Delhi shouldn’t hold its breath on UNSC seat

India in UNSC: Pakistan says it is “incomprehensible” given New Delhi’s policies toward the disputed Kashmir region.

U.N. Security Council, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley poured cold water on any expectation of New Delhi’s elevation anytime soon.

China has not publicly backed India’s claim – and it will certainly be encouraged to do so by its long-standing ally, Pakistan, which cites what it says are India’s continued violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions over Kashmir as grounds for exclusion.

Everybody supports reforming the Security Council to expand the P5, but agreeing on a list of new veto wielders will take many years – and a lot of big-ticket horse-trading

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s government criticized American support for India’s attempts to get a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, saying Wednesday it was “incomprehensible” given New Delhi’s policies toward the disputed Kashmir region.

Pakistan and India are regional rivals who have fought three wars since 1947, two over Kashmir. Relations between the two nuclear-armed nations continue to be marked by distrust. Neither likes anything that increases the standing and power of the other.

President Barack Obama said Monday that America would support Security Council reforms that would include a permanent seat for India. He made the remarks at the end of a three-day visit to India that confirmed its status as a rising global power – a sharp contrast to Pakistan’s reputation as an unstable, militancy-wracked nation.

Pakistan’s government expressed “strong disappointment” at Obama’s support in a statement released after a Cabinet meeting.

“It is incomprehensible that the U.S. has sought to support India, whose credentials with respect to observing U.N. Charter principles and international law are at best checkered,” it said, alleging India was carrying out human rights violations in Kashmir and had ignored earlier U.N. resolutions on the region.

U.S. support for New Delhi does not mean it will join the five permanent Security Council members anytime soon.

For India to join, the council would have be radically reformed, something that could take years. Pakistan criticizes US support for Indian UN seat. The Associated Press. Wednesday, November 10, 2010; 10:13 AM

Time Magazine says it succinctly and prolifically.

U.N. Security Council, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley poured cold water on any expectation of New Delhi’s elevation anytime soon. “we have to recognize … this is a process that has been going on for some time, and it is a process through which we must consult with others within the U.N. and within the Security Council.” In other words, India, don’t hold your breath.

The five permanent members, or P5, of the Security Council – the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France – not only get to stay on when the other 10 members are rotated out every two years for replacements elected from their region, they hold the coveted veto power that allows them to nix any decisions on questions of war, peace and security that are not to their liking. That veto power has certainly helped sustain the illusion of superpower relevance for Britain and France, which have long since fallen by the wayside by measure of military strength – indeed, they had better hope nobody noticed their agreement last week to pool much of their defense capability, lest it be suggested that their two permanent Security Council seats be consolidated into one. It has also proven useful to a country like Israel, on whose behalf the U.S. has regularly intervened to block critical U.N. resolutions. Given the power that attaches to a permanent seat on the Security Council, then, it’s not hard to see why some of the incumbents are not exactly enthusiastic about sharing their status with anyone but their closest allies.

The P5 attained their status at the U.N.’s creation a half-century ago, on the basis of having been ostensibly the five key nations allied against the Axis powers in World War II. But Britain and France were drastically diminished colonial powers holding desperately to the last remnants of empire in Africa and Asia. Still, within two decades, each of the permanent five had all burnished their veto power in the real world by building nuclear weapons, becoming the original nuclear club years before India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea followed suit.

It’s plain to see, though, that the makeup of the permanent five no longer accurately reflects the global balance of power, and the 21st century distribution of responsibility for keeping the peace – which, after all, is the primary function of the U.N. Countries such as India, Brazil and Turkey are emerging as major economic powerhouses with the capacity to play a far larger strategic role in their regions than some of those currently in the P5, while Germany and Japan have long claimed the same status. It has also long been suggested that one of Africa’s more powerful countries, such as Nigeria or South Africa, will do the same on the mother continent. So talk of enlarging the P5 has been around for years.

President Obama’s nomination of India underscores precisely why Security Council reform may be years away. Washington is making no secret of the fact that it is promoting a greater strategic role for India, a democratic ally, in response to China’s growing regional ambitions. China may beg to differ – it is the only permanent member that has not publicly backed India’s claim – and it will certainly be encouraged to do so by its long-standing ally, Pakistan, which cites what it says are India’s continued violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions over Kashmir as grounds for exclusion. China has also opposed any move to elevate its old enemy, Japan, into permanent membership. Although Brazil’s efforts to join the permanent five were thought to have suffered in the U.S. and France as a result of its opposition, along with Turkey’s, to sanctions against Iran, Britain on Tuesday reiterated its support for Brazilian membership, expressly talking of strengthening its own ties with Latin America. And France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, for similar reasons, is pressing for an African seat.

Those powers currently holding permanent seats certainly want help in policing the world, but each will be looking to safeguard their own strategic interests in the course of any expansion of the P5. And in a world where geopolitical rivalry is intensifying, that’s a recipe for deadlock. Everybody supports reforming the Security Council to expand the P5, but agreeing on a list of new veto wielders will take many years – and a lot of big-ticket horse-trading. Time Magazine. – With reporting by Rania Abouzeid / Islamabad, Hannah Beech / Shanghai and Andrew Downie / Brazil

China has role in Kashmir: Attique

Hameed Shaheen

ISLAMABAD: Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir says China, being contiguous regional country, is destined to play a crucial role in efforts for settlement of Kashmir dispute. “In fact strategically there are seven parties to this dispute now: Pakistan, India, Kashmiris, China, UN Security Council, European Parliament (EP) and Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC). Kashmir is being debated as active dispute on the yearly agendas of EP and OIC who have passed strong resolutions supporting Kashmiris right to self-determination”, he said while talking to a group of legal experts meeting him in Kashmir House here.

“China is a global power and is bound to play a global role. British Prime Minister Mr David Cameron’s call yesterday to China to undertake its role as global balancer is in fact acceptance of the emerging status of China in world affairs. The phenomenal economic rise of Beijing is most impressive and it is now an active model for the developing nations”, he observed.

The AJK Premier expressed the need to coordinate the Kashmir roles of all the seven parties to the dispute. “It is a happy sign that the EP has agreed to associate the UN and the OIC in its (EP’s) Kashmir settlement efforts at the global level. What we now need is to consolidate all Kashmir-specific roles of UN, OIC, EP, Pakistan, China, Kashmiris to smoothen avenues towards peaceful solution to the dispute, he pointed out.

“We understand”, the AJK Premier said, “that the EP is trying to have UN and OIC participations in its forthcoming Global Discourse on Kashmir being held in Brussels in mid-March next year”. Therefore our diplomatic recourse should be tailored according to this new emerging reality of global institutional linkage on Kashmir, he stressed.

Replying a question he said that the US considers Kashmir as a dispute. President Barack Obama during his recent India visit clearly classed Kashmir as longstanding dispute needing solution. UK also harbors similar views, considers Kashmir as outstanding dispute requiring settlement, he added.

