders, and much of its public, place on the virtual deterrent option that’s a stockpile of uranium sufficient for a bomb.
Consider the current environment and the history that informs Iran's leaders. Iran has declared the United States its principal strategic threat for three decades; indeed, this enmity has been a central organizing principle for the government. Flirtations with more normal relations with the US have been frequent, from the end of the Carter Administration through Iran-Contra to the present consideration of opening an American Interests Section in Tehran. But the government of Iran has been divided in important ways since the revolution, with many observers noting its conflicting signals to the major powers, simultaneously conciliatory and defiant. This behavior only increased during the term of fiery Ahmadinejad.
According to the Federation of American Scientists, Israel has had nuclear-capable missiles since 1966 – perhaps the most significant political driver of Iran's national policy. But there are many others as well: Saddam Hussein's Iraq, using chemical weapons and pursuing nuclear ones, waged a punishing war against Iran for a decade after the 1979 revolution. The US has had a considerable military presence on Iran's land borders since 2001, a continuous and significant naval presence in the Gulf for longer, and it shot down an Iranian airliner during the Reagan administration.
In Kenneth Pollack's excellent book, "The Persian Puzzle," he relates the tension among Iranian policymakers between transparency and concealment regarding the nuclear option. Concealment was the policy for 20 years until the revelations of 2002. Once revealed, the public face of Iran’s policy changed to one of declarations of capability and denials of intent to build a nuclear weapon. On this question, Iran has many models to consider. Israel, as late as 2006, famously stated it would not be the first country to "introduce" nuclear weapons into the Middle East, a contrived ambiguity that has served its national interests, but leaves no confusion about its intent. Ironically, this Israeli policy is perhaps most consistent with Iran's current posture. The mere possibility of an Iranian nuclear weapon approximates its actual possession.
Another mature nuclear power in the neighborhood, India, has pursued a similar approach to Iran’s. After its first nuclear test in 1974, India tried to persuade the world that the test was for peaceful purposes, with little success and few penalties. North Korea conducted a nuclear test in 2006, in the midst of the Six-Party talks on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, another virtual deterrent.
The model Iran may follow is China, which pursues a policy best described by Jeffrey Lewis and others as "minimum deterrence." Apart from fielding the largest army in the world, China maintains perhaps 200 nuclear weapons and declares a no-first-use policy. China enjoys a level of respect and consideration Iran's leaders have never enjoyed, but to which they logically aspire.
Let’s go back to the box in which Iran’s policymakers have placed themselves: After at least two decades, Iran got caught, publicly, in 2002, and had to submit to inspections of items never declared to the IAEA. Libya renounced its nuclear program around the same time. If you’re the Supreme Leader in Iran, what do you do? You pretend to cooperate with inspectors, work your Non-Aligned Movement allies in the UN system and slow-roll the slow-response mechanisms of the UN – all the while not compromising the strategic decision made decades ago. This is predictable, not radical behavior. Iran can always hang opposition to its actions from the US and others on outsiders and “Zionist tendencies,” and pin IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei’s technical statements on the fact that he’s an Egyptian, and therefore suspect. (Nobel Peace Prize winner ElBaradei must have the patience of Job.)
So what’s to be done? The only way out of this mess is more of the same: call a high-level Middle East peace conference; think creatively about the kind of no-first-use nuclear policies that have served China well; include Israel while protecting its strategic interests; find ways to guarantee Israeli and Iranian borders; and, most important, focus on nuclear issues before it's too late.
No one can doubt the commitment of the US to Israel’s security, nor should anyone question the value of a prospective region-wide commitment to security behind currently-agreed borders. Israel might even rethink its own nuclear posture in light of such developments.
Iran would likely participate in any regional conference devoted to Middle East peace. Such a meeting would mark its undeniable influence in the region and perhaps mitigate the toxic relations existing with the US since 1979. It might just reduce the nuclear impulses that Iran cultivates as a counteraction to US and Israeli military power, as well as those they may harbor in a long-range analysis of a nuclear Turkey or Saudi Arabia. Why not? Absent an acceptable, overarching alternative, accepting Iran’s ambiguous nuclear power may all we’re left with.
