Geopolitics Weekly

Senior diplomats and human rights workers lashed out at Hamid Karzai's decision today to select a powerful warlord accused by western officials of involvement in criminal gangs and arms smuggling as a running mate in Afghanistan's presidential election.Karzai's decision to defy international pressure and appoint Mohammad Qasim Fahim as one of his two vice-presidential candidates for the 20 August poll showed the world and the Afghan people that the president was "moving the country backwards", said a western diplomat in Kabul, who is close to the UN chief in the country, Kai Eide.

The former militia leader, who goes by the honorary title of Marshal Fahim, is disliked by many Afghans suspicious of the wealth he has acquired since 2001 and disliked by the west for his opposition to the disbandment of the private armies of Afghanistan's warlords. An official with an international mission in Kabul said Mr Fahim had been linked to kidnap gangs operating in the capital. He is also accused of murdering prisoners of war during the mujahideen government in the 1990s.

For many of his critics, Karzai's biggest mistake was to bring many of the warlords into government after the US-led toppling of the Taliban regime. However, his defenders say he had no other choice after the international community deprived him of the resources he needed in the years immediately after 2001.

Days after telling students at Stanford University that waterboarding was legal "by definition if it was authorized by the president," former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice was pressed again on the subject yesterday by a fourth-grader at a Washington school.

Then Misha Lerner, a student from Bethesda, asked: What did Rice think about the things President Obama's administration was saying about the methods the Bush administration had used to get information from detainees?

"Let me just say that President Bush was very clear that he wanted to do everything he could to protect the country. After September 11, we wanted to protect the country," she said. "But he was also very clear that we would do nothing, nothing, that was against the law or against our obligations internationally. So the president was only willing to authorize policies that were legal in order to protect the country." She added: "I hope you understand that it was a very difficult time. We were all so terrified of another attack on the country. September 11 was the worst day of my life in government, watching 3,000 Americans die. . . . Even under those most difficult circumstances, the president was not prepared to do something illegal, and I hope people understand that we were trying to protect the country."

Iran's "fanatical rulers" pose a nuclear threat to the Middle East and "are on the wrong side of history," Israeli President Shimon Peres said Monday.

"In addition to their nuclear option, they [Iran] invest huge capital in long-range missiles," the Israeli president said. "Iran is not threatened by anybody. Why do they need it?" Peres addressed members of the pro-Israel lobbyist group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as AIPAC. It is the group's first policy conference since President Obama's administration took office this year.

"Israel stands with her arms outstretched, her hands held open, to peace with all nations, with all Arab states, with all Arab people," Peres said at Monday's conference. "To those having a clenched fist, I have just one word to say: Enough. Enough war. Enough destruction. Enough hatred."

The leader of the militant Palestinian group Hamas said Monday that its fighters had stopped firing rockets at Israel for now. He also reached out in a limited way to the Obama administration and others in the West, saying the movement was seeking a state only in the areas Israel won in 1967.

“I promise the American administration and the international community that we will be part of the solution, period,” the leader, Khaled Meshal, said during a five-hour interview with The New York Times spread over two days in his home office here in the Syrian capital.

He repeated that he would not recognize Israel, saying to fellow Arab leaders, “There is only one enemy in the region, and that is Israel.”

Officials in Berlin now face the question of what went wrong. The operation lasted for three weeks, at a cost to the German treasury well in excess of the combined ransom payments of recent years. The failed campaign demonstrated that without improved logistics and available aircraft and ships, the GSG-9 is incapable of operating swiftly enough in comparable situations.

For the team at the Foreign Ministry, preventing the pirates from reaching Harardere was of paramount importance, because they would likely receive reinforcement there. There was no time to be wasted, and for Silberberg, the situation was clear: "As long as there are only five pirates on board, we can attack and bring a speedy end to the matter." Hanning's staff assured him that the GSG-9 team could be ready for deployment at the nearest secure port, Mombasa, within 96 hours -- a very short time frame for an operation of this magnitude. But, as it turned out, it would take the pirates only 24 hours to reach Harardere.