It is a mockery of diplomacy to support Indian wish to ascend to the UN Security Council seat leaving Kashmir dispute unsettled at India’s backyard, the AJK Premier added.

Robert Gates: bombing Iran would not stop nuclear threat

Telegraph.co.uk

Bombing Iran would fail to stop the Islamic Republic from building nuclear weapons and could only ‘buy time’, according to Robert Gates, the US defence secretary.

Robert Gates: A military strike would only delay Iran’s nuclear programme, while the regime’s resolve to build a weapon, if it so chooses, may only be hardened.

Testifying before the Senate Appropriations committee, Mr Gates outlined the central objection to using force to halt Iran’s nuclear programme.

All of the country’s known nuclear installations, notably the crucial uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, could in principle be destroyed. But the Iranian regime would eventually be able to rebuild them – and it would almost certainly do so without admitting the inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, who presently monitor Iran’s most important nuclear plants.

A military strike would only delay Iran’s nuclear programme, while the regime’s resolve to build a weapon, if it so chooses, may only be hardened.

“Even a military attack will only buy us time and send the programme deeper and more covert,” said Mr Gates, during the hearing on Thursday.

The attitude of Iran’s regime was, he added, the crucial factor. Mr Gates said that America’s key aim should be to make clear to Tehran that developing a nuclear arsenal was not in Iran’s own interests.

“Their security interests are actually badly served by trying to have nuclear weapons. They will start a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and they will be less secure at the end than they are now,” said Mr Gates.

If Iran were to acquire a nuclear bomb, rival powers in the Middle East, especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia, would probably follow suit. Since Iran began enriching uranium on a large scale in 2006, 13 countries across the Middle East have embarked on nuclear energy projects.

While all these programmes are civilian – and there is no question of any safeguards being breached so far – experts believe the nations concerned may be keeping their future options open.

Mr Gates, who became defence secretary under the Bush administration in 2006 and was reappointed by President Barack Obama, has previously made clear his opposition to striking Iran.

In 2007, he told a private meeting of Congressmen that bombing Iran would “create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America,” according to the New Yorker.

Mr Obama has chosen diplomatic and economic pressure to persuade Iran to refrain from developing nuclear weapons. In particular, five United Nations Resolutions have urged Tehran to stop enriching uranium.

This process could be used to produce weapons-grade uranium: the crucial component of a nuclear weapon. In February, Iran had produced almost a ton of low-enriched uranium, according to the IAEA.

Experts believe the country could produce enough weapons-grade material for one nuclear bomb by the end of next year.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the new Israeli prime minister, has described a nuclear-armed Iran as the greatest threat to world peace. Mr Gates may also be trying to dissuade Israel from launching a unilateral strike on Iran’s nuclear plants.

WikiLeaks Throws Obama Off Message (Once Again) on Afghanistan

By Michael Scherer

That, in essence, was the message that White House spokesman Robert Gibbs offered Monday when asked about the 91,000 secret U.S. military Afghanistan battlefield reports that had been published online by the website WikiLeaks. “There weren’t any new revelations in the material,” Gibbs said. He repeated that phrase four times, with slight modifications, to drive home his point.

U.S. President Barack Obama

But for those like Gibbs, charged with maintaining the faltering political support for the war in Afghanistan, the revelations were hardly immaterial. Rather, they carried with them a familiar sense of déjà vu. From the beginning of the Obama Administration, White House staff have tried their best to handle Afghanistan with a sense of order and structure, a system of policy reviews and major public addresses. But events keep interceding to complicate the effort: an Afghan presidential election marred by fraud; an Afghan leadership that refuses to root out corruption; a commanding U.S. general whose carping to Rolling Stone forced a leadership shuffle; and now a major leak of secret cables showing all the warts of the war effort, from the specific botched operations that caused civilian casualties to the detailed concerns over Pakistani spies working with U.S. enemies. (See pictures of the presidential election in Afghanistan.)

The result, when combined with mounting monthly U.S. death tolls, has been rising discontent, both within Congress and the general public. A recent national Bloomberg poll found that 58% of Americans considered the war effort a “lost cause,” while Gallup has tracked a steady increase in the percentage of Americans who believe sending U.S. forces to Afghanistan in 2001 was a mistake, from 30% when Obama took office to 38% today.

In the Senate, a key White House ally on the Foreign Relations Committee, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, embraced the released documents as anything but immaterial to the ongoing debate over U.S. policy. “However illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of America’s policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan,” Kerry announced in a statement. (Watch TIME’s video “Where Should Pakistan’s Army Aim Its Guns?”)

In the House, where Democratic leadership planned a final vote this week on a bill to fund the war in Afghanistan and on a resolution calling for withdrawal, liberals similarly voiced alarm in the wake of the documents’ release, using the moment to restate their desire for a quicker withdrawal of troops. “These documents are heartbreaking but not surprising and show us once again that the Afghanistan war is using up our troops in an unwinnable war,” said California Democrat Lynn Woolsey in a statement to TIME. “Civilian casualties, covert death squads and cover-ups undermine rather than advance our national security objectives.” (Comment on this story.)

In 2006, when the war in Iraq was faltering as an election approached, then President George W. Bush sought to delay any serious debate over military strategy until after voters went to the polls. Months later he announced an entirely new approach, the so-called surge. Three and a half years later, Obama advisers have designated December, a month after the midterm elections, as the next point at which the Administration will conduct a full review of strategic progress. Obama officials have been dismissing criticism in the interim as premature. “We’re in the process of implementing that new strategy, evaluating that new strategy and moving forward,” said Gibbs at the Monday briefing. (Read “The Afghan War Leaks: Few Surprises, but Some Hard Truths.”)

Yet once again, events are likely to intervene. To begin with, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said he has at least 15,000 more documents set for release once they are redacted to exclude information that could jeopardize specific sources. Kerry, meanwhile, has planned a series of hearings in September to review the war effort and recommend improvements, including ways to limit corruption in the Afghan government.

In a press conference Monday morning in London, WikiLeaks’ Assange, a critic of the war in Afghanistan whom the White House tried hard to discredit after the documents’ release, said he hoped the documents would change the course of the conflict. “It’s clear that it will shape an understanding of what the past six years of war have always been like and that the course of the war needs to change,” he said. (See more on Julian Assange’s press conference.)

It is still too soon to know the impact of Assange’s trove of secret files, most of which were still inaccessible to the public on Monday because of heavy traffic to the WikiLeaks website. But one thing is clear: the files have continued a long trend of throwing President Obama off message on his signature foreign-policy initiative. After all, by arguing that the documents contain no new revelations, Gibbs was also making a troubling confession of sorts: the news from Afghanistan has been negative for a while, and there are still no signs of a turning point.

Israel storms Gaza aid fleet, 19 killed

ASHDOD, Israel – At least 10 activists were killed before dawn on Monday when Israeli navy commandos stormed a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, sparking international outrage and plunging the Jewish state into a diplomatic crisis.