Arch Roberts Jr. is a consultant on international affairs, formerly a staff member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and elsewhere in the United Nations system. These views are his own.
Yale Global Online
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=11793
Monday, December 1, 2008
A return to 1815 is the way forward for Europe
Christopher Meyer
Those who think that there is such a thing as progress in international affairs - that we are capable of learning the lessons of history - have been brutally disabused by the Georgian crisis. You can have all the rules you like to discipline international behaviour; but they are not worth the paper they are written on if they run against fierce nationalisms and ethnic passion.
Ethnic and nationalist rivalry is as old as sin, and as inextinguishable. As a diplomat in Britain's Moscow Embassy during the Cold War, I spent time in two of the Caucasian republics, Georgia and Azerbaijan. They were then under Moscow's heel as part of the Soviet Union. Their loathing of Russians was palpable.
At the time of my visits, Stalin, a Georgian by birth, was still officially a non-person, airbrushed by his successors from the annals of Soviet history. But in defiance of Moscow his portraits could still be seen in Georgian state farms and government offices. I asked a Georgian official why this was so. “Because he killed so many Russians,” came the sardonic reply.
The feeling was mutual. Later in Moscow I related my Caucasian experiences to Leonid Brezhnev's interpreter, Viktor Sukhodrev. “That's no place for a white man,” he said with his impeccable North London accent (he had equally good American).
Recent events have shown no weakening in these ancient hatreds. But the Western powers behaved as if caught on the hop. Last year a French diplomat warned me that once Kosovo got its independence (itself the unnatural product of Balkan hatreds), Russia would feel free to make its move in Georgia. And so it has come to pass. As a Times leader put it recently, history has resumed, leaving Francis Fukuyama, the apostle of its end, trailing in its wake. But Professor Fukuyama was adrift from the very start. Once the iron fists of the former Soviet Union and Tito's Yugoslavia had been removed, nationalist and ethnic tensions broke surface with the murderous velocity of the long suppressed. Contrary to what David Miliband has been telling us, the glacial years of the Cold War were “the period of calm”. The years since have been marked by the constant turmoil of history's march.
Globalisation and interdependence were supposed to have swept aside these ancient feuds and rivalries. Theories of the postmodern state now abound. Tony Blair preached how national interest would be trumped by the spread of “global values”. This is self-evident rubbish. For here is the paradox of the modern world. Money, people, culture, business and electronic information cross porous frontiers in ever-increasing volume. But as national boundaries dissolve in cyberspace, so everywhere the sense of nationhood and national interest strengthens. Five minutes in Beijing, Washington, Tehran or Moscow will tell you that. What is the European Union if not the 21st-century arena for the intense and competitive prosecution of the national interest by its 27 member states?
It is useless to say that nationalism and ethnic tribalism have no place in the international relations of the 21st century. If anything the spread of Western-style democracy has amplified their appeal and resonance. The supreme fallacy in foreign policy is to take the world as we would wish it to be and not as it actually is. In Britain's case, the delusion is compounded when we are powerless to effect the outcome we desire. This has been particularly the case with Russia, where we have managed to be both impotent and provocative. If we really want to put a halt to bad Russian behaviour, let us do so where we can make a difference, and where it is justified - starting with the expulsion of the vast nest of Russian intelligence officers in London, as Labour and Conservative governments did not hesitate to do in the 1970s.
We can foolishly downgrade national interest within the armoury of British diplomacy, if we wish. But we had better not underestimate its driving force in the international behaviour of others. That is the road to dangerous miscalculation.
Take Russia, China and Iran. Each seethes at the recollection of what it considers historical humiliations visited on it by Western powers. For all three the beginning of the 21st century has opened opportunities for payback - for getting respect as a nation (just look at recent Russian newspapers). You don't have to like or approve of these regimes. But not to understand their histories is not to understand the mainspring of their external policies - in Russia's case its determination to rebuild its greatness, dismantled, as millions of Russians see it, by Mikhail Gorbachev and his Georgian Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, aided and abetted by the West. I would bet a sackful of roubles that Russian foreign policy would not be one jot different if it were a fully functioning democracy of the kind that we appear keen to spread around the globe.