The government was determined to break this pattern but, as it turned out, it had overestimated its capabilities. What began as an effort to send a signal of strength ended up, in the Stavanger case, as a sign of impotence. This could have serious consequences. German sailors can now expect to become prime targets for pirates, in contrast to their French or American counterparts, whose governments have not hesitated to use force to rescue their citizens.

Although there was no shortage of resolve in Berlin, the Germans did lack the means to complete the operation successfully. There is a vast divide between Berlin's sensitivities and the raw reality of African pirates, who care very little about turf wars among German bureaucrats. The case exposes serious deficiencies in the Germany security apparatus.

Although the GSG-9 is constantly being trained for maritime missions, it lacks the logistics for speedy operations beyond German borders. The German military, the Bundeswehr, can provide the logistics, but it in turn lacks a sufficient number of readily deployable special operations forces. There is poor cooperation between the two organizations, while strategists are hampered by legal restrictions. And in some cases the Germans simply lack the necessary equipment. In the case of the Hansa Stavanger, the German government had to borrow aircraft and an American helicopter carrier to transport its close combat experts within range of the freighter. But by the time these preparations were complete, three weeks had already passed since pirates captured the ship on April 4.

It was only a few years ago that Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani diplomat who recently became ambassador to Washington, wrote a brilliant book arguing that the Pakistani government—despite public and private claims to the contrary—continued "to make a distinction between 'terrorists' … and 'freedom fighters' (the officially preferred label … for Kashmiri militants)." He added: "The Musharraf government also remains tolerant of remnants of Afghanistan's Taliban regime, hoping to use them in resuscitating Pakistan's influence in Afghanistan." The Pakistani military's world view—that it is surrounded by dangers and needs to be active in destabilizing its neighbors— remains central to Pakistan's basic strategy.

While President Musharraf broke with the overt and large-scale support that the military provides to the militant groups, and there have continued to be some moves against some jihadists, there is no evidence of a campaign to rid Pakistan of these groups. The leaders of the Afghan Taliban, headed up by Mullah Mohammed Omar, still work actively out of Quetta. The Army has never launched serious campaigns against the main Taliban-allied groups led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar or Jalaluddin Haqqani, both of whose networks are active in Pakistan. The group responsible for the Mumbai attacks, Lashkar-e-Taiba, has evaded any punishment, morphing in name and form but still operating in plain sight in Lahore. Even now, after allowing the Taliban to get within 60 miles of the capital, the Pakistani military has deployed only a few thousand troops to confront them, leaving the bulk of its million-man Army in the east, presumably in case India suddenly invades.

The rise of Islamic militants in Pakistan is not, Ambassador Haqqani writes, "the inadvertent outcome of some governments." It is "rooted in history and [is] a consistent policy of the Pakistani state." The author describes how, from its early years, the Pakistani military developed "a strategic commitment to jihadi ideology." It used Islam to mobilize the country and Army in every conflict with India. A textbook case was the 1965 war, when Pakistan's state-controlled media "generated a frenzy of jihad," complete with stories of heroic suicide missions, martyrdom and divine help.

authorities say New Profile and another group, Target 21, offer detailed tips on their Web sites about how to evade mandatory military service. Potential draft dodgers "ought to speak softly or stumblingly" at interviews with Army psychiatrists, one post on Target 21 suggests. "A downcast look, a weak tone of voice and obsessive playing with your gun" can also help, the group counsels.

Draft dodging—particularly by women—is on the rise in Israel. According to a recent military report, roughly 44 percent of all eligible women failed to enlist last year, compared with only about one third 20 years ago.

To stem the tide of dodgers, the military has begun hiring private investigators to try to determine "what kind of [religious] life they're leading … whether they're out at a disco on a Friday night or driving on the Sabbath," says Lt. Col. Gil Ben-Shaul, an Israeli personnel officer. Some of the activists blame the tough new tactics on Israel's new minister of internal security, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, a member of the hardline Yisrael Beytenu party. (A spokesman for Aharonovitch says the minister approves of the raids but did not order them.)