A pro-Palestinian activist is evacuated to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem, May 31. Israeli …

The bloody ending to the high-profile mission to deliver supplies to the besieged Gaza Strip comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares for fence-mending talks with US President Barack Obama in Washington Tuesday.

The early morning assault prompted an unprecedented fallout with Israel’s former ally Turkey, which recalled its ambassador in fury on the back of reports that most of the bloodshed occurred on a Turkish passenger ship carrying more than 600 people.

As Israel pointed the finger of blame at passengers for initiating the violence, accusing them of using deadly force, activists from the ships countered with their own descriptions of how events unfolded in the raid which took place at around 5:00 am (0200 GMT).

Live footage from the Turkish passenger boat, which was posted all over the Internet, showed black-clad Israeli commandos rappelling down from helicopters and clashing with activists, as well as several wounded people lying on the deck of the ship.

Activists from the Free Gaza movement on board the Turkish passenger vessel, the Mavi Marmara, where the worst of the violence occurred, charged Israeli troops “fired directly into the crowd of civilians asleep.”

But Israeli military officials and commandos involved in the operation said they had only responded with force after they were attacked by the passengers with knives, clubs and even live fire.

One of the commandos involved in the operation told reporters he was pounced on as soon as he reached the deck. “They beat us up with metal sticks and knives,” he said. “There was live fire at some point against us.”

He said a group of about 30 people, all speaking Arabic, had attacked the troops, who were beaten and had their weapons snatched.

Some were even tossed from the top deck to the lower deck, prompting them to jumped into the water to save themselves, he said.

A senior Israeli military official told pool reporters on board a missile ship that formed part of the operation that the navy had prepared to meet them as “peace activists, not to fight.”

“This was not spontaneous. It was planned,” he said, displaying a box from the boat containing switchblades, slingshots, big metal balls and metal bats.

Most of the 10 dead were Turkish, he said, adding that there were 20 people wounded. Seven soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously.

Netanhayu’s office released a statement saying the premier had “reiterated his full backing for the IDF” in reference to Israel’s military.

Israel’s military top brass said the violence had been limited to the Turkish passenger boat, the Mavi Marmara, with Navy chief Admiral Eliezer Marom saying his troops “had acted with extreme restraint” in a very dangerous situation.

“The result of 10 deaths could have been far worse had the soldiers acted differently,” Marom told reporters at the defence ministry in Tel Aviv, saying that troops had only been pushed to use live fire on board the Mavi Marmara.

The injured passengers had all been transferred to four Israeli hospitals across the country, and three of the six boats had been towed to shore, he said.

Although the army put the number of dead at 10, the spokesman stressed the toll was interim one as the operation was “not yet over”.

Israel’s Channel 10 television and Al Jazeera both reported 19 dead, but the Israeli channel later revised that number down to 10. The Gaza branch of the IHH, a Turkish NGO involved with the flotilla, put the number of dead at 15, saying most of them were Turkish nationals.

The bloody raid has prompted a chorus of furious condemnation from around the world, particularly in Turkey where thousands took to the streets to protest the assault, and Ankara promptly recalled its ambassador to Israel.

Israel in turn issued a travel advisory warning its citizens against travelling to Turkey, but officials said there were no plans to recall its diplomatic representation from the Muslim country, which was once a close ally.

The United States said it “deeply regrets” the loss of life during the raid, which came on the eve of a meeting between Netanyahu and Obama at the White House.

Tuesday’s meeting is the first face to face-to-face talks between the two leaders since a tense White House meeting in March viewed by many as an attempt to humiliate Netanyahu in the wake of a spat over settlements.

Meanwhile, the Sfendoni passenger ship and another vessel were seen being towed by the navy into the southern port of Ashdod, an AFP correspondent said.

Israeli officials confirmed the flotilla’s cargo of aid would be off-loaded at Ashdod and transferred overland to Gaza

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas slammed the navy raid as “a massacre” and announced a three-day mourning period.

And Ismail Haniya, prime minister of the Islamist Hamas movement which controls the Gaza Strip called on the Palestinian Authority “to halt negotiations, direct or indirect, with Israel because of this crime”.

The ships, carrying more than 700 passengers, were on a mission to deliver some 10,000 tonnes of supplies to Gaza, which has been under a crippling Israeli blockade since 2007.

Israel had warned the attempt to break the blockade was illegal and that it would intercept the ships.

Pakistan slams Israel over inhuman flotilla siege

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and the Foreign Office on Monday condemned an Israeli commando attack on a flotilla of aid ships bound for the Gaza Strip, describing the killings of up to 19 activists as “brutal and inhuman”. The president directed the FO to get in touch with its missions abroad to ascertain the well-being of a private TV channel’s Executive Director Talat Hussain, his producer Raza Mahmood Agha, along with Nadeem Ahmed of Khubaid Foundation, all of whom who were onboard. Gilani said the unwarranted and unprovoked military action by Israel against a humanitarian mission constituted a flagrant violation of international law and norms and values of humanity. A statement by the FO stated, “The killing of members of this humanitarian mission, which also included women, is brutal, inhuman and constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and norms.”

Govt launches diplomatic efforts for recovery of Pakistanis

LAHORE/ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday asked for the US government’s immediate intervention in the matter regarding the recovery of Pakistani nationals who were aboard Freedom Flotilla. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told reporters that he had telephoned US special representative Richard Holbrooke on the issue of recovery of Talat Hussain, executive director of a private TV channel and his associates. Pakistan Ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani conveyed to US officials Pakistan’s request for help in tracing the whereabouts and status of the missing Pakistanis. Interior Minister Rehman Malik contacted Interpol chief Ronald Noble and asked for information about Talat and his associates. Qureshi said the Arab League had convened a special meeting on the issue.

US ‘regrets’ deaths in Israeli raid on Gaza aid boats

WASHINGTON – The United States “deeply regrets” the loss of life during an Israeli raid on an aid convoy to the Gaza Strip and is looking into the details of the incident, the White House said Monday.

“The United States deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries sustained and is currently working to understand the circumstances surrounding this tragedy,” White House spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement.

Up to 19 people aboard a flotilla of ships carrying aid destined for the Gaza Strip were killed Monday, when Israeli navy commandos stormed the vessels in international waters.

The incident prompted a wave of international condemnation, as Israel said it was forced to board the ships to uphold a blockade of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory.

Israeli officials also said activists on board the convoy had attacked its troops first and that they acted in self-defense, claims rejected by activists participating in the aid convoy.

The flotilla included pro-Palestinian activists from a number of countries, including a large group from Turkey, which recalled its ambassador to Israel over the deaths.

According to Israel’s Channel 10 television, 19 passengers were killed and 36 wounded in the confrontation, although the Israeli army gave a toll of 10.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to hold talks in Washington with US President Barack Obama on Tuesday, their first face-to-face talks since a tense White House meeting in March viewed by many as an attempt to humiliate Netanyahu in the wake of a spat over settlements.