What is to be done, as Lenin once put it? The first thing is to sweep away any rose-tinted illusions left from the Blair-Bush era. For the democracies of North America and Europe, relations with Russia are always going to be awkward and bumpy, at best co-operative and adversarial in equal measure.
The fall of the Soviet Union did not wipe the slate clean. The Russia that we are dealing with today, with its fear of encirclement, its suspicion of foreigners and natural appetite for autocracy, is as old as the hills, long pre-dating communism. It is a Russia that will never be reassured by the West's protestations of pacific intent as it pushes Nato and the EU ever eastwards.
Most important of all, Russia and the West need to draw up rules of the road for the 21st century. Mr Miliband and others have condemned the notion of returning to the geopolitics of the Congress of Vienna which, in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars, divided Europe into spheres of influence between empires and nations. They perhaps forget that what was agreed at Vienna held at bay for almost a century a general European war.
Something similar is needed today, based again on spheres of influence. Nato must renounce the provocative folly of being open to Georgian or, worse, Ukrainian membership. This strikes at the heart of the Russian national interest and offers no enhanced security to either Tbilisi or Kiev. As for Russia, it must be made unambiguously clear where any revanchist lunge westwards would provoke a military response by Nato.
This may sound shocking and anachronistic to the modern sensibility. But, there is no other way to remove the scope for miscalculation, the mother of far too many wars.
Sir Christopher Meyer was Ambassador to Washington, 1997-2003
The Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4656255.ece
Those who think that there is such a thing as progress in international affairs - that we are capable of learning the lessons of history - have been brutally disabused by the Georgian crisis. You can have all the rules you like to discipline international behaviour; but they are not worth the paper they are written on if they run against fierce nationalisms and ethnic passion.
Ethnic and nationalist rivalry is as old as sin, and as inextinguishable. As a diplomat in Britain's Moscow Embassy during the Cold War, I spent time in two of the Caucasian republics, Georgia and Azerbaijan. They were then under Moscow's heel as part of the Soviet Union. Their loathing of Russians was palpable.
At the time of my visits, Stalin, a Georgian by birth, was still officially a non-person, airbrushed by his successors from the annals of Soviet history. But in defiance of Moscow his portraits could still be seen in Georgian state farms and government offices. I asked a Georgian official why this was so. “Because he killed so many Russians,” came the sardonic reply.
The feeling was mutual. Later in Moscow I related my Caucasian experiences to Leonid Brezhnev's interpreter, Viktor Sukhodrev. “That's no place for a white man,” he said with his impeccable North London accent (he had equally good American).
Recent events have shown no weakening in these ancient hatreds. But the Western powers behaved as if caught on the hop. Last year a French diplomat warned me that once Kosovo got its independence (itself the unnatural product of Balkan hatreds), Russia would feel free to make its move in Georgia. And so it has come to pass. As a Times leader put it recently, history has resumed, leaving Francis Fukuyama, the apostle of its end, trailing in its wake. But Professor Fukuyama was adrift from the very start. Once the iron fists of the former Soviet Union and Tito's Yugoslavia had been removed, nationalist and ethnic tensions broke surface with the murderous velocity of the long suppressed. Contrary to what David Miliband has been telling us, the glacial years of the Cold War were “the period of calm”. The years since have been marked by the constant turmoil of history's march.
Globalisation and interdependence were supposed to have swept aside these ancient feuds and rivalries. Theories of the postmodern state now abound. Tony Blair preached how national interest would be trumped by the spread of “global values”. This is self-evident rubbish. For here is the paradox of the modern world. Money, people, culture, business and electronic information cross porous frontiers in ever-increasing volume. But as national boundaries dissolve in cyberspace, so everywhere the sense of nationhood and national interest strengthens. Five minutes in Beijing, Washington, Tehran or Moscow will tell you that. What is the European Union if not the 21st-century arena for the intense and competitive prosecution of the national interest by its 27 member states?