The new government of Israel is seeking to reorient the country’s foreign policy, arguing that to rely purely on the formulas of trading land for peace and promising a Palestinian state fails to grasp what it views as the deeper issues: Muslim rejection of a Jewish state and the rising hegemonic appetite of Iran.

Israel’s effort to switch the discussion to Iran is likely to be met in Washington and in European capitals with the assertion that it is precisely because of the need to build an alliance to confront Iran that Israel must move ahead vigorously with the Palestinians as well as with the Syrians.

It seems likely that the plan that Mr. Netanyahu will present to Mr. Obama will have a strong regional component in an attempt to fend off pressure on Israel to accept the Arab League peace plan, which calls on Israel to return to the 1967 borders as well as to accept a right of return for Palestinian refugees to Israel. The new Israeli government completely rejects both.

As the insurgency of the Taliban and Al Qaeda spreads in Pakistan, senior American officials say they are increasingly concerned about new vulnerabilities for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, including the potential for militants to snatch a weapon in transport or to insert sympathizers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities.

The officials emphasized that there was no reason to believe that the arsenal, most of which is south of the capital, Islamabad, faced an imminent threat. President Obama said last week that he remained confident that keeping the country’s nuclear infrastructure secure was the top priority of Pakistan’s armed forces.

Pakistani officials have continued to deflect American requests for more details about the location and security of the country’s nuclear sites, the officials said. Some of the Pakistani reluctance, they said, stemmed from longstanding concern that the United States might be tempted to seize or destroy Pakistan’s arsenal if the insurgency appeared about to engulf areas near Pakistan’s nuclear sites.

Pakistan is continuing to expand its nuclear bomb-making facilities despite growing international concern that advancing Islamist extremists could overrun one or more of its atomic weapons plants or seize sufficient radioactive material to make a dirty bomb, US nuclear experts and former officials say.

David Albright, previously a senior weapons inspector for the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency in Iraq, said commercial satellite photos showed two plutonium-producing reactors were nearing completion at Khushab, about 160 miles south-west of the capital, Islamabad.

Albright warned that the continuing development of Pakistan's atomic weapons programme could trigger a renewed nuclear arms race with India. But he suggested a more immediate threat to nuclear security arose from recent territorial advances in north-west Pakistan by indigenous Taliban and foreign jihadi forces opposed to the Pakistani government and its American and British allies.

Some 226 swine flu cases have been confirmed in 30 states and more cases are expected, US health officials say. They said most cases were mild - although a small girl visiting from Mexico has died - and the spread was no worse than seasonal flu.

WHO chief Margaret Chan said the real test would come when the winter influenza season hits countries. "We hope the virus fizzles out, because if it doesn't we are heading for a big outbreak," she told the UK's Financial Times.

• The outbreak is having diplomatic repercussions, with a row breaking out between Mexico and China after Beijing quarantined 70 Mexicans • Spain raises the number of confirmed cases from 40 to 44, making it the worst-hit country in Europe • Two new cases are confirmed in France bringing the total to four, the AFP news agency reports • Turkish media reports of a patient dying from swine flu in the southern Antalya province are denied by a hospital spokeswoman to Reuters news agency

The eurozone and EU economies will contract by 4% this year, the European Commission has forecast, in a massive revision from its earlier prediction. The worsening of the global financial crisis, dropping levels of world trade and continuing house value falls had prompted the downgrade, it said.

Europe's economy would not start recovering until the second half of next year, the commission added. It also predicted unemployment in the eurozone would rise to 11.5% in 2010. The figure would reach 10.9% in the 27-nation EU next year, it said.

The commission's forecast is not as bleak as the outlook from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - which says eurozone GDP will fall by 4.2%. However it is less optimistic than the European Central Bank which forecast a 3.8% contraction in its latest estimate.