Pakistan Deal Signals China’s Growing Nuclear Assertiveness

By: Mark Hibbs

Contrary to guidelines adopted in 1992 by nuclear equipment supplier states in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), China is poised to export two power reactors to Pakistan. This transaction is about to happen at a time when China’s increasingly ambitious nuclear energy program is becoming more autonomous.

Guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), representing 46 NPT states, call on parties to the NPT not to supply nuclear equipment to non-nuclear-weapon states without comprehensive IAEA safeguards, including Pakistan. China joined the NSG in 2004.

The pending Sino-Pakistan reactor deal reflects the growing confidence and assertiveness of China’s nuclear energy program…

The United States and other NSG states may object to the pending transaction but they cannot prevent China from exporting the reactors. Senior officials in NSG states friendly to the United States said this month they expect that President Barack Obama will not openly criticize the Chinese export because Washington, in the context of a bilateral security dialogue with Islamabad, may be sensitive to Pakistan’s desire for civilian nuclear cooperation in the wake of the sweeping U.S.-India nuclear deal which entered into force in 2008 after considerable arm-twisting of NSG states by the United States, France, and Russia. The United States may also tolerate China’s new nuclear deal with Pakistan because Obama wants China’s support for United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran this spring.

China’s Civilian Nuclear Industry On The March

The pending Sino-Pakistan reactor deal reflects the growing confidence and assertiveness of China’s nuclear energy program as it establishes a track record of reliability in reactor construction and operation. Chinese nuclear entities are wary of interference from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in their programs and are keen to establish their freedom of action vis-à-vis cooperating foreign governments and firms. China within a few years also wants to become a global nuclear equipment exporter.

If China succeeds, ten years from now it will likely become the world’s second-biggest nuclear power generator after the United States.

After years of bilateral disputes over nonproliferation issues, in 1998 the U.S. Congress allowed a 1985 Sino-U.S. nuclear cooperation agreement to enter into force. After that, U.S. nuclear cooperation with China dramatically increased, culminating in China’s 2006 selection of a consortium of companies led by Westinghouse to build four AP1000 power reactors in China. Westinghouse bested bidders from France and Russia in a competition set up by China to determine which of the three would provide the technology blueprint for the future standardized development of China’s nuclear power industry.

China chose Westinghouse after it agreed to transfer to China ownership of the technology for the new and untried 1,000-MW reactor. China then awarded contracts to Westinghouse and its partners to build four AP1000s in China. The first two are scheduled to be finished in 2013. Westinghouse scored another coup when in 2008 China selected AP1000 for China’s first raft of inland power reactors.

Westinghouse’s apparent emergence as primus inter pares among foreign reactor vendors in China in 2006 was linked to the fortunes of the State Nuclear Power Technology Co. (Snptc). It was set up by China’s State Council of Ministers to take charge of technology selection and transfer for China’s future nuclear power program, after two decades during which China organized a handful of “boutique” reactor projects in cooperation with Canada, France, Japan, and Russia.

China also does not share NRC’s view that a terrorist attack on reactors, using a hijacked passenger aircraft as a weapon, is a realistic enough scenario to warrant modifying the design.

Right now, China operates only eleven reactors representing about 9 gigawatts (GW) of installed generating capacity, but these have established a record of reliability, and have convinced China’s leaders that nuclear power is safe, efficient, and profitable. Fed by galloping energy demand and concerns for global warming among Chinese leaders, China’s appetite for nuclear power is now increasing. In 2005 China expected to have 40 GW on line by 2020. Chinese officials and executives now routinely assert that by 2020 China will have a total installed capacity over 70 GW. If China succeeds, ten years from now it will likely become the world’s second-biggest nuclear power generator after the United States.

Shortly after China selected Westinghouse to shape its nuclear future, rival Areva made a separate deal with China to build two of its new EPR reactors in Guangdong Province in China’s southeast, where French nuclear firms have been engaged since the late 1980s. Unlike Westinghouse, Areva also offered China a suite of fuel cycle technology options, and French officials hoped that a mammoth fuel cycle deal would coax China to continue building the EPR.

In line with plans by China to build more reactors, China promulgated that it would follow the path of France, Russia, and Japan and embark on commercial-scale plutonium separation from China’s spent fuel, and recycle of the plutonium as reactor fuel. Areva offered China to help set up a reprocessing industry in China, modeled on its own experience in France. More recently, Russia has made a counteroffer to do the same, vowing to integrate Chinese labs into advanced fuel cycle R&D work now ongoing in Russian centers.

China’s nuclear power program has become more aggressive, politically organized, and independent of its foreign partners in the wake of recent changes in China’s decision-making structure.

China will certainly build more reactors than it anticipated when beginning in 2003 it organized the competition leading to selection of Westinghouse. But many or most of these set up this decade will likely not be AP1000s or EPRs but instead be based on the original French design built in Guangdong and now dubbed China Pressurized Water Reactor or CPR-1000. To meet China’s higher targets for more nuclear capacity, China is now replicating these CPRs.

Rumors in Beijing circulated last month that China will therefore go back on its plan to permit Westinghouse to build all of the first group of inland power reactors in the country. Chinese officials won’t confirm that, but utility executives―including at China Power Investment Corp. (CPI), a major AP1000 investor-said that China through 2020 will shift resources away from more AP1000s and instead toward cookie-cutter construction of the CPR at many Chinese locations, including at inland sites.

In the meantime, the ambitious construction schedule for the U.S.-designed reactors in China has come under heavy pressure.

In part out of Chinese concern to keep construction on track, China’s nuclear regulator, the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA), will not agree to a proposal, favored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and Westinghouse, to modify the design of the containment structure of the AP1000 to provide improved protection against an air crash. In the United States, NRC, after a design review prompted by post-9/11 concerns about terrorist threats, asked Westinghouse to change the design of a shield building which is part of the containment and to use stronger materials. Westinghouse then urged China to also follow that advice.

China will not do that, Beijing officials said last month after consultations with Westinghouse and U.S. regulators. “China will build Revision 15,” the AP1000 design version originally approved for construction in both the United States and in China, one official said. “It will not approve Revision 17,” which incorporates the changes sought by NRC and Westinghouse, he said.

Changing the AP1000 design now would require construction in China to be halted and delayed. China also does not share NRC’s view that a terrorist attack on reactors, using a hijacked passenger aircraft as a weapon, is a realistic enough scenario to warrant modifying the design.

The Westinghouse project has encountered other challenges which, so far, have not caused schedule delays. Last year, a key firm which is part of the technology transfer program, China First Heavy Industries (CFHI), failed to produce forgings to the required quality standard for the AP1000. Project executives said CFHI had difficulty handling the demanding steel material called for in critical components. The schedule was not set back because a Westinghouse partner in Korea, Doosan, had a stock of prototype forgings it had made earlier. The AP1000 has also encountered problems in main coolant pumps, which are of a unique design. Chinese officials said last year that further deployment of the AP1000 would depend on successful demonstration of these pumps, which were a critical feature of the passive cooling system billed as one of the key advantages of this reactor model. According to diplomats there have also been some Chinese bureaucratic delays for certain AP1000 project approvals.