It is useless to say that nationalism and ethnic tribalism have no place in the international relations of the 21st century. If anything the spread of Western-style democracy has amplified their appeal and resonance. The supreme fallacy in foreign policy is to take the world as we would wish it to be and not as it actually is. In Britain's case, the delusion is compounded when we are powerless to effect the outcome we desire. This has been particularly the case with Russia, where we have managed to be both impotent and provocative. If we really want to put a halt to bad Russian behaviour, let us do so where we can make a difference, and where it is justified - starting with the expulsion of the vast nest of Russian intelligence officers in London, as Labour and Conservative governments did not hesitate to do in the 1970s.
We can foolishly downgrade national interest within the armoury of British diplomacy, if we wish. But we had better not underestimate its driving force in the international behaviour of others. That is the road to dangerous miscalculation.
Take Russia, China and Iran. Each seethes at the recollection of what it considers historical humiliations visited on it by Western powers. For all three the beginning of the 21st century has opened opportunities for payback - for getting respect as a nation (just look at recent Russian newspapers). You don't have to like or approve of these regimes. But not to understand their histories is not to understand the mainspring of their external policies - in Russia's case its determination to rebuild its greatness, dismantled, as millions of Russians see it, by Mikhail Gorbachev and his Georgian Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, aided and abetted by the West. I would bet a sackful of roubles that Russian foreign policy would not be one jot different if it were a fully functioning democracy of the kind that we appear keen to spread around the globe.
What is to be done, as Lenin once put it? The first thing is to sweep away any rose-tinted illusions left from the Blair-Bush era. For the democracies of North America and Europe, relations with Russia are always going to be awkward and bumpy, at best co-operative and adversarial in equal measure.
The fall of the Soviet Union did not wipe the slate clean. The Russia that we are dealing with today, with its fear of encirclement, its suspicion of foreigners and natural appetite for autocracy, is as old as the hills, long pre-dating communism. It is a Russia that will never be reassured by the West's protestations of pacific intent as it pushes Nato and the EU ever eastwards.
Most important of all, Russia and the West need to draw up rules of the road for the 21st century. Mr Miliband and others have condemned the notion of returning to the geopolitics of the Congress of Vienna which, in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars, divided Europe into spheres of influence between empires and nations. They perhaps forget that what was agreed at Vienna held at bay for almost a century a general European war.
Something similar is needed today, based again on spheres of influence. Nato must renounce the provocative folly of being open to Georgian or, worse, Ukrainian membership. This strikes at the heart of the Russian national interest and offers no enhanced security to either Tbilisi or Kiev. As for Russia, it must be made unambiguously clear where any revanchist lunge westwards would provoke a military response by Nato.
This may sound shocking and anachronistic to the modern sensibility. But, there is no other way to remove the scope for miscalculation, the mother of far too many wars.
Sir Christopher Meyer was Ambassador to Washington, 1997-2003
The Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4656255.ece
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
One Surge Does Not Fit All
By DONALD H. RUMSFELD
THE surge in Iraq has been one of the most impressive military accomplishments in recent years. It has been so successful that the emerging consensus is that what may now be needed in Afghanistan is a similar surge of American forces. President-elect Barack Obama campaigned on his intention to do so, as did his former opponent, John McCain.
As one who is occasionally — and incorrectly — portrayed as an opponent of the surge in Iraq, I believe that while the surge has been effective in Iraq, we must also recognize the conditions that made it successful. President Bush’s bold decision to deploy additional troops to support a broader counterinsurgency strategy of securing and protecting the Iraqi people was clearly the right decision. More important, though, it was the right decision at the right time.
By early 2007, several years of struggle had created the new conditions for a tipping point:
•
Al Qaeda in Iraq’s campaign of terrorism and intimidation had turned its Sunni base of support against it. The result was the so-called Anbar Awakening in the late summer of 2006, followed by similar awakening movements across Iraq.
•
From 2003 through 2006, United States military forces, under the leadership of Gen. John Abizaid and Gen. George Casey, inflicted huge losses on the Baathist and Qaeda leadership. Many thousands of insurgents, including the Qaeda chief in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, were captured or killed and proved difficult to replace.
•
The Iraqi Security Forces had achieved cohesion, improved operational effectiveness and critical mass. By December 2006, some 320,000 Iraqis had been trained, equipped and deployed, producing the forces necessary to help hold difficult neighborhoods against the enemy. By 2007, the surge, for most Iraqis, could have an Iraqi face.