The wealthy Gulf prince at the centre of a "torture tape" scandal has been accused of attacking at least 25 other people in incidents that have also been caught on film, it has been claimed.Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan is now under investigation in the United Arab Emirates after the shocking tape showed him beating a man with a nailed plank, setting him on fire, attacking him with a cattle prod and running him over.

But now lawyers for American businessman Bassam Nabulsi, who smuggled the tape out of the UAE, have written to the justice minister of Abu Dhabi - the most powerful of the emirates that make up the UAE - claiming to have considerably more evidence against Issa. "I have more than two hours of video footage showing Sheikh Issa's involvement in the torture of more than 25 people," wrote Texas-based lawyer Anthony Buzbee in a letter obtained by the Observer.

now it appears the initial tape could just be the beginning of the problem. The new tapes apparently also involve police officers taking part in Issa's attacks, and some of his victims in the as-yet-unseen videos are believed to be Sudanese immigrants.

Germany's Code of Crimes against International Law is equally strict in its treatment of torture. Under the statute, as under similar statutes in other European countries, torture is considered an international crime which can be prosecuted even if it is committed in another country. Citing this so-called principle of "universal jurisdiction," Spanish prosecutor Baltasar Garzón has now sought the prosecution on criminal charges of six former US officials who are allegedly behind the torture scandal

The notion that international treaties, and European positions on human rights, could impose limits on national sovereignty, or that a foreign power or non-American values exist that could question what happens in the United States does not fit into this system. "We don't have the same moral and legal framework as the rest of the world, and never have. If you told the framers of the Constitution that what we're after is to, you know, do something that will be just like Europe, they would have been appalled." These are the words of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was involved in the decision on whether to close the torture facility at Guantanamo.

This is both a benefit and a drawback of any democratic country: Elected officials change, but the state remains the same. Unlike a change of power in a dictatorship, when the injustices committed by a previous dictator can be dealt with at one go, in a democracy a newly elected leader has to tread carefully when it comes to the legal opinions of his predecessor.

The torture virus eventually infected the rest of the world, including Europe and even Germany. The double standard employed by German counterterrorism personnel when confronted with the torture practices of their US allies becomes clear in a remark Ernst Uhrlau, the head of the BND, Germany's foreign intelligence agency, made in a 2007 interview with SPIEGEL: "US officials have (…) explained to us that the information they gained from various interrogations worldwide has been instrumental in preventing further attacks and uncovering terrorist structures. So we have benefited from all this in the sense of preventing attacks and understanding the structures of the network."

German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble also found it difficult to distance himself from the use of dirty information, saying that it was perfectly legitimate for German officials to use information foreign intelligence agencies had obtained through torture -- after all, that helped prevent terror attacks. At the same time, Schäuble was apparently unwilling to consider the possibility that this might also apply to American intelligence agencies: "The president has made it clear that there is no torture. I have no reason to question that."

The entire world looked the other way when the United States committed a crime that the world had previously committed itself to outlaw and punish.

Enraged by the European court's decision to back Apostolides's claim to property – since bought by a retired British couple – Turkish Cypriot politicians have threatened to walk out of reunification talks.

The US government is to drop espionage charges against two officials of America's most powerful pro-Israel lobby group accused of spying for the Jewish state because court rulings had made the case unwinnable and the trial would disclose classified information.

The two accused, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, worked for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), which drives fundraising for some US members of Congress. They were accused of providing defence secrets to the chief political officer at the Israeli embassy in Washington, Naor Gilon, about US policy toward Iran and al-Qaida in league with a former Pentagon analyst who has since been jailed for 12 years.

Dana Boente, who was prosecuting the case in Virginia, said that the case was dropped because pre-trial court rulings had complicated the government's case by requiring a higher level of proof of intent to spy. The court said the prosecution would have to prove not only that the accused pair had passed classified information but that they intended to harm the US in doing so.