Fed by galloping energy demand and concerns for global warming among Chinese leaders, China’s appetite for nuclear power is now increasing.

Nearly immediately after partnering with Westinghouse, Snptc demanded the U.S. firm aggressively localize AP1000 production at a pace Westinghouse would not agree to, including for safety reasons. Snptc and Westinghouse then compromised, but utility investors say that the AP1000 program cannot go fast enough to localize and at the same time supply China’s growing nuclear power needs, and that China has continued to pressure Westinghouse to accelerate the localization program. Because production of CPRs in China is already highly localized after about 15 years of Chinese experience, domestic politics in China favors building more of these reactors.

Snptc also wants Westinghouse to increase the power of the reactor to 1,400 MW and then to 1,700 MW, matching the EPR. According to Snptc last month the 1,400-MW design will be ready for construction by 2013. Many foreign executives are skeptical that schedule will hold up.

China’s nuclear power program has become more aggressive, politically organized, and independent of its foreign partners in the wake of recent changes in China’s decision-making structure. Those at the top of this pinnacle are now watching how Snptc delivers in tandem with Westinghouse.

Ten years ago Chinese central planners began looking at uranium as their chosen future fuel to meet breakneck demand for base load electricity. But Premier Zhu Rongji, who was skeptical, kept the lid on.

Under Zhu, who was replaced by Wen Jiabao in 2003, the biggest player in nuclear energy decision making was the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA), which answered to the Committee for Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (Costind), an organization which supervised all defense-related industry. Under Zhu, Costind and CAEA began losing power, especially after China in 1998 established the General Armaments Department (GAD), now one of four departments of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). As GAD’s authority increased, Costind’s and CAEA’s diminished.

Two years ago, China set up a brand new organization to take command of China’s energy policy, including nuclear policy, the National Energy Administration (NEA). It is headed by Zhang Guobao, who strongly favors nuclear power development and who is also Vice-Chairman of China’s leading planning agency, the National Development and Reform Council (NDRC). NEA has largely supplanted CAEA, and it reports to Li Keqiang, China’s First Vice-Premier, a likely successor to Wen Jiabao.

NEA-which is staffed by about 170 experts, including fewer than 20 responsible for nuclear matters-cooperates with NDRC on setting planning targets, but NEA decides which reactors will be built, at what sites, and which state-owned enterprises will get contracts. It, Chinese officials said last month, will favor construction of more CPRs, and will also support China’s biggest nuclear SOE, the China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC) with a total payroll of over 100,000, in exporting more reactors to Pakistan.

Possible Considerations in a China-Pakistan Deal

China has long assisted Pakistan’s nuclear energy program. In 1991 CNNC contracted with the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) to build Chashma-1, a 325 MW power reactor. It was finished and began operating in 2000.

In 2004, China joined the NSG. China then explained to the NSG that a longstanding framework agreement with Pakistan committed China to provide a second reactor, Chashma-2, more research reactors, plus supply of all the fuel in perpetuity for these units. Chashma-2 construction began in 2005.

Chashma-2 is scheduled to be finished in 2011. To keep CNNC at work in Pakistan thereafter, CNNC and PAEC negotiated terms for two 650-MW reactors, Chashma-3 and -4.

In 2006 Pakistan urged China to approve the new project but China was not keen to do so. Pakistan diplomats said then China was holding back because it was not clear that the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal would be approved by both governments and by the NSG.

Chinese officials said last month that export of the reactors to Pakistan would be justified in consideration of political developments in South Asia, including the entry into force of the U.S.-India deal and the NSG exemption for India.

After the U.S.-India deal was approved and India’s NSG exemption entered into force without any Chinese objections in 2008, China’s policy evolved to support demands by Pakistan for compensation, but China did not expressly advocate awarding Pakistan a broad exemption from NSG trade sanctions matching India’s.

NSG country representatives last week said they expect that the Obama administration will accept a limited amount of additional Chinese nuclear commerce with Pakistan as a price for getting Chinese support on UN Security Council sanctions against Iran in weeks ahead. Some suggested that the United States would also enlist China in this regard to persuade Pakistan to drop its opposition to negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, which Pakistan has said it could not accept because the U.S.-India deal had tilted the nuclear balance in South Asia in India’s favor.

As long as Pakistan resists outside initiatives which would limit the autonomy of its strategic nuclear program, and because China is believed to be hiding behind Pakistan in avoiding making a firm FMCT commitment in light of China’s strategic dilemmas with the United States, it is doubtful whether China would have effective influence on Pakistani decisions to halt fissile material production.

Mindful that the NPT’s 189 parties will convene a Review Conference on the status of the treaty in May, European diplomats told Chinese counterparts last month that the NSG will currently not agree to exempt Pakistan from NSG sanctions, regardless of Pakistan’s demands for such a step during bilateral security talks with the United States.

Senior NSG diplomats said this month that they expect that soon after China has completed political and contractual arrangements for the reactor sale to Pakistan, China will inform the NSG of its planned transaction. The matter could then be taken up by the NSG as an agenda item or point of business at a future NSG meeting. So far no NSG meetings are scheduled in 2010 prior to an annual plenary meeting in New Zealand in late June.

The U.S. State Department, in line with its response to a 1998 reactor export from Russia to India, continues to hold that a new reactor export by China to Pakistan would be contrary to both NSG and U.S. policy, but whether the United States would record an objection at the NSG or encourage other NSG states to do so would be up to President Obama following interagency discussions and consultation with foreign governments including Pakistan and China.

If the United States were not to register opposition to China’s new exports, that would signal the United States under Obama was prepared to brush off an important nuclear nonproliferation norm on grounds of political expediency.

Chinese officials said last month that export of the reactors to Pakistan would be justified in consideration of political developments in South Asia, including the entry into force of the U.S.-India deal and the NSG exemption for India. Western diplomats said China would not strongly favor an NSG exemption for Pakistan matching India’s because that would not additionally benefit Chinese industry and because Pakistan, compared to India, is a limited nuclear power market with far less infrastructure and far fewer financial resources.

China in 2004 did not claim that more power reactors after Chashma-2 would be “grandfathered” by the prior Sino-Pakistan nuclear accord, and China has argued instead that there are compelling political reasons concerning the stability of South Asia to justify the exports. China will therefore not justify the transactions on the basis of any confidential commercial agreements between China and Pakistan, NSG state representatives said.

Should any NSG party object to these Chinese exports, the NSG would have no recourse to prevent the transaction, because its guidelines are not legally binding, leaving a decision to abide by the guidelines up to each sovereign member state.