•
And the political scene in Iraq had shifted. Moktada al-Sadr, the firebrand cleric, declared a cease-fire in February 2007. The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, seated in May 2006, moved against militias and Iranian-backed militias and has imperfectly, but notably, rejected narrow sectarian policies.
The best indication that timing is everything may be that there had been earlier surges without the same effect as the 2007 surge. In 2005, troop levels in Iraq were increased to numbers nearly equal to the 2007 surge — twice. But the effects were not as durable because large segments of the Sunni population were still providing sanctuary to insurgents, and Iraq’s security forces were not sufficiently capable or large enough.
The decision to conduct a surge came out of an interagency review in the fall of 2006. By mid-December, as I was leaving the Pentagon, there was a rough consensus in the Defense Department that deploying additional combat brigades to Iraq was the right step. Some military leaders raised reasonable questions about the potential effectiveness of a surge, in part because of a correct concern that military power alone could not solve Iraq’s problems. I agreed, and emphasized that a military surge would need to be accompanied by effective diplomatic and economic “surges” from other departments and agencies of the American government, and by considerably greater progress from Iraq’s elected leaders.
During my last weeks in office, I recommended to President Bush that he consider Gen. David Petraeus as commander of coalition forces in Iraq, as General Casey’s tour was coming to an end. General Petraeus and his deputy, Gen. Ray Odierno, had the experience and skill to recognize and exploit the seismic shifts that were taking place in Iraq’s political landscape. And United States troops had the courage to win the alliance of Iraq’s people against a common enemy — and the benevolence to win their friendship.
At the critical moment — a moment when the Iraqis were able and willing to be part of the surge with the American forces — the United States surged into Iraq with the right commanders, additional forces and a fresh operational approach rooted in years of on-the-ground experience. Americans can be proud of what has been accomplished in Iraq over the last five-plus years. They should also be impressed by the results of the surge, which, thus far, has outstripped expectations, including mine.
President Bush’s decision to increase combat troop levels in Iraq in January 2007 sent a clear message that he was determined not to abandon a people to death squads and terrorists. We will need the same commitment to helping the people of Afghanistan succeed, but that does not mean we will achieve it with the same tactics or strategies.
The way forward in Afghanistan will need to reflect the current circumstances there — not the circumstances in Iraq two years ago. Additional troops in Afghanistan may be necessary, but they will not, by themselves, be sufficient to lead to the results we saw in Iraq. A similar confluence of events that contributed to success in Iraq does not appear to exist in Afghanistan.
What’s needed in Afghanistan is an Afghan solution, just as Iraqi solutions have contributed so fundamentally to progress in Iraq. And a surge, if it is to be successful, will need to be an Afghan surge.
Left unanswered in the current debate is the critical question of how thousands of additional American troops might actually bring long-term stability to Afghanistan — a country 80,000 square miles larger than Iraq yet with security forces just one-fourth the size of Iraq’s. Afghanistan also lacks Iraq’s oil and other economic advantages. It is plagued by the narcotics trade. Its borders are threatened by terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan. Fractured groups of Pashtun tribesmen on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border do not yet appear willing to unite and take on the insurgents in their midst, as Arab tribes did in Iraq.
Further, Afghanistan has a long history of defeating foreign armies that sought strength in numbers. The Soviet Union tried to occupy Afghanistan with hundreds of thousands of troops — and withdrew, defeated and broken. More United States troops could raise tensions, particularly in Afghanistan’s Pashtun south, where the insurgency is strongest.
Only capable indigenous forces can ultimately win an insurgency. Afghan forces, backed by coalition troops, will need to move into the most violent areas to secure and protect the local population, enabling Afghans to cooperate with their government without losing their lives.
To do this, the size of the Afghan National Army will need to be increased well beyond its 70,000 or so troops and its training accelerated. More American forces will need to undertake the unglamorous work of embedding with Afghan soldiers as advisers, living and fighting together. Kingpins and senior facilitators in the thriving poppy industry that helps to fuel the insurgency will need to be treated as military targets, as Qaeda and Taliban leaders are. Reconstruction projects should be focused on provinces and towns that are cooperating with the Afghan government, instead of making blanket commitments to increase foreign assistance across Afghanistan and possibly fostering a culture of dependence.
