The Taliban threat

Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari and the Taliban

Last week the president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, signed off on a truce made in February with the Taliban in the Swat valley, which appears to have only emboldened them and increased their threat in the region.

On PBS NewsHour last night, Margaret Warner moderated a short segment about the Taliban in Pakistan. She interviewed Wendy Chamberlain, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and Husain Haqqani, the current Pakstani ambassador in Washington.

Ms. Chamberlain was a career foreign service officer who now heads the Middle East Institute, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to teach America about the Middle East and vice versa. Neither she nor her organization seems partial to hysterical rants, but her description of the Taliban in Pakistan is frightening: “Their goal is to topple the democratic government of Pakistan and they have a strategy that’s proved to be working, a strategy where they go into a district, go into a town, terrorize the local authorities, the civil society, the aid workers, women, barbers, and impose their law …”

To read the transcript of the NewsHour segment, go here.

A little history

Barack Obama said virtually nothing last week about the fighting in Gaza. We only have “one president at a time,” his aides argue, and he has already called for a robust American peacemaking effort. Still, as the bombs began falling it must have been tempting for the president-elect to simply avert his eyes. Cries of “all-out war” make the risks to U.S. credibility abroad and the political costs at home seem infinitely more acute. Fighting in the Holy Land has been raging for thousands of years, the familiar reasoning goes; it would be hubris to think America could end it.
Yet three excellent recent books suggest that such logic is seriously flawed. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly, diplomatic distance virtually guarantees the status quo. Because Israel is so much stronger, power dynamics in the conflict are “deeply unbalanced,” write Daniel Kurtzer and Scott Lasensky in their trenchant guidebook, “Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace” (191 pages. U.S. Institute of Peace. $16.50). “Left on their own, the parties cannot address the deep, structural impediments to peace.” Over the past half-century, the price of a generally desultory American policy has been compounded.
That’s the takeaway from Patrick Tyler’s ambitious new history, “A World of Trouble: The White House and the Middle East—From the Cold War to the War on Terror” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 628 pages. $30). The bottom line, according to Tyler: “After nearly six decades of escalating American involvement in the Middle East, it remains nearly impossible to discern any overarching approach to the region such as the one that guided U.S. policy through the Cold War.” Still, starry-eyed naiveté is no way to solve one of the world’s most intractable conflicts. Martin Indyk’s nuanced new memoir of his tenure as a Clinton-era peace negotiator, “Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East” (494 pages. Simon ;Schuster. $30),demonstrates how hard the balancing act can be.

American diplomacy in the region wasn’t always so feeble. Back in the fall of 1956, intelligence reached Washington that Israel was massing troops near Gaza in the Negev Desert. U.S. officials discovered that Israel had conspired with Britain and France to seize the Suez Canal, which popular Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had nationalized the summer before. The Americans were furious at their allies’ back-room plan. Israel’s then foreign minister, Golda Meir, made an argument much the same as what Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said since then: “Imagine attacks from enemies camped on the Mexican and Canadian borders inflicting those kinds of casualties in America.” But President Eisenhower wasn’t buying. As Tyler recounts, Ike went on television and demanded a withdrawal, later withholding oil shipments and loans to Britain. The conspirators were forced to comply.

“Special relationship” with one side

Obama got a birds-eye view of the Holy Land with Livni, right, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak
newsweek

If Obama Is Serious He should get tough with Israel by Aaron David Miller, NEWSWEEK, from the magazine issue dated Jan 12, 2009
Jews worry for a living; their tragic history compels them to do so. In the next few years, there will be plenty to worry about, particularly when it comes to Israel. The current operation in Gaza won’t do much to ease these worries or to address Israel’s longer-term security needs. The potential for a nuclear Iran, combined with the growing accuracy and lethality of Hamas and Hizbullah rockets, will create tremendous concern. Anxiety may also be provoked by something else: an Obama administration determined to repair America’s image and credibility and to reach a deal in the Middle East.
Don’t get me wrong. Barack Obama—as every other U.S. president before him—will protect the special relationship with Israel. But the days of America’s exclusive ties to Israel may be coming to an end. Despite efforts to sound reassuring during the campaign, the new administration will have to be tough, much tougher than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush were, if it’s serious about Arab-Israeli peacemaking.
The departure point for a viable peace deal—either with Syria or the Palestinians—must not be based purely on what the political traffic in Israel will bear, but on the requirements of all sides. The new president seems tougher and more focused than his predecessors; he’s unlikely to become enthralled by either of Israel’s two leading candidates for prime minister—centrist Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, or Likudnik Benjamin Netanyahu. Indeed, if it’s the latter, he may well find himself (like Clinton) privately frustrated with Netanyahu’s tough policies. Unlike Clinton, if Israeli behavior crosses the line, he should allow those frustrations to surface publicly in the service of American national interests.