Notification by China of intent to export reactors to Pakistan will prompt an internal debate among NSG members over whether to “jointly reconsider their common safeguards requirements” under paragraph 5 of the NSG guidelines, because the Sino-Pakistan transaction came to fruition just two years after the United States, France, and Russia firmly pressured many supplier states to grant India a broad exception to NSG trade rules.

A long term remedy could be provided…by making significant changes in the rules governing the world’s nuclear nonproliferation and trade regime.

In support of the U.S.-India deal, former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei in bilateral meetings with NSG states in 2007 and 2008 urged the NSG to eventually lift NPT sanctions against both Pakistan and Israel.

U.S. diplomats beginning in 2005 held out to Pakistan a distant promise that it would be exempted from the NSG safeguards requirements, but they weren’t counting on having to make the hard choices faced by the United States concerning Pakistan and China on many fronts in 2010. Still, if the United States were not to register opposition to China’s new exports, that would signal the United States under Obama was prepared to brush off an important nuclear nonproliferation norm on grounds of political expediency. Since NSG states are awaiting leadership from the United States on how to eventually respond to China’s challenge of the rules, tacit U.S. acquiescence would seriously damage the NSG’s credibility as a rule maker for nuclear trade.

A long term remedy could be provided-as Switzerland in 2008 suggested in explaining its approval of the NSG exemption for India-by making significant changes in the rules governing the world’s nuclear nonproliferation and trade regime. But the breach created by the U.S.-India deal, which would be opened wider by Chinese export of reactors to Pakistan, will not be easily closed because, as stated by paragraph 16 of the guidelines, “unanimous consent is required for any changes in the guidelines.” In the meantime, as global nuclear trade surges, NPT suppliers will be encouraged to ignore the rules.

U.N. shuts Kandahar mission as security worsens

The United Nations said on Tuesday it had shut its mission in Kandahar and evacuated many foreign staff from the southern Afghan city, in a sign of worsening security before a major U.S. offensive.

A soldier from the U.S. Army’s 3rd Platoon, Centurion Company, 2-1 Infantry Battalion, 5/2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team stands near a disabled armoured vehicle during an operation in Maiwand District, Kandahar Province.

Hours after the announcement, suspected Taliban infiltrators blew up tankers at a fuel depot outside the city, near the airfield that serves as the biggest NATO base in the province, killing four people and wounding at least 30.

A spokesman for Kandahar province Zalmai Ayoubi said there were several blasts and that one of them could have been caused by a suicide bomber.

Sher Mohammad Zazai, a senior Afghan army commander in the south, said 10 guards at the depot were among those wounded in the attack. NATO spokesman Major Marcin Walczak said the blast was a few thousand metres (yards) from the base. No NATO troops were hurt.

The U.N. pullout alarmed residents already anxious over a U.S. plan to launch the biggest operation of the nearly nine-year-old war in coming weeks with thousands of U.S. and Afghan troops.

U.N. spokeswoman Susan Manuel said all Afghan staff in Kandahar had been told to stay home, and some foreign staff had been moved to the capital Kabul for their safety a day earlier.

She would not say how many international staff had stayed behind, or whether a specific threat was behind the decision.

“The security situation has gotten to the point where we needed to withdraw them yesterday,” she said. “We hope people can go back and keep doing what they have been doing. We see it as a very temporary measure.”

“WE DON’T KNOW WHAT IS COMING”

NATO forces are planning what Washington calls a decisive campaign in coming months in Kandahar, the biggest city in the south and birthplace of the Taliban movement.

Karzai’s brother pledges support for NATO in Kandahar

he brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has pledged to support NATO operations against the Taliban in the volatile southern province of Kandahar, in an interview published Tuesday.Ahmed Wali Karzai, chairman of the provincial legislative council, told the Financial Times he wanted to use his influence to help secure Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual heartland.Karzai also used the interview to deny Western media reports linking him to Afghanistan’s massive opium trade, saying reports of illegal activities are politically motivated.
“Let’s hope for a new beginning. Let’s work together, I want to serve my people,” he told the paper. “There were probably some mistakes from my side. I’m trying to clear these things, I’m trying to help.”Kandahar is seen as the key battleground in US-led efforts to end the Taliban insurgency after more than eight years of war, and foreign troops are increasingly focusing their attentions on the city and province of the same name.

“When the U.N. is moving out of Kandahar, it shows that there is no security here,” said shopkeeper Mohammad Achakzai. “We are very worried, we don’t know what is coming upon us.”

The offensive is the cornerstone of a “surge” strategy by U.S. President Barack Obama, employing the bulk of the 30,000 extra troops he is dispatching to Afghanistan this year to turn the tide against a mounting Taliban insurgency.

Under the plans, expected to begin unfolding in June, about 8,000 U.S. and Canadian troops will try to secure rural areas around the city while a brigade of 3,500 U.S. troops escorts 6,700 Afghan police into urban areas. In all, the offensive will involve 23,000 NATO ground troops, Afghan soldiers and police.

SURGE IN VIOLENCE

The last few weeks have seen a surge in attacks and assassinations in Kandahar, a city of about 500,000 people. Bomb strikes have occurred almost daily, insurgents have carried out several major suicide bombings and raids, and a deputy mayor was gunned down last week.

Kandahar’s provincial council chief, President Hamid Karzai’s half-brother Ahmad Wali Karzai, said the United Nations was over-reacting by withdrawing its staff.

“We strongly condemn this act by the U.N. to pull out of Kandahar. This is an irrational decision without consulting with local authorities,” he told a news conference.

“The situation is not as bad as the U.N. views it,” he said. “This move will leave a bad impression on citizens of Kandahar.”

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi denied the group had threatened the United Nations: “They haven’t done anything good for the people, so their presence or withdrawal does not make any difference. But we haven’t warned or threatened them,” he said by phone from an undisclosed location.

“The U.N. knows the coming operation is not going to be healthy for them, so they are making excuses to leave Kandahar.”

How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy

By Jeff Gates

In the early 1960s, Senator William J. Fulbright fought to force the American Zionist Council to register as agents of a foreign government. The Council eluded registration by reorganizing as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC has since become what Fulbright most feared: a foreign agent dominating American foreign policy while disguised as a domestic lobby.

Senator Barack Obama with AIPAC President David Victor

Israelis and pro-Israelis object when they hear that charge. How, they ask, can we so few wield such influence over so many? Answer: it’s all in the math. And in the single-issue advocacy brought to bear on U.S. policy-making by dozens of ‘domestic’ organizations that now compose the Israel lobby, with AIPAC its most visible force.

The political math was enabled by Senator John McCain whose support for all things Israeli ensured him the GOP nomination to succeed Christian-Zionist G.W. Bush. McCain’s style of campaign finance reform proved a perfect fit for the Diaspora-based fundraising on which the lobby relies. Co-sponsored by Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, this change in federal election law typifies how Israeli influence became systemic.

‘McCain-Feingold’ raised the amount (from $1,000 to $2,300) that candidates can receive from individuals in primary and general elections. A couple can now contribute a combined $9,200 to federal candidates: $4,600 in each of the primary and general elections. Primary elections, usually low-budget, are particularly easy to sway.