The current suggestion of “opening negotiations” with the Taliban may well win over some low- and mid-level supporters, but if history is any guide, offering the hand of peace to hardened fanatics is not likely to prove successful. Aggressive action against Taliban and Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan will need to continue. Pakistani officials will have to isolate any factions in their military and intelligence services that are sympathetic to the Taliban.
In a few weeks, the new commander in chief, Barack Obama, will assume the responsibility of leading a nation at a time of war. Time and flexibility are the two constants of military success. In a struggle with an adaptable, thinking enemy, there is no single template for success. More is not always better. One size does not fit all.
The singular trait of the American way of war is the remarkable ability of our military to advance, absorb setbacks, adapt and ultimately triumph based upon the unique circumstances of a given campaign. Thus it has been throughout our history. And thus it will be in Iraq and Afghanistan, if we have the patience and wisdom to learn from our successes, and if our leaders have the wherewithal to persevere even when it is not popular to do so.
Donald H. Rumsfeld was the secretary of defense from 2001 to 2006.
Source: NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/opinion/23rumsfeld.html?_r=1&bl&ex=1227589200&en=17a6020edb96eb41&ei=5087%0A
THE surge in Iraq has been one of the most impressive military accomplishments in recent years. It has been so successful that the emerging consensus is that what may now be needed in Afghanistan is a similar surge of American forces. President-elect Barack Obama campaigned on his intention to do so, as did his former opponent, John McCain.
As one who is occasionally — and incorrectly — portrayed as an opponent of the surge in Iraq, I believe that while the surge has been effective in Iraq, we must also recognize the conditions that made it successful. President Bush’s bold decision to deploy additional troops to support a broader counterinsurgency strategy of securing and protecting the Iraqi people was clearly the right decision. More important, though, it was the right decision at the right time.
By early 2007, several years of struggle had created the new conditions for a tipping point:
•
Al Qaeda in Iraq’s campaign of terrorism and intimidation had turned its Sunni base of support against it. The result was the so-called Anbar Awakening in the late summer of 2006, followed by similar awakening movements across Iraq.
•
From 2003 through 2006, United States military forces, under the leadership of Gen. John Abizaid and Gen. George Casey, inflicted huge losses on the Baathist and Qaeda leadership. Many thousands of insurgents, including the Qaeda chief in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, were captured or killed and proved difficult to replace.
•
The Iraqi Security Forces had achieved cohesion, improved operational effectiveness and critical mass. By December 2006, some 320,000 Iraqis had been trained, equipped and deployed, producing the forces necessary to help hold difficult neighborhoods against the enemy. By 2007, the surge, for most Iraqis, could have an Iraqi face.
•
And the political scene in Iraq had shifted. Moktada al-Sadr, the firebrand cleric, declared a cease-fire in February 2007. The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, seated in May 2006, moved against militias and Iranian-backed militias and has imperfectly, but notably, rejected narrow sectarian policies.
The best indication that timing is everything may be that there had been earlier surges without the same effect as the 2007 surge. In 2005, troop levels in Iraq were increased to numbers nearly equal to the 2007 surge — twice. But the effects were not as durable because large segments of the Sunni population were still providing sanctuary to insurgents, and Iraq’s security forces were not sufficiently capable or large enough.
The decision to conduct a surge came out of an interagency review in the fall of 2006. By mid-December, as I was leaving the Pentagon, there was a rough consensus in the Defense Department that deploying additional combat brigades to Iraq was the right step. Some military leaders raised reasonable questions about the potential effectiveness of a surge, in part because of a correct concern that military power alone could not solve Iraq’s problems. I agreed, and emphasized that a military surge would need to be accompanied by effective diplomatic and economic “surges” from other departments and agencies of the American government, and by considerably greater progress from Iraq’s elected leaders.