A little history

(The White House-Getty Images) Fleeting Hope: From left, Israels Yitzhak Rabin, Egypts Hosni Mubarak, Hussein, Clinton and PLO leader Yasir Arafat in 1995 — (The White House-Getty Images) Fleeting Hope: From left, Israel's Yitzhak Rabin, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Hussein, Clinton and PLO leader Yasir Arafat in 1995

MIDEAST

How We Got to This Point

By Kevin Peraino, NEWSWEEK, From the magazine issue dated Jan 12, 2009

Three recent books chart the winding path from Kermit Roosevelt with his suitcases stuffed with cash to George W. Bush’s gloomy Nobel Prize prospects.

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Yet three excellent recent books suggest that such logic is seriously flawed. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly, diplomatic distance virtually guarantees the status quo. Because Israel is so much stronger, power dynamics in the conflict are “deeply unbalanced,” write Daniel Kurtzer and Scott Lasensky in their trenchant guidebook, “Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace” (191 pages. U.S. Institute of Peace. $16.50). “Left on their own, the parties cannot address the deep, structural impediments to peace.” Over the past half-century, the price of a generally desultory American policy has been compounded.

That’s the takeaway from Patrick Tyler’s ambitious new history, “A World of Trouble: The White House and the Middle East—From the Cold War to the War on Terror” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 628 pages. $30). The bottom line, according to Tyler: “After nearly six decades of escalating American involvement in the Middle East, it remains nearly impossible to discern any overarching approach to the region such as the one that guided U.S. policy through the Cold War.” Still, starry-eyed naiveté is no way to solve one of the world’s most intractable conflicts. Martin Indyk’s nuanced new memoir of his tenure as a Clinton-era peace negotiator, “Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East” (494 pages. Simon &Schuster. $30), demonstrates how hard the balancing act can be.

Continue . . .

SHOPPERS SIGN UP TO SUPPORT TROOPS

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, January 27, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A03

A constant question in letters written home by American servicemen and women in the Middle East is how the public is reacting to their being over there.
If the more than 3,000 signatures collected on banners at two Paramus shopping malls Saturday are any measure, then support for the men and women if not for the war itself is overwhelming, said family members who organized the banner-signing.
“Every signature that goes on there is one more support for our men and women, and they will know how the public really feels, that they really care and have pride in them,” said one of the organizers, Joan Piazza of Paramus. Her 21-year-old son, Lance Cpl. Steven Piazza, is on the front line in Saudi Arabia with the U.S. Marine Corps 81st Platoon.
The Bergen County chapter of the American Red Cross Military Family Support Group, formed shortly after the first deployment of servicemen and women in August, set up tables inside Paramus Park mall and Garden State Plaza at 10:30 a.m. Saturday. The white nylon banners each had a yellow band with black lettering above and below reading “Support Our Troops, Come Home Soon. “
By mid-afternoon, people were searching for space in the cotton margins of the banners. Shopper after shopper walked up to the tables, many simply to sign their names, others to write such messages as “You are in our hearts and prayers. God Bless. “
Sandy Rosenberg, 54, of Paramus said she signed the banner because although she is against the war she wants the men and women serving in the Middle East to know that she supports them and wants them to come home safely.
Kevin Mendillo, 29, of Fort Lee commended the military family support group for its effort to boost the morale of the troops.
“These guys are putting their lives on the line, risking their lives to protect us,” Mendillo said.
The banners will hang atop the Bergen County Courthouse, Piazza said. When the war is over and the soldiers and sailors return, the banners will be presented to them at a “big party. “

Keywords: USA; IRAQ; KUWAIT; WARFARE; DEFENSE; SAUDI ARABIA; MIDDLE EAST; PARAMUS

Caption: COLOR – JOE GIARDELLI / THE RECORD – Nancy Monaco of Fort Lee signing a banner at Paramus Park mall. PHOTO – AL PAGLIONE / THE RECORD – Bergen County Executive William “Pat” Schuber, left, and Sheriff Jack Terhune at courthouse ceremony honoring U.S. troops.