Importantly for the Diaspora, this change also doubled the funds candidates can receive without regard to where those contributors reside. A candidate in Iowa, say, may have only a few pro-Israeli constituents. When campaign support is provided by a nationwide network of pro-Israelis, that candidate can more easily be persuaded to support policies sought by Tel Aviv.

Diaspora-based fundraising has long been used by the lobby with force-multiplying success to shape U.S. foreign policy. Under the guise of reform, John McCain doubled the financial resources that the lobby can deploy to elect and retain its supporters.

Fulbright was Right

The influence-peddling process works like this. Candidates are summoned for in-depth AIPAC interviews. Those found sufficiently committed to Israel’s agenda are provided a list of donors likely to “max out” their campaign contributions. Or the process can be made even easier when AIPAC-approved candidates are given the name of a “bundler.”

Bundlers raise funds from the Diaspora and bundle those contributions to present them to the candidate. No quid pro quo need be mentioned. After McCain-Feingold became law in 2003, AIPAC-identified bundlers could raise $1 million-plus for AIPAC-approved candidates simply by contacting ten like-minded supporters. Here’s the math:

The bundler and spouse “max out” for $9,200 and call ten others, say in Manhattan, Miami, and Beverly Hills. Each of them max out (10 x $9,200) and call ten others for a total of 11. [111 x $9,200 = $1,021,200.]

Imagine the incentive to do well in the AIPAC interview. One call from the lobby and a candidate can collect enough cash to mount a credible campaign in most Congressional districts. From Tel Aviv’s perspective, that political leverage is leveraged yet again because fewer than ten percent of the 435 House races are competitive in any election cycle (typically 35 to 50).

Additional force-multipliers come from: (a) sustaining this financial focus over multiple cycles, (b) using funds to gain and retain seniority for those serving on Congressional committees key to promoting Israeli goals, and (c) opposing candidates who question those goals.

Jewish Achievement reports that 42% of the largest political donors to the 2000 election cycle were Jewish, including four of the top five. That compares to less than 2% of Americans who are Jewish. Of the Forbes 400 richest Americans, 25% are Jewish according to Michael Steinhardt, a key funder of the Democratic Leadership Council. The DLC was led by Jewish Zionist Senator Joe Lieberman when he resigned in 2000 to run as vice president with pro-Israeli presidential candidate Al Gore.

Money was never a constraint. Pro-Israeli donors were limited only by how much they could lawfully contribute to AIPAC-screened candidates. McCain-Feingold raised a key limit. The full impact of this foreign influence has yet to be tallied. What’s known, however, is sufficient to apply the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Of the top 50 neoconservatives who advocated war in Iraq, 26 were Jewish (52%).

Harry Truman, a Christian Zionist, remains one of the more notable recipients of funds. In 1948, he was trailing badly in the polls and in fundraising. His prospects brightened dramatically in May after he recognized as a legitimate state an enclave of Jewish extremists who originally planned to settle in Argentina before putting their sights on Palestine.

That recognition was opposed by Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the bulk of the diplomatic corps, the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency and numerous distinguished Americans, including moderate and secular Jews concerned at the troubles that were certain to follow. Not until 1984 was it revealed that a network of Jewish Zionists had funded Truman’s campaign by financially refueling his whistle-stop campaign train with $400,000 in cash ($3 million in 2009 dollars).

To buy time on the public’s airwaves, money raised from the Israel lobby’s network is paid to media outlets largely owned or managed by members of the same network. Presidents, Senators and Congressmen come and go but those who collect the checks rack up the favors that amass lasting political influence.

The U.S. system of government is meant to ensure that members of the House represent the concerns of Americans who reside in Congressional districts-not a nationally dispersed network (a Diaspora) committed to advancing the agenda of a foreign nation. Federal elections are meant to hold Senators accountable to constituents who reside in the states they represent-not out-of-state residents or a foreign government.

In practical effect, McCain-Feingold hastened a retreat from representative government by granting a nationwide network of foreign agents disproportionate influence over elections in every state and Congressional district. Campaign finance ‘reform’ enabled this network to amass even more political clout-wielding influence disproportionate to their numbers, indifferent to their place of residence and often contrary to America’s interests.

This force-multiplier is now wielded in plain sight, with impunity and under cover of free speech, free elections, free press and even the freedom of religion. Therein lies the perils of an entangled alliance that induced the U.S. to invade Iraq and now seeks war with Iran. By allowing foreign agents to operate as a domestic lobby, the U.S. was induced to confuse Zionist interests with its own.

A Vietnam veteran, Jeff Gates is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide. He served for seven years as counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. He is widely published in the trade, popular and academic press. His latest book is Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War. His previous books include Democracy at Risk: Rescuing Main Street From Wall Street and The Ownership Solution: Toward a Shared Capitalism for the 21st Century. Topical commentaries appear on the Criminal State website.

US to intensify efforts aimed at easing Pak-India tension: report

PakSiasat.com

NEW YORK : President Barack Obama has called for intensifying American diplomacy to ease tensions between India and Pakistan, asserting that without d’tente between the two rivals, the US efforts to win Pakistani cooperation in Afghanistan would suffer, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

The call was made in a secret directive he issued in December, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with its contents. The directive concluded that India must make resolving its tensions with Pakistan a priority for progress to be made on US goals in the region, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with its contents.

The US has invested heavily in its own relations with Pakistan in recent months, agreeing to a $7.5 billion aid package and sending top military and diplomatic officials to Islamabad on repeated visits, the Journal said.

The public embrace, which reached a high point last month in high-profile talks in Washington, reflects the Obama administration’s belief that Pakistan must be convinced to change its strategic calculus and take a more assertive stance against militants based in its western tribal regions over the course of the next year in order to turn the tide in Afghanistan.

A debate continues within the administration over how hard to push India, which has long resisted outside intervention in the conflict with its neighbour, according to the report. The Pentagon, in particular, has sought more pressure on New Delhi, it said, citing US and Indian officials.

Current and former US officials said the discussion in Washington over how to approach India has intensified as Pakistan ratchets up requests that the US intercede in a series of continuing disputes. Pakistan has long regarded Afghanistan as providing “strategic depth “essentially, a buffer zone” in a potential conflict with India, the Journal pointed out.

Some US officials believe Islamabad will remain reluctant to wholeheartedly fight the Islamic militants based on its Afghan border unless the sense of threat from India is reduced. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has already taken the political risk of pursuing peace talks with Pakistan, but faces significant domestic opposition the report said. US and Indian officials say the Obama administration has so far made few concrete demands of New Delhi.

According to US officials, the only specific request has been to discourage India from getting more involved in training the Afghan military, to ease Pakistani concerns about getting squeezed by India on two borders.

“This is an administration that’s deeply divided about the wisdom of leaning on India to solve US problems with Pakistan,” said Ashley Tellis, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has discussed the issue with senior officials in the US and India.