During my last weeks in office, I recommended to President Bush that he consider Gen. David Petraeus as commander of coalition forces in Iraq, as General Casey’s tour was coming to an end. General Petraeus and his deputy, Gen. Ray Odierno, had the experience and skill to recognize and exploit the seismic shifts that were taking place in Iraq’s political landscape. And United States troops had the courage to win the alliance of Iraq’s people against a common enemy — and the benevolence to win their friendship.
At the critical moment — a moment when the Iraqis were able and willing to be part of the surge with the American forces — the United States surged into Iraq with the right commanders, additional forces and a fresh operational approach rooted in years of on-the-ground experience. Americans can be proud of what has been accomplished in Iraq over the last five-plus years. They should also be impressed by the results of the surge, which, thus far, has outstripped expectations, including mine.
President Bush’s decision to increase combat troop levels in Iraq in January 2007 sent a clear message that he was determined not to abandon a people to death squads and terrorists. We will need the same commitment to helping the people of Afghanistan succeed, but that does not mean we will achieve it with the same tactics or strategies.
The way forward in Afghanistan will need to reflect the current circumstances there — not the circumstances in Iraq two years ago. Additional troops in Afghanistan may be necessary, but they will not, by themselves, be sufficient to lead to the results we saw in Iraq. A similar confluence of events that contributed to success in Iraq does not appear to exist in Afghanistan.
What’s needed in Afghanistan is an Afghan solution, just as Iraqi solutions have contributed so fundamentally to progress in Iraq. And a surge, if it is to be successful, will need to be an Afghan surge.
Left unanswered in the current debate is the critical question of how thousands of additional American troops might actually bring long-term stability to Afghanistan — a country 80,000 square miles larger than Iraq yet with security forces just one-fourth the size of Iraq’s. Afghanistan also lacks Iraq’s oil and other economic advantages. It is plagued by the narcotics trade. Its borders are threatened by terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan. Fractured groups of Pashtun tribesmen on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border do not yet appear willing to unite and take on the insurgents in their midst, as Arab tribes did in Iraq.
Further, Afghanistan has a long history of defeating foreign armies that sought strength in numbers. The Soviet Union tried to occupy Afghanistan with hundreds of thousands of troops — and withdrew, defeated and broken. More United States troops could raise tensions, particularly in Afghanistan’s Pashtun south, where the insurgency is strongest.
Only capable indigenous forces can ultimately win an insurgency. Afghan forces, backed by coalition troops, will need to move into the most violent areas to secure and protect the local population, enabling Afghans to cooperate with their government without losing their lives.
To do this, the size of the Afghan National Army will need to be increased well beyond its 70,000 or so troops and its training accelerated. More American forces will need to undertake the unglamorous work of embedding with Afghan soldiers as advisers, living and fighting together. Kingpins and senior facilitators in the thriving poppy industry that helps to fuel the insurgency will need to be treated as military targets, as Qaeda and Taliban leaders are. Reconstruction projects should be focused on provinces and towns that are cooperating with the Afghan government, instead of making blanket commitments to increase foreign assistance across Afghanistan and possibly fostering a culture of dependence.
The current suggestion of “opening negotiations” with the Taliban may well win over some low- and mid-level supporters, but if history is any guide, offering the hand of peace to hardened fanatics is not likely to prove successful. Aggressive action against Taliban and Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan will need to continue. Pakistani officials will have to isolate any factions in their military and intelligence services that are sympathetic to the Taliban.
In a few weeks, the new commander in chief, Barack Obama, will assume the responsibility of leading a nation at a time of war. Time and flexibility are the two constants of military success. In a struggle with an adaptable, thinking enemy, there is no single template for success. More is not always better. One size does not fit all.
The singular trait of the American way of war is the remarkable ability of our military to advance, absorb setbacks, adapt and ultimately triumph based upon the unique circumstances of a given campaign. Thus it has been throughout our history. And thus it will be in Iraq and Afghanistan, if we have the patience and wisdom to learn from our successes, and if our leaders have the wherewithal to persevere even when it is not popular to do so.
Donald H. Rumsfeld was the secretary of defense from 2001 to 2006.
Source: NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/opinion/23rumsfeld.html?_r=1&bl&ex=1227589200&en=17a6020edb96eb41&ei=5087%0A
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