“There are still important constituencies within the administration that have not given up hope that India represents the answer.” India has long resisted outside involvement in its differences with Pakistan, particularly over the disputed region of Kashmir.

But, according to a US government official, a 56-page dossier presented by the Pakistani government to the Obama administration ahead of high-level talks in Washington last month contained suggestions the US intercede to resolve Indo-Pakistan disputes.

The official said the document points out that India has never accepted Pakistan’s sovereignty as an independent state, and accuses India of diverting water from the Indus River and fomenting separatism in Balochistan.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has signaled that Washington isn’t interested in mediating on water issues, which are covered by a bilateral treaty. The White House declined to comment on Obama’s directive or on the debate within the administration over India policy. The directive to top foreign-policy and national-security officials was summarized in a memo written by National Security Adviser James Jones at the end of the White House’s three-month review of Afghan war policy in December.

An Indian government official said the US’s increasing attention to Pakistani concerns hasn’t hurt bilateral relations overall. “Our relationship is mature of course we have disagreements, but we’re trying not to have knee-jerk reactions,” the Indian official said. Citing US and Indian officials, the Journal said the Pentagon has emerged in internal Obama administration debates as an active lobbyist for more pressure on India, with some officials already informally pressing Indian officials to take Pakistan’s concerns more seriously.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the US government’s prime interlocutor with Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, has been among the more vocal advocates of a greater Indian role, according to a US military official, encouraging New Delhi to be more “transparent” about its activities along the countries’ shared border and to cooperate more with Pakistan.

In interviews with the Journal, US military officials were circumspect about what specific moves they would like to see from New Delhi. But according to people who have discussed India policy with Pentagon officials, the ideas discussed in internal debates include reducing the number of Indian troops in Kashmir or pulling back forces along the border.

The State Department has resisted such moves to pressure India, the newspaper said, citing current and former US officials, insisting they could backfire. Separately, Pakistan has been more forcefully raising concerns about Indian activities in Afghanistan with the US

Senior Pakistani officials say India is using its Afghan aid missions as a cover to support separatists in Balochistan and the Pakistani Taliban, and say they have presented evidence of that to US officials.

Indian officials deny the accusations. A Pakistani security official said his government also has pressed the US about India’s ties to the Afghan intelligence agency, the National Security Directorate, and argued that Indian consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar are outposts for India’s spy agency. “Something has to be done to stop Afghanistan from being a jumping-off point for Indian intelligence,” said the security official.

Meanwhile, Indian officials told the newspaper they have received no requests from the US to scale back India’s rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan, and don’t plan to change those initiatives.

Source: aajnews

Pentagon puts pressure on Hamid Karzai over corruption

By Adam Entous Adam Entous

KABUL: The Pentagon’s top military officer followed his commander-in-chief to Kabul on Monday to keep up pressure on President Hamid Karzai to tackle corruption, which he said could ruin the war’s new strategy.

President Barack Obama inspects a guard of honor with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the Presidential …

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, arrived less than a day after President Barack Obama made the first trip of his presidency there, bringing a stern message that Karzai needs to do more to fight graft.

Obama’s strategy, backed by 30,000 more troops this year, enters its most ambitious phase with a major offensive starting in June in the Taliban’s birthplace Kandahar, where the top provincial official is Karzai’s half brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai.

Mullen described Kandahar as Afghanistan’s “center of gravity” and the key to reversing the Taliban’s momentum.

But he said the whole strategy could fail if Karzai does not do more to fight corruption in his brother’s southern fiefdom.

“We will be unable to succeed in Kandahar if we cannot eliminate a vast majority of corruption there and set up a legitimate governance structure,” he told reporters.

“If we can’t do that there, then we will not be able to succeed. We can succeed militarily, but it’s not going to work. That’s just a fact.”

Asked if Ahmad Wali Karzai should be sidelined, Mullen said: “I think that’s something that President Karzai’s going to have to figure out … addressing the corruption and governance issues in Kandahar. It’s not for us to figure out.”

But a senior U.S. military official went further.

“I’d like him out of there,” the official said on condition of anonymity, talking of Ahmad Wali Karzai.

“We’d rather not have a guy like that down there because he’s so divisive. But there’s nothing that we can do unless we can link him to the insurgency, then we can put him on the (target list) and capture and kill him,” the official said.

KANDAHAR CAMPAIGN

As head of Kandahar’s provincial council Ahmad Wali Karzai wields considerable power in the south, but has been accused of amassing a vast fortune from the drugs trade, intimidating rivals and having links to the CIA; charges he strongly denies.

But there was no plan to target Ahmad Wali Karzai as yet. “We’re not going in that direction,” the senior official said. “The president of this country is the one that has to decide what to do with that guy.”

Ahmad Wali Karzai has taken on added importance for the United States ahead of an offensive to take control of Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second largest city, and the province around it.

Important elements of the Kandahar campaign, including outreach to tribal leaders, were already well under way, military officials said, and would intensify in the coming weeks with greater involvement by Karzai and other officials.

Pointing to a calendar, one of the officials indicated the month of June as the likely start of the offensive.

U.S. forces hope to take some areas in and around Kandahar without a fight by reaching agreements with local tribal leaders, but the operation is expected to include a main thrust of roughly 10,000 troops for areas to be “cleared” by force.

“The key thing is we’ve got to be done with that by Ramadan,” the second official said, referring to the Muslim holy month of fasting that begins in August.

The campaign would then shift from a “clearing” phase to a “secure and deliver government” phase, expected to last at least until mid-October, he said.

The timetable for the Kandahar campaign, the most detailed made public to date, highlights the limited window available to U.S. and NATO forces to turn the tide against the Taliban before a review of war strategy in late November or early December.

That review will assess whether the U.S.-led campaign and the training of the Afghan army and police have gained enough ground to allow a gradual U.S. withdrawal to begin in July 2011.

While U.S. and European leaders accept that a deal with the Taliban is the only way to end the war, Mullen played down the chances of a political agreement in the short term.

“I think it is premature. There’s no one that I’ve spoken to, at least on the American side, or actually, on the coalition side, that doesn’t think we need to proceed from a position of strength,” Mullen said. “In my judgment, we’re not there yet.”

Karzai this week held preliminary peace talks with Hezb-i-Islami, one of the smaller insurgent factions. Karzai is also holding a major peace conference in Kabul in early May.

SECURITY AND GOVERNANCE

In addition to cleaning up Afghan governance, Obama’s strategy hinges on building up the country’s army and police forces to take over security responsibility, a process that has been hamstrung by a shortage of international trainers.

The United States has struggled to convince its NATO allies in Afghanistan to fill the shortfall, and Mullen said one option might be to send more U.S. trainers to fill the gap.

“We’ve asked and pushed our other partners to provide as many as possible. That continues … We’ve come up short a few hundred,” Mullen said.

Aides to Mullen said the Pentagon did not currently envision a need to add trainers on top of the troop increase ordered by Obama in December.